Aston Villa interested in signing Peterborough defender Ronnie Edwards
Aston Villa are in pursuit of impressive young Peterborough defender Ronnie Edwards, according to The Sun.
The newspaper reports that Southampton have also joined the race to sign the 19-year-old centre-back, who’s also been linked with Crystal Palace, Manchester United and Tottenham.
It is understood that Villa are “eyeing a £10million summer swoop” for Edwards as Steven Gerrard looks to bolster his defence before next season starts.
Busy summer
Even though the summer hasn’t started yet and the transfer window hasn’t officially opened, it’s been a busy week at Villa Park.
Signing Edwards is bound to be less straightforward than signing Philippe Coutinho permanently from Barcelona but the young Peterborough man is attracting attention from top clubs for a reason.
He’s had a good season with the Posh even though they were relegated from the Championship.
The Harlow-born defender made 38 appearances in all competitions for Peterborough.
In the league, he averaged 1.8 tackles, 1.4 interceptions and 3.7 clearances per game and completed 88.5 per cent of his passes – the highest figure any Peterborough player managed [WhoScored].
It’s clear that he’s good with the ball at his feet while also willing to get stuck in and do the defensive dirty work too.
Villa like to have ball-playing defenders.
Gerrard has some now and had them at Rangers too with Tyrone Mings and Connor Goldson mainstays of his defence both in Glasgow and Birmingham.
While we doubt that Edwards would be a starter for Villa next season, signing him up would be a clever move as he’s very young and is only going to get better as the years go by.
In other Aston Villa news, the club has received a response to their contact for Tammy Abraham.