Aston Villa have secured their seventh signing of the summer on Thursday with Ezri Konsa joining in a reported £12m deal from Brentford.
Dean Smith successfully guided the club back into the Premier League last season, winning the Championship playoff final at Wembley against Derby in May.
SEE MORE: Aston Villa emerge as FAVOURITES to seal summer transfer of £25M-rated Liverpool star
Since then, he has been busy assembling a squad that he believes will keep them up this season, and as noted by the Birmingham Mail, they’ve spent around £79m already this summer on Tyrone Mings, Wesley, Matt Targett, Kortney Hause, Anwar El Ghazi and Jota all joining the ranks.
As per Sky Sports, an additional £12m will be spent on Konsa to help shore up their backline further, with the club officially confirming his arrival on Thursday, as per the tweet below.
In turn, that will move Villa to being on the verge of splashing out £100m this summer, and having released a whole host of players as well, it’s widely expected that Smith isn’t yet quite done in the market in terms of bringing in reinforcements.
On one hand, it’s a huge gamble to spend so much on survival, but ultimately Villa have no choice as they had to strengthen the squad to ensure that they had a fighting chance of staying up.
Further, these are all signings that Smith knows well, with El Ghazi, Hause and Mings all spending last season on loan at Villa, while he managed Jota and Konsa during his time at Brentford.
Targett has experience in the Premier League with Southampton, and so perhaps the only real gamble is Wesley, who will be tasked with replacing Tammy Abraham up front and scoring the goals to keep Villa in the English top flight next season.
Naturally, time will tell whether or not it’s a successful strategy, but it appears to be well planned out and Smith is filling voids in the squad with players he believes can keep Villa away from danger.
We are delighted to confirm the signing of @EKonsa15 from Brentford for an undisclosed fee.
Full story ? https://t.co/owajCvr9b7#WelcomeEzri #AVFC pic.twitter.com/XLqbyME4kn
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) July 11, 2019
