Villa's forgotten 27 y/o gem could be Gerrard's true replacement for £100k-p/w "beast" - opinion

Aston Villa boss Steven Gerrard may already have the perfect replacement for Diego Carlos in his winter signing, Calum Chambers.

After securing a £26m move for the Brazilian colossus early in the summer transfer window, the former Sevilla man was struck with a devastating blow as he suffered a ruptured Achilles on his home debut in the win against Everton last weekend.

Gerrard is now without his star man for the remainder of 2022 and potentially beyond as the time frame is looking to be a minimum of six months.

And time is running out to find a solution in the transfer market as there are less than two weeks to go until deadline day on September 1st. Villa should have other priorities too, such as finding a new striker or central midfielder.

With that in mind, the ex-Rangers boss could turn to Chambers in his time of need.

The 27-year-old joined from Arsenal on a free transfer back in January but has found himself well down the pecking order this campaign, having started nine of the Villans’ closing 17 games last season.

His form during that time saw him graded as Gerrard’s sixth-best performer for the whole season, rating ahead of his central defensive counterparts, including Tyrone Mings (tenth), Kortney Hause (14th) and Ezri Konsa (17th), as per WhoScored.

In the Premier League last season, the versatile Englishman ranked within the top 1% of all centre-backs for blocks (2.88 per 90) and was within the top 10% for clearances (5.93 per 90), via FBref, meaning he clearly has the intelligence to read the game at such a high level and that aggression somewhat matches that of Carlos, who South American football expert Tim Vickery dubbed a “wild man.”

His passing ability will also be a big miss for Villa but Konsa was the