Following their promotion to the Premier League, Aston Villa have already added two new faces to their squad and they will be looking to continue to add more legs as the summer progresses.
Lee Hendrie has made it clear that Jed Steer would be ‘unfortunate’ to lose his place in the Aston Villa starting XI if the club push on with a move for Jack Butland.
Sky Sports have reported that Villa are keen on Stoke City’s goalkeeper, who is valued £20 million by the club who severely underachieved in the Championship last term.
The manner in which Dean Smith guided Villa back to the Premier League was pretty impressive, with Steer playing his part and being a hero during their penalty shoot-out win against West Brom in the play-off semi-final.
Speaking to Sky Sports News (13/06/2019 at 10:35 am), former Holte End favourite Hendrie understood that Villa need to bulk up in certain areas of the pitch, but he felt that it would be harsh on Steer if he were to miss out.
“The goalkeeping area keeps cropping up,” Hendrie told Sky Sports. “Jed Steer ended up having a fantastic back end of the season. He would be unfortunate if he doesn’t keep his place. There are lots of areas Villa need to bulk up on.
“The midfield area for me is quite strong. If they just add a couple more in there – I looked at Villa’s back four and that really is my big question mark. I think that backline just needs securing up.”
On paper, Butland is the more experienced and more proven keeper than Villa’s current number one. But given what Steer did towards the back end of the campaign, it would be harsh to drop him to the bench.
However, Dean Smith is in the job to make the difficult calls and if he were to bring in Butland then he would be signing a keeper that is England’s number two behind Jordan Pickford.
Last season, Villa used an astonishing five keepers in between the sticks with the now-injured Orjan Nyland and Steer playing the majority of the games.
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