Aston Villa are currently riding the crest of a wave under Unai Emery, with the Spaniard chasing a coveted European spot and enjoying a successful first transfer window back in January, signing Jhon Duran and Alex Moreno.
The 51-year-old is certainly the manager to take Villa to the next level, and he can utilise his Spanish connections to lure more talent from La Liga to the Premier League.
The Midlands club have only enjoyed little success in recent transfer windows, with the likes of Morgan Sanson, Marvelous Nakamba and Wesley Moraes all failing to live up to expectations.
Wesley had netted 17 goals in the season prior to joining Villa and was looked at as a striker who could come in and strengthen their attack. It didn’t exactly work out like that, with the Brazilian scoring just six goals for the club and currently finding himself on loan at second-tier Spanish outfit Levante.
Despite the low goal tally, he isn’t the worst striker Villa have had on their books over the previous decade, as that honour goes to Libor Kozak, who was a major flop under Paul Lambert.
How poor was Libor Kozak at Aston Villa?
The summer of 2013 wasn’t the most prolific for the club when it came to big-name signings. Lambert was looking to bolster his team, but players such as Leandro Bacuna, Jores Okore and Aleksandar Tonev were hardly going to vault them into the European places.
Kozak also arrived that summer for a fee of £7m and he was the one who arguably had the most potential, especially with his record at Lazio.
Across 80 appearances in Rome, he had netted 22 goals and grabbed eight assists, and this had prompted Lambert to dub the striker as “incredible” – and it looked as though securing his services for just £7m could prove to be a bargain over the coming years.
This initial optimism proved to be a false dawn as Kozak laboured his way to just 22 appearances in all competitions for the Villans, scoring just four goals in the process. This worked out at around £1.75m per goal – a terrible return on the Scot's investment.
Writer Tom Victor was “baffled” by the Czech's career regarding his stints at Villa and Lazio, and the striker is now currently playing for Trinity Zlin in his homeland, and he has actually enjoyed a better run of form recently than he ever did in England, scoring 42 goals in five seasons.
It was a major howler by the Scottish manager back in 2013 and Kozak will go down as one of the club's worst signings in recent memory.
