The news has been dominated by Bent’s medical at Fulham but there have been some other interesting articles posted today. First of all Aston Villa have rejected the chance to take former midfielder Gareth Barry on loan. The 32-year old midfielder has fallen down the pecking order after the arrival of Fernandinho and by the fact that new boss Pellegrini doesn’t rate the England midfielder. With the midfielder’s contract soon, Man. City have offered Barry back to his former club. There were a few rumours earlier in the year about a potential transfer to Aston Villa, but that never materialised. The same thing is going to happen again. Aston Villa have rejected the offer.
Next bit of news is rather positive, during the international friendlies, Arsenal’s right-back Sagna has picked up an injury. This means that Arsenal only have 4 fit senior defenders. Vermaelen and Nacho are also out injured, but the injury worries don’t stop there, Arteta and Cazorla are injury doubts. Arsenal have endured a frustrating transfer window, missing out on many transfer targets such as Higuain, Saurez and Jovetic. I’m not by any means complaining that our first opponent of the Premier League season has been weakened, but it has given me a fresh air of optimism for the first game of our Premier League campaign. Perhaps we can pull out a draw or even, a win!
Alan Hutton is still hoping for a move away from Aston Villa, last night he played in Scotland’s 3-2 loss to England. He hopes that his performance will be enough to earn him a move away from Aston Villa. He has proved that he is match fit after playing all 90 minutes of yesterday’s game. He has had loan spells at both Nottingham Forest and Real Mallorca. I hope he moves on, I think that he can still pick up his career after his unsuccessful spell at Aston Villa. Hutton was asked about his plans for the future:
“To play out there [Wembley] was brilliant for me; this is what I want to do week in, week out.
“I’ve been training hard back at Villa, I had a time over in Spain which I loved so we’ll see what the new season brings.”
“I’m just keeping my head down at the moment working hard and I’ll see what happens.”
The Bent story is very strange.
The Mirror reported this morning that Palace were in for him on a season loan with them paying around 40k a week of his wages and an option to buy if they survive. There’s also a survival bonus mentioned, which knowing us would probably be around a quarter of a mill or something similarly laughable.
Totally crazy business, imo and the whole thing appalls me, although it will justify Lerner’s position in that we’re making a massive loss, as I would imagine it will go down on the red side of the books via amortisation????
It strikes me Bent’s removal has nothing to do with football and if Benteke was to get injured, Bent would be my next bet to be top scorer, if only Lambert would play him.
I personally don’t swallow that Bent is useless.
The requirements are simple.
Get the ball in the box and he will score plenty.
As for Hutton, I really couldn’t care less.
Pay off his contract (we can afford to write off way more than what he cost, according to the Bent situation) and get rid.
As for Arse’s problems, I’m never happy when any players are injured, but we need the points more than them, so sod ’em.
Agree badger I know bent splits opinions but still a great option for us if Benteke is injured or suffers a loss of form. Lets face it all strikers have bad spells and bents goals would keep us ticking over.
Badger.. What have u seen previously that makes you think we would’ve had a shite promotion clause..
We’ve shafted virtually every club when it comes to buying our key players..
The Bent deal from what the word is will be 2Mloan fee with an option to buy plus they pay his wages.. It’s not a bad deal ESP as everyone keeps saying he will score goals..
So their right back is injured, that means whoever is put there has Gabby and Benteke to contend with. That’s a nice start to the season for them!
Bet they wish they had signed lowton now.
I bet quite a few teams bet they’d signed Lowton.
Who did we shaft?
Barry, good buy for them, same as Milner.
Young, maybe not performed as expected, granted, but we didn’t shaft them, imo.
Downing, maybe, but I always thought Pool were getting a very good player and spent ages telling their fans just that.
My point is more that if we’re willing to throw away well over 10 mill on Bent, even when we all know he can do the bizz, why are we worried about Mutton, who, regardless of a decent performance against a poor England, is still utter crap?
Getting rid of Bent the way we are is not about good business, it’s about proving a point.
And my experience says that’s not a good thing.
Just my take on things, that’s all.
Have to say I agree with you on this mate, well said re Bent on the previous 2 comments.
We did however 100% shaft Liverpool with Downing and Manure with Young. Milner and Barry as you say are a little different, fair fees at the time for 2 very very good players.
totally agree and only player i would av back is milner 🙂
I think the bigger question is, would Bent prefer to sit on our bench or play first team football in London?
We can harp on all day long as to whether keeping him at the club is a good or bad thing but to be honest, it doesn’t really seem like an option.
getting rid of bent is just about shifting the wages whether on loan or transferred, if its a loan and he performs well his price and lure will go up next season, if he performs badly we’re no worse of than we are now. also bent gets to play some much needed 1st team football on a personal level for him, plus if we lonE him out he wont be able to play n score against us 😉 QPR are doing the same thing, they’ve loaned out remy and taarabt.
as for barry there’s no way in a million years we’d be interested in paying his wages although I believe he’d be a good addition to the squad imo, maybe if man city would cover part of the wage but I don’t see it as something lambert would want. maybe man city will off load him on west ham who seem to be recruiting from the opposite end of the spectrum the us in that they have now signed downing from Liverpool to join carrol and joe cole in the old boys league, puts me in mind of big rons 30 somethings of that early/mid 90’s era.
it will be interesting to see how they get on by comparison.
Big rons 30 something’s gave us our best moments in the prem. Shoukd have win title in 92 but bottled it though that utd game where the ref kept on playing till they scored psychologically finished us and was the turning point. Fixed IMO
agreed ooah, I remember it well, it was the beginning of fergie time, I remember united playing 2 games in the closing games of the season running 6 and 8 mins over which was unheard of in those days.
the team ron assembled those years were kind of the exact opposite of what we are doing now in that ron attkinson assembled a team of players many had given up on, players who came pretty cheaply, saunders, Staunton, Houghton, McGrath, Richardson and so on.
big sam has a similar footballing philosophy I will be keeping a watch on how they go this season.
Agreed nm that’s why we could never win the league again IMO as if we had a team capable of doing it the establishment would cheat us out if it ie sky would make us play at stupid times, refs would give sky 4 challengersore big decisions and any big decisions wouldn’t go our way. It’s a big fix IMO. Though I must say. Bfr team was bloody exciting to watch.
I don’t think we shafted Man U with Young.We did get a Reasonable fee as he was in his last year of his contract. I would take him back tomorrow and I bet Benteke would too. I think they would be brilliant together. Does anyone know if Bowery has featured in pre season? I’m thinking Lambert might have mind up about him. I know I have !
Teach them a lesson for stitching us up with djemba djemba lol
jumbo jumper 😉 lol
Bloody long medical Bent is having eh
See the Next Gens been cancelled. I wonder if it would have been if say Barcelona, Inter or Man U would have won it? Or is that just me being cynical?
Why have they been cancelled BWS
Being cynical I’d say because we won it but the official line is ” NextGen series cancelled over funding problems”.
NextGen wasn’t affiliated to either FIFA or UEFA, was a private venture.
Watch this space for a NextGen style competition to be launched by FIFA or UEFA.
That’s cynicism BWS.
I bow to your superior knowledge but the cynic in me still believes that should a a club of a higher standing in world terms (in this age of SKY values) had away walked away with the trophy the competition would still be running again this season but hey ho what do I know? Either way its a shame because it was good experience for the kids with some good footy played and it was a good experience to take the grandkids to.
BWS not sure why it has been cancelled BUT i do know that UEFA want to do there own version and cach on… w@nkers.
Sounds about right LH but you have to wonder if we ( being holders and all) will be invited to take part or it will be the usual suspects?
I should imagine that the workings of the loan deal to Fulham are well in our favour, there has been enough interest in Bent with three teams effectively vying for his services.
A fee, cover the wages, and option to buy all probably feature.
We’re taking a hit on him, but if we hadn’t forked out £18m, we’d have probably gone down. That would have been far more damaging.
For me, brilliant finisher, lazy player. Wigan away summed him up, poachers goal in the first five minutes, and may as well have sat next to me for the remainder of the match.
RE:Next Gen, I remember just after we won it last year that UEFA said only club’s in CL should be in it, so there we go, we are Villa and we stand together because everyone else could not give two shits .
Shows how overrated CL are then that we won it and we are no where near the overrated champions league. Sour grapes me thinks ESP after knocking out chelski