Villa keen to resume Vassell talks

The 22-year-old hitman had a fine campaign for The Villans last season and earned himself a call-up to the England World Cup squad for last month's finals in the Far East.

His current deal at Villa Park ends in the summer of 2004 but manager Graham Taylor is determined to tie up Vassell to a new contract extension and keep his best players at the club.

Taylor said: "You want to keep people like Darius and I am sure the club does.

"It's now up to the club and whoever represents Darius if they want to get involved in talks."

Taylor has a number of striking options to choose from for the coming season with Vassell joining Juan Pablo Angel, Dion Dublin, Peter Crouch, Bosko Balaban and Markus Allback in the goal-scoring department at Villa Park.