Further to my previous article, where I asked how things could happen with the club in a state of limbo because of the impending sale, it seems the papers don’t care and are ploughing on regardless with the speculation.
I have to admit to being confused about who is actually calling the shots at the club.
I mean, if we are genuinely in the middle of a sale, with non disclosure agreements and exclusivity in place, what exactly is Randy Lerner selling and what is the prospective new owner buying?
Perhaps I’m being a bit obtuse, but while selling a football club is no doubt a highly complex thing, the same basics still apply as if you were selling a car, for example, don’t they?
Put simply, you see exactly what you are buying and put a value on it.
How does that work when we might have players coming in and going out? Surely Benteke being sold would likely make the club a poorer investment, for example?
Perhaps someone can enlighten me.
Regardless, as I said, there’s speculation galore and much of it is quite good, in my opinion.
Micah Richards seems to be a done deal, we’re supposedly in with a decent chance for Trippier, we’re after James Vardie at serious money (around £15 million!) and are also chasing other players.
The latest rumour I’ve seen is that Spurs are going to offer us Andros Townsend, as part exchange for Benteke.
I really see that one as a total load of rubbish, but the point is we’re at least being linked to players who I think are a much better standard than have been aquired over the last few years.
If we go back to the assumption that Micah Richards is a nailed on cert, after a personal intervention from Tim Sherwood which made the player sign at £25k a week less than Sunderland offered, you have to wonder what it is that the manager and the club are selling.
Whatever it is, it’s looking pretty good, but I still find myself wondering who’s funding things.
Either the sale of the club is far more advanced than we think, where the new owner has set a budget.
Or it’s not happening at all and Lerner has set the budget.
I struggle to see how it can be a combination of the two.
Confused.com…..thats me! If the plethora of rumours doing the rounds are to be believed then there is no way that Randy is funding them IMO. I think we can discount the ‘Townsend plus cash for Benteke’ as pure lazy journalism but I wouldnt be surprised if Townsend is on our shopping list as a stand alone signing. Richards will be a good addition IMO….but I think that there is more to this signing than any of us know about! With Benteke, allegedly being offered a new enhanced contract I feel that it will be new owners funding this rather than Randy…..its all guesswork Badger, but things appear to be happening ‘big time’ behind the scene and that, IMO, points to new owners! From what I gather, FFP is significantly relaxed during the first 3 years of a new owners tenure!
Just my opinion but I think the sale of the club is almost here & like you say BADGER some sort of transfer budget has been agreed, no way Lerner would be spending anywhere near these amounts floating around.nice to see but yet again all speculation bar the Richards deal hopefully all comes to fruition & we actually build a decent team for a change.
What ever the out come its far better, I for one feel like a kid at Christmas, Don’t like the idea of Townsend? he blows hot and cold in games, Benteke don’t think he’s going yet, whose pulling the strings? I think you hit the nail on the head Badger, done deal weeks ago, and some players know. Bigger better days are coming lads, I can smell it. Clear off Lerner the Villa’s ours.
Alternatively….maybe a deal as been done to sell Benteke, the new offered contract is a smokescreen and Sherwood is simply spending ‘some’ of the proceeds from the sale…..note the word ‘some’ as I dont expect Randy, if he’s still at the helm to spend it all! This would be the worst possible scenario IMO……New owners please!
More made up codswallop
This is England’s best on show fucking jeeeez
Delph is class, the rest are shite! 🙂
Phil Jones , what the hell is he playing right back ,Hodgson needs to play player’s in their proper position and stop guessing. Yes Delph running the game at the minute.
Shame, Phil Jones taken off for a ankle injury throwing the ball in. Great excuse .
Hodgson needs to retire his as old as his tactics.
Hey lads….did you know that the fixtures come out this Wed, 17th June?…..dont forget we have the Rugby World Cup at VP. That will mean fixture changes. One of my pet hates in life is allowing Rugby to be played on football pitches…..hate it with a passion!
Rooney what a fucking useless tosser.
Fucking typical
Giddy….I see what you mean lol 🙂
Badger, I guess the simplest answeer to your question is that is doesn’t matter how far discussions regarding the sale of the club may have reached by Friday evening, yesterday, or today.
In any normal business the budget for the summer and for next season – whether for ‘capex’ [transfers] or revenue [wages] – would have been set a good few months ago. Nobody would sensibly try to run a multi-million pound business by deciding on expenditure from week to week, or day to day.
Hence I’d presume that any potential buyer has seen the budget, and agreed to it already.
Possibly even more relevant is that most transfer deals aren’t ‘cash’: fans often forget that players are bought on ‘credit’ terms over a year or two, so there’s no reason for Lerner or anyone else to be physically pumping cash into the bank account in the short term to ‘pay for’ the transfers that are being dicussed!
good points, i work in a finance/billing analysis world, and I hadn’t applied that to Villa for some reason. the point about the budgets and the credit terms makes sense
Now we are being linked to a £5.5m deal to get Tom Huddleston according to the mirror.
These links are just going to go on and on and they become tiring quite quickly. I always remember a few years back when I kept a close eye on all the villa transfer rumours, and we were in talks to buy about 73 players! Lol, you have to laugh…
Huddleston might be a bit more realistic than many of the rumours though. He can be a bit lazy at times but Tim knows the player well and if he feels he can get more out of him then he might not be a bad deal.
UTV
The links to mediocre Premier League/Championship players is getting boring. English and former Spurs players being even more boring because I have huge doubts we’re actually after them. Easy links to a club of a manager who’s never had a transfer window before. Huddlestone isn’t worth 5.5m to us, he’s not at all better than anyone we have, he’s a mediocre player at best and while our midfield might not be great, he’s not an upgrade in anything.
was thinking the same . its like the vardy link £15m for a 28 year old player that scored 5 goals this season and the papers are saying we want him . NO THANKS for that sort of money you could buy a proper striker abroad. some of the papers just print any old shit.
Think he’s only scores about one goal a season on average too.
Not too worried about a CM scoring goals, but he’s not better than Delph, Sanchez, Westwood or Gardner. So there’s no point spending 5.5m on him. It’s a borefest how the media claims we’re after everyone who used to play for Spurs. I knew it was gonna happen but it’s gotten even worse than I figured.
How do u work out he’s the same as Gardner he’s only had a few games for us. What are basing that on
Forest fans and watching Huddlestone. Average at best, so even if Gardner isn’t actually good, I still wouldn’t want Huddlestone over him.Huddlestone isn’t good enough anymore.
I see grealish pissed up in Tenerife pictures fuck me I expect he ain’t the only youngster on the island in that state.get it down YER 😀
So the club are going to have a meeting with Grealish about the photo’s that are circulating on the net. For Christ sake the lad is on his holiday!! He’s 19, it’s what most 19 year old kids do on there holiday. Let him enjoy himself and get leathered if that’s what he wants to do!! As long as it doesn’t happen during the season then I really don’t get what the problem is, It ain’t like he his doing anything wrong, the lad is just enjoying himself.
hmm i get what you say BUT he is not most 19 year olds . modern professional footballers get paid an awful lot of money and clubs expect them to act professionally during the closed season.drinking in moderation is ok getting hammered every night would probably be frowned upon. its the modern game. but i think it proves he should be playing for ireland with his love of drink lol.
Getting hammered every night? I don’t think he can quite be classed as an alcoholic based on getting pissed once on his holiday! If the kid can’t get pissed…paralytic…at his age without being scrutinised by everyone then the world really has become a sad place. Whilst I can see your point about him being expected to act professionally by the club, the club should understand that It’s not like he’s been arrested or done anything wrong or illegal. The lad had a few to many drinks on his holiday, shouldn’t be an issue.
i dont have a problem with him having a drink . as i said most clubs would have a problem with any of there players getting paralytic . in the photos online he is lying in the road asleep . its now 2015 not the 80s or 90s when players could get away with it . now with the internet and the like of facebook players are easy targets .
Like I said he hasn’t done anything wrong, fair play to him…..Looking forward to seeing the pictures of his 21st!!
LOL 😀 nice one.
Like the ‘strippers’ in Malaysia: would you want to hang around with ‘mates’ who can’t resist putting every embarassing moment of your life on the internet?
Would hate to be a teenager today!
Made a failed late bid for Juanmi to beat Southampton to the striker.
Its a shame the lad cannot blow off steam on his vacation, OK he has a duty to his fans and his employer, but sod the people that he thinks are his friends that get him into trouble. Just hope the club are understanding and know that its all about growing up. Villa understand this don’t make him dislike the club by being hard on the kid, we all get pissed at sometime in life.
Good to see so many sensible opinions on Grealish. Its stupid and no more and for god sake he will blow all chances of playing for Ireland if he does not have the odd session. Anyone asked Paul McGrath for his opinion? I hope he appreciates the support he is getting here from fans who have a little life experience.
I really don’t see this Grealish thing as a big deal at all.
He’s a kid on holiday and given he probably doesn’t drink much (if at all) during the season, it’s easy to see how he might end up in that state if he’s not used to the booze.
If this was a couple of nights before a game, I could understand the fuss, but it wasn’t.
If you can’t go out and let your hair down as a kid, you’ll never do it and I wouldn’t ask that of anyone.
Ok, it doesn’t look good, but how many of us can say we’ve never been in that sort of state?
I know I have 🙂
Reading between the lines, I reckon the club aren’t going to punish him much and he’ll probably just get a bit of a rollicking and told to be more careful.
And that’s if it even was him in the pics.
I’ve seen a few comments saying it wasn’t.
Agree completely – the club might tell him to make sure that his ‘mates’ put their ‘phones away if they want to hang around with him in future!
Agree Badger but he def needs a new set of hangers on that won’t stitch him up!
True Oohah, call them mates? no way, a mate would understand high profile friend could get into trouble, them where people saying to themselves I know a footballer, he’s got money let’s get pissed, they’ve got him into trouble, I hope his dad gives him a lecture on finding better mates, then they might be school mates being shown the good life. I wish him all the best.
Usually they don’t have friends they have sycophants who bleeds them dry and hang out with them because of who they are and want reflected glory. They are a bunch of obsequious scroungers imo!