Aston Villa are hoping to furnish Steven Gerrard with a new centre-back and a defensive midfielder in the January transfer window, according to Football Insider

The lowdown

The 41-year-old took over from Dean Smith earlier this month, so January will be his first chance to put his stamp on the squad through recruitment.

Villa spent £89.84m in the summer, with £34.5m addition Emiliano Buendia becoming their record signing and Leon Bailey and Danny Ings slotting into their all-time top four purchases.

Their outlay was the fifth-highest in the Premier League, yet they still managed to turn a £24.46m profit after the British record sale of Jack Grealish to Manchester City.

The latest

An Aston Villa source has told Football Insider that NSWE are prepared to sanction "big money" deals in the mid-season window.

Gerrard has identified the two positions he would like to be strengthened, namely centre-back and defensive midfield.

The verdict

When he was at Rangers, Gerrard had expressed frustration at the club's lack of spending, so you can imagine that he sought assurances that he'd be adequately backed before taking on the Villa job.

Who could he potentially be targeting? Perhaps the centre-back could be reported target Pau Torres of Villarreal, and that would certainly be a big-money deal, with a report from Fichajes claiming that he's valued at around £42m.

Eclipsing their transfer record once again to snap up the 'extraordinary' centre-back would be quite some statement of intent under the new boss.

In other news, Kevin Campbell thinks Gerrard may look to strengthen this position as well