Txiki Begiristain must be starting to regret not bringing Douglas Luiz back to Manchester City when they had the chance.
Back in the 2017 summer transfer window, the Manchester club signed the midfielder, who Begiristain described as an “exciting player with great potential,” from Vasco De Gama.
Two years later, City sold the Brazilian to Aston Villa in a deal worth an initial fee of £15m before he had the chance to make an appearance for the Citizens.
This deal included a clause that allowed City to buy the midfielder back for a fee of £25m, although it expired in 2021.
Now though, the form that Luiz has shown for Villa this season could well have given Begiristain something to ponder in terms of whether City should have used their buy-back clause when they had the chance.
Luiz’s season so far
This season has seen the midfielder feature in all of Villa’s games across all competitions, starting 19 of them and scoring six goals along the way, which highlights how important he is for Unai Emery’s side.
In terms of his defensive work, the Brazilian has made more recoveries (72) than any other Villa player in the Premier League this season, as well as having the second-highest number of successful tackles (18) in the squad.
Then from an attacking point of view, Luiz has the third-highest total of shot-creating actions (40) and goal-creating actions (4) at the Midlands club.
His overall performances have earned the midfielder a strong season rating of 7.16/10 from WhoScored, making him the joint-second-highest rated player at Villa behind Ollie Watkins (7.3/10).
With all of that in mind, it’s clear that Luiz, who Paul Merson recently labelled as “one of the most underrated players in the league,” has been one of Villa’s top performers this season.
Therefore, given the opportunity they had to bring the midfielder back to the Etihad Stadium for a fairly low price compared to some of the other transfer fees they have paid out in recent years, perhaps not using their buy-back clause is something that Begiristain could be regretting.
