{"id":2140,"date":"2026-08-25T08:16:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T08:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/?p=2140"},"modified":"2026-08-25T08:16:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T08:16:24","slug":"rafael-leao-transfer-news-aston-villa-make-approach-to-sign-portugal-forward-who-is-open-to-leaving-ac-milan-football-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/?p=2140","title":{"rendered":"Rafael Leao transfer news: Aston Villa make approach to sign Portugal forward who is open to leaving AC Milan | Football News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-component-name=\"ui-article-body\" data-testid=\"article-body\" data-highlight-intro=\"true\">\n<p>Aston Villa\u00a0have made an approach for AC Milan forward Rafael Leao, according to Sky in Italy.<\/p>\n<p>The English club are serious about the Portugal winger, who has expressed an openness to the move.<\/p>\n<p>Villa and Milan are in contact and will now negotiate in a bid to reach an agreement before Deadline Day on September 1.<\/p>\n<p>Villa are looking to make additions up-front amid uncertainty around <strong>Ollie Watkins<\/strong>&#8216; future at the club.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sky Sports News<\/em> reported Saudi Pro League side Al Hilal are in talks to sign Watkins and have had at least one bid rejected.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11677\/13576353\/ollie-watkins-transfer-news-aston-villa-boss-unai-emery-gives-cryptic-answer-when-asked-about-striker-amid-al-hilal-interest\">Watkins was not included in the match-day squad<\/a> for the 4-0 defeat to Brighton on Sunday and when asked for an explanation after the game, Villa boss Unai Emery told <em>Sky Sports<\/em>: &#8220;Ask him. I only can answer it by silence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Reports have since emerged suggesting that the England striker returned to training on Monday and apologised to teammates for his absence.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11661\/13576879\/rafael-leao-transfer-news-aston-villa-make-approach-to-sign-portugal-forward-who-is-open-to-leaving-ac-milan\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aston Villa\u00a0have made an approach for AC Milan forward Rafael Leao, according to Sky in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footballars.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}