Aston Villa have signed Joao Gomes from Wolves for £38m as part of a midfield rebuild.
Gomes’ arrival at Villa Park comes after Youri Tielemans left the club to join Manchester United, whilst Amadou Onana is ruled out for most of the season after he suffered his ACL whilst at the World Cup with Belgium.
Manager, Unai Emery consequently opted to strengthen his midfield in response with a £38m bid for Gomes accepted, which consisted of a £34m initial fee plus £4m in add-ons.
The 25-year-old midfielder has signed a long-term contract and is considered at Villa primarily as Tielemans’ replacement, having spent the last three-and-a-half years at Wolves where he scored eight goals and contributed six assists in 130 total appearances.
Wolves however suffered relegation from the Premier League to the Championship at the end of last season, in a campaign which saw Gomes score one goal and create three assists – of which his sole goal came in a 2-0 win over Villa in February at Molineux.
Wolves’ Technical Director, Matt Jackson explained to wolves.co.uk that Gomes has earned the move to Villa and believes that the transfer will benefit the club.
“Joao deserves everything he gets from the game. He’s a model professional, a lovely young man and a great family man. He’s the type of professional that coaches love and players love, so he will go on to be the outstanding player that we know he is.
“We’re obviously sorry to see him go, but we have to take responsible decisions for the football club, and then we build to be stronger collectively. It’s a very natural part of football, the best run football clubs who don’t have unlimited resources have to work this way. The model is something that we have to adopt, and our fans have always been hugely understanding of that.”
Gomes began his career at Flamengo where he graduated through their youth academy to score four goals in 122 senior appearances before he moved to Wolves in January 2023.
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