A tricky juggling act for O'Neill

So pre-season's gone ok - and now the speculation will mount as to how Martin O'Neill intends to strengthen the Villa squad. There's money in the pot - and the new gaffer has committed to spend it: but it's not only a case of "spend to win" - Villa isn't a Blackburn or a Chelsea case.

I suspect that morale within the Villa camp is still fragile: the players will be delighted about the O'Neill appointment but still wary of the new boss. Some will see a new dawn, others will fear the coming of stiffened competition and higher standards both on the training ground and the pitch.

Spending money is easy: O'Leary taught us that. If O'Neill is the great motivator he is supposed to be - and I for one am prepared to believe it given his record - then wouldn't it be better to see him draw out the true potential of the earlier signings like Berson; Djemba-Djemba and Laursen than to commit Villa's millions to knee-jerk signings of Premiership want-aways and overseas exiles? That can come later, but I would like to see Barry, Davis and McCann playing at their full, committed potential with the "forgotten" squad members from the O'Leary reign stepping back up to the mark.

O'Neill will need to juggle squad strengthening with ensuring that the younger players continue to get first team premiership exposure. Strengthening the squad is great - but if it confines Ridgewell; Cahill; Whittingham; Gardner; Moore and Agbonlahor to endless reserve team football that would be detrimental. I am sure loan moves to competitive clubs will be on his mind for some of these if he adds talent to the squad.

It's a true juggling act: all Villans would welcome the signing of Malbranque, Petrov or even Hargreaves - but the overwhelming priority must be to strengthen morale, conviction and belief in the Claret-and-Blue dressing room. And just for the moment, I think that might mean turning around and drawing the best out of the current playing talent, rather than simply taking the easy option and hiring new staff.

The best signings we could see in the short term would be those of Barry and Davis on renewed contracts - even McCann, given his (surprisingly) outstanding form pre-season.