GARY Bowyer had mixed emotions after Rudy Gestede, who scored 34 goals in 65 appearances for Blackburn Rovers after his £200,000 switch from Cardiff City 18 months, completed his £6m move to Aston Villa.

Bowyer, speaking for the first time about the loss of the striker, said: “We never wanted to lose any of our players this summer, we always wanted to try and build on the quality that we have here.

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“But the bid came in, it was accepted by the owners, and, from a business point of view, I think the mark-up was something like 3,000 per cent.

“We’ll probably have Dragons’ Den interested in us soon because I think it was something like a 600 per cent mark-up on Tom Cairney too!

“So, from a business perspective, the club has obviously invested the money better, but from a footballing perspective, we’ve lost an unbelievable striker.

“I think Aston Villa have got a fantastic footballer and a really terrific person. He’ll be sadly missed but we wish him all the best – to play in the Premiership should be every player’s dream and ambition.

“I’m not being disrespectful to him but when we brought him in, people were probably saying, ‘Rudy who?’

“But he’s worked tremendously hard with all the coaching staff and everybody here and we can take a great deal of satisfaction from the development that’s he made.”