StanBalaban

He really is a turd of a bloke. Just checked that old Whelan Says website is still up and running.

Didn't Villa only take Alan Little on board to ensure we got Brian?

Yup. Benteke make the difference between 8th and 6th. We can't just hand him over to our primary mid-table rivals. I would accept £40m though. If you're going to finish 6th, yu may as well finish 8th as both positions win you **** all.

I think you'll find it will come down to him having 3 years on his existing contract, and we don't want to sell him, so I imagine regardless of Benteke "being willing to take any move up the ladder" there is the small matter of Liverpool making Villa an offer we simply could not refuse (which is likely to be way over £20M considering after Messi and Ronaldo he is 2013's top league scorer in Europe). Anyway, how's Gareth Barry's transfer been working out on Merseyside ? I think the most salient point to all the gossip merchants is that we have thus far heard of a multitude of potential destinations on paper, yet no actual offers from any of these clubs.

Even Jose himself is joining in...

Some undoubted bollocks about Kurt Zouma coming to us here.

Well... he's back!

People forget that agents, whilst obviously in the business of sales, loathe to burn bridges with potential customers too. If agents went hell for leather to engineer moves for their clients every time there was some interest, they'd burn their bridges with every club in the land sooner or later. If Benteke's agent helped force through an uneccesarily premature move through for CB this season, you can bet his other clients won't be bought up by Villa in the near future. Extrapolate that across all clients and clubs an you'll see there's a balancing act in toe. For every club an agent pisses off, a potential future buyer is burnt. In my opinion CB will only move if it's good value for CB AND Villa.

The Swansea fans crack me up...

I think it's a safe presumption to assume that, as a professional footballer, James Chester has legs.

Teams will look at us and see that Benteke has scored the greatest proportion of any team's goals in the Premier League. They may feel that if they mark CB out of the game, they effectively nullify our goal threat. If he stays we definitely need to add more goals around the team as a whole (which I'm sure we will do), but if he does go, then I'm not too worried either, as PL will reinvest the money wisely. I would be surprised if CB wasn't a heavily marked man next season, making it difficult to reproduce the 19 league goals of this campaign. We can expect to hear very little from CB about his future for now. What's more telling about these articles is that we haven't heard from any of his supposed suitors saying they want his either. Simple media bollocks for now, but whether he stays or goes, both leave us in a stronger (just different) position.

Or the first evidence he is listening to his agent to keep his gob shut? Exactly Denis.

His agent said that he has told CB not to answer anymore questions about his future, therefore he cannot be misquoted or misinterpreted. Therefore, if he continues to adhere to this, expect every article to be based on absolutely nothing except a means of attempting to drum up a story. Pretty much like most transfer articles to be fair...

Link to the Sky Sports interview here Richard Dunne

Brings back memories *shudders* 3rd kit looks nice however...

Yeah the more I look at it the less I like it. Those stripes on the home kit are a mess and I'm not sure what the claret 'sweat patches' on the away kit add. Prefer Burnley's too. I would assume the fact that it's nigh on impossible to get any info on how much the Adidas deal is worth to their club would suggest it's not anywhere ours with Macron.

The shade of claret and the stripes makes the Wet Spam kit look a little Burnley-esque IMO

I'm not sold on it. It's nice, but I think it's too fussy in places, especially the stripes on the home kit. Same with the away kit withthose bits under the arms. A blue shoulder with claret stripes would have been better IMO, like this...

Luke, this is one of yours is it not? I like!! If you mean this one, I think people loved it mate. See page 22 of this thread.

What an absolute cock end!

Think so. Had also been linked with Spuds after AVB and the Baggies after RDM too.

Ralf Rangnick has emerged as a contender for the Everton job now.

I think Albrighton will get one more season to see if he can cut it. Started with great promise, got a bad injury and looked completely out of sorts and devoid of any confidence. Constantly changing the manager can't have done his progress too much good either. I imagine he's the sort of player that could work well with Lambert. I can see Holman being shipped out however.