John

In this case he may have had little choice because I don't think there are any direct flights from China to Birmingham.

I was thinking primarily some cash to be put into the club to help meet our running costs (rather than relying on player sales for that) but doesn't the FFP position ease a little in 12 months it won't stop us bringing in other players forever will it?

The Daily Mail claim we still owe some money to WBA on the original deal so £5m from Stoke might not have brought that much into our club. Positive that we have not took the first offer made no matter how low it was.

Let's hope there are no scouts from other clubs there then.

I think Levy is playing the waiting game. Nobody else has apparently come in for him and he's in no rush to part with any money. He knows our owner is desperate for cash. The price has probably already been cut from the original quote of £40m to £30m and is likely now down to £20m or slightly less. Levy will continue to string us along until we are forced to accept the paltry £15m he originally wanted to pay or possibly even less. He's just looking to take full advantage of our predicament and will be laughing at our plight as he does so I suspect.

I know it's unlikely but I can't help not being happy about it.

I can do without other teams doing "good things" like this for us. Signing him will make us weaker and them stronger so they had better be offering us some money for him as well as taking his wages or some of his wages off the payroll..

We could still have those to find a starting eleven from but I wouldn't be surprised if we sold one or more of Adomah, Lansbury, Hourihane, Green, Davis or Hogan. On the bright side we may well still have De Laet, Lyden, Gardner, Clark and Doyle-Hayes along with a few more promising youngsters to add to those players that you have mentioned.

Have we found a club that are not yet aware of our dire financial situation and are therefore thinking they will have to make us the sort of offer for a World Cup player that would reluctantly make us seriously consider accepting their offer?

We don't even know which club if any have actually made any bid. If someone from somewhere has I would guess the offer is around twelvty.

Sadly the choice of who stays and who goes is not ours to make. Everyone has a price (a low one) and some may go gratis or on a loan just to take some or all of their wages off the payroll. Those players we would most want to keep are least likely to stay and those we would prefer to move on are most likely to remain. If I start thinking about who I want to keep I'll only grow increasingly frustrated when they start heading for the exit door one after the other. I will be satisfied (not really) if we have enough players left to field something resembling a competitive team when this transfer window mercifully slams shut.

A decent fee but sadly another player on his way out of the door if true. I wonder how many weeks that fee will keep us running for?

Has there been an actual bid for him yet or are we just looking to get all of the high earners off the books because we can't afford to pay them? I would be sorry to see him go because I was hoping he would be able to lead what we have left by example (as captain if and when Chester goes). We won't have much left to put on the pitch if our players all make for the exit.

They had to offer silly money for Gunn to get him and for some reason that is beyond me did. They won't have to twist our arm with silly money for our player if they want him £2m would probably do it with us given our desperate situation. I hope they don't want him because he's worth more to us and is one of the young players we are relying on to come good when we have lost most of the last season's first team.

Linked in the Birmingham Mail now. Decent player but he had his chance to sign for us last season and chose to sign for Small Heath instead because Harry offered him higher wages than we did. I doubt he would be keen to be loaned to us even if we had the money or desire to make it happen.

I hope we are bidding alongside them if that proves to be the case but I doubt that we will be and that he will want to drop down a division to sign for either of these clubs. I've been trying to think of another Villa player sale that has had anywhere near the same impact on me. Bruce Rioch came to mind as did David Platt, Gordon Cowans, Brian Little to Small Heath (which happily never happened) and the exits of John Gidman and Andy Gray. I think Jack's sale would arguably be the worst bit of transfer business that we have done during the last 50 years!!

Nice to hear some good news. I hear Manchester United have invited them to attend a game at Old Trafford. Haven't these boys been put through enough already? I call it cruel and unusual punishment....

I think at present it's more a case of destroying our team rather than rebuilding it. It would be nice to think we could try to do some rebuilding in a year or so or when we have a cash injection which is much needed but presently far from likely. Sadly I anticipate starting the season without Jack, Kodjia and Chester, along with anyone else that another club wants to buy or loan to save us paying some of their wages and possibly get a small loan fee. Hopefully we can bring in a couple of loans to play them alongside our kids and what we have left. Sorry to sound so negative but I have not got "Football's coming home" to lighten up my mood anymore.

A player that could have a real breakthrough season with us if he stays relatively injury free and we don't sell him to someone looking at taking our young talent off our hands on the cheap.

That's the most annoying thing it was introduced to ensure financial fair play but has achieved the opposite. Clubs like Manchester City are fined money that represents chump change for cash rich clubs but cash strapped clubs (which clearly now include us) that dare to spend money to get in the same league as the financial big hitters are punished unmercifully for daring to do so. Basically football has become a closed shop. Our owner if he has any money anywhere is not prepared to put it into the club and has used our parachute payments to gamble on owning a club that would reach the Premier League gravy chain and make him substantial money as a result in the long term having repaid loans he had taken out. Clubs with money are able to get around FFP or pay fines that represent peanuts to them the likes of us are forced to sell players if we don't want to face disproportionately harsh penalties and are ruined on the football pitch and/or off it by financial unfair play. Do I not like that!

I have to say I quite liked the interview. He was honest about our situation, positive about the status of our club, complimentary to the fans and seemed determined to do all he could to make this season go as well as it can in the circumstances.

So did I but it has been many years since we had players of that calibre come through our youth system at the same time and unlike now we were able to buy players like Bruce Rioch, Andy Gray and Dennis Mortimer to play alongside them. it is rare for a team to have more than a couple of youth players in it at the same time now. Since then we have brought through quality players such as Mark Walters, Tony Daley and Jack but it is asking a lot of the academy and the young men from it to fill in all of the gaps in our first team that are the result of the mess that those that run our club have got us into. Nevertheless you are correct in adopting a positive approach to our current predicament. We do need a siege mentality and I do hope we're going to be OK eventually.

We should have got Paul Rideout to model the new shirt like he did this one. Not anywhere near as bad as I had feared though.

He might also be staying because he feels that he should. He knows we're in a mess and the easy option would be for him to quit for that reason but perhaps he wants to try to help the club and it's fans at a time when we need all of the help that we can get. He's a decent man who tried to get us up last season whilst going through the pain of the loss of both of his parents. He just failed to do that because we lost that final play-off game and possibly the decision not to correctly punish a Fulham player who chose to stamp on Jack's leg in the first half of that game unduly influenced that crucial result. His leaving the club would not in itself resolve everything that is wrong with the club and he is also not alone in having some responsibility for our current dire situation. He does however, represent an easy target for those of us who can't forgive and forget his long past association with another so called football club.

I will accept my small share of any responsibility on the same day that he does.