Aston Villa manager Unai Emery led the club to European football during his first season in charge as they qualified for the Europa Conference League ahead of the 2023/24 campaign.
The Villans are back in Europe this year for the first time since 2010/11 and it marks a significant step in their progress since earning promotion back to the Premier League in 2019.
Dean Smith earned promotion from the Championship and set Villa on this journey back to the top and deserves huge credit for his work during his time at the helm.
Five most expensive Villa signings under Dean Smith:
Emi Buendia
£33m
Ollie Watkins
£29m
Leon Bailey
£27.5m
Danny Ings
£25m
Wesley
£21.5m
Fees via Transfermarkt.
However, the former Norwich City head coach was not perfect and some of his signings at Villa Park were less-than-impressive. One player, in particular, who turned out to be a poor addition was central defender Bjorn Engels in the summer of 2019.
How much did Aston Villa pay for Bjorn Engels?
Villa were promoted to the Premier League during the 2018/19 season and then splashed the cash in an attempt to build a squad that was ready to avoid an instant relegation.
One of their signings was Engels from Ligue 1 side Reims for a reported transfer fee of up to £9m and he was the fourth central defender to join that summer, as Ezri Konsa, Kortney Hause, and Tyrone Mings were also snapped up on permanent deals.
The Belgian enforcer had enjoyed a strong year in the French top-flight as he delivered consistently impressive performances at the heart of his side's defence.
Engels averaged a Sofascore rating of 6.95 across 33 Ligue 1 matches and helped the club to keep 12 clean sheets with his solid defensive play.
He averaged 1.6 tackles and interceptions per outing and showcased his physical strength with a duel success rate of 61%, as per Sofascore, which meant that the talented stopper won the majority of his battles and did not allow the opposition to get the better of him frequently.
The central defender was the fourth-highest-rated Reims player on Sofascore ratings and this shows that he was one of their top performers throughout the season, which led to Smith and Villa deciding to splash out £9m to secure his services.
How many games did Engels play for Villa?
Engels ended up featuring in just 19 matches in all competitions for the Villans before his eventual departure from the English side in 2021.
He struggled on the pitch throughout his debut season in English football and proved himself to be a worse option than Hause, who also arrived that summer, with their respective displays in defence.
In the 2019/20 term, the £9m-rated titan averaged a dismal Sofascore rating of 6.74 across 17 Premier League clashes for Villa and Smith. 12 of his teammates averaged higher Sofascore ratings that year and that suggests that he was far away from being one of the team's top performers on the field.
Engels was a liability at the heart of the defence as the Belgian dud made three errors that directly led to a shot or goal for the opposition and gave away two penalties, as per Sofascore. This meant that the former Reims star made five blunders that either cost Villa a goal or almost cost them one in 17 outings.
Hause, on the other hand, averaged a better Sofascore rating of 6.82 across 18 Premier League games. The English defender, who won 74% of his aerial battles, delivered a higher average performance level than Engels, despite costing £6m less after a £3m transfer from Wolverhampton Wanderers.
He was less of a liability than Engels during the 2019/20 season as the ex-Old Gold colossus only made one error that directly led to an opposition goal and did not concede a single penalty throughout his time on the pitch.
Therefore, the ex-Reims gem was worse than Hause as he performed to a lower standard and made more costly mistakes at the back for Smith.
It was a dreadful debut year in English football for the £9m signing and things did not get better from there as fitness problems plagued the giant defender and stopped him from taking a step forward in his career in this country.
The 6 foot 4 giant then endured a frustrating 2020/21 campaign as he missed 36 games through injury. Issues with his shin, calf, and then hamstring essentially ended his chances of getting any minutes on the pitch for the first-team as he ended the season with zero appearances.
This meant that the former Club Brugge prospect did not get the opportunity to improve upon his poor showings the previous season and, therefore, supporters did not see him produce consistently impressive performances at any point in his career at the club.
How much did Aston Villa sell Engels for?
Villa eventually decided to cash in on the central defender in the summer of 2021 as Royal Antwerp came in and snapped him up for a reported fee of around £2.5m.
This meant that the club took a huge £6.5m hit on the initial £9m that they paid to sign him from Reims in the summer of 2019 after their promotion back to the Premier League.
His value plummeted by a staggering 72% in just two years in England and that is why his arrival at Villa Park turned out to be a big blunder by Smith, who had claimed at the time that he had been watching him for 18 months.
Engels has only played 20 times for Antwerp since that move in 2021 as he has been out with an Achilles injury since April 2022, which has ruled him out of 68 matches so far.
Injuries and his performances on the pitch in the Premier League for Villa have derailed what looked to be a promising career after his impressive campaign with Reims during the 2018/19 season.
Smith seemingly believed that there was the potential for him to be an excellent defender for the club, given that he sanctioned a £9m swoop for his services, but it ended up being a fairly expensive failure for the Villans.
