Aston Villa to help pay Joleon Lescott’s Rangers wages

Rangers will be able to afford Joleon Lescott due to Aston Villa paying part of his wages during his first year at Ibrox, according to Villa chairman Dr. Tony Xia.

The businessman confirmed on Twitter that Villa would release the defender for free and pay a portion of his wages during his first year at Rangers as the club looked to get him off the books at any cost.

Now, there are two ways of looking at this. The first is that we’ve got ourselves a wee bargain and have someone else paying a decent chunk of our new defender’s wages for a year.

The other way is that this is a player Villa are literally paying us to take. The move appears to have been popular with Villa fans too, with many glad to see the back of the hated centre-back.

We’ll be chatting to SB Nation’s Villa blog in time to find out exactly why that was. In the meantime, Lescott is expected up in Glasgow for a medical tomorrow.