Dublin was controversially excluded from the England 1998 FIFA World Cup squad, despite being the Premier League's joint top-scorer in the 1997-98 season, alongside Michael Owen and Chris Sutton. However, his exploits at club level were still attracting significant attention and in the autumn of 1998, he chose to move to Aston Villa for PS5.75 million. In his first four games for the club, he would score 7 goals including a memorable hat-trick against Southampton in only his second game for the Villans. As a result, he is one of only six players to score in the first four consecutive games for a Premier League club.  In December 1999, whilst playing for Aston Villa against Sheffield Wednesday, he sustained a life-threatening broken neck, as a result of which he permanently has a titanium plate holding three neck vertebrae together. Just days before suffering this injury, it was reported in the News of the World that Dublin would soon be sold by Aston Villa for a fee of around PS6million as the club looked to finance a fall in its share value as a result of manager John Gregory's heavy expenditure on players.  Incredibly, the injury did not end Dublin's career and he was back in action three months later.  In April 2000, a week after returning to the team, he helped Aston Villa reach their first FA Cup final in 43 years, which they lost 1-0 against Chelsea, scoring a penalty in the semi-final shoot-out against Bolton Wanderers. Having regained his fitness, Dublin remained on the Villa Park payroll until 2002.  Faced with competition for a first team place by Juan Pablo Angel and Peter Crouch, Dublin spent several weeks on loan at First Division Millwall. In his time there, he scored two goals, against Stockport County, and Grimsby Town in five league matches to help them into the play-offs where despite Dublin's goal in the first leg of the semi final, Millwall lost to Birmingham City 2-1 on aggregate. Returning to Villa, he found himself again a first choice striker, partnering Darius Vassell up front. Dublin was sent off at Villa Park for a headbutt on Robbie Savage in the Birmingham derby match, which ended 2-0 to Birmingham City.

Answer this question "When did he start with them?" by extracting the answer from the text above.
in the autumn of 1998, he chose to move to Aston Villa