Unai Emery lifts lid on Aston Villa's ambitious Jadon Sancho transfer plan

Unai Emery is aiming to end Jadon Sancho's England exile during the Manchester United outcast's time with Aston Villa. Sancho, 25, joined the Midlands side on aseason-long loan towards the end of the transfer window.

It was his third such move having been sent to both Borussia Dortmund and Chelsea over the past few campaigns. Chelsea had an obligation to buy him for £25m, but paid a £5m penalty to back out of that deal.

And that has seen Sancho, yet again, look for pastures new with Aston Villa. Boss Emery already has high hopes for the winger having underlined his target to help Sancho return to England contention.

Speaking during his pre-match press conference ahead of this weekend's clash with Everton, Emery said: "Yes, of course, this is my objective, to get him back to his best - and if he does that, then he'll come back to the national team.

"Every player wants to be part of the national team. When he was in Borussia Dortmund, he performed fantastic. And he played with the national team 25 matches, more or less. Of course, he's still young.

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"He's still being hungry to show his capacity to play with his skills, his qualities, and hopefully we can exploit here, again, his best."

Sancho has 23 England caps to his name so far and scored three goals, but he's not made an appearance for the Three Lions since 2021. Current England boss Thomas Tuchelhas yet to comment whether he would be willing to facilitate Sancho's return.

But his predecessor as interim Lee Carsley did give an insight and claimed that regular football could, potentially, help Sancho find a way back into contention. He said: "Jadon is a player that has huge potential who has hopefully found a home where he feels rated, he feels loved."

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He added: "I think he just needs time now to play. I don't ever feel in a rush where a player [who] is doing well for three or four games should be in an England squad.”

England were well stocked for wide options during the latest international break. Tuchel selected Eberechi Eze, Jarrod Bowen, Anthony Gordon and Marcus Rashford in the squad for World Cup qualifiers against Andorra and Serbia.

England are back in action next month when they take on Wales in a friendly, and Latvia in a World Cup qualifier. And Sancho will certainly be aiming to catch the eye for Villa who are in Premier League, Carabao Cup and Europa League action before then.

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