Leon Bailey’s Transfer to Hull City Edges Closer
Aston Villa are finalising a permanent exit for Leon Bailey, with Hull City interested but the winger’s estimated £120,000-a-week wages are likely to be proving the main obstacle to concluding the deal.
Villa left Bailey out of the travelling squad for their pre-season trip to Asia, a fair indication of how close his exit is thought to be. Hull City’s president, Acun Ilicali, said this week that the transfer should be finalised within days.
Bailey, 28, has one year left on his Villa contract, effectively forcing the club’s hand this summer rather than risk losing him for nothing next year. Hull are unlikely to come near matching his current wages, so any deal is expected to need Villa contributing towards a pay-off to bridge the gap, and that structuring appears to be what has delayed things so far.
One Season Villa Wonder?
After Villa bought Bailey from Bayer Leverkusen, there’s no doubt that the 2023-24 season remains the outlier of his Villa career: 10 goals and nine assists in the Premier League, a return that beat anything he produced across five seasons in Bundesliga. Since then, the numbers have collapsed. Across the following two campaigns Bailey managed a single Premier League goal, and last season brought just four starts in total, three for Villa and one during a loan spell at Roma.
The rest of his season was played out from the bench. He added 10 Premier League substitute appearances to those three starts, plus five more off the bench in the Europa League, for a total of just 42 minutes in the competition, although he did score against Lille.
Picking up a Europa League medal provided Bailey with a silver lining to his time at Villa, while the club will be happy to get a fringe player’s excessive wages off the books.
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