Villa Signings and General Rumours Thread

One Cold Hand

Villa to make a £2.5M bid for Justin Hoyte. Apparently Wenger will allow him to go.
Would be quite a good signing I reckon. He can play left and right. We need players in this area.

V1llianous

One Cold Hand wrote:

Villa to make a £2.5M bid for Justin Hoyte. Apparently Wenger will allow him to go.
Would be quite a good signing I reckon. He can play left and right. We need players in this area.

I'd say this is why MON passed on Luke Young.

One Cold Hand

Yes more than likely. Although apparently MON wasn't happy with what Charlton were looking for for Young, £4M. Fair play to him for not paying it. I wouldn't have thought he was worth it either.

Raekwon

Yeah good work by MON not signing another 28 year old for £4m, at least if we sign Justin Hoyte, he is only 22 and would be another very promising young player to add to our already young and talented (but small) squad.

Some more promising news about our defense is that Irish international Stephen O'Halloran has been handed a squad number for next season and will travel with the Villa first team for their pre-season friendlies in the USA. I haven't seen him play but I have been reading/hearing good things about him and he could prove to be decent cover for Bouma next season.

Oh and Lee Hendrie has moved to Sheffield Utd.

Bounty Hunter

Hoyte for 2.5mil would be good buisiness and another England U-21 with future potential that could easily fit in in our dressing room

Time Magazine

I'd rather we'd spent £6m-£7m on a right-back rather than get Hoyte and Marlon Deadwood. That said, the addition (if it happens) is welcome.

Helix

hoyte would be a fantastic signing tho, better than young anyway coz of his age, but id take either of them

Time Magazine

From avfc.co.uk:

MON's Transfer Promise

With transfer fees once again going through the roof, Martin O'Neill has vowed to spend Randy Lerner's money wisely this summer.

But O'Neill will not shy away from spending big - if he believes players can justify hefty price tags and take Villa onto the next level.

The Villa boss has added Nigel Reo-Coker and Marlon Harewood to the squad so far this summer and reassured fans earlier this week that further signings are on the way.

That said, he is determined to get value for money and today insisted: "The last thing I'm going to do is end up bankrupting a football club. In this day and age you have to be very careful because things are escalating at such a rate.

"Trying to find value for money is exceptionally difficult, but if all those things are there, we'll try to do it.

"I have dismissed absolutely nothing, but I'm going to try to build a squad capable of competing - not someone who might come in for two games and be an 'impact' signing and not really be value for money.

"You see the escalation in prices and someone who you thought you'd be able to get for 'x' is now 'x plus y'.

"Part of you questions it and part of you thinks do you go along with it because other teams are strengthening their sides.

"I am going to do that - the owner has given me the responsibility for want of a better word to do it and this is what I'm looking at. I'm surveying all options and I'll see what develops.

"The owner has put a bit of trust into me and I want to make the team as exciting as I possibly can.

"I want to revisit the games at the back end of last season when we were really flying and try to get a winning team together within reasonable scope."

O'Neill is fully supported in his endeavours by chairman and owner Lerner, but will take full responsibility for Villa's summer transfer activity.

He added: "I've been an 'old school' manager and that's the way it is because every player who comes in is my responsibility and therefore I have to do as much as I possibly can.

"There's no point in blaming someone else - it doesn't happen, I'd just be blaming myself. At this minute, that's the way it will carry on. Don't forget Randy was still at 27 games last season and he's hoping to get a base here which will be good news if he does.

"He's not lost one ounce of enthusiasm - if anything, it's been redoubled and he's given me the scope to do it.

"But I want to make sure I look after it and make sure we get some sort of value. It might not work out that way, but I'll be putting some serious thought into all these things."

One Cold Hand

So it appears that were being linked with a few new players...

Jose Bosingwa - from FC Porto, 3million. Aparently this is quite close to completion. He's a right back, but can also play right-wing, and defensive midfield. Sounds like a good signing.

Martín Gastón Demichelis - from Bayern Munich. Argentinian Defensive midfielder. Don't really know anything about him, or how much he would cost.

Scott Carson - has said he wouldn't be happy sitting on the bench for the season. I think he'd be a good signing, but not as good as

Jussi Jaaskalinen - (I'm sure I spelt that wrong) anyway I appears that this move is not dead a buried. His contract is up with Bolton in a year and he's not signing an extension, so they wanna get 2million or so for him while they can. He'd be a really really good signing.

One Cold Hand

Oh and very worryingly we've been linked with Hameur Bouzza. The guy who sometimes got a game for Watford last season. That would be a disaster, worse than Deadwood.

Savman

I think we should get off Harewood's back, for the time being at least. Let's just support the guy when he pulls on the jersey until such a time comes when he has done something worthy of the dead wood tag. He can't be any worse than that waster Baros?

Raekwon

Savman wrote:

He can't be any worse than that waster Baros?

If Harewood can score as many important goals as Baros did in his short spell at Villa then I will be impressed. Baro's tally of 9 Premiership goals in 34 Premiership starts isn't too shabby especially when it was in that awful O'Leary team that couldn't buy a win. Plus when we signed Baros we signed a 23 year old Czech International and former Golden Boot winner and all for £1.5m more then we paid for a 28 year old with only 2 years experience in the top flight of English football.

I will support Marlon and I really hope that he can prove all the doubters wrong and produce the goods for Villa, but I am sceptical and I really cannot see him getting even close to double figures, and thats what Villa really need from a striker to have a realstic chance of challenging for a place in Europe.

Raekwon

I just read on the official Villa site that MON has ruled-out signing SWP. I have to admit that I am disappointed at this news because I think SWP is an exciting young player who could possibly add a spark of creativity to the team that is sorely lacking.

"I will not go into any other specifics about who I want or don't want to sign but rumours that we are after Shaun Wright-Phillips are not true".

"I don't even know where that has come from. To be perfectly honest, I don't think it will happen at all. It seems to be coming up all the time but the truth is I have not even enquired about him. We did so in January, as people know, but were led to believe by Chelsea that he wanted to fight for his place so I have done absolutely nothing about it."

I don't get this, alot has changed since January no more so then the fact that Chelsea have signed Florent Malouda in SWP's position. It wouldn't hurt to make an enquiry would it?

"We want to strengthen because we don't want to be in a position like last November and December when we were desperate for the January transfer window to arrive".

"We had injuries and suspensions, we were left with the smallest squad in the country and the results went accordingly.

"I don't want to be in that position again. I am hoping we will have more strength in depth."

Then why release/sell 10 players and only sign 2? Unless MON signs a dozen or so players in the next 6 weeks I think that last quote is very hypocritical.

Savman

I'm far too frustrated with things to comment fairly, I'll give MON til 31st Aug anyway. But needless to say things have been very underwhelming so far.

Villain

We need to sign 5 players at the very least and only vaing 2 sigings before heading to Canada for the pre-season tour is very bad imo

Bounty Hunter

vs Toronto today:

Ashley Moore was clearly the best player on the pitch, Toronto could simply not handle him and he continues to impress , and prove his worth to me. IMHO he will be a huge player for Villa next season.

Luke Moore looked very sharpe picking up a hat-trick. meanwhile Harewood looked like he was still trying to adjust to his new teamates before being replaced by Carew.

both Barry and petrov replaced at half time Toronto came back into it although to give him his credit Reo-coker then made a big impact as a 65th min sub bringing stability to the Villians idfield and returnin g the lead.

final score 4:2 to Villa after 2:0 at half time. One thing this game really showed me especially after Bouma came on as cover for this, not his natural position. Villa need a right back! and they need one NOW

Villain

Sounds like a good start to pre-season except for Sorensen pulling his hamstring taking a kick out, from VillaTalk:

I've just returned from BMO Field in beautiful Toronto and witnessed the first official pre-season match for the boys. Here's a very abreviated match report...

At some point I will give a general overview of the experiences of the tour, but for now I'll focus on the game itself.

Starting line-up:
GK Sorensen (Taylor 20, injury)
RB Gardener
LB OHalloran (Laursen, 70)
CB Cahill (Reo Coker, 70)
CB Mellberg (Ridegwell, 45)
LM Steiber (Agbonlahor, 65)
RM Young
CM Barry (Bouma, 45)
CM Petrov (Berger, 45)
CF Moore
CF Harewood (Carew 65)

To say that we dominated the opening exchanges would be putting it mildly. After a couple of early scares in the TFC defence, the inevtiable happened at about the 12 minute mark, and Luke was put clean through by Ashley Young with a fine diagonal ball from the right flank. Luke made no mistake..... 1-0 Villa.

Two minutes later Petrov put Harewood into an identical situation, but he mis-hit the shot. Surely this wasn't an omen for Marlon's villa career? No worries, three minutes later, he was put through again, forced a decent save from the 'keeper, and Luke made no mistake from the rebound.....

Villa cruised through the remainder of the first-half without really being threatened, except when Dichio was pulled back for offside with Cahill and Olof looking at each other trying to figure out who to blame...... "did Danny Dichio just get in behind us?"

Half time, 2-0 to Villa. Could have been three or four. Barry was in-charge, his movement was sublime and he controlled the tempo. Only bad point was Tommy pulling his hamstring taking a goal-kick. It doesn't look good...

The start of the second half was a different story. We started it with Gardner and Berger in central midfield and to be honest we were completely overrun. Ridgewell looked out-of-sorts and Cahill is no right back! Toronto got two quick goals and we were in danger of conceding more, until Martin made the changes we needed. Cahill was replaced by NRC who took over from Gardner in midfield (he moved back to Right back), Ohalloran was replaced by Laursen and Bouma moved out to left back. Now, we looked solid and NRC gave a solidity and passing option to the midfield that we had missed for 20 minutes without Barry.

The game now returned to the "normal" mode of Villa picking TFC apart with Carew and Gabby looking especially useful. Gabby got in behind them a couple of times, put over a couple of decent crosses, and Big John and Luke made no mistake from inside the six yard box. It was good to see Luke looking sharp and getting a well-deserved hat-trick. For reasons best known to the match sponsor, some TFC player got man-of-the-match. Well why not? They lose 4-2 at home to a team that hasn't played a match yet and an opposing striker tears them apart and scores a hat-trick.....

Raekwon

Good start to the pre-season and great to see Luke Moore getting a hat-trick, hopefully MON will give him a starting role this season as he is Villa's most natural goal scorer.

Toronto scored twice but from what I've read they had two goals unluckily ruled out so it could easily have been 4-4. We definitely need our defence sorted out with a right back top of the list (Gardner was filling that position). Also Sorensen could be ruled out for a few weeks so we would probably need to do something about that because I don't rated Taylor.

One Cold Hand

Alan Smith anyone?

So it appears that we may make a move for Alan Smith. Everton are also interested and he has rejected a move to Middlesboro. Apparently he would favour a move to Everton.
Personally I'm not really sure if it would be a good move. Yes he does have bags of talent, but he's been injured or has been played out of position for the about the last 2/3 years. Plus he's no better than Carew, Moore or Gabby. (Possibly better than Harewood) I suppose it would depend on what money we would be paying him and paying for him that would decide if it was a good deal or not. Apart from that pretty quiet on the tranfer front, surprise surprise!

Villain

All the goals from the first pre-season game: http://youtube.com/watch?v=7RHpmRGTRUA quality isn't great.

I like Alan Smith he has an excellent hunger

Time Magazine

Yeah we could do with another forward or two.

Alan Smith any good at right back?

V1llianous

The Inter Milan game next Saturday is on delayed coverage on Setanta Sports (Sky Channel 434) . They are showing it from 5.30 p.m. (match KO is 3 p.m.) will be a nice added bonus as not able to go over for it.

Highlights of the classic UEFA cup game against them over 10 years ago is on official Villa World site too.

Raekwon

Columbus Crew 1 - 3 Aston Villa

Anther good pre-season win, Ashley Young, Gareth Barry and Luke Moore got the goals.

With less then two weeks before we kick off the new season verse Liverpool we still really need to get a few defenders (right back a must!) and a creative midfielder. Hopefully MON & Mr. Learner will sort it out sooner rather then later.

DSB

We're going to be exciting coming forward this season. But the defence really needs to be sorted out.

observer

right now i'm annoyed

last season villa endured a run of 11 games and mon excuse was a threadbare squad. villa went out of the FA due to kiraly mistake - and he was bought as we suffered a shortage of keepers

so now we sell 7 players and bring in 2.

only one fit keeper for the start of the season. no right back despite having 2 last season and martin luarsen is bound to last all of 12 mins before he's crooked for 3 months

and today i read that villa are close to selling ridgewell and maloney to brum and celtic. i don't care if neither are first team the premier league season is about the squad.

what is mon at????????????

V1llianous

Looks like Alan Smith will be signing for Newcastle today as fee has been agreed just terms needed now.

If we thought the Dyer / Bowyer punch up a VP a couple of seasons ago can you imagine a Smith / Barton one

Also looks like Ridgewell will join the Blue Noses in the next couple of days as a fee appears to have been agreed.

One Cold Hand

Getting a bit worried myself (as in more worried than I previously was!)
It appears the sale of Aaron Hughes was the worst of all. At least we are stong enough in midfield and attack but selling our only right back (apart from Delaney) was a bad decision. Even if we do buy a few players now it's getting pretty late in terms of the squad gelling etc., they should have been signed before the tour.

Villain

West Ham are signing players by the new time and we have still only signed two players and of them was to warm the bench, Randy and MON had better start doing something quick and even if we sign 3 or 4 players they won't have had much training with the team!

One Cold Hand

We've been linked with some 24 year old keeper from Lens. I've no idea who he is or anything about him.

JPA

I find what's happening quite strange. I'm led to believe that MON was never the smoothest operator in the transfer market and now that he's got a pot of gold he's being extra careful it seems.
I think we'll get players in but it's frustrating to see everyone else splashing out.
I wouldn't say I'm worried as such but transfers are always nice to see as a fan.

Raekwon

Yeah it looks like Liam Ridgewell is set to sign for Birmingham City and is being replaced by Norwegian international defender Brede Hangeland who plays for FC Copenhagen. This coupled with the news that Eric Djemba-Djemba's contract was cancelled by mutual consent means that Villa's departures this summer are now into double figures I find this staggering and I am shocked with the fact that we have only signed two players all summer especially since we desperately need a rightback. (Btw, Porto's Portuguese International rightback, Jose Bosingwa, has been linked so fingers cross).

IMO MON is playing a dangerous game, if he leaves his signings until the last minute, which looks like he is doing, then he could find himself in the position that he found himself in last year regarding James Milner. I just hope for his sake that he lets no more players go and signs a shed-load in the next few weeks because come November when we are on a 6 game win-less streak the old; 'We haven't got a big enough squad' excuse is going to really get under the fans skin and things could turn very nasty for the great one.

Anyway, the game against Inter on Saturday will be interesting. I personally think that without an right back we will be lambs for the slaughter. Figo is going to have a field-day :rolleyes:

eirebhoy

O'Neill was the exact same at Celtic. The last day of the transfer window will be hectic at Villa Park.:D

JPA

eirebhoy wrote:

O'Neill was the exact same at Celtic. The last day of the transfer window will be hectic at Villa Park.:D

Thats what I suspect but why is he like that? It's different now as he has money so there's not as much wheelin and dealin required but I suspect he's just not used to splashing the cash. He seems to think it's coming from his own pocket.

shoutman

The next few meeks will be interesting

Ridgewell isnt a loss in my opinion and is another case of getting rid of deadwood, that said, you can still use deadwood on a fire....

JPA

shoutman wrote:

The next few meeks will be interesting

Ridgewell isnt a loss in my opinion and is another case of getting rid of deadwood, that said, you can still use deadwood on a fire....

Thats a good way of putting it. I don't think we'll see any big names signed in the next month do you? But then I don't think MON is the kinda manager that likes big names. But as I said it's frustrating to see a club like Man city signing these "exotic" names while we sign some squad fillers in the next few weeks.
But then MON is pretty much the exact opposite to a manger like Sven and I'd fancy us to finish ahead of them.

eirebhoy

JPA wrote:

Thats what I suspect but why is he like that? It's different now as he has money so there's not as much wheelin and dealin required but I suspect he's just not used to splashing the cash. He seems to think it's coming from his own pocket.

He spent almost £30m in his first year at Celtic so I don't know about that. He just doesn't seem to have many back up plans if he doesn't get a certain player. He also doesn't seem to have a great scouting system. If he likes a player he'll go for him. If he doesn't get him then he's struggling.

One Cold Hand

It appears that Sunderland are prepared to pay £9m for Craig Gordon, and it seems like this is almost a done deal. I can't for the life of me understand my Villa wouldn't go for him. I know £9m is an exorbatant amount but it's getting late at this stage.

Raekwon

Sunderland can have him then. I personally think paying £9m for a keeper is insane especially when we have lots of other positions that need to be filled asap.

As it stands, with just over 7 days until the big kick off this is our squad of players (the ones who are injured/injury prone have a * after their name):

Goalkeepers:

Thomas Sorensen*
Stuart Taylor

Defenders:

Mark Delaney*
Martin Laursen*
Olof Mellberg
Wilfred Bouma
Gary Cahill
Stephen O'Halloran

Midfielders:

Gareth Barry
Ashley Young
Stiliyan Petrov
Patrik Berger*
Craig Gardner
Isaiah Osbourne
Nigel Reo-Coker

Forwards:

John Carew*
Marlon Harewood
Shaun Maloney
Gabriel Agbonlahor
Luke Moore*

As you can see a few injuries or suspensions and we are screwed. IMO we need 2 right backs, 1 centre half, 1 right winger, 1 central midfielder and possibly another striker and goalkeeper as a bare minimum. But realistically I really cannot see us push on from our mid-table mediocrity with this tiny squad of players and the way this summer has panned out we would be lucky to sign four more players which still would leave us short of numbers.

One Cold Hand

If you believe F365 we're set to sign Brede Hangeland from FC Copenhagen for £4m. He's a centre half. Again don't know anything about him, but if he's worth £4m he'd be a very welcome addition.

JPA

Well some new quotes out from MON. Hopefully we'll see some action soon.

Signings Will Come

Martin O'Neill is happy to continue playing the waiting game for the right players, but has no doubts he will bolster the Villa squad before the end of the month.

The Villa boss has added Nigel Reo-Coker and Marlon Harewood to the squad this summer, while Steven Davis, Aaron Hughes, Gavin McCann, Jlloyd Samuel, Lee Hendrie and Chris Sutton have all moved on or retired and Liam Ridgewell is on the verge of a move to Birmingham City.

O'Neill though will not be panicked into purchases and today insisted: "Rest assured, we will have the players in. There are things in place at this moment. How many? It is hard to say but by the end of the window I would not want to be outnumbered in the sense of who has gone out and who has come in, so we have a few to bring in.

"I am in the throes of acquiring some more players at the moment. I have allowed some players to go and the chairman has allowed me to run the football club in the fashion I am doing."

O'Neill admits he has had to undertake a game of cat-and-mouse to get the players he wants at the right value.

"I would prefer to wait a bit longer for the choices I made. Prices dictate. In an ideal world I would have liked to have had a couple of other players in but between now and transfer deadline, we will have them in. I am absolutely sure."

The Villa boss added: "The fans will think we are losing some players and the reinforcements have not come in - but they will be there," he said.

"Sometimes prices dictate a few things. I don't mind paying slightly over the odds for someone. I don't mind paying over the odds in a market where that is what people are doing. But sometimes when it is an enormous amount, I'll have to maybe reconsider.

"It is trying to get in the players I want and it's trying to get value for money. If the two equate, great. I am trying to run a club as dilligently as I can but at the same time am aware if you don't compete, you don't count. It is a balancing act.

"I haven't missed out on any of the main targets," said O'Neill. "It is just that the price keeps changing and it is me coming to terms with it. It does make it a bit more difficult but not impossible."

"There is no point in me carping on about November and December of last year when we had a severely depleted squad and finding out we are doing exactly the same this time around."

Villain

Well at least he is saying the same as us in the last line, I just hope the signings he makes are quality ones.

JPA

irish1 wrote:

Well at least he is saying the same as us in the last line, I just hope the signings he makes are quality ones.

Well they might not be big name signings but they'll be quality in MON's view.

Helix

thats not a new quote, hes just spouting the same stuff hes been saying since may

the squad is a joke at this stage and unless o'neill has about 9 players hiding somewhere that hes waiting to spring on us, we're in trouble

Raekwon

Helix wrote:

thats not a new quote, hes just spouting the same stuff hes been saying since may

the squad is a joke at this stage and unless o'neill has about 9 players hiding somewhere that hes waiting to spring on us, we're in trouble

I totally agree, MON has been saying the same thing for several months and it is starting to get very repetitive and annoying :mad: I understand that he wants to make his mark at the club and a clearout was always on the cards but you have to have balance and he hasn't even come close to doing that so far. If he was letting players go then replacing them straight away then nobody would have a problem but selling/releasing 10 players from a small squad and only bring in 2 is taking the piss IMO.

When last season finished all we needed to add to the squad was a creative midfield player and a quality striker who could help change all our draws (16 of them) into wins, it's not rocket science!!! But now, 3 months later, we basically need a couple of players in every position or we will have another frustrating season at the wrong end of the table.

shoutman

Anyone know of a place in Dublin that is definately showing the Villa - inter match at 5.30 on setanta 1 this evening?

With all the GAA on today I dont fancy wandering around town looking for a place that will show it.

Villain

Great first half Gareth Barry was awesome some real quality passing and great finish, Reo Coker looked very good too, like McCann only faster and better.

It is obvious that we need defenders though with Cahill playing right back and Gardener replacing him at half time Laursen looked good lets just hope he can stay fit.

We had a very fast front 3 today with Young, Moore and Gabby they really caused Inter problems with their pace and skill. Gabby's pace is unreal.

Laursen finished his goal very well, real training ground set piece. So 2 nil at the min and one more to come, I know its pre-season but beating Inter 3 nil anytime is a fair scalp. If we can sign 4 players to improve our defence and give some more dept we could have a good season.

One Cold Hand

Is it 3-0? What do you mean 1 to come?

Villain

Sorry it was delayed coverage on Setanta so it was 2-0 when I posted but I knew the result was 3-0. Great run by Gabby to get the penalty for 3rd and a good penalty by Barry thought we might have a new peanlty taker after he missed a few last year but he seems to be the penalty taker again this year.

Great result for Villa real moral boaster before the game against the Pool.

JPA

Ashley Young is going to absolutely own this year. He's phenomenal.
And if we play Moore and Gabby at the same time I wouldn't like to be in that defence.

eirebhoy

This must be O'Neill's best pre-season by far. I don't know how much can be read into that though.