The Daily mail links Aston Villa with Sochaux winger Ryad Boudebouz. The 23-year old Algerian winger was watched by Villa scouts during Sochaux 1-1 draw with Evian over the weekend. The article doesn’t give too much information why Villa would be interested in him nor any information regarding price. I think this link won’t develop, from what I understand, Villa are only interested in signing a new attacking midfielder. Besides, the clubs current objective is to still more than half a dozen players, we’ve only sold one so far, Holman.
Caught offside, have posted this article a few days ago, but I’m only reporting it just now. Allegedly Crystal Palace have spoken to Darren Bent’s representatives and have agreed personal terms with the forward. Crystal Palace are hoping to add to their strike force and have recently loaned in Arsenal forward Chamakh. With personal terms agreed, the only issue is matching Aston Villa’s £6 million valuation for the outcast forward. The transfer fee has been the sticking point Newcastle, Fulham and now Crystal Palace.
Bent will be leaving, it’s just a question of which club and when. I think Bent will be sold late on in August, and if any team is struggling to score goals, they will meet Aston Villa’s valuation.
Many news organisations are posting an article regarding Benteke, no he isn’t being linked anywhere. Paul Lambert has discussed how Benteke will be a target this season for many Premier League defences and warns teams that Benteke will not be bullied easily. This comes after the Malaga game where he was often bullied and Lambert was displeased with the officials failing to award more freekicks.
‘I did have words with the fourth official,’ said Lambert, ‘I thought some of the challenges out there were wrong.
‘But I don’t think Christian will be bullied. He can handle himself.
‘He’s not a malicious guy – not at all. But he will protect himself. That’s exactly what he will do.
‘He’s a good guy and a top, top player. If you are out there, you have to protect yourself.
‘And he has earned himself a reputation. He has to go and keep it. He’s on form at the minute.’
Benteke will be much more targeted this season, no question about that. However I believe he’ll be just as good, or in fact become a stronger player. I just worry that he might get injured which would be a huge problem since Aston Villa are just so much stronger with Benteke in the team. But with the opposition defence focusing more on Benteke, that would allow Weimann and Agbonlahor to create more chance and have more time on the ball, hopefully they’ll be able to put it to use.
So just been reading, Kyotake is 100% definitely a no go, Paul Faulkner confirming over webchat with fans. Bit gutted to be honest.
Explains the cheaper Ryad Boudebouz.being linked for only around 5m Euros and having scouts at the Sochaux game.
It’s strange how any player we are linked with for circa £10m never happens when the £1m one come off. All bullshit to sell STs and its worked as we have sold 20,000 already. On another note I’d rather be linked with a dm than am we are ok going fwd but shit defensively
To be fair, Faulkner claimed that Nurnburg had no reason to go public with the “interest” as it never went past an enquiry. So unless Nurnburg are trying to get Villa’s ST’s higher, it has nothing to do with that.
Bit worried ( probably nerves ) that we haven’t added to our middle three.. I hope Delph n Sylla are up to the task.. We can’t afford any injuries ESP to Westwood..
Once you factor in the Makoun sale ( reportedly 2.5M ). We have spent around 9M on relatively low key signings before the season starts..
I genuinely hope there’s money in the kitty that’s being held back to see how we are after the first three games and where we need to add..
To spend just £9m is an embarrassment and a piss take IMO. Especially when u see what the likes of Swansea, west ham and Southampton have spent. Before anyone has a pop at me I’m not saying we should spend £80m and sign bale but another £10m on a half decent dm and ch would not break the bank especially as we have saved over £250k in wages per week.
To spend £10m for the sake of it if Lambert is happy with his signings would be embarrassing.
I think that we may have made other deals had we moved on a few of the bomb squad but we haven’t.
I’m quite happy with what I’ve seen so far in terms of the team, and look forward to the new season.
Vaze.. being honest the midfield worries me.. like i said it might be nerves with the season about to kick off.. but i would be a lot more happier if we had a play maker and a Diame type player next to Westwood unless Sylla is upto the task..
As for money spent.. yes if PL is happy with the players in then thats great otherwise i really hope there are funds in the kitty..
N’Zog will probably come back at some point, unless Lambert has definitely ruled him out.
Fair enough I’m not saying it Shoukd be for the sake of it but anyone can see we need another ch and a dm. If lambert did that expect a top 8 finish if he dosnt then it’s bottom 8. Thoughi still think we will stay up
NZog is out, his shirt number as much as anything, makes that clear. Oohah, why are you fixated with how much we are spending? If the players are who PL want, you have to trust him. And when has the price meant a player is better?
You obviously didn’t read comments properly I don’t care how much we spend we still need a good dm and a good ch. whether that costs £1m or £10 m is irrelevant as long as they are good that’s all that matters
Andrew, just ignore Oohah and his ramblings about propaganda to sell ST’s.
Let’s be honest, the hardcore figure of around 20,000 rarely changes over the years, and I don’t know of any of my mates who wait to see which £10m players we sign to renew.
The only marquee signing that I can remember that significantly boosted sales was Stanley Victor, so it’s hardly a proven path to success lol !
Think UL find collymore put a few thousand in st sales to
That is what I said.
I don’t remember ST sales jumping through the roof any other time.
You do know that Stanley Victor are Collymore’s Christian names ?
Ha ha no I didn’t I was wondering who Stanley victor was thought it was some old timer from the 1930s.
Btw have you read this bollocks from lambert saying to the fans be patient as we have team that has legs. Wtf is he on about. Basically he saying we will get hammered in the first 3 games and going through yet another transition period yawn http://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/aston-villa/news/lambert-calls-for-patience_98418.html
Let’s not get too carried away if we lose the first 3 oohah. It’s a tough start for anyone in our position mate. Any points will be a bonus for me.
Yes it is but it sounds like lambert has thrown the towel in already. There are no guarantees we will beat the teams after those 3 either
Bit of an exaggeration oohah, I wouldn’t say “thrown in the towel” is exaclty right. He is being realistic and merely telling us not to become attached to the idea that we’re suddenly going to go out and beat everyone this season. There is still a ways to go in this plan/model, 2 years yet (including this season). We are by no means a finished article.
I agree it would be nice to see a couple of experienced players in the middle of the park but from the turn of the year the form of Delph, Sylla and Westy has put that idea to bed.
Give the lads a chance mate, and don’t just judge after Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool, after 10 games in we’ll have a good idea of whats going to happen. If we’re bottom at that point I’ll agree with you mate.
Fair enough 12 games is usually the bench mark of roughly where a team will finish that’s the time to judge.
It is a tough start and I think that Lambert is just trying to bring a sense of reality as some have been getting a little carried away.
That said, I have laid Arsenal on Saturday as I hope a draw or unlikely win will pay for my train fare and ticket lol !
I don’t think that Arsenal deserve to be less than 1/2 on Betfair.
Can see us going 2.0 up and losing 3.2 typical villa performance
I think it’s realistic for Lambert to ask fans to be realistic and patient. I’d rather see us rebuilding carefully like this than the club getting into massive and unmanageable debt. Not to say that I wouldn’t be happy if OOHAH were to buy out Lerner and fund whichever manager he so sees fit to employ to the tune of a couple of hundred million a year to get us to the top quicker by buying expensive established players on high wages.
Ha ha I wish. But u miss the point I’m not saying we should spend 100s of millions I’m saying that we should be able to compete with Swansea and Southampton Ffs. We now have £90m extra in sky money plus around 250k saved in wages. Questions need to be asked but to many people are just happy with staying up now.
Couple problems:
First, I agree, although I have no doubt we can compete with Southampton, they’re going for a few expensive players instead of upgrading the actual squad itself.
Second: Laudrup > Lambert, all day, every day. You read these players going to Swansea claiming they went for Laudrup, he’s got huge pull power.
Third: Amount of players we already have. We have 27 players 22 or older, not fully sure how the 21 age thing works, but we’re not going to continue buying players and then not adding the players we have to squad while continuing to have to pay them. That’s not going to work.
Four: Have you ever thought Lambert simply doesn’t want expensive players? It shows we have a scouting network that’s actually working. The players being bought now are no worse than what O’Neill bought, we’re simply a more open team now in the way Lambert plays compared to O’Neill which is why the team concedes more.
He’s having trouble moving McLeish players, why? Because they’re British. I’m not trying to offend, but if they were from South America, France, Spain or whatever and still this bad, they would still be moved on far quicker than the ones we have as they’d have better options than the Championship clubs wanting them
Fair points Andrew but is this system working re point 4. Remember we only just escaped relegation whilst going the longest ever without keeping a clean sheet, our biggest prem hammering and a minus goal difference that tiger woods would be proud of. Basically we were no better than the season before the only difference being we played better football under lambert. If you look at the players he bought the only one I can get excited about is Okore. Ok one or 2 may do better than we thought but whether lambert wants to buy expensive players or not is irrelevant if he seriously wants to improve the squad he needs to splash out on established ch and dm. That dosnt mean he has to break the bank but surely he could get a couple of half decent players for 10-15m. And yes agree I’d rather have laudroup over lambert anyday.
Those 2 positions I fully agree we still need but who? Teams right now are struggling to find these players because either 1. they don’t exist or 2. the clubs aren’t selling anymore. , but how many midfielders do we want? Gardner, Sylla, Delph, Westwood, El Ahmadi, Herd, Johnson and still have Bannan. Lerner nor really any football club owner is going to be signing another midfielder when we have 8 collecting wages at Villa Park for 2 spots. Now Gardner, Herd and Johnson will probably rotate between first team and the Reserves, as might Sylla but that’s still 8 midfielders, and that still doesn’t include Ireland, Bacuna and Tonev who could all play there. Then we have 4 CB’s, while I don’t rate Clark (I can remember when he was actually linked to United, kinda like Bannan and then failed to make his mark). But do you really see him dropping Vlaar? Baker shouldn’t be dropped being our best CB, despite his faults and Okore is a monster that shouldn’t be benched either. That’s our current problem. We have too many.
As for signings, who though? I mean the best CB on the market right now is Toby who’s going to Spartak for big wages and CL football, and leaders of the Russian Premier League right now. Next best one is probably Astori who’s linked to Napoli, Milan and Manchester City. These are the reason we’re going to be scouting a lot more often now is that the best players are either at the top, or the top clubs need these players and a lot of the bigger clubs still need defenders. Unless we bought Fernandez from Napoli, who I think we could with the clubs after him and he’d cost about 7m Euros, and he’s a monster, but then again that’s one option.
Then there’s 1 more point I forgot. We finally have a system. We no longer are just going to buy players, Lambert has the players playing in a system that he wants and we need players that can fit the system. It’s no longer go out and buy someone like Scott Dann or Sidwell or so and so. It’s about defenders who can actually pass the ball, it’s about midfielders who can move the ball quickly.
Fair points Andrew bit our midfield is very much attack based. Maybe we should loan a couple out and get a dm. The problem is in midfield and especially defence it’s quantity over quality. All our centre halves are not up to the mark no matter what the combo we will concede and make silly mistakes. Personably I’d start with baker and Okore. As for who we could sign iv no idea there must be a better ch and dm than what we have already that is within our price range. Ideally if have liked shawcross but no chance of him and he would of made a decent captain IMO.
Shawcross is a good defender but with his mind on “Hoofball”, he’s not a player I could see Lambert wanting. If we’re looking defenders, I’d put my money on Fernandez of Napoli who they’re looking to sell.
But is this a time where we look into… The loan market? I know I’ve read you’re heavily against it but would it be best to get a good DM and let Sylla get another season of some game time before making him the natural starter as a DM? I mean I can see him coming good by January if he started every game. And where do you look? Someone like Marrone from Juventus is for sale at like 7-10m, a good DM that can play CB. Or do you look younger and better with little experience like Duncan at Inter who would cost 10m? Or someone like Gargano for 6m, despite being 29 already?
Do you really want Villa caught up in the overspending though? I mean I know you talked about Southampton making big money signings, but they’ve signed Wanyama and Lovren for 25m, and that’s it. They’re making big money signings instead of upgrading the entire squad which cheaper but still quality players.
True about shawcross but first job of defender is to defend and that’s what our defenders don’t grasp. I don’t see any of our centre halves passing the ball out effectively they try to pass it out fair enough but usually give it away and then they are back under pressure. I’m not sure who I’d sign tbh even if we had city’s money I wouldn’t know but we need better than what wev got on those positions that’s for sure. I do think okore will be a good player and like you say will take him a good few months to settle but when he does I think he could be one of the buys of the season. Only problem with that of course will holding onto him long enough to be successful and that’s where the whole plan falls down. Lets assume all lamberts signings turn out to be as good as Benteke hypothetically. The question then is can we keep them for a few years and become a challenging team again or do they go to a sky four team even though potentially we might match them.
Ps no loan players it’s pointless they are either crap or really good then go bk to their sky 4 club. I think it’s humiliating for a club like ours to take a loan player tbh though I didn’t mind when mcleish took keane for awhile as that turned out to be a master stroke with his goals maybe being the difference of us staying up or going down
OOHAH, last season we beat Swansea at home and drew away, the match against Southampton at the start of the season we were in disarray and at home in January I think the decisions went against us and wasn’t the penalty from which they scored a dive rather than a foul? I suspect this season with the team essentially choosing itself and playing well we’re going to beat both teams. Southampton didn’t need to rebuild the squad as Lambert has had to do so they are in a position we’ll be in next season or the one after where the squad is sorted and just needs fine tuning with some decent signings here and there.
But beating Southampton and Swansea shouldn’t be the measure for us. They are just one off games that we might win lose or draw. Though the way saints took us apart at their ground was humiliating tbh
And now we have a much more settled and experienced team that was doing well in the second half of last season. We started the season in disarray, with pretty much an all-new defence and new players all over the place. Fairly quickly the likes of Ireland and Bannan were shown up for what they are and as the team settled they started playing well. We were thrashed in three games in December purely because your mate Vlaar was injured, without all those goals conceded we’d have been in a much better place. Yes, Lambert took a huge gamble not rushing out to buy a decent defender to help out but it paid off and we weren’t lumbered with another high wage January buy like Bent. That season is behind us, the team improved massively from what we saw at West Ham to what we saw against Wigan. Yes, we don’t keep clean sheets. Yes, that’s an issue that needs to be addressed. The new season hasn’t yet started, and we start with three pretty tough games which we’re likely to not come out of well. There’s a high likelihood that you’ll be able to crow about how shit we are, how Lambert’s Lemmings are all idiots, how Vlaar should be taken outside and shot, how had Lerner sold out to an Arab Billionaire and he’d listened to you we’d all be sorted. There’s also a chance we’ll do ok and build on the end of last season through this season and slowly improve. Until we win the triple there will always be things you will find to moan and whinge about and even then I suspect everything will be wrong.
Well we did the treble last season biggest hammering ever, biggest run of games without a clean sheet ever and worse goal difference ever!! What a great treble that was lets hope we can repeat it this year I bet utd are quaking in their boots!!
Rotherham United? I’m sure there will be more disasters for you this season. Just remember that had Vlaar not been out injured two of your three there probably wouldn’t have happened. I can see now why you don’t like him.
Some of our hammerings came with vlaar in the side remember Southampton away vlaar was responsible for at least 3 of their goals. Remember before the Chelsea away game without vlaar we kept a few clean sheets and only conceded something like 3 goals in 5-6 games including 0.0 v arsenal and a 3.1 win at Liverpool. Chelsea was unfortunate we conceded early and the heads dropped. That result wouldn’t have happened under mcleish in the second half he would have shut up shop and took the 3.0. That’s where lambert failings are you don’t go full out attack v Chelsea away at 3.0 down when you can be picked of so easily. Yes by all beans attack but there has to be a def attack balance something lambert still dosnt get. After Chelsea game confidence went from a defensive point of view but I blame lambert for his tactics leaving a defence exposed rather than vlaar not playing. Remember our best defence spell of the season before the Chelsea game was without him.
Stylian Petrov asks for 19 minute to come to an end, from the horses mouth
http://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/aston-villa/news/petrov-asks-to-end-applause-tribute_98435.html