Exclusive: Sky Sports pundit tips Aston Villa for potential repeat Middlesbrough transfer | OneFootball

Just a year after landing Morgan Rogers from Boro, Villa are now keen on midfield maestro Hayden Hackney

Having been raided once again for one of their top talents midway through a season in the form of Emmanuel Latte Lath, Middlesbrough will have to try and get into the Championship play-off places the hard way.

Last season, Morgan Rogers headed to Aston Villa in the January window after just half a campaign on Teesside, with Villa evidently seeing the talent that is gracing the Premier League right now.

After Rogers departed, Boro lost four of their next six league outings, which made it a real uphill climb to push up the table and into the top six, and they eventually fell four points short of Norwich in sixth spot, despite only losing one of their last 12 matches.

And in a case of déjà vu, Emmanuel Latte Lath followed in Rogers' footsteps earlier this year when sealing a move away from the Riverside Stadium in February, making the switch to MLS side Atlanta United for a club-record fee for both sides of £22.5 million.

Boro have always been a selling club whilst in the Championship for the right price, with money normally re-invested into the playing squad by Steve Gibson, but Latte Lath's exit whilst the club were pushing for the play-offs could be detrimental to their hopes of returning to the Premier League.

Other players have had to step up and take on responsibility to taking games by the scruff of a neck, and one player who has been doing that for some time is Hayden Hackney.

Hayden Hackney attracting interest from Tottenham and Aston Villa

The central midfielder has come on leaps and bounds since being handed a chance by then-Boro caretaker boss Leo Percovich during the 2022-23 season, emerging as one of the brightest young midfielders in England.

That has obviously come with plenty of transfer speculation surrounding the 22-year-old, who is looking more and more ready for the step up to the Premier League come next season, and the latest suggestions are, as per Football Insider, that both Aston Villa and Tottenham are keen on Hackney this summer.

If Boro do not go up this season, they will likely see a flurry of interest in Hackney, despite the fact they are in no rush to sell given he has two years remaining on his contract - especially when you take into consideration the fees brought in during the last 13 months for Rogers and Latte Lath.

With Hackney firing home his first England under-21's goal this week though against Portugal, he will only be attracting more glancing admirers the closer we get to the summer.

David Prutton drops Hayden Hackney transfer claim amid Tottenham and Aston Villa interest

One man who knows all about playing in the Premier League as a midfielder is Sky Sports' EFL presenter David Prutton, who featured 62 times for Southampton in the top flight of English football.

And when quizzed on the latest transfer links to Hackney, Prutton hinted that the Middlesbrough supremo may prefer a move to a progressive club like Villa whilst Spurs are currently stuck in the rut that they are.

"Hayden Hackney - very much part of the furniture from such a young age, he's got a decent amount of games under his belt, he's developed under Michael Carrick in a team that's flirted with the play-offs, as we've seen over the course of Carrick's tenure," Prutton said whilst exclusively speaking to Football League World.

"Whether he joins Villa or Spurs...Villa are very much on the up with that Champions League ride that they're on, and I'm sure they'd be a huge draw for a player such as Hayden.

"Spurs traditionally would be looking to be one of the those teams in the Champions League places at the end of the season, but having seen the tough times that they've had to go through this season, maybe that would come into his thinking.

"From the point of view of what the player is able to do in the middle of midfield with the football, I think he slots into either side if he's given the chance - the big question of course is whether he can take very competent Championship ability, and make it Premier League-worthy, and the only way you're going to find that out is by giving it a test.

"The price would have to be right, the club would have to be right, the nurturing environment would have to be right and there would have to be patience and a very pragmatic way of dropping a player into those teams at certain stages of the season to help his development.