O'Neill disaster: Aston Villa will surely rue call on "charismatic" 300-goal "tiger" - opinion

Aston Villa have shown over the years that they are not shy when it comes to dipping into the transfer market to buy new players.

In more recent times, the Villans have also shown that they are capable of spending substantial amounts of money to bring new additions to their squad.

However, looking into the past, there has been one prime example of the club missing out on a very special player they could have signed if they’d been more extravagant with their spending.

According to a report from Birmingham Live, when Villa and Martin O’Neill were in the market for attacking reinforcements back in the 2008 January transfer window, the Midlands club had an offer of €15m (£12.6m) turned down from River Plate for striker Radamel Falcao.

During his time with the Argentine club, the striker scored 45 goals in 107 appearances before joining Porto in 2009.

Since then, the 36-year-old has gone on to play for clubs such as Atletico Madrid, AS Monaco, Manchester United, Chelsea, Galatasaray and Rayo Vallecano.

In 529 senior club appearances throughout his career, the Colombian has scored an impressive figure of 300 goals across all competitions, with 54 assists provided along the way, highlighting how much of a deadly attacking threat he’s been for such an extended period of time.

The veteran, who has been described as being a “charismatic” character by Thierry Henry, as well as a “leader” on the pitch, has also won numerous team titles and individual awards in what has undoubtedly been a glistening career.

Even though the man who has been dubbed a “tiger” failed to have much of an impact during his time in England with United and Chelsea by only scoring five goals in 41 games, there’s every possibility that it could have been a very