Revealed: The big-money Aston Villa signings plan chiefs hope will keep Grealish for another year
Aston Villa are set to spend big again this summer - and hope their ambitious plans will convince Jack Grealish to stay another year.
Billionaire owners Wes Edens and Naseef Sawiris have pumped around £400million into Villa since buying the club in 2018, with more than £250m spent on transfers.
A Villa source has told Football Insider the owners have made it clear to the hierarchy they will back another signing spree in the next window.
That could prove instrumental in persuading Grealish, 25, to stay another season at the club he has spent his entire career.
Villa chiefs know they are vulnerable to losing the attacking midfielder at the end of a campaign in which he has taken his game to an even higher level.
Reports of interest from the Premier League elite are well founded and the club hierarchy are braced for strong interest in their talismanic skipper.
Grealish signed a new five-year contract last September after being convinced by the plans of Edens and Sawiris.
But that in itself is not enough to keep him beyond the next window.
The generous owners will need to be persuasive again in the summer to fend off sides who recognise the England international as one of the Premier League's outstanding creators.
Villa have been completely deprived of cutting edge during the absence through injury of Grealish in the last six Premier League matches.
That is a big concern to the club, and more spending will be sanctioned to improve Dean Smith's side.
The hope of the hierarchy is that the promise of some top-level stars signing will show Grealish he should commit to his boyhood club for the 2021-22 campaign.