Steven Gerrard teases future Aston Villa transfers with 'check my phone bill' comment

Steven Gerrard admits he speaks to Aston Villa sporting director Johan Lange more than he does to his wife Alex as he prepares for a big summer rebuild at Villa Park. Lange, 42, heads up Villa’s recruitment department and looks after transfers and contracts, with the Dane sat alongside Gerrard and CEO Christian Purslow in Marseille last month watching potential summer targets Boubacar Kamara and centre-back teammate Duje Ćaleta-Car.

Lange continues to work in tandem with Gerrard with the head coach having a more hands-on role with transfers than the man he replaced, Dean Smith. Gerrard spoke of his delight at landing Philippe Coutinho for £17.2million last week. He said: “I cannot stress enough how significant a piece of business this is and I am delighted that we have been able to get it done so smoothly and efficiently.”

Lange played a key role in the negotiations with FC Barcelona to get the Coutinho deal rubber-stamped while, in January, also worked quickly to bring in Lucas Digne, Calum Chambers and Robin Olsen on loan having worked with the latter at Copenhagen.

On his six-month relationship with Lange so far, Gerrard told : “Yeah, it’s been brilliant. I've really enjoyed it so far, he's obviously got a lot of support staff around him as well.

“He's a very normal guy, very humble, easy to get on with. Yeah, I must say, the three sporting directors or technical directors - whatever you call them nowadays - I've enjoyed all of my relationships with the three I've worked with so far.

“I don't know whether I've been lucky so far but, you know, Mark Allen (Rangers), Ross Wilson (Rangers) and Johan, I've had zero problems. They've all been open to discussions. They all want to be part of a team.

“There's no ego