Selling Pau Torres might be the smart move for Aston Villa but it would be a tactical gamble not worth taking
2024/25 was a historic season for Aston Villa. Under Unai Emery, they qualified for European competition for the third consecutive year by finishing sixth in the Premier League, reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League and got to the semi-finals of the FA Cup.
Villa can look back on the season with some satisfaction at a job relatively well done. In the Champions League – the club’s first crack at Europe’s premier competition for more than 40 years – they exceeded expectations and pushed eventual winners Paris Saint-Germain all the way despite looking dead and buried in the second leg at Villa Park.
Yet there are regrets too. Villa lost the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley against Crystal Palace and they simply didn’t show up. In the last game of the Premier League season, with a Champions League return up for grabs, Villa fell short against a dismal Manchester United side.
In the wake of those damaging defeats, a widely held view emerged: Villa didn’t have the killer mentality required to succeed in big matches.
I don’t fully subscribe to that opinion because I think there were some games that belong in that category and went to plan. I do think there was an issue in taking the final step over the threshold, which I accept is a semantic difference.
One position where the difference between bottlers and nearly-men came into play is in the centre of defence, where there was a debate about Emery selecting Pau Torres over Tyrone Mings in matches that were as much about Villa holding their nerve and grasping their destiny as they were about the standard of the opposition.
Pau Torres in the shop window but not for sale?
It wasn’t a matter of hindsight. A lot of Villa supporters felt at the time that Mings should have started the games that demanded Villa stand their ground.
Torres played in the FA Cup semi-final and against Manchester United. The idea that Mings is the defender and force of personality while Torres is a luxury ball-player took hold more than ever before.
It’s not without substance nor is it strictly true, but it does mean that the idea of selling Torres to Al Nassr, the Saudi Pro League team where Cristiano Ronaldo plays and Jhon Durán’s parent club, isn’t easy to dismiss out of hand.
Caught Offside reported Al Nassr’s interest and it caught my eye more than most transfer speculation for one simple reason, namely that Villa haven’t made the sale that could take the handbrake off when it comes to buying players and Al Nassr – majority owned by Saudi Arabia’s state Public Investment Fund – could take a massive bite out of Villa’s allowable PSR losses well in advance of next June.
It’s also a fact that Villa must address their wage bill in the name of compliance with UEFA squad cost ratio rules. Torres has quality competition for his place and Villa could be tempted to drop his wages as well as banking a healthy transfer fee.
The hidden cost
While I’d understand Villa listening to a serious offer from Saudi Arabia, selling Torres would be too big a gamble.
At 28, he’s a well established Premier League defender and an experienced Spanish international. Mings is 32 and the truth is Villa need both of them because neither is perfect for every fixture or every defensive pairing Villa have at their disposal.
Neither is capable of playing every game in four competitions and replacing Torres adequately would be a costly exercise. I hope Villa can hold off and find an alternative financially motivated sacrifice.
Sure, Torres is better at some things than others. Who isn’t? It’s easy to argue that defenders should defend and yes, while Torres reads the game well and makes key interventions, he is primarily a possession player. But he’s an elite possession player and he suits Villa’s plan for so many games.
Villa might yet want to bring players in and selling one they don’t want to sell is the shortcut they need. Losing Torres isn’t the path I’d take but every player has his price and nobody is more likely to pay it than Al Nassr.
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