Aston Villa have bolstered their midfield with the signing of Joao Gomes from Wolves.

Villa have paid an initial £34million for the Brazil international, who impressed at Molineux despite their relegation from the top flight last season.

Gomes made 130 appearances for the Black Country club, scoring seven times, after joining from boyhood club Flamengo in 2023.

He leaves Molineux with a glowing endorsement from the club’s technical director Matt Jackson.

Jackson told Wolves’ official website: “Joao deserves everything he gets from the game. He’s a model professional, a lovely young man and a great family man. He’s the type of professional that coaches love and players love, so he will go on to be the outstanding player that we know he is.

“We’re obviously sorry to see him go, but we have to take responsible decisions for the football club, and then we build to be stronger collectively. It’s a very natural part of football, the best run football clubs who don’t have unlimited resources have to work this way. The model is something that we have to adopt, and our fans have always been hugely understanding of that.”

Emery continues Villa rebuild

Gomes is part of a midfield overhaul at Villa Park with Morgan Rogers poised to join Chelsea in a £117m deal and Amadou Onana set to miss the bulk of next season having ruptured his ACL at the World Cup while playing for Belgium.

The 25-year-old Gomes will be joined at Villa by Switzerland international Johan Manzambi, who signed for Unai Emery’s men last week in a deal that could exceed £50m.