The father of an Aston Villa player acknowledges that he regretted the Villa Park transfer, but he still wanted his son to go.
Leon Bailey’s father, Leon Butler, has said that although he had no regrets about the transfer to Aston Villa, he had hoped to see his son sign with Ajax sooner in his career.
As part of an article examining Bailey, Butler has been chatting with Voetbal International in the Netherlands. On Thursday, Bailey and Aston Villa will play in the Europa League against Ajax.
We already reported on his remarks this morning, which described how Bailey had three consecutive instances in his career where he was on the verge of joining Ajax, with the final possible transfer being in 2022.
Clearly, none of those moves were successful, as the forward finally joined Bayer Leverkusen and made an impression there before moving on to Aston Villa, where under Unai Emery, he overcame a challenging beginning to become a sensation.
Given his early struggles to make an impression under Steven Gerrard, it had seemed as though his move to Aston Villa would be viewed as something of a transfer flop; however, that has changed when Emery returned.
Even if he would have like to see his son playing for Thursday’s opponents Ajax, his father maintains that everything is going well and that they are both content.
We were never far apart, but Ajax never provided the last push,” he remarked.
“I would have like to see it take place. Who knows how it would have all worked out, but we are firmly committed to the decisions we took. Looking back, it was the actions that were required.
“Leon’s move to Aston Villa has gone smoothly. He loves the fans and is doing well. If Leon had attended Ajax, who knows where he would be now? Ajax has produced world-class players.
Money isn’t everything, and Leon would have likely been sold for far more money if he had signed with Ajax.
