Aston Villa January transfer target and Chelsea attacker Joao Felix has expressed his regret that his time playing for AC Milan in the Champions League has been cut unexpectedly short after they were knocked out of the competition at the play-off stage by Dutch side Feyenoord on Tuesday night.
Villa president of football operations Monchi confirmed that Felix, who Unai Emery has been a long-term admirer of, was a player Villa tried to bring to the club in the January window, but parent club Chelsea didn’t wish to strengthen the hand of a rival club bidding to secure a top four finish.
Former Benfica and Atletico Madrid star Felix ultimately headed to Italy before the deadline and will spend the remainder of this season in Milan, playing in Serie A but he had hoped for an extended spell in the Champions League. For Villa, of course, progressing through the play-offs was no concern of theirs after a top eight group stage finish
Milan were beaten 1-0 by Feyenoord in the first leg in the Netherlands a week ago, and although Milan cancelled out that advantage within the first minute through Santiago Gimenez – also a January import, FROM Feyenoord – they were reduced to ten men when Theo Hernandez was dismissed before the hour mark.
Visiting forward Julian Carranza levelled the score up on the night and restored Feyenoord’s advantage with over 15 minutes to go, and it was they who progressed to the last 16 of the tournament, leaving Felix disappointed that that’ll be his only experience of Europe’s elite competition, for this season at least.
Felix, who’ll have to watch Chelsea teammate Axel Disasi represent Villa in the next round of the Champions League, admitted that Hernandez’s red card represented Milan shooting themselves in the foot having not been under any pressure prior to that dismissal.
“It is true, that is how it went,” he told Sky Sport Italia. “We were in control of the match and about to score the second goal, Feyenoord had never created any dangerous situations. After the red card, it was a completely different game.
“On a personal level, I wanted so much to play in the Champions League for Milan, but I only got to experience two games. This is football, we all need to learn, whether we are young or old.”
