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Gareth Southgate - Defender Date of Birth: September 3, 1970 Birthplace: Watford Nationality: English Height: 1.83m / 6' Previous Clubs: Crystal Palace Joined Villa: June 1995 Acquisition Price: £2.5 million Debut: August 19, 1995 vs Man. Utd. (h) Left Villa (for): July 10, 2001 (Middlesbrough) Selling Price: £6.5 million

Gareth Southgate joined Villa right after the 94-95 season. Villa paid Crystal Palace a record fee (for Villa) of £2.5 million for him. He was the captain of at his former club for a long time. The defender (is all he's been used for this season) joined Villa because of the big tradition and status. He became a first time regular for Palace during the 1991/92 season two years after signing professional and six years after joining them as a Sussex schoolboy. He has settled in exceptionally well at Villa playing in defence, scoring his first goal during the 6-0 destruction of Peterborough in September 1995. It was Gareth who missed the crucial penalty against Germany in the Euro 96. This was a great blow to Villa fans watching England's great performance, a Villa player ending the match in tears. However, this has done no damage to his performance at Villa Park. In the 1996-97 season, he played great part in making Villa's defence the second strongest in the Premiership, letting in just 34 goals in 38 matches. After Andy Townsed, a long time captain for the Villa, left for Middlesbrough, Gareth took over the demanding job without complaints.

The 1997-98 season hasn't been without trouble for Gareth. He has played as great as ever, but certain comments on a radio interview in November saw Brian Little give him a solid reprimande in front of everybody and a public retort.

Gareth carried on playing as if nothing had ever happened, and he enjoyed two more successful seasons for Aston Villa, earning cap after cap in between his league games. However, certain very unfortunate comments in the media regarding his will to stay at Aston Villa made him increasingly unpopular with the Aston Villa fans, regardless of how well he played. It became evident, that Gareth Southgate's heart did not reside at Villa Park.

The end was far from being a happy one. Rather unsurprisingly, Gareth left Aston Villa in the summer of 2001, because of "low ambitions at Villa Park". Strangely enough, his destination was Middlesbrough(!), and Gareth therefore left with little sympathy from the Aston Villa faithful.

Apperances has substitutions in brackets, i.e. the games when he came on as a sub and didn't start on the pitch. All the stats include cup games.