Villa have been linked with a £3.5million move for Rangers' Croatian striker Dado Prso.
According to reports north of the border David O'Leary has targeted the free-scoring, powerfully built centre-forward who arrived at Ibrox on a Bosman from Monaco last summer and has gone on to score 19 goals so far this season.
Any swoop would represent a similar move to his purchase of Mark Viduka from Celtic while he was at Leeds, but Villa would be hoping he proved more successful than their other Croatian, Bosko Balaban.
Prso has two years remaining of a three-year contract but, as former team-mate Jean-Alain Boumsong showed, that will not be an obstacle.
He is heavily tipped to become Scotland's Player of the Year after forming a superb partnership with Nacho Novo which helped Rangers to victory in the CIS Cup as well as challenging Celtic for the league title.
Prso spent nine years in France, mainly in the lower leagues where he was also employed as a garage mechanic while he was with Second Division side Rouen.
He slipped to the fourth division but was then offered a contract by Monaco in 1997.
Prso has been linked with Premiership clubs before but not in glorious circumstances. Sam Allardyce blasted him for lacking ambition after the Croatian international snubbed an agreement to join Bolton by signing for Rangers last summer.
Prso is making up for lost time. He didn't make his professional debut till 1999 and it was only two years ago that he sampled the international game for the first time.
He hit an amazing scoring streak last season, hitting four goals for Monaco in their 8-3 defeat of Deportivo La Coruna which helped them to the Champions League Final.
