Bacuna pushing for Benteke stay

A move away from Aston Villa is on the cards for Christian Benteke but team-mate Leandro Bacuna is hopeful the Belgian striker will stay put.

Benteke has been linked with a move to Premier League rivals Liverpool following his stunning end to the season, which saw him score 12 goals in as many matches.

Those goals proved priceless as Villa preserved their top-flight status, while the Birmingham club earned a FA Cup final showdown with Arsenal at Wembley on Saturday.

But Bacuna has warned Benteke that the grass is not always greener on the other side, with the Belgium international enjoying iconic status at Villa Park.

“We had a small conversation and I said, ‘Imagine you want to leave for a big club’. At Villa he’s the big man,” he said.

“Maybe if he goes somewhere else you are not going to turn into a big man. So it’s going to be his opinion. Yes [I am trying to persuade him to stay].

“When he was injured [with a ruptured Achilles last year] he went to Belgium. I kept a connection with him, to speak to him, I was worried about how this operation was going so we talked.

“And when he came back he had a tough time, like with small pains, but when he got going he started to score goals.

“Fabian Delph helped him as well, saying ‘keep moving, keep going’, anything to give him confidence and as you can see when he got confidence he was scoring again.

“Together you can have a positive thing, you can go to the next one, you can do anything you want.”