Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill believes he has assembled a stronger squad than last season, claiming he "couldn't be more pleased" with his summer signings.
Villa spent £40 million before the transfer window closed on Tuesday in capturing Stewart Downing (£12million), Stephen Warnock (£8m), Fabian Delph (£6m), Richard Dunne (£6m), James Collins (£5m) and Habib Beye (£3m). And, even though O'Neill lost the services of key players in skipper Martin Laursen and midfielder Gareth Barry, he is confident Villa are equipped for the challenges ahead.
O'Neill said: "Am I happy with my overall business? I couldn't be more pleased. I think we have strengthened the side. It's been very pleasing indeed."
The manager added: "I have got that extra defensive strength I was looking for plus Fabian Delph will be a really fine player for us - and Stewart Downing already is a fine player.
"When he is fit, he will add plenty to our squad. I think that Richard Dunne and James Collins will help us immensely. We looked a bit thin at the back.
"We used the fewest players in the league last year. That is something that we really wanted to address to try to keep players fresh.
"We've lost two really fine players in Gareth Barry and Martin Laursen. They will be hard to replace but in time we will get stronger."
O'Neill has also told left-back Nicky Shorey he has a future at the club after the collapse of his move to Portsmouth.
The former Reading player was concerned he would be frozen out at Villa after the arrival of Warnock and with Wilfred Bouma close to fitness after his lengthy injury lay-off.
O'Neill said: "Does Shorey have a part to play? Of course. I think Nicky and his agent pre-empted things a little bit by thinking he was not going to play. I had certainly not been pushing him out but something came up and they wanted to explore that. I gave them that opportunity but it didn't come off."
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Utter RUBBISH where is Martin Laursen dont tell me and the Villa fans its Richard Dunne FFS
where is Gareth Barry and you need not point at 18 yr old Fabian Delph
what happened against Rapid Vienna?? Villa were a bl@@dy embarrassment and you cant keep blaming the players after all who bought the majority of them?
Rubbish! Where is Barry, where is Laursen, who will play CB and where has Reo-Coker gone?
Thats what great about Football, 20 Premiership Clubs x average crowd turnout? 30,000 = 600,000 fans each week knowing better than everyone else thats important on the pitch, sell the Donkey, sack MON!!! Funny!!!
Well I was at the games against Rapid Vienna...what happened there?..Villa were an emabarassment to our nations game. Rapid couldnt normally play against sides in our Championship but went on to win on aggregate. Top 6 finish in the best league in the world?
Now its time to keep the young lads busy and put the old geezer ( our donkey) out of his mesary, like a horse that starts to limp its the only humain thing to do..
now get rid of shorey, sidwell and heskey, replace them and u got half decent chance of top 6 finish,
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