Stephen Ireland in line to make Villa debut

Stephen Ireland could make his Villa debut against Newcastle on Sunday as the club prepare to finally announce his capture today.

Ireland will arrive at Villa Park as part of the £26m deal taking James Milner to Manchester City, in a deal which will see the claret and blues receive £18m in cash plus the Irishman - a healthy profit on the club record £12m they paid Newcastle for the Yorkshireman two years ago.

With personal terms having already been agreed, both players passed medicals yesterday with the pair scheduled to put pen to paper on their moves today.

A week-long stand-off between Ireland and City over a £2m pay-off was resolved yesterday following negotiations which ended in the midfielder accepting around half of the fee he was holding out for.

As soon as that was thrashed out, both Ireland and Milner, a £12m club record signing were heading in opposite directions on the M6 to seal their deals.

Ireland, 23, will not join Villa's squad in jetting out to Austria ahead of tomorrow's Europa League play-off against Rapid Vienna, however he will come into contention for this weekend's Premier League trip to St James' Park.

The Cobh-born player fell out of favour at City under boss Roberto Mancini having been their player of the season the previous year.

While regarded as a more creative player than Milner, the City academy product looks likely to slot straight into the central midfield berth vacated by the 24-year-old, who is expected to be make his City bow in Monday's game with Liverpool.

Staggeringly, the Eastlands club's capture of the England star takes Mancini's spending this summer to in excess of £120m.

However, prising the current PFA Young Player of the Year away from Villa Park has proven the toughest deal of all for the Italian with City's opening £20m bid lodged almost three months ago.

Only yesterday it emerged Milner was become increasingly frustrated by City's failure to tie up the transfer and, with Villa ready to cup-tie him in Europe by playing tomorrow, matters finally came to a head yesterday.