Villa face fight to land £8m keeper

Aug 7 2007 By Bill Howell, Birmingham Mail

VILLA boss Martin O'Neill remains in the frame to capture Craig Gordon, although Sunderland today emerged as favourites to sign the Scotland international goalkeeper.

Sunderland and Villa have agreed a fee of around £8million to £9million with Hearts for the Edinburgh club's 24-year-old captain, which will trump the £7.8million Manchester United paid Monaco for Fabien Barthez in 2000, the then costliest goalkeeper in British football.

Having withdrawn from the Hearts squad for last night's defeat to Hibernian, Gordon spent yesterday afternoon on Wearside, where he is understood to have had a medical.

Manchester City have also shown late interest in Gordon, but O'Neill is due to hold talks with the player tomorrow - although it appears he is now playing catch-up to Sunderland boss Roy Keane.

The biggest fall-guy if O'Neill can reach a deal will be Thomas Sorensen who is unlikely to want to remain as a No.2 for long.

Scotland manager Alex McLeish added his thoughts today by insisting Villa were bidding for the best keeper in Britain.

"I wouldn't swap Craig for any of the goalkeepers in the England squad," he said. "He's a cool customer with a great temperament. He's handled some tricky situations during his Hearts career, which is a sign of maturity.

"I don't think the size of the fee is something he has to worry about. In my opinion, goalkeepers have been undervalued for years.

"He is moving at exactly the right time. He's already a proven international and he'll benefit greatly from appearing regularly in the Premiership because no-one is going to pay £9million for him and then not play him."

Villa's current No.1 Stuart Taylor, in for the last three-and-a-half games because of a hamstring injury to Sorensen, was today still insistent he will take matters in his stride.

"I'll take the games as they come now. The manager makes the decisions. There's nothing I can do about that.

"What I can do is carry on working hard and playing as well as I can. Then that gives the manager a decision to make."

He continued: "Of course it's good to have a run of games, because I've spent most of my time here sitting on the bench doing nothing.

"It's nice to actually play a few games, regardless of whether they're friendlies or not. These games may not be competitive, but they're still good games to be involved in.

"We've looked sharp for spells in all the games and against Inter we looked sharp throughout the whole game. Hopefully we can carry that into Liverpool.

"It would be nice to be involved against Liverpool. But it's not in my hands."