Aston Villa boss Tim Sherwood has compared his side's sale of Christian Benteke to the loss of Luis Suarez and Gareth Bale.

The Villans were forced to sell the Belgium international to Liverpool when they received a bid of £32m for his services, which activated the release clause in his contract. The 46-year-old also lost skipper Fabian Delph and Tom Cleverley from his squad over the summer.

However, Sherwood feels that the loss of Benteke was akin to when the Reds sold Suarez to Barcelona and Bale moved from Tottenham Hotspur to Real Madrid.

He told reporters: "Benteke leaving was absolutely the same as Suarez, or Gareth Bale. If he didn't have a clause in his contract then £100m wouldn't have taken him away from us.

"He wasn't worth selling for any money. No money can guarantee you Premier League survival – that player could. It's all relative but we scraped through relegation last season and were the worst team left in the Premier League. We lost our three best players and that should put it in perspective.

"You do drop, we can't afford to drop. We have to make sure we stay at least where we was, and higher. That's the size of the task ahead. We knew it wasn't going to be easy and I think all the decision-makers at the club appreciated that."

Villa face Chelsea in their Premier League clash on Saturday.