FABIAN DELPH has admitted his Aston Villa team-mates were shocked to hear he had signed a new deal.
The England midfielder has penned a four-and-a-half year contract to commit himself to the club until 2019.
He was out of contract in the summer and had been linked with a move away from the Barclays Premier League strugglers, who have battled relegation for the last three years.
Boss Paul Lambert called it a coup for Villa and Delph revealed even the squad was surprised.
"The lads are absolutely delighted. As soon as I told some of them they looked at me shocked to start with," he said.
"They see a lot in me and how dedicated I am and how I want to push on. They're delighted to keep someone like me here.
"I see them as family, brothers, I'd run through a brick wall for them. They're not just team-mates."
Villa chief executive Tom Fox played a key role in convincing Delph to stay and believes the 25-year-old has bought into his vision.
"We are so pleased to keep one of our best young players. It says a lot about him too and his faith," said Fox.
"This club is on a journey and it's my job to talk to as many people and convince them it's not where we are.
"Fabian and I have had many conversations and he believes in this journey. There were a lot of interested clubs. We've got a top young player here.
"The top five clubs are in a much better place financially."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article