Dillon Marshalls His Thoughts on Davis

Dundee United's Sean Dillon first crossed paths with Steven Davis down in England and the defender cannot believe his former Aston Villa team-mate is still in Scotland. Dillon was already part of the Villa Park youth set-up when a fresh-faced Davis walked through the door ready to sign after being talent spotted in his native Northern Ireland. The pair were a couple of years apart on the development programme but Dillon still heard about Davies' progress. Having watched Davis' career from Villa, Fulham and now Rangers, the United star predicts his performances will have bigger clubs taking notice before too long.

As he prepared to go head-to-head with Davis in today's Scottish Cup quarter-final at Ibrox, full-back Dillon said: "I am surprised he isn't back in the (Barclays) Premier League at the moment but obviously he is a Rangers fan. He is clearly happy at the club but I certainly think he is good enough to be in the Premier League. I would say Steven is one of their best players because any time I have seen him play or played against him, he has always stood out. Steven is a great player and I was actually with him as a YTS at Aston Villa, even though he was a couple of years younger than me. It was my last year and it was his first year so I knew him a wee bit. I don't speak to him that often anymore but whenever I do see him, it is usually at games. He certainly stood out when he was younger and it certainly wasn't a surprise when he broke into the first team. I was with the under-19s in my last year at the club while he was with the under-17s."

After Villa, Dillon returned home to sign for Longford Town, where he looked to secure his post football career by taking a degree in architecture. During his two years at Flancare Park, Dillon was lucky enough to win two FAI Cups and the League of Ireland trophy, which qualified Longford for the UEFA Cup and set in motion a chain of events which would bring him to Scotland. He said: "I have been lucky enough in cups and it meant a lot to me. After I came back from Villa, I went part-time with Longford Town and we reached four finals in two years. We got beaten in the League Cup final by St Pats then won the FAI cup two months later against them. And the following year, we did the cup double beating Bohemians and Waterford. We were only a part-time club at the time and I was studying architecture technology then and training just three nights a week. It was huge at the time as the club had never won anything previous to that. We played the final at Lansdowne Road and there were maybe crowds of around 15,000 at them. It was a real fairytale for the club. They had already been in a final in 2001 and I signed for them the following year. Because Bohs won the league, Longford got to play in Europe. We didn't actually have a ground at the time but, all of a sudden, the locals came out and built a stadium. There were only two boys from Longford in the squad so we trained in Dublin. It was a guy called Martin Lawlor who signed me but he got sacked two days later. Alan Matthews took over though and I loved it under him."