Hurrah! Signing number 2 confirmed. Steven Davis (that's him above scoring against Man City) is 22 and generally a central midfielder. He came through the youth team at Aston Villa but despite his age has already made 102 appearances and scored 9 goals. He's also played 16 times for Northern Ireland, scoring once, and recently became his countries youngest captain standing in for our other new boy Aaron Hughes.
I think this is a great signing, he didn't get to feature as much last season as Martin O'Neil began to restructure his side, but in the 2005/2006 season he was voted Aston Villa Player Of The Season, Aston Villa Young Player Of The Season and Aston Villa Fans Player Of The Season. He's got good experience at this level and is still so young. I believe he has played in a wider role for Villa but I'm pretty certain Sanchez will want to use him down the middle. With Brown, Diop, Smertin, Bullard (soon) and potentially Dempsey (not to mention Simon Elliott!?) all vying for a central role I think it's likely we'll see someone shipped out too. Wigan have reportedly bid £2.5Million for Brown and maybe, as important he was for us at times last season, that might be worth considering. However, it's still not very clear where Alexey Smertin stands. He's not been seen since Coleman departed and there have been rumours that he doesn't get on with assistant manager Les Reed. Whatever the truth is I think at least one of those will now move on.
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