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Bayern Munich director of football Max Eberl is putting ‘immense pressure’ on João Palhinha to leave the club amid interest from Aston Villa. SportBILD weekly magazine explains the Bayern chief is diverting pressure from himself to the 31-year-old in an attempt to secure the exits he wants. Maximum pressure While there is a general consensus that Eberl is doing a good job at Bayern, questions are still being asked. In particular, he needs to refute the criticism levelled at him that he is ‘selling too few players and at prices that are too low’. He now wants to rectify that with three players who Bayern want to move on. João Palhinha is one of those. He returned to the club this summer from a loan at Tottenham. Both parties had hoped Spurs would make that deal permanent, but they baulked at Bayern’s asking price. They ultimately spent their money elsewhere. Now Eberl is facing ‘huge pressure’ from Bayern’s supervisory board to move the Portuguese midfielder, and others, on. So, he’s adopted a stance of speaking bluntly about them in the press. The strategy is to pass the pressure on to the players themselves. Indeed, he is ‘exerting immense pressure’ on those players. Aston Villa transfer talks For now, João Palhinha does not appear to be budging. That is perhaps why reports about a move to Aston Villa have picked up pace again. Sport Witness covered comments from Damia Vidagany admitting that talks had been held over the weekend. The two clubs seemingly took advantage of their meeting in pre-season to discuss the midfielder once again. That was, based on this evidence, surely something Eberl was keen on happening. The Villans are at the front of the queue at this moment in time. Separate reports have insisted that Unai Emery is pushing for the transfer to happen this summer. With Eberl under pressure, the opportunity there is to get the deal they want.