Aston Villa were in the spotlight during the previous summer transfer window as they sold club captain Jack Grealish to Manchester City for a fee of £100m in what was a record-breaking deal.

One other previous transfer that saw the Midlands club sell one of their key players for a significant fee, that has now proved to have been a good decision from the Villans, was their sale of striker Christian Benteke back in 2015.

In the 2012 summer transfer window, Villa secured the signing of the Belgian forward for a fee of £7m from Genk.

During his time at Villa Park, the centre-forward managed to score 49 goals in 101 appearances across all competitions, chipping in with 12 assists along the way.

As a result of his impressive goalscoring efforts in a Villa shirt, fellow Premier League club Liverpool came calling for the Belgian in the 2015 summer transfer window where the Midlands club eventually sold the striker for a reported fee of £32.5m, making a big profit on him.

With 42 appearances under his belt for the Merseyside club, the 32-year-old could only find the back of the net on ten occasions before they sold him to Crystal Palace just a year after he made the move to Anfield in a deal worth a fee of £27m.

Back in December 2017, the centre-forward was slammed by Danny Murphy for his "self-indulgent and selfish" decision to take a penalty away from Palace midfielder Luka Milivojevic in a crucial game against Bournemouth, which he then missed.

Since becoming a Palace player, the former Villan has scored 37 goals in 172 appearances prior to their FA Cup clash against Everton, meaning that he hasn't been able to score as many goals as he did for Villa since leaving the club despite playing 113 more games than he did during his time at the Midlands club.

Shortly after leaving Villa, Transfermarkt rated the Belgian's market value at £31.5m, the highest it's been throughout his career, whereas it now stands at just £6.3m, highlighting a significant decrease from the fee that the Villans sold him for back in 2015.

Taking all of this into account, it's safe to say that Benteke's career has taken a big dip since his days in the Midlands and he just hasn't been able to replicate the same sort of impressive goalscoring form that he had anywhere else.

Therefore, it certainly seems that Villa had the last laugh by getting the best out of the £120k-per-week attacker on the pitch and making a massive profit on him.

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