Aston Villa have been blessed with some top attackers over recent years, notably in the striker department, with Ollie Watkins and Jhon Duran sticking out of course in Unai Emery’s current camp.
Between them this season – looking at Premier League numbers alone – the electric duo have amassed nine goals as leading men for their side, as the Spaniard hopes they can get back to their best after the international break is up.
There are plenty of other examples away from the here and now too, with Christian Benteke one name that will bring up waves of nostalgia for Villa fans as a sharp shooter from years gone by.
Christian Benteke's numbers at Villa
Benteke is now seeing out his playing days like many waning players of his ilk do, strutting their stuff in the MLS before retirement begins to loom ever closer.
But, before he was a confident goal machine on the books of DC United – who he has bagged an impressive 25 goals for from his last 33 games – the Belgian was a reliable goalscorer for the Villans too, after the Premier League club’s punt on the ex-KRC Genk man more than paid off.
In total, Benteke – who cost £7m to get in through the door in 2012 from his native country – would fire home 49 goals from 101 games in the West Midlands, going down as a modern-day great at Villa Park in the process.
Unfortunately, Benteke would be snapped up by Liverpool after finding the back of the net 13 times during his swansong Villa campaign, costing the Reds a bumper £32.5m to pick up in the summer of 2015.
Regardless of the development that the former Villa number 20 would go on to be an expensive waste at Anfield, his former employers still failed to adequately fill the void left behind by the Belgian in that same transfer window, with one eventual flop meant to soften the almighty blow.
The striker signed to replace Benteke
Rudy Gestede would join the top-flight titans a month after Benteke’s exit to the Reds, costing just £6m, as Villa were made to regret not splashing their newly obtained millions on replacing their former hero with a star of a similar quality.
The former Blackburn Rovers man’s ‘physical presence brings comparisons to Christian Benteke’ – as the Daily Mail noted at the time – while then-boss Tim Sherwood described his new signing as “better than anything I’ve seen around in English football”, with regard to his “immense” aerial presence.
As it was, Gestede – who “terrorises defenders”, according to Sherwood – very much struggled to cope with the demands of the league above after being fished out of the Championship, scoring just five times in the Premier League during his debut season which ended in his new employers suffering relegation.
Jordan Ayew
Christian Benteke
Jordan Amavi
Fabian Delph
Jordan Veretout
Andreas Weimann
Rudy Gestede
Yacouba Sylla
Joleon Lescott
Darren Bent
Micah Richards
Matthew Lowton
Looking at the notable ins and outs from that fateful summer, it’s no real shock that Villa struggled in the manner they did, with Fabian Delph’s exit also hitting the Villans hard centrally, on top of both Andreas Weimann and Darren Bent leaving depleting the firepower even more.
Still, Gestede should have gone on to shine in his new location after relegation, considering he had been snapped up after helping himself to 20 goals for Blackburn in the second tier.
Yet, the goals just weren’t forthcoming here either, as the now-retired 6 foot 4 forward only mustered up ten strikes in total for the West Midlands side, before being sold to Middlesbrough for £6m.
That means Gestede was sold for around £26m less than what Villa managed to get out of Liverpool for Benteke, as he never went on to become a hero in a similar manner to the Belgian, now arguably ranking among the worst Villa signings of modern memory, considering the expectation levels when he signed.
It’s clear now that the former Benin international just couldn’t handle the bright lights of the Premier League after making such a big move, nor the unhelpful label put above him that he could replace such an icon immediately.
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