Pepe Reina has made an unexpected return to the Premier League with Aston Villa this month.

After one and a half seasons twiddling his thumbs on the bench at AC Milan, the Spaniard has arrived at Villa Park to help their survival efforts after Tom Heaton's season-ending injury.

It's been almost seven years since we've seen Reina in England's top division, playing his final campaign at Liverpool under Brendan Rodgers before being replaced by Simon Mignolet.

In truth, the Reds have only truly replaced Reina with the recent arrival of Alisson Becker and he will always have a special place in the hearts of Kopites after his eight years at the club.

During that time, the shot-stopper racked up nearly 400 appearances, making match-winning saves in penalty shootouts that secured the 2006 FA Cup and 2012 League Cup.

Reina makes Premier League return

And Reina could complete a fairytale return to Anfield when Villa make the trip on April 11, by which point the Reds may have already secured the Premier League title.

The 37-year-old will hope to make his Villa bow against Brighton & Hove Albion at the weekend, but there's no doubting that a Merseyside excursion will be at the front of his mind.

And naturally, he'll be enjoying himself as a Liverpool fan right now and there are countless reasons for him to have conversational ammo against Manchester United supporters in particular.

Reina and Fred's league assists

Aside from the yawning gap between them in the Premier League table, we've stumbled across a statistic concerning Reina and one of United's most expensive ever signings: Fred.

We've discovered that, astonishingly, Reina has quadruple the amount of Premier League assists as Fred despite being a goalkeeper.

Reina has turned provider for goals against Fulham, United, Villa and Sunderland between 2007 and 2010, while Fred's only assist came in a defeat at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

GIVEMESPORT's Kobe Tong says

Okay, sure, the statistic is only a bit of fun, but it's embarrassing for Fred nonetheless.

We've started to see improvements from the Brazilian during his second season, but just two goal involvements in the Premier League - the said assist being one - simply isn't good enough.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is always going to be just a few games away from hitting this current United side's ceiling as long as Fred and Andreas Pereira are manning their midfield. 

As far as Reina is concerned, though, Villa have signed themselves a top goalkeeper and most importantly of all, one with rich Premier League experience.

And as his impressive four assists with Liverpool indicates, his supreme distribution could be vital if the Villans need to bag themselves a snatch-and-grab goal when the chips are down.

Besides, the stats suggest that's more likely to happen than if Villa signed a Brazilian international for over £50 million... yeh, seriously.