Aston Villa Fan View: Does Steve Bruce need to make a deadline day signing?

The transfer window is coming to a close, and in general across the top two leagues, its been fairly quiet.

At Villa’s end, it was always going to be a quiet month, with Bruce stating that FFP will constrain Villa to only a few, selected deals. In truth, Villa really shouldn’t need to do much business as the window shuts, the squad is strong and more than capable than reaching second.

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Axel Tuanzebe has come in on loan, and is very highly regarded at Manchester United, and its unlikely that Jose Mourihno has let him come to Villa for him to sit on the bench.

The move will see him likely slot into central midfield at the expense of the improving Birkir Bjarnason, Glenn Whelan and Mile Jedinak, who is finding it hard to stay fit. Tuanzebe also play centre back, but I don’t see him breaking the Chester and Terry partnership.

Villa have moved several players out on loan. It hasn’t been completely surprising to see Ritchie De Laet and Aaron Tshibola move on to Antwerp and Kilmarnock respectively.

De Laet has been really unlucky with injuries, and returning to his home country will do his confidence the world of good. As for Tshibola, there is a good player in there, and I hope his old manager, Steve Clarke can get the best out of him.

We have also seen Tommy Elphick move to Reading on loan for the rest of the season. I think he’s been particularly unlucky, as when called upon, he’s played really well this season but with Axel coming in as third choice centre back, I assume Elphick wanted first team football.

With Leandro Ulloa moving to Brighton, it looks like Villa will be heading into the rest of the season without another striker.

Fit and available, Villa do have Scott Hogan, Gabby Agbonlahor, Keinan Davis, Rushian Hepburn Murphy, and let’s not forget Ross McCormack has just come back from Melbourne, so that is surely more than enough options up front?

I don’t think Villa should dip into the transfer market at this point, it would be nothing more than a panic buy. I get the impression anyway that it was ‘Ulloa or bust’ for Bruce, so I don’t expect any movement from Villa as deadline day looms!