Waste of Money: Aston Villa Regretting Summer Deal for Garnacho After Forest Defeat

· GiveMeSport

Aston Villa are surely regretting their summer deal for Alejandro Garnacho after defeat to Nottingham Forest.

Aston Villa's poor start to the season continued in the Premier League as they fell to a 2-1 defeat against Nottingham Forest on Saturday afternoon.

Unai Emery's side claimed their first win of the season in midweek as they defeated Club Brugge 3-2 in the Champions League , but quickly fell back to their bad ways domestically as a late Igor Jesus goal gave the visitors all three points on the day.

Forest had taken the lead thanks to a long-distance strike from Liam Delap, before substitute Alysson scored his first goal for the club in the second half to equalise. But Jesus reacted fastest to a loose ball in the penalty area following a cut-back to slot past Zion Suzuki, leaving Villa 19th in the table and with just one point from their opening four games.

Villa saw many of their first-team stars leave the club in the summer, and Emery has been tasked with putting together a major rebuild as a result.

10 new signings arrived at Villa Park as a result, including the likes of Suzuki, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, and Nicolas Jackson who all started the game, while Ibrahim Mbaye and Johan Manzambi also came into the club, and were substitutes on the day who looked to make an impact.

But despite their arrivals, the Spanish boss has opted to hand out opportunities to youngster George Hemmings on the wing, and that has meant that another summer signing, Alejandro Garnacho, has found regular minutes hard to come by.

The Argentina international arrived from Chelsea on an initial season-long loan with an obligation to buy for £47.5m next summer, but has so far been restricted to just 32 minutes of action in all competitions, with three substitute appearances in the Premier League.

He is yet to play for more than 15 minutes in any game, and has been an unused substitute in each of the last two games, including against Forest when the team were desperately chasing a goal.

Speaking ahead of the game, Emery confirmed that the plan is for Garnacho to be at the club for a number of years, suggesting there is a big plan in place over his future.

> "We want him at the same level he was for Chelsea in the first part of last season and in Manchester two years ago," he said.

> "He is a player we have signed for a long time, and we will help him to feel comfortable and confident to get his quality."

Garnacho has shown that he has great talent, but his attitude has been a major problem at both of his recent clubs. There is no sign of that being the case at Villa so far, but it's clear something isn't right behind the scenes.

The 22-year-old joined the club and had the whole of pre-season with his new club, featuring in several friendlies. But he hasn't been able to claim a team, and has already dropped way down the pecking order despite the club's struggles on the pitch.

With the club having committed to paying a huge chunk of money for the deal, the club will be quietly thinking about what else they could have done with the cash to help the manager maintain the standards of last season.

Unless there is a huge U-turn, Garnacho looks like being a huge waste of money for Villa, in a window where they really couldn't afford to get anything wrong.

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