Aston Villa have confirmed tonight that they have agreed a £7.8 million fee for Rangers defender Carlos Cuéllar. That figure is believed to have triggered a release clause in his contract and the Spanish centre-back is due at Villa Park for talks on Monday.

Cuéllar enjoyed a superb season for Rangers, making 36 appearances and scoring 4 goals. He picked up the Clydesdale Bank SPL Player of the Year award and was named the Scottish Football Writers Associations Player of the Year.

But this is a surprising move by Villa. Having signed both Young and Shorey to fill in the full-back postions, the signing of Cuéllar considerably boosts Villa in central defence and he is surely not being brought in to warm the bench.

With Laursen surely an untouchable after an hugely impressive season last time out, we can deduce that O’Neill doesn’t fancy Davies and Knight alongside him. Unless of course he is considering a 3-5-2 with wingbacks. That’s a tactic he’s employed at both Leicester and Celtic and it could certainly be on the cards.

It would be a strange one considering we haven’t seen any suggestion of a change in formation during the summer but then O’Neill’s resources have been stretched. If that is the case both Young and Shorey would seemingly be pushed forward as wing-backs which would further increase their appeal as fantasy signing.