Amr Zaki, who was on loan at Wigan last season, claims Aston Villa failed with a £11million bid to sign him in the winter transfer window. Zaki is alleging Villa made an approach only to fail after Wigan refused to allow the striker to break his loan agreement.

"Aston Villa offered £11 million to sign me in the first half of the season," Zaki said in the Birmingham Mail.

"However, Wigan refused to get compensation as they had hopes to sign me and let me join another club later in order to make money.

"They did the same with Palacios, buying him for £1million and selling him to Spurs for £14million. It was impossible for them to spend more than £6-7million on me.

"Wigan is not one of the top four. All they want is to buy players for cheap and then make money by selling them to other clubs later. They would never pay ridiculous amounts of cash on me."

Zaki confirmed he wishes to remain in England, adding: "I wish to stay in the Premier League."

Meanwhile, his agent, Nader Shawqi, has claimed a newly-promoted Premier League side have demonstrated an interest in Zaki.

Shawqi said: "About the future, I can't name any clubs for the time being but I can confirm that two French clubs offered to sign Zaki.

"We have an offer from one of the promoted clubs in the Premier League too."