Aston Villa Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread

GuanYin

Aston Villa Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread July 14th 2008

This thread is for team talk, Gossip and Rumours pertaining to Aston Villa. This thread is open for all users to post in. There are no preferences for fans of any team.

Please note the following Rules:

1. NO MATCH DISCUSSIONS
- Match threads will be created for matches/match weeks where required.
- Match discussion will be deleted.


2. Transfers.
- When a major transfer occurs, please post in the specific thread
- We will merge/split discussion on requests
- We will delete transfer discussion that continues here while a tangent thread is in progress.

3. Users who repeatedly ignore these guidelines will receive warnings/bans.

Previous Discussion Thread is located here

Bounty Hunter

first in

todays stories

Villa boss plans £10m City raid
Jul 14 2008


VILLA boss Martin O’Neill has turned his attentions to Manchester City midfielder Michael Johnson as he attempts to build a squad capable of competing on two fronts next season.

O’Neill, who has already lodged a bid in excess of £10million for Blackburn Rovers’ winger David Bentley, is now thought to be interested in the former Everton schoolboy.

The 20-year-old is rumoured to be unhappy at not having financial parity at Eastlands and it is believed he could cost as much as £10million with Everton recently linked with a move having failed, like Villa, to prise Tom Huddlestone out of Tottenham.

City boss Mark Hughes will not want to lose a player of such high calibre but Johnson could force his hand even though he only signed a new four-year contract last August.

Following Villa’s defeat to Zurich at the weekend, O’Neill insisted new players are a must.

“We have got targets in mind – people we want to bring in. I’d love to be 100 per cent successful with every one that we target, but we would not be the only club doing that.

“We have started things off. We need to build the club up, we know that. Competition for places would be really healthy.

“We need to improve the team and we know where we need to improve the side.

“If we are going to contest things this season, and who knows we could be beaten in the InterToto Cup on Saturday, but if we are going to sustain a run in the Premier League and try and stay in other competitions, then we need the squad.”

and

Sooner the better for American Brad Guzan
Jul 14 2008

VILLA will shell out a six-figure sum for keeper Brad Guzan because he is out of contract with Chivas USA in six months.

The fee is understood to be in the region of £650,000 for a player who has been heavily courted across Europe, by Celtic north of the border and other clubs in the Premier League.

“He was out of contract in January and able to sign a pre-contract in that case,’’ said manager Martin O’Neill.

“We would prefer it if we could get him over now because every week that he could come and work over here would suit us.

“I’m not saying it would necessarily suit his club but he is keen to come over and play in the Premiership.

“With the MLS and the football club (Chivas) needing something out of it, the fee wouldn’t leave them a bare bone by any stretch of the imagination but it is not the £2million as reported.”

O’Neill is now looking to push through his interest in Blackburn’s Brad Friedel to act as a mentor to Guzan for a short time.

He said: “It would be great if he could come in because I see some potential in him, and I think he has got more than that.

“He is following in a line of American goalkeepers who have come over here and done fantastically well.”

“Brad Friedel, in particular, has been brilliant for the last seven or eight years. You have to say that Tim Howard has done exceptionally well, and I had the privilege of signing Kasey Keller from Milwall at Leicester City who did exceptionally well for us.

“So those goalkeepers have proved a point and from the conversations I have had with him, Brad has exactly the same ambition and hopefully has exactly the same mentality.”

Guzan told the Birmingham Mail of his desire to move to Villa following England’s friendly win over the USA at Wembley in May.

O’Neill added: “He would like to come and that is why we have pursued it."

__________________

Guzan/Friedel Us combo for less than 3.25m methinks in goal trhis year

~Rebel~

Johnson would be a great move. Him and a decent right winger and you're midfield would be looking very good without Barry. Even a few bargain bin buys would leave yee pretty strong (eg Finnan and Pennant could probably be got for a total of 7mill and work well together already)

---

Guzan/Friedel
Finnan---Davies--Laursen--Bouma
Pennant--Sidwell--Johnson--Young

---

Carew--Agbonlahor

Helix

GuanYin wrote: »

1. NO MATCH DISCUSSIONS

thats kinda rubbish

dr.bollocko

Its hard to see Villa's season living up to O'Neills expectation but I still feel he is an astute manager and if I was a villa fan I would love to have him at the helm. Have you got any major troubles with his managerial style or is it a case of thank god he's here? I was thinking ten million for bentley is a bit pish but considering Villa's relative position, it must be a difficult transfer market this summer.

You know a mate of mine (Liverpool fan) was approaching the green on a par 5 when he pulled out a pitching wedge.
Unfortunately he sliced it wide and it went into a bunker.
He said "****! I just pulled a Martin O' Neill!"
"What do you mean?" I asked him.
"Wrong club choice."

Bounty Hunter

dr.bollocko wrote: »

Its hard to see Villa's season living up to O'Neills expectation but I still feel he is an astute manager and if I was a villa fan I would love to have him at the helm. Have you got any major troubles with his managerial style or is it a case of thank god he's here? I was thinking ten million for bentley is a bit pish but considering Villa's relative position, it must be a difficult transfer market this summer.

You know a mate of mine (Liverpool fan) was approaching the green on a par 5 when he pulled out a pitching wedge.
Unfortunately he sliced it wide and it went into a bunker.
He said "****! I just pulled a Martin O' Neill!"
"What do you mean?" I asked him.
"Wrong club choice."

hell no he made the right club choice, huge club, great history, big fanbase with untapped potential where he is given 100% control of hist team and backing by a billionaire. and yes in general (1 or 2 notable exceptions) we are 100% behind and happy with MON although his antics in the transfer window can annoy us i.e not buying a RB last year when we had none.

Time Magazine

I've made a request for a Villa Supporters Forum here and I'd appreciate it if you all supported it on-thread.

Thanks.

Savman

GuanYin wrote: »

1. NO MATCH DISCUSSIONS
- Match threads will be created for matches/match weeks where required.
- Match discussion will be deleted.

Eh? So what, a new thread for every Villa game?

~Rebel~

Savman wrote: »

Eh? So what, a new thread for every Villa game?

i think its more gonna be a match thread for all the matches in any given week, like we've always had. This will just keep match talk (scores, incidents etc) to the match thread.

Savman

~Rebel~ wrote: »

i think its more gonna be a match thread for all the matches in any given week, like we've always had. This will just keep match talk (scores, incidents etc) to the match thread.

You wanna get the Aston Villa V Lincoln City match thread up and running then? The neutrals'll love that...

~Rebel~

Savman wrote: »

You wanna get the Aston Villa V Lincoln City match thread up and running then? The neutrals'll love that...

i think it was already mentioned in one of the other threads that those types of games could just stay in the superthread. I think the match threads thing is more a weekly premiership/champions league thing.

Helix

ince just confirmed on ssn we're in for bentley

Time Magazine

Helix wrote: »

ince just confirmed on ssn we're in for bentley

Fantastic.

---

Guzan

---

Bouma--Davies--Laursen--Finnan
Young---NRC---Sidwell---Bentley

---

Gabby--Carew

---

Compare that to:

---

Sorenson

---

-Cruz

---

Mellberg

---

Laursen

---

Bouma---

---

McCann

---

---

Davis

---

Hendrie

---

Barry

---

---

Baros

---

Moore

---

Some change in two years.

Helix

wouldnt be gettin me hopes up, he never said they accepted the bid, only that we made one

tho it does pretty much mean that spuds havent, or else hed surely have mentioned them aseeing as he had ample opportunity while discussing paul robinson

JPA

I thought the Friedel deal was all but wrapped up but Ince is now saying they don't want to sell and don't want Robinson.
It's kind of a weird situation as the Spurs Bentley bid was supposedly Robinson plus cash. So if Blackburn won't sell Friedel, they then won't want Robinson which means Spurs can't afford Bentley resulting in less competition for his signature for Villa.
So who would you prefer Bentley or Friedel?

Raekwon

What happened to the Villa thread And no match discussion in a football thread? Genius :rolleyes:

Anyway great to see that MON looks like he is getting the wheels in motion on the transfer front, I doubt we will get Bentley but at least we actually know who the club are bidding for and are in with a chance of signing him.

£20m for Bentley & Friedel? Fair price? I think so! Will they come? Who knows

Villain

Weird that Ince talked about the Villa bid, either looking for other clubs to join a bidding war or trying to show he tried to keep him, I think Arsenal get a chunk of the fee so its going to have to be large.

Ps. Bounty the rules thread has been edited slightly, I think they are trying to stop discussions on big match incidents that could get heated in these threads, I THINK general talk about player peformances, tactics and subs etc are ok

Neil3030

INCE CONFIRMS VILLA BENTLEY BID
Posted 14/07/08 22:21
EmailPrintSave


New Blackburn boss Paul Ince has confirmed Aston Villa have made an offer for David Bentley..

Ince saw his side win 2-1 in a friendly at Macclesfield, before admitting the club had received a bid from Villa for the England winger.

But Ince insisted he had heard nothing from Tottenham, and made it plain that he did not want former England goalkeeper Paul Robinson and did not want to sell veteran keeper Brad Friedel.

He said: "When I came to Blackburn, I said I wanted to keep my best players, and Brad Friedel comes into that category. He is one of the best keepers in the Premier League.

"There is no interest from me in Paul Robinson. As far as I am concerned, I want to keep Brad. I do not want to sell Brad, so why should I want Paul Robinson?

"As for the David Bentley situation, that will not go away, only time will tell whether he is here in August.

"He would have played here tonight if he had not been injured, but I know that in football players come and players go.

"We have had an offer from Aston Villa, but I do not want him to go.

"But he is injured and he will have a couple of days off and I hope to take him to Germany on Wednesday for or training trip."

This does not state that the bid was rejected, surely he would have been keen to clearly point that out were it the case.

Keep in mind that Spurs could have £25m-£30m if Man U [edit]buy[/edit] Berbatov, so the fact that they are still to offer over and above a part-exchange deal does not mean that they will not soon be in a position to do so.

Edit - wooops.

Mr Alan

Neil3030 wrote: »

Keep in mind that Spurs could have £25m-£30m if Man U sell Berbatov

18million, the rest of the fee is add ons.

Neil3030

Where are you getting that figure from?

Mr Alan

thats wat the mirror and other papers were reporting today, and wat was being discussed in the utd thread earlier. shockingly low price tbh.

invincibleirish

Wtf? what happened to the Villa thread? and we're not allowed to talk about a match in this thread? whose been smoking crack?

Thumbs up to the Bentley pursuit, hopefully the difference between this big money offer and the offers of the Ellis era is that Villa follow up on it and it isnt just a charade.

spiderdan

I really hope we get Bentley looks positive, I fear that Spurs will come in and nick him as soon as Berbatov goes to Utd although Ramos needs to buy a big name striker to replace him and he will use the money from the sale to buy someone like Villa, or Santa Cruz, leaving him well short of the 18m needed for Bentley- good for MON.

I can see Ince being very though, losing your 3 top players!! all to your closest rivals! Bentley will leave for certain, Fridel- I'm not so sure, leaving us with a problem with a keeper- any ideas?? Anyone think giving up on Carson could be a big mistake?? Thank fook the talk linking us with Robbo has gone for the meantime!

Raekwon

spiderdan wrote: »

Anyone think giving up on Carson could be a big mistake??

I don't think it was a big mistake considering the whole Barry situation and Carson's original £10m fee but now that Liverpool have apparently dropped their asking price down to £3.5m and accepted a bid from Stoke (crap move for him btw) I think Villa could nip in and snatch him if they really wanted him.

I think MON has other ideas though to be honest.

IrishMike

WBA, boro and stoke are all reported to be bidding so im sure he will go to for around £5m
and not the reported £3.5m(which i actually saw as £4m)

Helix

stoke and west brom both had bids accepted tho, liverpool can hardly turn around and up it after that

Helix

Raekwon wrote: »

I don't think it was a big mistake considering the whole Barry situation and Carson's original £10m fee but now that Liverpool have apparently dropped their asking price down to £3.5m and accepted a bid from Stoke (crap move for him btw) I think Villa could nip in and snatch him if they really wanted him.

I think MON has other ideas though to be honest.

id rather we didnt tbph

Neil3030

Helix (or anyone else who frequents Brum on a regular basis), any recommendations for accommodation?

Savman

Neil3030 wrote: »

Helix (or anyone else who frequents Brum on a regular basis), any recommendations for accommodation?

Britannia Hotel is dead handy for New St Station. All the others are on Broad Street which is the party central but a fair bit of a walk from the train station.

Helix

never stayed over personally, but theres a holiday inn in the city center if thats any use to you. theyre generally quite reasonable in terms of cost

rgiller

spiderdan wrote: »

I really hope we get Bentley looks positive, I fear that Spurs will come in and nick him as soon as Berbatov goes to Utd although Ramos needs to buy a big name striker to replace him and he will use the money from the sale to buy someone like Villa, or Santa Cruz, leaving him well short of the 18m needed for Bentley- good for MON.

I can see Ince being very though, losing your 3 top players!! all to your closest rivals! Bentley will leave for certain, Fridel- I'm not so sure, leaving us with a problem with a keeper- any ideas?? Anyone think giving up on Carson could be a big mistake?? Thank fook the talk linking us with Robbo has gone for the meantime!

I think it's more likely he'll go to Spurs: Ramos will bid more than MON. We'll miss out again...

JPA

rgiller wrote: »

I think it's more likely he'll go to Spurs: Ramos will bid more than MON. We'll miss out again...

I don't think we'll miss out because of money. He just wants to move to London.

Tomthepost

I hate change:mad:
Can anyone put forward any kind of arguement whatsoever as to why we can't talk about games here.
Makes no sense.
Then we got another poster trying to get us to use another thread altogether.
I am

Villain

The mods have changed the rules on that last night you can't discuss match incidents i.e. fouls, peno red cards etc that could lead to a one sided debate but you can discuss tatics, subs player performances etc.

Tomthepost

Things are taken away too seriously here. The GAA area is so much more fun.
Its like friendly bouncer as opposed to OTT crap like this.
This is my opinion of course!
If it is a banning offence to state this I can do without this place to be honest.

Neil3030

Staring out the window? That's a banning.
Looking at my sandals? That's a banning.
Talking about banning? Oh you better believe that's a banning...

Neil3030

Not sure what to make of this article. As the club's official propaganda spring, I'd always imagined the editor of the OS sitting in a chair with Randy/MON's gun barrel pressed to the back of his head over what subject matter to publish, so you'd have to wonder if there's anything to be read into them publishing an article 'not ruling out' new signings before Saturday's Inter-toto game. This is usually the optimistic extrapolations red-tops publish after interviewing a manager or chairman to put pressure on the club to make transfers in the form of fans' expectations, so why on earth would the OS willingly publish it unprovoked...

IMO it means:-

(a) There will categorically be signings between now and Saturday.
(b) The PR people have made a monumental f***-up.
(c) They take pleasure in getting our hopes up.

Helix

the os runs every little bit of carbon copy mon "signings are coming" bullsh1it they can get their hands on

Neil3030

Never this specific though. They're always, as you say, the "signings are coming" generic spiel, but never with the disclaimer - before Saturday. Whatever about their usual transfer-window propaganda, they're hanging themselves out to dry this time.

Helix

they didnt say signings are coming tho

they just quoted what mon said, which was that he wouldnt rule it out

thats like me saying i wont rule out a lotto win tomorrow night

Neil3030

Exactly, so why publish it? They are the official site, they can pick and choose what they put up. Why would they just get fans' hopes up, hence the 3 scenarios I suggested.

Bounty Hunter

well the ? in the title says it all really for me. Its an article about the possibility of new signings this week with quotes from MON talking about the possibility of playing anyone he could sign before the weekend. obviously if he consider that then a signing wouldent be a shock.

Barry is back in training tommorow! (SSN)

first step?

Helix

very bad move imo

but its probably illegal to ban him for any longer, and we dont want him being able to tear his contract up

homah_7ft

The OS has a club statement saying he's back in training at Bodymore on Wednesday.

IrishMike

Could be a month of complete and utter turmoil for Barry without any move.
How would Villa fans feel if he stayed?

Villain

As i said before if he stays works hard and plays well i don't think there's a prob he still is the club captain

Bounty Hunter

I think I might be the exception (actually there's Villain i see) but I actually would be happy if he stayed obviously Bentley is wishful thinking (but there is a bid in confirmed by once/not confirmed as rejected though) but how nice would a midfield of the following be

Bentley-Sidwell-Barry-Young

Subs: Reo-Coker, Petrov, Maloney & Gardner with Salifou and Routledge in reserve

obviously a whole lot of PR work would have to be done for Barry and a personal apology to MON/the team aswell as the handover of the captains armband to probably Laursen.

invincibleirish

Bounty Hunter wrote: »

Bentley-Sidwell-Barry-Young

What a midfield!, Barry has burned his bridges with the Villa faithful in the short term but if he is to stick around for another season i wouldnt be too concerned so long as he is playing well and not plodding around the place. That midfield is good enough to keep Villa in the top 6 and maybe push a little harder for that fourth sp......oh wait i forgot apparently its agiven the gap is too big between the top 4 and the rest. Apparently.

Bounty Hunter

tbh I wouldent be shocked if assuming Barry ended up staying until next summer Liverpool/Arsenal/whoever had by then moved on to new targets during that time and Barry having seen Villa progress further with signings like Bentley (still obviously hopefull/wishfull thinking) signed a new contract instead of as some might suggest just leaving a year from now on the cheap as by then he'd only have 1 year left on his deal.

shoutman

I think that midfield alone wont get us top six next year, our defence and keeping issues really need to be sorted out.

With regards to Barry, I think a personal apolgy will only go so far with regards to mending his relationship with MON, and I don't think there is a snowballs chance that he will remain as club captain.
Although he has been a hugely loyal servent in the past he wont command the same respect by his fellow players given that he has said he wants to leave.

Interesting to see the squad for the intertoto cup match, no doubt he has been training on his own but he still wont have match fitness. I doubt he will travel.

Time Magazine

Laursen with the captain's armband.



It's good to see. Way more experienced than NRC.