stanthemanisgod

Hey not saying anywhere that it's a good idea, I just think it will happen. I think he'll want to go somewhere he can get the chances to nail down his England place and I think the board will jump at the chance to recoup some cash and shave another top earner off the wage bill. Personally I think it woul represent the beginning of the end for Lerner as many hold onto Bent as the remaining ray of light in what is a very average squad, the sale of which would prove to everybody the new level of ambition shown by the board. But I do think it's becoming more apparent he's not happy at the club and the non-story of yesterday is yet another piece of evidnce to suggest that.

This is the thing for me, the people who pay to be bored each week, then pay for the internet to come on here and moan about paying to be bored. I support Aston Villa, I always check the results, watch them when I can I tv and come up to games when money, work commtiments and the Mrs permit. But right now I have no desire to fork out a large chunk of my pay packet to go and see the crap the club is dishing out. There is no contract with the club, they cannot do whatever they want and expect my continued patronage. Right now I'd rather walk to my local club, Southampton, and enjoy a competitive game of football as a neutral. Remember it was your interest in football, not Villa, that first made you walk through thegates of VP, yes that decision might have been swayed by family and friends, but in order to support the club you first have to enjoy the game. Maybe it is time that the club realised they cannot rely on our continued loyalty whilst they appear to be doing aas much as they can to alienate us.

I'm suggesting the corralation is between his perceived lack of chances to score, his interest in the team that are producing so few chances and the impact of that on said selection for the aforementioned international tournament. Pretty sure he's being outscored by a few English strikers at the moment.

I assume that one of the strangth you talk of is Darren Bent? If so can you not see any corralation between not playing to his strength's and a desire to leave the club, especially with the Euros coming in the summer?

I'm with Shilzz on this not pointing the finger but it possible evidence that Bent is not as bothered about the club as he possibly should be, I certainly wouldn't be surprised if we heard his agent making some noise about a Jan move.

Now who's being short sighted? Imagine this.... Randy: Hey Paul fancy leaving that team you've just got promoted twice to come and manage us, I know it's your first season in the PL and all but we'd really appreciate it. Lambert: Umm sure I'd love to work with the likes of Downing, Young and Bent... just one thing how much money have I got to spend? Randy: Yeah...about that.....

Did Gabby add any value to the club by being at the ground... probably not but what he did show to the fans and the younger players on the bench was the level of commitment he shows to the club. IMO Bent should have been there too, I mean I used to turn up and watch my Sunday team when I was injured and that was without being paid to do so, just to prove that I wanted to be there whether injured ot not (and also to prove it wasn't a mystery injury after a night on the sauce!!).

What is his natural position? Either he's inredibly disceplined in his approach to the game, and nothing about the rest of his games would suggest that, or he has no natural desire to push higher up the pitch. He was playing alongside Petrov who has played many a season sitting deep who needs a breather every now and then, if it was me in that midfielf regardless of what the manager had told me I'd see Petrov blowing out of his arse and suggest he gets a breather sitting deep while I pushed on. At no point in the game yesterday did I see Delph even contemplate pushing forward even with cover behind him. If he truely is an attacking minded player then I'd expect Petrov and the manager to spend most of the game reigning him in and forcing him to stay deep. From what I've seen he seems happy in the defensive role.

TheDrums, I kind of agree with this, theonly point being is Houllier never had the longevity to see his plans out he would have been reliant on handing over the project to a capable successor. But entirely agree that the problems f last season were cause by the speed with which he attempted to make his changes rather than the changes he was attempting to make. That said I'm pretty sure I saw both Dunne and Collins try to pass it out of defence yesterday, not all that succesfully but they did try so maybe times are a changing....

There's clearly room for both and I don't see Gabby's best position as an out and out striker, he's best in that Walcott kind of role. I dont want Bent to go either I just think it will happen, and the club will not want to turn down any money we can get for him whilst reducing the wage bill by another significant chunk.

Even on current form it would be Bent.

Eames, I kind of agree but if the ball broke to him or Gabby in the box I know who I'd have more faith in hitting the back of the net. The issue for most, imo, is not how good he actually is but what he represents to the fans. He is the first 'big' money signing we've made in years and the only regular England international we have. He is pretty much the last symbol of hope and optimism left at the club and if he was sold it would be a real kick in the nuts for most, regardless of whether the sale actually made sense or not.

Yes Shilzz, But we generate money/save money by selling Bent. It costs us money to get rid of the manager, well in the short term anyway.

Once it's down to an OK level we'll have to remain within that, so replace Bent on £60k a week with either another player on the saem or say 3 players on £20k a week. It's not just the players you've mention that are the problems, its Bent and Gabby on around £60k a week each, it's petrov and N'zog, every time we negotiate one of their contract and their wages go up the other look for a pay rise too. We may be able to keep some people on the £30-50k a week bracket but it all comes down to what our income is and what kind of numbers we want in the squad.

Issues with that: We wont get £17m for Bent Defoe's wages will be far too high, Zamora is the most likely replacement I can only see one player coming in with the rest of the cash being pocketed by the board as per the summer.

Mantis, I agree, although I feel it's just as difficult to find a better manager that we could get/afford. Currently Bent is pretty much a waste of £60k a week, so it'll come down to which is easier for the club replace Bent (or just sell him and push Gabby back up top) or find a better manager prepared to come in given the past 18 months at the club.

Shilzz, Completely agree the 2 instances are different but was pointing out thsat despite being a Villa boy through and through he was still thinking about leaving. We cannot simply assume he'll stick around regardless of what happens at the club, and that's the same for all of our players, especially those like Bent that have an eye on a national team place for the Euros. Whther we wantt o see him or not I'd be very surprised if he hasn't had alittle word with his agent to see if there's any interest out the for him.

That said Gabby apparently was considering his options under Houllier's reign. Home club loyalty counts for a lot but if you're getting dicked around for fun there's only so much a player will take.

Mark, The issue is not our history or pedigree but the manner in which a potential manager would be asked to work. The evidence would appeaer to suggest that in the summer there wasn't a lot to choose from and that in the eyes of the board AMc represented the best of those that were prepared to come. I dont think he was ever right for the job, and what we're seeing now is the patience of those who were prepared to give him a chance running out, but I cannot see a shread of evidence that suggests we turned down one of these better managers in order to appoint McLeish. What I know is we were about to have an interview with McLaren, and we chatted to Martinez before he decided he's stay at Wigan (yes Wigan!) That suggests to me that there wasn't a wide and varied list of talent that put themselves in the frame for the job. I personally think Lambert and Roger would see it as a hiding to nothing, we'd get a load of fans saying they weren't good enough, thay'd have their hands tied in terms of recruitment of playing staff and would be the instant scape goat the second it looks like performances wont match up to the incredibly high standards Villa fans expect. Not to mention the fact they'd be keen to stick with the side they'd just got promoted. At their current sides if they stay up they've done well, if they came here and achieved that they'd be criticised by all and sundry, so I personally would undersand if they did turn us down.

The club is going to do that regardless, we are now in the realms of the wigans and boltons of the leage who will look to buy players who see us as a stepping stone to the bigger teams. We simply do not have the resources in terms of tranfer fees, and especially, wages to build a squad that is capable of winning anything repeatedly (if at all). Good players will not settle for that for long and wil leave at the first sniff of playing for one of the bigger clubs. The sad thing is there is pretty much nothing we do about it, the UEFA financial rules are in place to maintian the status quo and ensure another City doesn't emerge, and we're too late to do what Utd and Liverpool and Arsenal did to establish their CL credentials. We cannot regulalry fill VP (even when times are good) we don't have long lines of investors waiting with big money sponsorship deals, and we nothing to offer the foreign markets that have alrady been exploited by the Sky 4. We cannot even afford the squad we currently have, and whilst that is partly due to some big earners not pulling their weight, it will be extremely difficult to recruit better players on significantly lower wages.

I've mentioned before that I now live on the South coast due to work, so it's a fair effort to make it up for games and this year I just havn't wanted to spend the money on tickets, getting up, finding somewhere to stay etc. It's hard enough to justify the money for sky sports considering the performances I've seen from Villa so far this season. Something needs to change to break this feeling of apathy. It seems big money signings are now a thing of the past, as is challenging for any kind of honours or european footy, so I would suggest filling the team with young players with stacks of potential and give the crownd something to get behind, at least then there could be a point to mid table mediocrity.

I hear what you're saying but I'm not convinced we are/were that attractive a prospect for managers. We'd effectively be looking at 2 main markets, the established managers who havn't done a lot recetnly and are looking for a club, for example the Hughes type manager. But it appears that Hughes left Fulham due to alack of ambition and surely any chat with the owner that revealed Young and Downing would be out the door with not much of the money made available would put that kind of manager off. The second being the up and coming young manager from a lower league, whilst undoubtedly a PL team would be an attractive optin at first glance, it's clear the scale of the cutbacks at the club would prevent any challenge at any kind of honours, what young manager on the way up would want to risk a mediocre patch on his CV by managing a club that doiesn't have the players or resources to mount any kind of challenge? What we were left with were those that couldn't get a job anywhere else and were prepared t put up with the current financial situation at the club, we didn't want McLaren and therefore options were truely limited. I know we're all fans but realistically we are not an attractive proposition for players or managers, which is partly the reason so many o the players we have signed in recent year have come in on bumper pay deals.

Let's not be too hard on Bent, whilst he may not give a shit about the club he undoubtedly does care about his career, and with the Euros coming up he'll want to make sure he's in with a shout of a place in the National side. We cant expect all our players to be as emotional about the club as we are, when it happens it's great and its why Gabby will always be a hero despite not being the best player at the club. All we can really ask is that player is professional, and I'm sure this season in particular Bent will be as worried about the misses as we are.

It's almost more sad than iti s funny but he'd probably come in and do a fairly decent job for us playing as a lone target man with (hopefully) the likes of N'zog, Gabby and Bannan running off him. At the moment Bent is getting paid an awful lot to be mostly ineffective due to the way we are playing. I dont want to see him sold but I certainly could see the potential justification for it if it were to happen.

For what it's worth I think Liverpool is a likely destination if they're prepared to write of Caroll, which would be an expensive mistake. Bent up top with Suarez doing what he does best is a recipe for a shed load of goals, and there's no mistaking that players get more attnetion from international managers at clubs like Liverpool. I'd also keep an eye on sunderland, although the fans might give him him some stick, they need a striker, MoN will be keen to make a few signings and they have some money knocking around. I cant see Arsenal being interested in him, whilst he could certainly do a job and play off RVP I think Wenger requires more all round footballing ability from his players. Bent may well try to engineer a move if his agent can drum up some interest and we'd always be looking to remove one of our higher earners from the wage bill while the income v. expediture equation remains unsustainable.