O'Neill's dig after deadline beats him

Villa boss Martin O'Neill today took a swipe at the inflated fees in the transfer market after his summer of signings fizzled out.

On a transfer deadline night which saw Manchester City smash the British-record transfer fee to sign Robinho, O'Neill was forced to admit defeat in his attempts to take his spending for the window beyond £50m.

The Villa boss had been keen to bring in another striker and last night Wigan's Emile Heskey – who played under O'Neill at Leicester – emerged as another possible target.

However, the deadline passed without any further movement.

O'Neill insisted he remained happy with his summer's business but admitting it was proving increasingly difficult to find value with fees escalating.

"My feelings were that if nothing materialised, it was not going to be the end of the world," he said. "The

transfer market has been continously inflated.

"If you had asked me about it a couple of years ago, with the way it was going, with the way players' contracts were being written off, I thought the day of the big transfer was gone. But that has not proved the case.

"What you have to still do is look for value for money. And I don't have any real problem on that score. Brad Friedel is great value for money even though he's 37.

"James Milner is great value for money."