DCJonah

Great news. Well I hope he sticks to his word and makes sure someone is in place so he has nothing to do with us again. Yes we're looking like spending a bit more this summer, but compared to the likes of newcastle, stoke and everton is it enough to see us to start to become a top half team? Shouldn't be surprised, Lerner is just a bit of a failure.

I'm not sure that view holds much merit, which goal scorers in the past have people not liked because they just score goals? I can think of Bent last season but I could see why others didn't rate him much. When he first joined he was loved while scoring goals for fun so I think you've made a comment to have a go at a made up group of people. And i'm not sure after scoring 4 goals in his villa career Kozak can be classed as a player who scores goal. He's shown he was able to take a few chances but his overall play and contribution during the game wasn't much. If he's scoring goals for fun then the other stuff doesn't become much of an issue but that's yet to be seen if he can score goals on a regular basis.

Not a bad option as a back up but from what I saw last year he's not good enough to be a regular starter at this level.

That would also give us squad depth with okore, westwood, sanchez, sinclair and gabby. I'd be very happy with that.

Wait, how have the media got Sherwood to go along with their made up rubbish? Strange.

Because it's the job he gets paid to do? Exactly, so why jeopardize that by lying that the club have told him things? You think the club are going to continue to give him the access he currently has if he is making things up and claiming that the club told him it? He hasn't said a source, he's said aston villa officials have told him this. Edit - Just read the post asking to stop talking about journalists so I won't add anything else.

Probably the journalist lying again. I mean why would he want to be the main aston villa journalist for the local paper. I could be wrong but I think he's actually a sha fan. He may be but not sure how that's relevant to the job he has.

Because he was with his wife who is due any day now and he denied it within 24 hours ??? Bloody hell the amount of media victims around here are amazing. THEY MAKE THINGS UP ABOUT FOOTBALL PLAYERS. Sorry for the caps but honestly you would think after this years media inventions about our club everyone would be less willing to give them the benefit of the doubt versus the captain of our team. This wasn't just the normal rumour you see in the papers nearly every day of the transfer window though. I'm amazed people truly believe this was all made up.

Probably the journalist lying again. I mean why would he want to be the main aston villa journalist for the local paper.

I wonder if the people who removed the pictures were reading the same crap the rest of us did. There's no reason to think a PR company would have special access to players on a weekend when the most of the squad are abroad. Especially a player who hasnt travelled due to a heavily pregnant partner and probably was out of contact. I've no idea who Gregg Evans is, I assume a journalist. Of course a journalist has something to gain by making stuff up. It boosts his reputation on the occasions when he guesses right. No-one is hurt when he gets it wrong and people just remember the correct guesses. It's called confirmation bias. There's a reason ITSOTP became a thing back in the days of the mailing list (20 odd years ago). He writes for the birmingham mail and has a lot of access to aston villa. He seemed to be the one that got it after kendrick assumed lambert was going and then fell out the loop. I think he'd damage the access the club provide him if he started spouting lies now about a deal that hasn't even happened. And it's not just those two. It seems the vast majority of journalists, including those at the BBC were all under the same impression. Perhaps the beeb, other journalists and you believed this guy. Perhaps people in Portugal did tell him - maybe it was Doris the tea lady. Delph wasn't in Portugal. Evans (and others) got it wrong regardless of his contacts and the others followed him. Ok.

If people really believe this I think they're nigel pearsons favourite animal.

I wonder if the people who removed the pictures were reading the same crap the rest of us did. There's no reason to think a PR company would have special access to players on a weekend when the most of the squad are abroad. Especially a player who hasnt travelled due to a heavily pregnant partner and probably was out of contact. I've no idea who Gregg Evans is, I assume a journalist. Of course a journalist has something to gain by making stuff up. It boosts his reputation on the occasions when he guesses right. No-one is hurt when he gets it wrong and people just remember the correct guesses. It's called confirmation bias. There's a reason ITSOTP became a thing back in the days of the mailing list (20 odd years ago). He writes for the birmingham mail and has a lot of access to aston villa. He seemed to be the one that got it after kendrick assumed lambert was going and then fell out the loop. I think he'd damage the access the club provide him if he started spouting lies now about a deal that hasn't even happened. And it's not just those two. It seems the vast majority of journalists, including those at the BBC were all under the same impression.

What gives you that idea? Because it makes no sense. If he wanted to stay why would he have a 8M clause in his contract? I said all those things about the club because of that clause. It's a ridiculous clause for a player that doesn't want to leave. Secondly if there is a clause why aren't their bids coming in left right and centre for an England International. 8M is peanuts for such a player! When bids come in we normally hear about it. I honestly don't believe any bid had been made. Why have the clause? Because maybe his agent insisted on it, or maybe he was thinking about down the line rather than this summer. It might have been that he wanted to stay loyal as long as possible and give us another 2 years to see if we can turn things around, but when it came time to go he wanted it to be easier rather than more difficult? The clause was then activated this summer when nobody thought it would be, delph had a chat with city to see what they were offering, and then decided that the original plan was the original plan? We really don't know. There obviously IS a clause, because he was able to go talk to City Do we know this? I think it's pretty obvious.

I don't believe either of them have meaningful knowledge about anything. They talk to a few people at the club who hear the same things that we do. Just like they know nothing about a takeover. It does link in with the club removing delph from the new kit pictures. And while I have little respect for Greg Evans i'm not sure he's going to get far by lying about people from the club confirming this news.

It wasn't media driven. Gregg Evans has said that people from the club in portugal confirmed delph was going, Pete Colley said all his sources confirmed that he was going. This was a done deal, i'm glad he changed his mind and i'm intrigued to know why.

With the widespread reports and the chance of kit pics, it seems fairly obvious to me, that Man City bid for him, we accepted (probably because of the clause), and he was all set for a medical today and signing soon enough. It's the time between 'offer accepted' and 'deal done', where something must have changed. Either he had second thoughts, he reassessed his options or maybe he spoke to someone at Man City about his possible squad position. Whatever it was, it looks almost certain, to me, that a bid was accepted and a move was 80% certain to be completed, until something changed in Delph's thinking. Of course it could just be a false rumour that spread like wildfire, but that seems unlikely, considering BBC don't normally run with rumours unless they have some confirmed reports/ strong leads to back it up. Either way... Thanks for staying Fab! You've made the right choice! (Now sign a new contract without that bloody clause!!! ) Also, all this 'humble pie' and 'I bet people are feeling stupid about their comments' stuff, seems a bit daft to me. It was widely reported he was going, from credible sources that you'd normally take as gospel, so the comments were just from people who assumed the move was as good as done. Wild conjecture again without a shred of evidence. The club removing him from pictures, richards confirming delph asked him about moving to man city and loads of media outlets reporting the same stories. Hardly wild conjecture without a shred of evidence I'm not sure many actually criticised his ability, so your point scoring is aimed at maybe two or three people. Well done you.

Thats dissapointing. This is one signing i'd really like to see us make this summer.

What the hell. I'm so confused! Why did the club remove him from the kit pics? Really glad to here this.

I think townsend would be a good signing. £15 million is high but he's a 23 year old england international player, proven he can perform in the premier league and has his best years ahead of him.

Strange that we bought a goalkeeper, given he's the very same kind of player as Brad Guzan.

So delph trained so hard to become a footballer he has no grasp of the english language. And in an era where players have all the power, he couldn't turn round and say no to the club. I find this quite hard to believe.

He's not stupid enough to have no independent thought of the words the club are asking him to say.

Delph is a grown man and not an idiot, he knew what he was saying and to defend him by suggesting he was manipulated is laughable. The club may have asked him to say these things but he could have said no if he wanted to.

Quite excited to see the kind of striker we will bring in with the benteke money. Our starting 11 next year will be so different to last year.

I think the club probably asked him to make a big deal out of it, but if he didn't want to make those sort of comments he wouldn't have.