Aston Villa midfielder Douglas Luiz is set to sign a contract extension...

What's the word?

That's according to the Telegraph's chief football correspondent Jason Burt, who delivered a 12-word update to supporters on Twitter. He said:

"Douglas Luiz expected to sign a three-year deal at Aston Villa."

It ends months of speculation surrounding the Brazilian's future in the Midlands, having been linked with a switch to Serie A champions AC Milan and more recently, Premier League rivals Manchester United were mooted with interest.

Strike gold

This update will come as a big relief to manager Steven Gerrard as he'll be able to keep hold of a key cog to his system in Luiz and after losing Carney Chukwuemeka to Chelsea, this is certainly a boost for the squad too.

The former Manchester City man has emerged as a reliable and consistent starter under Gerrard, since his arrival at Villa Park. He ended last season with five straight 90-minute appearances, having featured in all but four of their top-flight outings, as per Transfermarkt.

Only three other players finished the campaign with a better WhoScored average (6.77) and he was graded better than club captain John McGinn, ex-skipper Tyrone Mings and Danny Ings.

Gerrard was clearly keen to keep Luiz at the club, given his comments on the 24-year-old.

“Douglas is a fantastic player, really talented and we rate him extremely high. We want to keep all of our best players around," he told reporters (via Birmingham World).

"We understand there will be interest in our best players as well, we don’t have a problem with that. But yes we want to keep all of our top talent around, we see Douglas as a top talent, a really wonderful footballer on his day." The £18m-rated star was involved from the bench in Villa's opening day defeat to AFC Bournemouth last weekend, so he's surely going to be in line for a instant recall to the starting lineup, given this update. Now with Luiz set to remain a Villa player for at least the next three years, sporting director Johan Lange may have just conducted one of his best pieces of business this summer, by securing a dream extension for the box-to-box dynamo. Gerrard and the Villa faithful will surely be elevated by this news.

AND in other news, Lange could end Aston Villa's summer with a bang in move for "unplayable" £20m machine...