O'Leary paying price for past spending

David O’Leary believes he is paying the price for Aston Villa’s past spending sprees on the likes of Stan Collymore, David Ginola and Alpay.

O’Leary is having to try to bolster his squad with value-for-money signings like Mathieu Berson, who is expected to join Villa in a £1.5m (€2.3m) deal from Nantes in the next few days.

The former Leeds boss has had to drastically cut the club’s wage bill since taking over from Graham Taylor 15 months ago.

The likes of Bosko Balaban and Alpay have been off-loaded amongst 19 players who have left the club since the summer of 2003.

But O’Leary still has only limited resources to work with in the transfer market as the money he has raised will go towards putting Villa, who announced a £10m (€15m) loss on Friday, back on an even keel.

O’Leary said: “Players on massive money last season have left the club but I think those savings will go towards writing off what has happened previously.

“If you look at Balaban and Alpay, they cost the club £20m (€30.3m) with transfer fees and wages. Before that we had David Ginola, Paul Merson and Stan Collymore here. There’s loads of them who have come in.

“Add to that the wages of people like Hassan Kachloul and Mustapha Hadji and that has to be addressed. And I haven’t been told that there will be a day when that situation will change.

“My agenda 12 months ago was to reduce the wage bill and to keep the club in the Premiership. We kept them up and pointed them in the right direction to kick on again. But I am still limited in what I can do.”

O’Leary would have liked to have expressed an interest in Ray Parlour but admitted that he has to content himself with signing the likes of Berson.

He said: “Berson is great value at £1.5m (€2.3m) but that’s the level we are at right now. I know Ray Parlour very well but Villa simply are not in that league.”