Could We Have A New God?

We haven't done badly over the last few years really for centre halves, now Macca believes Richard Dunne is capable of stealing his God tag and more than surpassing some of our other greats that I list below.

Over the last oh X number of years (if I say how many I'll be showing my age) we've been relatively blessed for centre halves and the joyous thing is I'm bound to leave out names here that others will think were equally as important.

We have Paul McGrath = God.

Shaun Teale = not quite a God, more of a Holy Ghost but definitely that mental nutter with the tosh.

Olof Mellberg = The Son of God and revered beard.

Martin Laursen = God Mk2 with the knees to boot.

And now our Holy Father himself thinks new signing Richard Dunne is more than capable of adding himself to that list and minus the dodgy knees surpassing his achievements with the club.

Speaking with Matt Kendrick of the Birmingham Mail, God explained why he thinks that Dunne will enter into our folklore and hearts and he sees plenty of parallels between the two of them in their journey to B6 - especially given the fact that Dunne has matured and cleaned up his own loveable rogue reputation over the last few years.

The obvious ones are both players were discarded by Manchester clubs (before their time?), they play in the same position, they have the same No 5 shirt and neither took many prisoners when there was a ball to be nicked. Oh and they are both important members for the Republic of Ireland squad!

"I think Kevin Keegan had a quiet word with him and turned him into a much better player. He decided to stop larking about and going out and doing the wrong stuff. He decided to concentrate on football and since he`s done that, he`s been Ireland`s best player.'

High praise indeed when you consider it's unlikely you could find a fan anywhere that has a bad word to say about God.

McGrath also says that he's amazed that Man City have decided to let Dunne go, given how important a player he was for them and he implies that it could be a spectacular own goal by Mark Hughes given Villa's own growing reputation and the fact they sold him to a close Rival in the league.

'I think he's been one of the best City players for years and I'm amazed they've actually let him go to another club who could be challenging them this year. Mark Hughes might regret selling Richard Dunne.'

As for whether Dunne can surpass the talent that came before him, McGrath points out that they both joined Villa at the same age, but that Dunne has an obvious advantage over himself and Martin Laursen...he's arriving fully fit and raring to go. Martin had his own knee troubles and God describes himself as arriving at B6 in a 'bit of a knackered state.'

I think God can take the plaudits for the most spectacular own goals, Laursen surpasses in goals and being 'hard as nails' in a tackle Dunne definitely has the red cards sown up sharing a Premiership record of 8 with Patrick Vieira.

It definitely looks like the legacy can continue, and Dunne has the perfect opportunity to ingratiate himself with the faithful in the next match, not that our next match is very important obviously.

Wonder what odds you could get for him getting a hattrick and getting sent off?

One final point from God...we all remember our own little Emerald quartet, God, Stan, Towny, and Ray.

'It's strange that Villa haven't had an Irish player for a while - I might go over to see them more often now.'

You'd be more than welcome Paul...more than welcome!

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