Bent has just returned from a loan spell with Brighton and is already leaving the hallway house for Derby.
Bent is currently finalisingcontracts and should be officially out by the days en. Surely this will be the last time we see Bent as he will go on a free in the summer; our most expensive signing.
UPDATE
Vlaar will be out for 3-4 weeks with ligament damage. This may be the end of his transfer departure for this window?
On a side and more speculative note – A close source casually met Vlaar just over a week ago at a closed event and couldn’t help but ask the question “Are you staying?”. The reply was simple “They have offered me a new contract with the same wage, would you stay?”.
Take from this what you will, believe it, don’t believe it. Time will tell and official publised words from the horses mouth will clarify.
When Bent came to Villa ftom Sunderland he pulled us out of a hole with his goals. He got injured, Lambert came along didnt know how to play him then treated the man like crap. Good luck to him where ever he goes.
Didn’t really get our money’s worth out of him, did we! Kept us up one season with his goals, initially made captain by Lambert and then banished to the bomb squad a couple of matches later! Well played Villa! Another player’s career ruined!
Lerner got his moneys worth otherwise we’d have been down that year.
Derby are a very decent side and if Bent can’t get goals there I doubt he ever will again in the English game.
I’ll never forget that his goals kept us up and the shabby way we treated him.
Good luck Darren.
Agreed badger, without him we would be relegated, same as Benteke when we brought him in.
I know a lot of you will disagree, but I still dont buy the notion that his goals saved us when Houllier was in charge. I still think we would have stayed up that season with or without him (We ended up 10th if i remember quickly). Bent was a panic buy and Sunderland knew it.
For me, he was a huge waste of 24m or whatever ridiculous fee we paid. He had a great 6 months for us, but the transfer fee and wages ended up croppling us. With that kind of money available, we could have bought someone with some sell-on value.
His fee was £18 mill plus add ons, which was probably the reason he never played much afterwards.
We were looking dead and buried when we signed him and we weren’t crippled by him at all, imo.
Lerner pulled the plug and started to get his money back, which he’s still doing in spades.
So I for one, don’t agree at all Benno.
Stop believing the hype, which will see many Villa fans happy with a poxy £10 mill spent in this window, when we need triple that to push on from our mediocrity.
Which will see very few fans happy with only 10m spent and a lot of whining if 30m isn’t spent, is what you mean. But then again thinking we’re gonna spend 30m in January is laughable in itself. Especially as we’d have to offload a fair few players just to get them into the 25 man squad now.
“we’d have to offload a fair few players”
And the problem is?
Let’s face it, there’s plenty of very average players who ought to be gone imo. Starting with Cleverley.
I agree with Benno, don’t think Bent was the sole reason we stayed up, he did what he naturally does, but he did what real strikers do, and a number of players would’ve done the same. We were missing a striker under Houllier who didn’t want Carew. Also don’t buy Benteke saved us either as it’s the same with Bent, we needed a striker to score, Benteke is that. But he didn’t create the goals for himself, he didn’t defend our way to save us.
I’m up in the air on the whole panic buy thing. I do think Bent was Houllier’s choice that he wanted. He had plans for Bent in the future, not just the season we got him in. Especially with his scouting abilities he could’ve brought in any number of different strikers. Shit hit the fan with Houllier’s illness though and unfortunately Bent suffered.
Lambert confirms we won’t panic buy. And it seems Sanogoal won’t come in fortunately.
Although I’m quite happy as if it was up to fans, dross like Lennon would be coming in instead of actual quality players.
i don’t think sanogoal would improve villa unfortunately, hes no better than our current forwards, at least as now until end of current season. he may turn into a top class striker but hes not that now.
what that about lennon ????andrew. a fit and healthy lennon in place of weimann, i believe he will be more dangerous, just need another player for gabbys side then benteke will have more chances
I don’t like Lennon much, I think he is largely over rated and would take an in form Wiemann any time, it just so happens we have neither a Lennon or an in form Wiemann 🙁
another striker isn’t needed as well mr cheeses, were would the inexperience young arsenal striker play ??? . i can’t find anything on villas targets what type they are coveting. i hope its, someone that can go past players,also like receiving the ball in tight positions. weimann is a striker playing in unfamiliar positions hes not comfortable with. the whole team is struggling with the responsibilities of creating goals and scoring
Agreed. Lennon’s awful and a completely healthy Lennon’s not as good as our out of form, out of position Weimann.
Would help if Benteke would start moving around every so often, being a statue is exactly what fans criticized Bent for, but yet Benteke’s getting away unscathed from insults and they’re being wrongfully placed mainly on Weimann, our only hard working forward who isn’t played correctly by the awful manager that we have.
I do think we need a striker, Benteke’s too stagnant and Kozak might be coming back but who knows how bad this injury is going to affect the guy.
I like Kozak and I agree about Benteke, if it continues it won’t be long till he is renamed #Benchteke.
I do too, was a big fan of Kozak before he came and when he replaced Benteke during his first injury. Unfortunately he’s been out a long time, including that setback which could really affect him negatively.
who ever villa recruit , i am positive it won’t meet everyone’s approval, but what matters is they improve the team, i am done suggesting names. i will wait until they sign on the dotted line and hope its somebody decent, quality rather than quantity.
the movement we lacked against palace will come with games. our achillies heel against palace, will be future game plans for the weaker oppositions, arsenal struggled with better players against us when we used this tactic. so we’re not on our own, confidence and goals will come hopefully, or ppl will point a finger at lambert for changing such dynamics of the team mid season but what new
Nath, that was a refreshingly nice post. Fancy writing up an article based on your opinions towards the rest of our season to go live sometime next week?
no thanxs mr cheese
i prefer only to voice my opinions on other ppls articles 🙂 you guys that run the show and write up articles do so with my greatest respect.
🙂
I see Mr Cheese is now trying to get people to do the donkey work whilst the owners get the benefits. It’s all well and good asking people to do write ups etc but how about so eking of reward for doing it?
What benefits and rewards are they then?
I’m afraid you haven’t got a clue Jobsworth. The truth is we don’t get a single solitary penny income for running this site.
It’s also the reason the site/subject matter isn’t as slick as some other sites, because we all have proper jobs and do this in our spare time because we love talking about the club.
In fact, it costs us money to read accusations like this and it quite frankly pisses me off.
And anyway, if we wanted to pay for people’s opinions we’d just employ a journalist or something.
We ask people to offer their opinions because we’re interested in hearing what other genuine Villa fans think. The clue is in the name of the site.
I hope that clarifies things for you.
You have a very strange view on life. This is a hobby driven by the love of the club, there is no profit, no income. The benefits are supporting the club and having a community that shares the same love for the club.
The Peres opinion matters, and if it feels like it could be interesting why not push it and see how the viewers gauge it rather than it be a comment.
Lambert tends to make one good signing in each transfer window, i just hope this time its an attacking midfielder of some sort. I hope to God he doesnt waste money on Cleverley. We would be overpaying at 2m in my opinion.