Birmingham [England], July 23 : French national Moussa Diaby has joined Premier League club Aston Villa from Bayer Leverkusen. After the signing, Aston Villa's manager Unai Emery said, 'We are really excited and are really happy with him.'
According to Aston Villa's website, "The 24-year-old winger joins Villa from Bayer Leverkusen for an undisclosed fee and has already linked up with his new team-mates on their tour of the United States."
Unai Emery said, We are really excited and are really happy with him. For us, Moussa Diaby is one player we were following. I was very happy with the work we did last year, now this year we have to add some different players."
He added, “He’s helping us, trying to improve our level of play in the attacking third, sometimes playing on the right, sometimes he’s playing as a No.10 and sometimes he’s playing as a left winger. We have to build again our structure and Moussa is giving us another important step ahead.”
As per Aston Villa's website, the 24-year-old put pen to paper on his contract at the club’s Washington, DC hotel and met Emery before linking up with his new team-mates and the Villa boss spoke glowingly in his praise for the club’s latest summer signing, before revealing he is set to start training on Monday.
While concluding Unai Emery said, “He is a winger, a striker and his best part is his capacity to attack, dribbling, running behind,” added the Spaniard. He has experience in Europe, he’s young and I think the qualities he’s going to give us, playing in different positions as well, I think he’s going to give us more power. The idea is to start with us training on Monday, after the match tomorrow (against Newcastle).”
Diaby, who has 10 international caps for France, started his career with his hometown club, Paris Saint-Germain, graduating from the youth ranks into the first team.
Since joining Leverkusen in 2019, his performances for the Bundesliga side both domestically and in the Champions League and Europa League had caught the eye of a number of clubs around Europe. He finished last season with 14 goals to his name in all competitions.
Diaby is a product of the Paris Saint-Germain Youth Academy. He joined the club when he was 13 and began playing for the B team in 2017. Diaby was the recipient of the 2016 Titi d’Or as the most promising and best talent in the Paris Saint-Germain Academy.
In 2019, it was announced that Diaby would join Bayer Leverkusen on a five-year deal. Diaby scored his first Bundesliga goal for Leverkusen in his first competitive start in November 2019 in the club's 1–1 draw with SC Freiburg.
Diaby scored Leverkusen's third goal in stoppage time to seal a win over FC Union Berlin in the quarter-finals of the DFB-Pokal in March 2020. In the next round, Diaby scored the first goal in Leverkusen's 3–0 victory over fourth-division FC Saarbrucken to secure a spot in the 2020 DFB-Pokal Final.
In 2021, he scored in the Bundesliga against Borussia Monchengladbach and it was his first goal of the season. He managed to score nine goals and provided eight assists in the 2022–23 season.
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