Aston Villa agree fee with West Ham for James Collins

Aston Villa have agreed a fee with West Ham for central defender James Collins. Now, we'll not know the fee but seeing as he has been at West Ham since 2005 and played just over 50 games, expect it to be around the £5mn mark.

I'm only joking, Collins is a decent central defender but this does raise some doubts with me over the potential signing of Richard Dunne as I can't accept that Martin O'Neill would be bringing two more central defenders in, although, it wouldn't surprise me.

It could very well be that O'Neill brings in two central defenders and well, if he does, it isn't a bad decision, but we have Lowry and Clark already at the club, Beye can play at centre back and while Bouma might never have played at centre back for us, he has done for Holland and if the rumours of Shorey joining Pompey on loan for a season are true, you've got to fancy that Bouma will soon be back too.

But, the fee is agreed. It doesn't mean the deal is going to happen, although you have to fancy it will, as you sort of have to fancy that Dunne will also as the club don't normally publish news like that unless they expect the deal to go through.

Hopefully there will be more also today, but if it does turn out to be just Dunne and Collins, then it is still better than nothing.

Welsh international James Collins has signed and we now have a page dedicated to links about Aston Villa here.