In the summer of 2015, Aston Villa sold key man Christian Benteke and signed Championship hotshot, Rudy Gestede for £6 million from Blackburn Rovers.
Gestede had emerged as one of the better strikers in the Championship during his time with Rovers and following a lot of speculation, he finally made the move to the Midlands club.
In his final season with Rovers, he scored 20 goals in the league and it was thought that he’d be the ideal replacement for Christian Benteke.
Here’s how the Villa fans reacted to his arrival at the club…
@AVFCOfficial rudy rudy rudy
— Aston (@aston_1997) July 31, 2015
https://twitter.com/edvardr/status/627132816464158720
@AVFCOfficial top signing!! Goals goals goals
— matthew couch (@CouchMc) 31 July 2015
https://twitter.com/rachandwill/status/627132026836111360
@AVFCOfficial who needs beneteke when you have Gestede
— Aaron (@Tipsteraz) 31 July 2015
@AVFCOfficial Using that Benteke money wisely!
— Darren Adams (@DarrenAdams11) 31 July 2015
After two successful years, with Blackburn, it seemed as though Gestede would be a great addition to the Villa squad under Tim Sherwood.
He made his debut as a substitute and scored the winning goal in a 1-0 victory over archrivals Birmingham City. He also managed to score a brace against Liverpool but aside from those two high points, Gestede’s season with Villa wasn’t the best.
Amid a year where Villa slumped to relegation in what was one of the worst seasons ever recorded by a Premier League club, Gestede only managed to score five goals over the 32 games in the league for Villa.
In their return to the Championship, he once again played poorly and only scored four goals in 18 appearances and following that poor season, he was sold to Middlesbrough.
At his best, Gestede was a handful in the air and was arguably one of the most dominant aerial players in the country but at his worst – which happened quite a lot – he was a striker that didn’t seem to know where the goal was.
Unfortunately for Villa fans, his time at Villa Park never quite lived to supporters’ expectations of him.
