Carlos in pounds 8m move to Villa; Spending set to continue as O'Neill boosts squad.

Byline: By Nick Davis 

RANGERS defender Carlos Cuellar will today become Villa's sixth new signing of the summer after a bid of around pounds 8million triggered a release clause in the Spaniard's Ibrox deal.

And the spending looks set to continue with Martin O'Neill (pictured right) determined to build a squad able to improve on last season's sixth place finish.

Cuellar, 26, joined Rangers last summer and made a huge impact in his first season, being named SPL Player of the Year award and the Scottish Football Writers Associations Player of the Year.

He was a mainstay as Walter Smith's men reached the UEFA Cup final in May but is now looking to further his ambitions - in particular his international ambitions with Spain - south of the border.

Speaking as Villa's bid was confirmed, the central defender said: "My ambition has always been to play for my national team and I believe that playing in the biggest league in the world for Aston Villa will help me realise that." Cuellar's arrival will take Villa's summer spending, including the Curtis Davies deal, past the pounds 30million mark. Now O'Neill is looking to further bolster his squad before the window closes at the end of the month.

The Villa boss, who would like to add a striker and a creative midfielder, added: "Despite the two boys coming in last week we still need to build it up as we don't have a sizeable enough squad yet.

"I know you can never cover every eventuality - we could get another three, four or five players in but get a couple of injuries like West Ham did last season.

"If we're going to try and compete, even at Premier League level let alone Europe, we need a decent squad. So we need to keep adding quality if we can.

"We've lost Freddie Bouma and we were quite thin on the ground before that. That sort of injury can happen at any given minute.

"Therefore we need to try and safeguard as much as we can."

O'Neill, who has now signed five players in the last two weeks, added: "We've not finished.

We'll still have some players coming in to give us a chance and if we're lucky enough to qualify for the group stages of the UEFA Cup that would take us right up to Christmas and we'll most definitely need the squad.

"Last season we were exceptionally lucky with injuries.

"Eight or nine players played over 30 games and we didn't have big runs in the FA or League Cup therefore we were able to concentrate on the League.

"All that could change this season and the fact is that we need the squad to be bigger to cope with that."

CAPTION(S):

ON HIS WAY... Carlos Cuellar will complete his move to Villa today.; WILFRED BOUMA