da apostebet： Aston Villa are currently in their fourth season back in the top-flight of English football after securing a promotion from the Championship in 2019.
da fazobetai： Dean Smith led the club to promotion via the play-offs in 2018/19 and they have remained in the Premier League to date, after spending three years in the second tier.
The Villans were initially relegated from the top division in 2016 and the side suffered a number of flops in the transfer market in their attempts to bounce back at the first time of asking.
In the 2016/17 campaign, Villa made a whopping 16 first-team signings and this included the likes of Ross McCormack, Scott Hogan, and Mile Jedinak.
One addition the club had a nightmare with was the signing of Pierluigi Gollini after the shot-stopper arrived for a fee of £4.25m from Hellas Verona during Roberto Di Matteo's tenure.
What happened to Pierluigi Gollini?
The Italian U21 international played 20 matches in the Championship and averaged a Sofascore rating of 6.79 – making one error leading to a shot or goal.
However, Steve Bruce – who replaced Di Matteo in the dugout – dropped him in favour of Mark Bunn before signing Sam Johnstone on loan from Manchester United, which opened the door for the young goalkeeper to move out on loan to Atalanta on an 18-month deal.
At the time of Gollini's exit, Bruce explained that the gem needed to learn his "trade" out on loan but the youngster only played 11 Serie A matches in his 18 months back in his home country.
This led to the Villa head coach sanctioning a permanent move for the shot-stopper in the summer of 2018 as the Italian giant joined Atalanta on a long-term deal.
FootballTransfers placed the 6 foot 4 titan's Expected Transfer Value (xTV) at just £3.2m (€3.7m) at the time of the transfer and that price soared over the following two-to-three years as he established himself as a number one in the Serie A.
Gollini played 20 times in the Italian top-flight in 2018/19 before featuring in 58 matches in the division across the 2019/20 and 2020/21 campaigns. He kept 18 clean sheets in the latter two seasons combined and his development was reflected in his market value.
The ex-Villa man's xTV soared by a whopping 544% to £20.6m (€23.5m) by January 2021 and this shows that the colossus, who journalist Josh Bunting hailed as "improved", was able to fulfil his potential by being a capable performer in a major European league.
Therefore, Bruce endured a nightmare with the former Verona talent as his development after leaving the Villans suggests that they either missed out on a big payday, with £20.6m being a significant profit on the £4.25m they paid for him, or an impressive goalkeeper.
Instead of using his loan as a springboard to kickstart his career at Villa, the head coach axed the player from the squad and that turned out to be a miscalculation from the English boss, who was later replaced by Smith.
Gollini has gone on to play for Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League and is currently on loan at Napoli in Italy and Villans supporters may wonder what could have been for the goalkeeper at Villa Park if Bruce had more faith in him.