So the Mirror are saying we’re going to do the above;
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/aston-villa-plot-swoop-jonas-4635520
Olsson is 31 and according to Wiki, signed a four year contract in October 2012.
So unless we get incredibly lucky, given our record of over-paying for players, we aren’t going to get him on a free transfer.
Or are we? I’ll leave you to debate that, but I’ll bet he’s on top wages, even if we do get him for nothing.
So what am I getting at?
Well, quite simply I can only see this as another way of Randy Lerner pocketing a couple of million quid.
I don’t have anything against Olsson. He’s a decent, experienced defender, who’s being kept out by Lescott.
But is he on a par with Vlaar?
Or, more in line with what we should be looking for as fans, is he an improvement?
I suspect we’d all agree that he’ll be nothing of the sort.
Of course, it could be that we’re bringing him in purely as backup, given the crocks that we already have.
Which would be fine if that’s all it is.
So why do I suspect that he’ll be expected to go straight into the team?
Hmm, £4-5 million in for Vlaar and Ollson will cost around £1.5 million. It’ll be “undisclosed” of course, as most of our transfers are these days, so we’ll never know the facts.
So that’ll be another few quid in Lerner’s pocket, while he throws us the usual bone of around £5 million to spend in the winter window (which was par for the course years ago, remember).
In the meantime, it depresses me to think some will be praising him for it, because of how “times are hard” etc.
Yes, incredibly hard, if you haven’t received an extra £30 million a season from Sky: which the club has.
Even if this deal doesn’t happen, you can bet your last couple of bob that something like it will, in my opinion.
And still the fans don’t complain.
