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Ian Atkins has quit his role as chief European scout at Everton to join Aston Villa as their new chief scout/head of European recruitment.

The Championship strugglers will see the move as quite a coup in convincing the 59-year-old to join them from a similar role at Goodison but the Blues player recruitment process has been given a major overhaul this summer with the arrival of Steve Walsh in the newly-created director of football position.

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Atkins, who was born in Birmingham and is a former captain of Villa’s local rivals Birmingham City, made nine appearances for Everton in his playing days.

He had been working as Everton’s chief scout since July 2012 but broke the news of his switch back to his native West Midlands on his Linked in account on the internet.

Although Villa are currently managerless after Roberto Di Matteo last week, they have held talks over their vacancy with ex-Birmingham boss Steve Bruce who Atkins scouted for at Sunderland.

He has already been reunited with former Everton assistant manager Steve Round who was appointed Villa’s technical director on September 1 while ex-Blues chief executive Keith Wyness now fulfils the same position at Villa Park.