McLeish wants to keep Villa stars

17 January 2012 09:46

Aston Villa manager Alex McLeish admits it is 'very unlikely' he will let any of his players leave during the current transfer window which ends a fortnight on Tuesday.

Villa striker and record signing Darren Bent has been constantly linked with a move to Liverpool, while central defender James Collins has been the subject of speculation involving QPR and Sunderland. But McLeish is not actively striving to make changes under the sell-to-buy policy he has to adopt and has faith in his current set of players.

"Am I wanting to do (transfer) business? I am not pushing. I am not in any hurry to lose any of my players," said McLeish.

"Only if it was an attractive proposition would we do anything so it's very unlikely we would let any of our players go.

"I am happy with my squad. Like every other manager in the world, we're all greedy for players. If we had our way, we'd probably have 100 players at our disposal.

"But I certainly think it's a strong squad, a lot of young players who have learnt a lot over the past few months, and that augurs well as we go into the second half of the season."

McLeish is mindful of club owner Randy Lerner's desire to manage and reduce the current wage bill.

He said: "We are still steering a ship in terms of managing the wages. Randy is adamant about that and I agreed to work for the club on that basis.

"We are steering towards a wage stability and we're still heading in that direction. I have agreed to the parameters and the way that the club wants to be run. We will keep doing that."

Source: PA