Found: A replacement for Aston Villa's Martin Laursen ... for free!

Gauge the reactions of any two Villa fans to Cuellar's impact at Villa Park during the previous 12 months and chances are you will get two contrasting descriptions of the former Rangers favourite.

One will tell you Cuellar has the potential to prosper in the Premier League while the other will call him a useless donkey, the likes of which British tourists used to bring back from package holidays in Spain.

Hero status

Either way, there's no denying that the forthcoming campaign is a big season for Cuellar, who will be the first to admit he has failed to live up to his billing since arriving from Ibrox last summer.

Without getting bogged down with the chasm in quality between the SPL and the EPL, in Jockland Cuellar enjoyed the kind of hero status normally reserved for William Wallace and Sir Sean Connery - at least in the blue half of Glasgow, that is.

But on last season's evidence even the most optimistic Aston Villa fan will tell you he still has a great deal to prove to suggest he is a worthy to lace the boots of Laursen let alone succeed the retired Great Dane at the heart of the claret and blue backline.

Last week Cuellar gave us local journalists an interesting interview, albeit crammed into a small hatchback car during the Birmingham launch of the Bull Ring to Bull Ring PR stunt to promote Villa's new Nike home kit, which was unveiled at the team hotel on Friday.

The 27-year-old admitted that he still had plenty to learn about the demands of the Premier League, that there was room for improvement in his game since arriving from north of the border and that he longed to be a first-team regular at Villa Park.

But, in Cuellar's defence, he was signed as an established centre-half and can't have expected to have been thrust into the unwanted role of makeshift right-back so quickly and on so many occasions.

Martin O'Neill is not a bad judge of defenders having turned Leicester trio Steve Walsh, Gerry Taggart and Matty Elliott from average cloggers to top class stoppers.

And the Villa boss surely recognises that despite Cuellar's steady if unspectacular improvement at right-back he needs to be playing in his natural position to show his true worth.

For all the talk of Sylvain Distin, Matt Upson, Brede Hangeland, Philippe Senderos et al being lined up to fill the considerable Laursen-shaped void at Villa Park, maybe, just maybe, Villa already have a ready made successor in Cuellar.

Whether the Osasuna old boy is seen as the experienced calming influence to help Curtis Davies rediscover his best form or the foil for a new face at the back, Cuellar must start to repay the hefty £7.8million fee Villa paid for him a year ago.

The time has come to give him a run at the centre of Villa's defence.