Sold for £44.6m: Randy Lerner had a Villa nightmare on “lethal” 295-G/A "monster" - opinion

Aston Villa have always been rather active in the transfer market over the past number of years, whether they’ve been in the Premier League or Championship.

Numerous players have moved in and out of the Midlands club either on loan or permanent deals.

However, one player the Villans were linked with that didn’t end up donning a Villa shirt is Wesley Sneijder, someone they quite clearly made a huge mistake over.

Back in the 2009 summer transfer window, it was reported that the Midlands club were favourites to sign the Dutchman from Real Madrid after his agent revealed that Inter Milan, who were also after him at the time, were quite some way from offering the sort of money that the Spanish side were looking for.

Unfortunately for Villa, the midfielder did end up joining the Italian club that summer after racking up a total of 246 appearances for Madrid and his original club Ajax, scoring 69 goals and providing 57 assists along the way.

During his time with Inter, Sneijder found the back of the net 22 times in 116 appearances, delivering 35 assists in the process.

In the 2013 January transfer window, the 37-year-old, who has been described as a “monster” by journalist Grant Wahl, then moved to Turkey after signing with Galatasaray where he delivered 89 goal contributions in 175 games.

He then went on to have spells in France with OGC Nice and Al-Gharafa in Qatar before retiring in 2019 having won numerous trophies in Spain, Italy and Turkey.

Labelled as a “lethal” player in terms of his dead-ball ability by the official Copa90 Twitter account following his induction to Inter’s Hall of Fame, Sneijder ended his playing career with a total of 295 club goals and assists to his name.

Having also racked up an accumulative