Aston Villa are reportedly hoping to take former Dundee defender Steven Caulker on trial as Steve Bruce’s Championship side look for a centre-back.
Aston Villa have been scouring the market for a centre-back they can sign outside of the transfer window.
But with James Collins training with Ipswich Town and John Terry’s £65,000 weekly wage demands proving too high for Villa’s owners, according to the Daily Star, Steve Bruce has been forced to look elsewhere.
And West London Sport now claims that Aston Villa are hoping to bring in Steven Caulker on trial. The former England international is without a club after leaving Dundee at the beginning of September and Caulker certainly ticks a lot of boxes.
He is a commanding and experienced centre-back who could offer leadership on and off the pitch at Villa and he has plenty of Championship knowledge too from his time at QPR.
But Caulker will have a lot to prove should he be handed a contract at Villa Park. He has failed to kick on in the six years since winning his one and only England cap and struggled to live up to the hype that surrounded him as a youngster at Tottenham.
The fact that he has spent the last few months at Dundee shows how far Caulker has fallen. Nevertheless, he still has age on his side and the talent to get his career back on track. His performances north of the border in Scotland suggests that Caulker is starting to recapture the kind of potential that once made him one of England’s biggest defensive talents.
Caulker would be a risk. But, if he can prove the doubters wrong, he would be a much more sensible solution than Terry, who turns 38 in December and would command a massive weekly wage.
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