Liverpool have agreed a fee with Aston Villa for around £18M to sign Stewart Downing from Aston Villa.
The player handed in a transfer request earlier tonight which helped enable the deal to move along.
Stewart Downing will travel to Liverpool and undertake a medical on Thursday along with further discussions on personal terms.
Villa’s Chief Executive said:
“I can confirm that we have reached an agreement with Liverpool following an improved offer received earlier today and the submission of a formal transfer request by Stewart Downing, and have given them permission to speak with the player.
“We believe there are replacements available in the market who can strengthen our squad ahead of the coming season, and we are in discussions as such. We are also working hard to conclude a deal for a goalkeeper who we believe can also strengthen the side.”
The winger who will turn 27 later this month has been linked with Liverpool in the past. He spent his formative years at Middlesbrough before moving to Aston Villa in a £12M deal in 2009.
He has 27 England caps.
Good news. We need a wide player and left sided players are always a commodity as they are in such short supply. This gives us options now as we can use Downing in a 4-2-2 as a wide midfielder, we may also go 4-3-3 and use Downing one side of Carrol with Suarez the other. Steve Clarke has worked with such a formation previously (Chelsea and West Ham).
Those that aren’t quite sure about Downing, well let me just impart a bit of wisdom, if not nostalgia into the argument. Those of you that are old enough to remember may recall that one John Barnes was considered an inconsistent ‘luxury’ at Watford with questions raised about his ability to do the business consistently. I’m not suggesting Downing is anywhere near as good as Digger, but to be honest neither was Stewart Ripley and he did a stellar job for Kenny supplying formidable service to both Shearer and Sutton.
Finally, I think we should all remember that we nearly won the league a couple of years ago with a side that didn’t have half of this balance or half of the attacking options that we now have. Remember it’s about creating a collective unit that exceeds the sum of it’s parts. For all of their ‘Galacticos’ in the early part of the 2000’s Real Madrid never dominated in the manner we may have expected, or even became accustomed to ourselves in the late 70’s / early 80’s. They don’t all have to be worldbeaters, just lads that have some quality and more importantly are prepared to play for the shirt.
good signing… lfc need a winger badly, downing is the type of player that can transform lfc into contender… cant wait 4 the season 2 start… lfc need a good start as we cant afford to play catch up