Those Aston Villa January signings are going pretty well

With three wins from their last four matches, Aston Villa are back up into the fight for Champions League places. And midweek, all 3 of their goals against top 5 rivals Brighton were scored by players who have arrived since January.

Marcus Rashford is the one that gets the most press, between his England national team history and massive wage. He’s still not back to his big time shot generating days, but he’s making good decisions with his dribbling and passing, setting up his teammates even more than he’s setting up himself.

Who knows if either Villa or Rashford want to make the finances work for a permanent move, but this is certainly going well.

You might have thought of Rashford as a potential goal-scorer and Marco Asensio as more of a playmaker when they were brought in together, but the opposite has happened. Asensio is doing almost no setting up his teammates, but he’s been a shot monster so far.

And the guy they actually brought in on a permanent deal, Donyell Malen, is making a solid contribution as well. He doesn’t jump off the page, but he’s a solid dribbler and getting an excellent volume of shots in limited minutes.

These are all tiny samples, of course. We can’t make any kind of definitive declaration that Villa got these moves right quite yet. But they rolled the dice on some very high wage January pickups, and those guys have got them back into the race for a top 5 spot.

Now they face the final boss of low blocks, 3rd placed Nottingham Forest. In just the last month, Forest have recorded clean sheets against Manchester United, Manchester City, and Arsenal. This is the game Villa is paying these guys the big bucks for.

Since today’s newsletter is about how Aston Villa’s new signings have turned around their season, and I’ve previously written on the newsletter that I think Nottingham Forest’s luck has to run out sometime, guess what Ted’s written over at Variance Betting? That he likes Forest +0.5 against Villa, of course. Analysis of all the Premier League and Championship games this weekend is over on the Premium newsletter, and you can upgrade here to get that for all Prem, Championship and Champions League matches.

Our partner bet105 is running their usual Friday promo this week, where Premier League handicap bets are -103 instead of the usual -105.

If you sign up for an account, please use our link found here. And if you don’t use the link, tell them you came from Variance Betting.

Thanks!

Games we’re watching

Augsburg vs. Bayern Munich — No marquee matchups in the Bundesliga this week, so just watch the best players in the league do fun stuff.

Manchester United vs. Manchester City — It’s lost its luster, but it’s still a Manchester derby. Opportunities for maximum banter, etc.

Barcelona vs. Real Betis — Betis are absolutely red hot, and are on an incredible tear since Antony arrived. You can’t make this shit up.

Atalanta vs. Lazio — I’m a bit surprised and disappointed at how badly Lazio have faded, but they’re still very much in the fight for European places. Atalanta score a lot and you should just watch all their games.

Brest vs. Monaco — Since their Champions League adventure ended and they’ve been able to re-focus on the league, Brest have improved a lot, and should provide a tough test for Mika Biereth and co.

Stuff we’re reading

Conor O’Neill at The Athletic analyzes how Nottingham Forest keep stifling the Premier League’s best attacks.

Tom Curren at Scouted has a list of wonderkids you might not have heard about yet.

Edin Halilović at Total Football Analysis profiles Konstantinos Koulierakis, a CB likely to be the subject of transfer interest this summer.

Grace Roberson at Grace On Football wonders how much of an impact Arne Slot is having, or if he’s just in the right place at the right time.

Ed Maylon and Matt Hughes at FootBiz report on the most recent Barcelona financial issue, and why they can’t just pull more levers now.

Kieron O’Connor at Swiss Ramble breaks down the finances behind the FIFA Club World Cup.

Flo Lloyd-Hughes at The Cutback asks some big questions of the Lionesses before their UEFA Nations League matches.

Jason Anderson at Pro Soccer Wire offers your weekly dose of NWSL sickos content.

—KM

If you enjoyed this newsletter, we’d appreciate it if you would forward it to a friend. If you’re that friend, welcome! You can subscribe to The Transfer Flow here. We also have a podcast where we go in depth on transfer news and rumours every week. We’re on YouTube here, and you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify by searching for “The Transfer Flow Podcast.”