Aston Villa close to taking their summer spending to around £100million

Aston Villa are close to taking their summer spending to around £100million as they near the signings of Douglas Luiz and Bjorn Engels. Villa have been in talks with Manchester City over midfielder Luiz and Reims over defender Engels. Luiz could cost Villa £15million as the newly-promoted side continue to splash the cash ahead of their Premier League return. The 21-year-old captains Brazil’s Under-23s side but has been sent out on loan to Girona for the past two seasons and is yet to make a senior appearance for Pep Guardiola. He struggled to get a work permit for City, the reason he was loaned to Spain, but it remains to be seen what the situation would be at Villa. Villa also want to boost their defence with the signing of Engels, a long-time target for boss Dean Smith, who ended his side’s three-year top flight exile by winning the Sky Bet Championship play-offs last season. He tried to get him while he was Brentford manager last year and has returned for the 24-year-old. Engels would join Kortney Hause, Tyrone Mings and Ezri Konsa as new centre-backs at the club. Hause and Mings made their loans permanent, with Villa paying Bournemouth an initial £20million for the latter, while Konsa joined from Brentford for a reported £12million this week. Villa broke their transfer record to sign Wesley Moraes for £22million from Club Brugge earlier in the summer. Topics Dean Smith, Pep Guardiola, Transfers Brentford appoint Thomas Frank as new head coach Dean Smith believes Championship play-off final should be played first Villa boss Dean Smith: Jack Grealish will cost someone a hell of a lot of money Harrison named Aston Villa’s academy manager No club has made offer for Manchester United target yet – but that could be about to change Aribo keen to emulate Toure and Vieira after comparisons to midfield duo VAR used to check 10 incidents per game at Women’s World Cup, FIFA reveals Bolton administrators taking legal action against would-be owner Bassini Benfica defender scouted by Manchester United as negotiations begin Ranked! The 10 best centre-backs in the world Forbes have revealed the world’s most valuable football clubs – and Premier League dominates Juan Mata rejected insane offer to stay at Manchester United – report Highest-paid footballers revealed by Forbes as Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar feature Wolves’ ambitious owners understand they can’t match the Big Six – and that’s why they might actually break it