3 Players Who Could Add Quality To Aston Villa’s Ranks
Aston Villa finally appear to be getting their act together at Championship level and have a real chance of getting back to the Premier League, engaged as they are in an all-Midlands battle with Derby County for second place right now.
We can’t rely on promotion however, when thinking about who they could sign, so in their current guise as a second-tier team, here are three quality potential additions:
John McGinn (Hibernian)
The former St. Mirren man has had a very good season in the Scottish Premiership and given the financial state of clubs north of the border, it’s thought that Villa could get their man for as little as £2million.
McGinn has been on quite a journey since breaking into the St. Mirren side as recently as 2012 and signed for Hibs in 2015 for just £405,000. McGinn is now a regular member of Scotland’s full national side and if he is to improve his game any further, he needs to get out of Easter Road at this point in his career.
Adam Clayton (Middlesbrough)
Tony Pulis wasted no time in pretty much declaring former midfield partnership Adam Clayton and Adam Forshaw surplus to requirements at the Riverside Stadium and with Forshaw now a Leeds United player, Clayton could be out the door as well.
Forshaw brought in £4.5million but its thought that Clayton would cost lesser, making him quite a bargain considering his passing ability.
Villa could do with a calming influence in their midfield to offset the exuberance of the likes of Hourihane and just ensure that they see games out after going ahead, something which could yet get them over the line in terms of seeking automatic promotion back to the Premier League.
Angus Gunn (Manchester City)
In a very similar position to current loanee Sam Johnstone; Gunn is at Manchester City but doesn’t have strong prospects of seeing first-team football at the Etihad in the very near future.
To be fair, City do think plenty of him having paid £270,000 for him when he was just 15 years old and he now finds himself back at hometown team of Norwich City on loan for the rest of this season. A move for him would be fairly ambitious but could end up paying off if the deal offered to the player himself is good enough and assuming they can’t tempt Sam Johnstone to stay.