Richard Dunne: Big clubs will be monitoring Douglas Luiz; Harry Maguire would not improve Aston Villa

In the third part of an exclusive Ladbrokes: Fanzone interview with Richard Dunne, the former Aston Villa defender discusses the futures of Douglas Luiz and Harry Maguire and what it was like to play under Martin O’Neill and Gerard Houllier at Villa Park.

The ex-Republic of Ireland international also played in the Premier League for Everton and Manchester City before ending his career in the top flight with QPR.

He has previously talked about City, Erling Haaland and the summer of 2008 as well as Sean Dyche’s impact at Goodison Park and his expectations for next season.

Time might be right for Man City to bring back Douglas Luiz

Douglas Luiz has had an outstanding season. He’s a player who has improved since leaving Man City, which isn’t something we’ve seen all that often; normally we see players leave and then struggle to progress but with him you can definitely see it.

I’d imagine that bigger clubs like Man City are looking at him right now and wondering whether the time is right to maybe go for him again.

But, for me, Ollie Watkins has been the one who impressed me the most this season. He’s made such a big difference, he gets in behind, he scores the goals but he’s also very unselfish in everything he does. He deserves a big mention because of the season he’s had.

For Aston Villa to progress again, it’s difficult because they’re not a team who can go out and buy a team full of superstars but they’ve done really well in signing players who have improved the squad at a good price.

They know when a player is capable of not only playing but excelling in the Premier League, so their recruitment team deserve a lot of credit.

I think it’s about strength in depth this summer, though. The full-back position might be one they need to strengthen and I think they need somebody who is going to fill in for Watkins, purely because of the volume of games they’re going to be playing next season.

It’s whether they decide to go for a like-for-like replacement or they try and get a different style of player to add to the variety of styles they can implement.

Harry Maguire doesn’t improve Aston Villa

I don’t think Harry Maguire would improve Aston Villa.

Villa’s centre-backs are decent and people are looking for speed at the back. In Tyrone Mings, they have somebody who is experienced, someone who is quick, comfortable on the ball, good in the air and who can lead the team.

I don’t know whether Maguire would massively improve them. I think he was linked with Leicester before they went down and other clubs like that.

I actually think there’s still a role for him to play at Manchester United. They’re a side that can still use him; they need a big squad because they’ll want to be challenging for silverware all over the place, so I’d be surprised to see him move this summer.

For the amount of money he’d cost, I think Villa have other priorities. He’d come to Villa as a marquee signing and I just think if you’re going to go and spend £40m or £50m on one player, it would be wiser to spend it somewhere else than on him.

Unai Emery is a very experienced manager who, in my opinion, had a bad run of it at Arsenal and didn’t get as much credit as his career up to that point deserved.

But he’s proven now he’s a top, top manager. Whether he can manage clubs the size of Arsenal, I’m not sure. But when it comes to clubs like Aston Villa, for who it’s all about overachieving, Emery is perfect.

I wouldn’t judge Steven Gerrard on what he did at Villa; I think he did reasonably well in the first year but sometimes things just go against you and lots of things were coming out about the mood in the dressing room.

But Gerrard did an amazing job at Rangers and fully deserved the job at Villa. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in another top job in the near future because I do think he has the potential to be a really good manager and someone who will learn from his experiences.

He’s someone who is clever enough to take on board what’s happened up to this point in his managerial career and move forward. It’s been a tough season for him but he’ll improve as a manager because of it, I’m sure of that.

Playing for Martin O’Neill/Gerard Houllier

Aston Villa were a solid side at the time I joined them; they were well established in the top half of the table and were challenging for Europe so it was an easy decision for me when I left Man City.

I obviously knew a lot about Martin O’Neill and the career he’d had, the success he had with Leicester and the great job he did in Scotland with Celtic.

He was a manager that knew how to win things, that played good football and wanted to improve always. He was a pleasure to go and work for and it was an honour to sign for a club like Aston Villa.

We had a great season under Martin in 2009/10, it was really enjoyable and a great season in terms of performances on the pitch. It was unfortunate how much things changed after that and the club started to head in the wrong direction.

The owner wanted to get out and the money just wasn’t there for Martin to strengthen, which is what he wanted to do. You could understand Martin’s frustrations when he did leave and things eventually ended with Villa going down a few years later.

Then Gerard Houllier came in and replaced Martin and we just had different ideas, to be honest. He had his own thoughts about how we should play and there were periods where one week I’d be captain and the next I wouldn’t be in the squad.

You don’t always see eye-to-eye with your manager throughout your career and with Gerard it just came down to different ideas; a different way of playing, he wanted us to train differently.

I didn’t get on with him when I wasn’t playing and I was fine with him when I was playing. I think that was the same for the other lads as well. It’s not so much that you don’t get on with him as a person, though; it’s more the professional relationship which suffers.