Aston Villa have started to build up a reputation over the past few years of being a very active club in the transfer market when it comes to signing players for significant amounts of money.

However, looking back down memory lane, there was one prime example of the Midlands club not being ruthless when it came to securing a deal for a player they definitely should have.

Back in the summer of 2001, when legendary Premier League midfielder Frank Lampard was at the start of his career at West Ham United, there was a big race to snap him up from the east London club.

According to Neil Moxley, Villa had made an offer of £7.5m to West Ham in an effort to bring the midfielder to the Midlands, only for Chelsea to jump in and snatch the youngster in a deal worth a reported fee of £11m.

Having made 174 appearances for the Hammers, scoring 32 goals and providing 18 assists in the process, the Englishman went on to become a certified legend at Stamford Bridge during his 13-year spell on the west side of London.

With 648 appearances across all competitions under his belt as well as 211 goals, 150 assists, four FA Cups, three Premier League titles and one Champions League trophy, Lampard wrote his name into the history books, not just at Chelsea but in the top-flight as one of the best English players of all time too.

After leaving Chelsea in 2014, the midfielder then had one final season in the Premier League with Manchester City, which was followed by the final year of his playing career with their sister club New York City.

All in all, the 43-year-old, who has been labelled as being a “magnificent example of English leadership” by Carlo Ancelotti, had scored 266 senior goals across his lengthy and illustrious career.

To further highlight the former Blues star’s importance to English football, he was inducted into the Premier League Hall of Fame in 2021 alongside other big names such as Thierry Henry, Alan Shearer and Dennis Bergkamp.

Taking all of this into account, letting a player like Lampard slip through their grasp must be seen as one of the biggest mistakes in Villa’s history.

Had the Villa Park outfit decided to put in a bigger offer to West Ham for their young midfield talent, they could have seen another future legend added to their history books instead of Chelsea’s.

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