Michael Bradley Will NOT Be Moving To Aston Villa Permanently

Well, that would appear to be it for the Michael Bradley era at Aston Villa. I personally am disappointed and some agree with me. A lot of Aston Villa fans aren't all that disappointed, and I don't really have any reason to fault them. We never saw much of Bradley at Villa, most of what we did see was bad and many very smart people differ in their appraisals of him as a player. In any case, he was likely to be something of a project next season and Alex McLeish's reluctance to take on said project is somewhat understandable. He would have been behind Makoun and Petrov in the holding midfield pecking order in any case, and if the reports of McLeish having a fairly limited budget are true his transfer fee might have scared the club off.

Still, looking at Villa's current midfield depth chart is a bit worrying. As far as central players with Premier League experience, there's Petrov, Makoun, Bannan and (*shudder*) Stephen Ireland. Ciaran Clark might count, if you're feeling generous. Gary Gardner is by all accounts knocking on the door of the first team, but depending on a 19-year-old with zero senior appearances to give any sort of meaningful contribution is a fairly risky proposition. One would have to believe that the club will be adding another midfielder and that McLeish is looking for more of a sure thing than Bradley. If not though, things could get very scary. Again.