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Enzo Maresca has already dealt Joao Felix transfer blow amid Aston Villa talks

Joao Felix celebrates scoring against Noah
-Credit:Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC


Aston Villa are one of numerous clubs with an interest in Joao Felix as the January transfer window reaches its conclusion.

The 25-year-old has made just three starts in the Premier League for Chelsea this season, since re-signing for the west Londoners last summer on a permanent deal. Felix, who spent the second half of the 2022/23 on loan with the Blues, returned to Stamford Bridge last August after being offered to the club as part of a deal that saw Conor Gallagher move to Atletico Madrid as well.

It could not have started any better for the Portuguese attacker on what was his second Chelsea debut away at Wolves in August. Coming on for Nicolas Jackson on 68 minutes at Molineux, it was not long until Felix found the back of the net; capping off a fantastic team move that saw his Portuguese compatriot and fellow summer signing Pedro Neto assist him in the west Midlands.

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A perfect start for Felix but it has not been straightforward for him since. Felix has made 20 appearances in total for the Blues, with 12 of them coming in the Premier League, five in the Conference League, two in the Carabao Cup and one in the FA Cup. He has been very much a bit-part player under Enzo Maresca thus far; a player that has unfortunately been part of the club's so-called 'B team'.

Felix has scored seven goals for Chelsea since returning to west London but only one of them has come in the Premier League - the aforementioned strike on his debut. The others have been spread out between the Conference League and the FA Cup, with four in Europe and the other two coming in the third round win against Morecambe earlier in the month.

For the most part, the Portugal international has impressed whilst on the pitch for Chelsea but the opposition has not always been the greatest and with less than 1000 minutes to his name, it is a relatively small sample size. By no fault of his own, Felix is behind the imperious Cole Palmer in the pecking order at Stamford Bridge, and is equally fighting it out with the club's second top goal scorer this season in Christopher Nkunku.

"The problem, unfortunately, for Joao and Christo, the manager plays most of the games with one attacking midfielder and that is Cole Palmer," Maresca said last week when asked about Felix's lack of minutes this season. "We have decided to play with an attacking midfielder in most of the games, so this is the reason why Joao and Christo struggle to get minutes - not for any different reasons because they are both fantastic players, fantastic guys who work well.

"The reason why is only because most of the games I decide to play with one attacking midfielder in terms of balance. This is the reason why."

If Felix does move on before next week's transfer deadline, with Aston Villa expressing an interest in recent days, then it is a shame for the Portuguese; who has been on the move constantly in recent seasons. Moving from Benfica to Atletico in 2019 for a whopping £113million, it has been a struggle for Felix to live up to such a hefty price-tag.