Emile Smith Rowe: Who can Aston Villa target if they miss out on Arsenal midfielder?

Arsenal, typically regarded as a team who in recent times, have had rather large holes to fill in their squad in terms of replacing key players when they needed to.

An example of this could be the likes of Robin van Persie leaving to Manchester United for approximately £27M in the 12/13 season, only for them to find a worthy striker replacement in Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 5 years later at nearly double the fee.

In that time, they’ve spent rather large amounts of money on flops and stopgaps such as Lucas Pérez and Danny Welbeck at £18M a piece.

This time around, they’ve put a foot down on their budding new starlet Emile Smith Rowe and a price tag eerily similar to the one that drew RVP away has them refusing to budge.

The team driving to poach the Hale End academy product away from London is none other than the Midlands’ titan, Aston Villa.

They already found themselves completing a big-money signing for Norwich talisman and spark plug attacker in Emiliano Buendia and this move for Smith Rowe would undoubtedly round out their attacking midfield options with a potentially star-studded line-up.

However, whether a bid that looks too good to refuse comes in for Jack Grealish or not, Dean Smith can expect to delve deeper into the market for a number 10 to improve the attack if it includes the star midfielder or not.

This piece focuses on the alternate options that could be in Villa’s recruitment plan for the summer and the feasibility of these moves for them and the opposing club.