Aston Villa Football Club

• Nickname:The Villains
• Founded:1874
• Manager:Paul Lambert

• Ground:Villa Park
• Capacity:42584

Gardner commits to Villa

15 Sep 2008 - 08:11:34

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Aston Villa midfielder Craig Gardner has committed his long-term future to the club by penning a four-year contract that will keep him at Villa Park until 2012.

The 21-year-old follows the lead of John Carew, Gabby Agbonlahor and Wilfred Bouma who have all signed new deals with the club recently.

The England Under-21 international has scored six times in 52 first-team appearances for Villa since making his debut on Boxing Day 2005 when he came on as a substitute in the 4-0 victory against Everton.

Meanwhile, Luke Young remains wary of the Tottenham strikeforce as Villa continue their preparations for Monday's clash with the north London side.

Roman Pavlyuchenko, who will make his Spurs debut in the game, will partner Darren Bent in attack, and Young thinks the partnership could be as good as the Dimitar Berbatov and Robbie Keane link up.

He said: "Berbatov and Keane will be a big loss to Spurs, of course, particularly when you look at how many goals they scored at the club.

"But we shouldn't be thinking of them now because they're gone. We need to worry about the players they've got. Tottenham do have strikers that will score goals.

"Bent, given a run in the team, will score goals at any club he's at. All he needs is someone to give him a run of games and believe in him a bit more.

"Pavlyuchenko has scored goals at Spartak Moscow and at international level too so he is a danger. We need to be on our guard."