£10 million to spend but where should we spend it?

It has been reported that Randy Lerner flew into Birmingham this week to discuss transfer budgets with Paul Lambert. £10 million is the figure that has been doing the rounds in the media and, if this is the case, it could go a long way to strengthening what is a very lightweight squad. With Helenius, Luna, Bowery, Sylla and now Carruthers all departing, it is time to bring in some new players who can offer us some quality.

Firstly, I think a central midfielder is a must, particularly now that Carruthers has joined MK Dons. We only really have four centre midfielders capable of challenging for a place in the starting XI and they are Delph, Westwood, El Ahmadi and Gardner. If either Delph or Westwood miss a game through injury, it is evident that we would be very lightweight in midfield, particularly when Delph is missing as he is our only real source of creativity through the middle.

A player who has been linked to Aston Villa in the past month is Ki of Swansea. Many Villa fans think this deal will not happen but if we haven’t had the funds available until now how could it? Ki has yet to sign a new deal with the Swans and with only one year remaining on his contract there is no reason why we shouldn’t put in a bid to test the Welsh side. If a deal is to be done, I can’t see it being for any more than £5 million, which would be a steal for us as he is exactly what we are crying out for in midfield. Although it would be half of our budget, I would be very happy to see this transfer go through, as I am sure many other Villa fans would.

Another area I feel we need to strengthen is out on the wings. Although we seem to have a lot of wingers, most of the players who actually play on the flanks are natural strikers. Agbonlahor and Weimann have both been transformed into wingers and in my opinion it just doesn’t work. If we could bring someone in who naturally plays out wide it would work wonders, helping to provide more supply to our targetmen up front. A player who the Villans have been linked with in the past is Scott Sinclair. I feel he would be available for a cheap price as he has not played much football recently but getting his fitness level up at such a late stage of pre-season and meeting his wage demands could be problematic.

Victor Moses is another player who has been linked with a move to Villa Park. I would welcome this move as I feel Moses is a player who is underrated and someone who had some good games for Chelsea during his spell with the London club. I can’t see Moses costing us more than £6-7 million but will Paul Lambert be prepared to spend such a big chunk of his reported budget on one man?

Now that it has been reported that the funds are there to spend, let’s hope we see Lambert starting to spend them wisely.