O’Neill Has Faith In Maloney

Martin O’Neill has spoken about his last gasp signing of Scottish international Shaun Maloney.

The Villa boss said: ‘We were very encouraged with the way it progressed and we knew Shaun wanted to come and sign. We agreed everything with Celtic, which was obviously pleasing and then it was simply a race against time. He is a very decent player, not only in my time at Celtic, but he has done excellently in the last couple of seasons.’

Adding: ‘He was out of contract in the summer and we left it late before we even went in for him because I thought he would sign a new contract at Celtic. But we had a chance, he wanted to take it and we wanted to do it. Shaun actually came on as a very young substitute in the Uefa Cup Final in 2003 and that shows how highly I think of him. When Henrik Larsson had a face injury, with a depressed fracture of his cheekbone,and was out for four or five weeks Maloney came in and played alongside Chris Sutton at centre forward.’

‘He scored in the Uefa Cup run. He’s an excellent player and I think he is as conscientious as they come.’

Great to see more youth signing up, makes a welcome change from what we’ve done in recent years panic buying players who were two years past their prime!