While Aston Villa arguably had a successful January transfer window in terms of the players they added to Steven Gerrard's squad such as Lucas Digne, Calum Chambers, Robin Olsen and Philippe Coutinho, they missed the chance to potentially add another experienced Premier League player to their ranks.

With the club's chief executive Christian Purslow describing Villa's swoop for Digne as "opportunistic" given his rocky situation at Everton before joining the Midlands club, one other move that they could have made in a similar sort of fashion was for Manchester United attacking midfielder Jesse Lingard.

Villa were linked with a move for the 29-year-old throughout the month but were not able to bring him to the club, leaving Lingard - who is currently picking up £80k-per-week according to Salary Sport - in a tough situation at Old Trafford, with his Red Devils future under major speculation.

He proved what he can do away from the Manchester club when given sufficient playing time during his loan spell with West Ham United last season, where the England international racked up an impressive nine goals and five assists in 16 appearances, which was described as "unbelievable" by Kevin Phillips.

With that in mind, Villa certainly missed out on the chance to swoop in and see if the 29-year-old could replicate his east London form at Villa Park, which would have certainly been a massive boost for Gerrard's team in terms of adding a potent creative force in midfield.

In hindsight, given how the Villans took a punt by bringing Coutinho back to the Premier League on loan from Barcelona, this may have put their need to bring in a player such as Lingard on the backburner.

However, with Lingard showing more recently how much of an impact he can have in the Premier League, he may have been the safer option for the Midlands club.

Moving forward, time will tell just how much of a howler it was from Johan Lange not to secure Lingard's signature last month, in addition to hoping that their Brazilian recruit will be a success.

In other news: Lange heading for unforgivable Aston Villa disaster, Gerrard would surely be furious