Aston Villa have made a late move to trump Sunderland for Sebastian Larsson.
The Guardian says Sunderland are hoping to fend off Aston Villa's late endeavours at hijacking their near-completed signing of Larsson.
The Swedish winger is a free agent after leaving Birmingham City at the end of his contract and Steve Bruce had been extremely confident of signing the 26-year-old until an 11th-hour intervention by Alex McLeish, Larsson's manager at Birmingham.
While McLeish, who has just taken over at Villa, is also likely to try to gazump Liverpool's efforts to sign Charlie Adam from Blackpool, Sunderland are continuing to revamp their squad.
