Villa seal Young deal to boost striking options

Ashley Young has completed his £9.65m move to Aston Villa from Watford. Young, 21, "verbally agreed" to join Villa over the weekend and has signed a four-and-a-half-year contract that will keep him in the Midlands until the summer of 2011.

The deal is worth around £30,000 a week plus bonuses for the England Under-21 international, who is expected to make his debut in the Premiership match at Newcastle on 31 January.

It is the Villa manager Martin O'Neill's second signing in the space of 24 hours after the arrival of the Norway international John Carew from Lyon in a swap deal with Milan Baros.

O'Neill said: "I had been hopeful Ashley would come to Aston Villa after he verbally agreed to join us over the weekend, but you never take anything for granted until they sign on the dotted line.

"He has got enormous potential and I think he will fulfil that. He is a really talented player. I have seen a lot of him and I am going to back my judgement. He will prove terrific value. He is only a young fellow and I have no doubt at all he is good enough."

Young rejected a move to West Ham earlier in the transfer window and the Watford manager, Adrian Boothroyd, admitted seven Premiership clubs were interested in signing him.

Villa will pay Watford an initial £8m but add-ons for appearances and winning an England cap could make Young the club's record signing, surpassing the £9.5m paid to River Plate for Juan Pablo Angel in 2001.

Young can play on either flank or up front as O'Neill looks for Villa to convert more of their goal-scoring opportunities, their main weakness this season. He broke into the first team at Vicarage Road in 2003, but really came to prominence when scoring 15 goals for Watford last season as they gained promotion to the Premiership via the play-offs.

Young's arrival means there could now also be a question mark over the future of Angel, who started the season well but has struggled to make an impact in recent weeks.

Luke Moore is close to fitness after his long-term shoulder problem and would provide O'Neill with another forward option, although Chris Sutton is showing little sign of improvement after suffering blurred vision before Christmas.

Elsewhere, Lucas Neill has revealed how feeling in demand made him choose West Ham United over his boyhood club, Liverpool. The 28-year-old Australia defender has opted for a relegation battle at Upton Park - and a reported bumper pay packet - rather than the chance of challenging for honours at Anfield.

Neill, however, maintains the move from Blackburn was not about money, rather where he could make more of an impact. The full-back was in the last six months of his contract at Ewood Park and would have left in the summer regardless.

Although it looked as though Liverpool was set to be the player's destination of choice, Neill admits that he was taken aback by an apparent lack of interest from the club to push the transfer through.

"I did not get the chance to speak to the people who really matter at Liverpool," the defender said. "It would have been nice to have heard what the manager of Liverpool thought about me and the deal, but it did not happen.

"Maybe he [Rafael Benitez] would have talked me into it, but overall I was getting a cold feeling from Liverpool and a volcanic heat from West Ham, so that was why I chose them.

"It told me that they were desperate for me to come here and play, which is what every player wants. Nobody wants to go to a big team and then just sit in the stands."

The defender added: "It was the most difficult decision of my career - I followed Liverpool as a boy, I had posters of [Graham] Souness, [Ian] Rush and [Kenny] Dalglish on my bedroom walls. However, the most important thing was playing. Champions' League football was obviously a big draw for me, but I can fulfil ambitions here as well."