2005/06: What does it have to offer David O'Leary's men

Taylor brings good competition for Sorenson; Hughes gives us a true right-back for cover, as well as for central defence; Berger is a straight, and probably better, replacement for Hitzlsberger and is also cover for Barry; and Philips' pedigree speaks for itself.

Stuart Taylor has showed a lot of promise as a goalkeeper, without ever getting the opportunity to showcase his talent. Bob Wilson, who knows a little bit about goalkeeping, rates Taylor massively and was pleased he'd made the move up the M40 (or M1, M6 if you want to get technical).

Aaron Hughes was hardly an exciting signing and, in the only game I've seen him paly, against Wycombe Wanderers, he was average. However, apparantly he has put in some good, solid performances and keeping Delaney on his toes is always going to be beneficial.

Patrik Berger's technical ability is awesome and within minutes of making his debut for the club he managed to show how not-so-clever some of our other squad members are. He's got a lot of drive and attacking flair, and also has the added bonus of being able to score Hitzlsberger-type screamers.

Philips is a good professional and one that will bring much to the club over his years. I think young Agbonlahor and Moore will definitely benefit from his knowledge and experience of the beautiful game. I also think Kev will want to prove himself, having joined the biggest club of his career- and I doubt he'll play for a bigger club than Villa in the remainder of his professional days.

So far, so good. The hard part is who else comes in to join the squad and fill the holes that have been left by the departure of Vassell, Hitz and Moore. And, who will provide cover for the areas lacking in backup.

It's a shame to have had to lose players this summer, particularly Vassell, but players move on and I believe good business has been done.

Vassell is a quality player, but has suffered loss of form and needs to 'freshen' up his career. I don't think it's the club, I just think it's a matter of life. Vassell had become set in his ways and gone a bit 'stale', as O'Leary had put it. I wish him the greatest of luck and hope he gets back into the England setup asap.

On the other hand, Hitzlsberger was continuing to develop at Aston Villa and his decision, motivated by greed and a lack of loyalty, summed him up as exactly the sort of player I don't want at my football club.

We know that Jurgen Klinsmann had always said that playing in England would not affect his chance of playing for Germany and had Hitz put in some better performances he would of been guaranteed a first team place.

Stefan Moore was a promising striker and when I saw him score on his debut against Charlton I really thought we had a quality striker on our hands, but he never rose to that day again.

I thought Dalian Atkinson, but better, but it just never happened. I also wish him luck in his career and I'm hoping he'll give a team like QPR some real service.

Last season was good for three reasons. They are called Steven Davis, Luke Moore and Gary Cahill. One of the best things about Aston Villa Football Club is the succesful youth structure we have in place. Darius Vassell, Gareth Barry, J'Lloyd Samuel are to name but three from the current first team. How many players in the lower divisions once plyed their trade at Villa Park?

Steven Davis' emergence was like giving birth to Jesus. A player who just wanted to get the ball and run towards goal like it's about disappear forever. Frank Lampard anyone? His tenacity, drive, passing and running are some of the finer skills he possesses. While he's hardly a rough diamond, in three or four seasons we will have one of the best midfielders to ever play for Northern Ireland. I doubt he'll reach the benchmark of them all, George Best, but I'd be surprised if he didn't try.

Luke Moore hasn't excited me as much as I thought he would, but he's still young and being a Premiership striker is a difficult business. It was a massive relief to see him score against Middlesbrough, in the same game that Davis and Laursen both scored their first goals for the club.

Many voices from VP have said he'll be the next 20 goals-a-season striker we have.

I think he's got some way to go and he's got a lot of growing to do, but you can see his potential is massive. I hope this is the season he gets to grips with the Premier League.

Gary Cahill was an unknown to most Villa fans this time last year, including myself - and I follow the reserves and youth teams (if only loosely - the Villa webshite doesn't give too much coverage or info on this area of the club).

He was loaned out to Burnley, only to prove himself as possibly the best centre-back in the Championship and take away no fewer than 11 awards at the club's annual awards dinner.

I think Burnley were gutted not to have him back this season, as his first 12 games yielded 10 clean sheets. And after seeing him against Wycombe I see why. He's got John Terry written all over him. Good vision, good tackling, quick, strong and clever.

Against Wycombe he was playing half-centre-back half-sweeper. It's been a long time since I've seen anybody do that at Villa. Laursen comes close, but he's 28 and Gary's only 19. I'm hoping he'll get a few run outs this season. He could, potentially, end up saving us ?7m for a decent centre-back and possible be worth double that.

Now, who is going to be joining Villa? I think it's pretty clear that Baros is a target and Villa seem to have tested Liverpool's resolve enough to start making proper bids for the player. After all, they don't need to be selling players to raise funds.

After the Distin deal appears to have ground to a halt, O'Leary must be looking at alternative players. To be honest, I'm not actually aware of any centeral defenders that are actually available. Midfielder and strikers have been hard to come by, but how many defenders have been transferred this summer?

We all know that J'Lloyd's got it too easy at left-back, as Foley is too young and Barry has returned to form on the left of midfield. But who is available for cover? Again, the theme of this summer has been unavailability of players.

We could go down the Bolton route and bring in a lot of un-tested foreigners, particularly Africans, but O'Leary isn't one for buying a player he doesn't already know will do the business. His two foray's into the overseas market has seen Mathieu Berson arrive unemphatically, despite some very good performances, and Martin Laursen, who, while being a quality centre back, must like the treatment table as much as Seth Johnson.

And I believe in what O'Leary believes: You cannot afford to take risks when you don't have a huge transfer budget to offset a poor signing with a good one. With a four month gap between transfer windows, it seems silly to buy somebody who doesn't know the score and is just going to waste time in the reserves.

I still believe Berson will come good, but he was always going to struggle. Any of you that have relatives, or indeed live, in France will know that the difference in culture is a massive gulf. And so is the style of football. I think O'Leary has learned from Berson and will apply to Djemba-Djemba (he'll be so good by the end of the season that we'll be calling him Djemba-Djemba-Djemba, but that's a different story). But at least Djemba-Djemba has played Premiership football for a season.

Whatever happens in the final three weeks of the transfer window, I think we're in better shape than last season and the squad can only get better from here.

This is the second post by Luke. Have any comments? Send them in.