Blast from the past: Former Villa defender becomes current Villa defender

Once a Villan, always a Villan?

Daily Mail reports that 35-year-old James Collins has accepted to 5-week contract with Aston Villa.

Reports surfaced on Thursday that the club had made a decision about the Welsh defender who had been training with the Aston Villa on a trial basis. It looks like the veteran will sign on the dotted line and help the club get through the hectic holiday schedule.

Collins joined Aston Villa from West Ham in 2009 and made 108 appearances with the club — 91 of them in the Premier League. He then re-joined West Ham in 2012 — and was released by them over the summer because his contract was up. Steve Bruce brought in Collins (because James doesn’t really like to change colors) to train and considered signing him — and now it looks like Dean Smith is pulling the trigger.

He slots in as the third choice CB and the five-week contract makes sense because Dean will be allowed to make his first moves as manager in January. Presumably — Elphick’s loan has a recall clause — if true that has to be under consideration for a January 1 decision. The loan was dumb.

The need for Collins was created by Aston Villa by selling/loaning all the center backs in the summer. The combination of Chester and Tuanzebe has been up-and-down. But the real problem is the black hole behind the two starters — especially with Chester clearly not fully recovered from an injury.

Aston Villa play six (SIX!) matches in December (plus another on January 1). And currently, Villa have only have two center backs in the squad. Jedinak (who is supposed to be back in training next week) doesn’t count — but is a really good defensive midfielder which is something Villa could use.

And yes — Chester and Collins know each other — which can only help.

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