HalfTimePost

Why? Bent is never going to be part of Lamberts plans. He is everything that Lambert does not like in a player. Bent is gone whether Benteke stays or goes. Why would we keep paying Bent £90k+ a week to warm our bench just because we lost Benteke? It is a very real possibility that both Bent and Benteke will leave this summer. The only difference between the two is that we'll be actively trying to move Bent on.

70k

On the floor I think Benteke is a good passer, last few games he has really helped dictate possession with the team. It's the long balls from Guzan to Benteke that are our biggest downfall in possession I think

This is going to go one of two ways, or both. 1) The clubs like Everton, Us, Newcastle that are big enough to challenge for 5th/6th will start taking it more seriously. Currently it's a 'we cant get into the Champions League' and thats that. CL is all footballers care about and where the money is. Would be great to get into Europa now and essentially have a back-door into the Champions League. 2) Champions League also-rans that get dumped into the Europa start relying on the Europa League to secure them Champions League football if their domestic seasons aren't going well. Spurs, Arsenal I'm looking at you. It should, at least make the Europa League relevant though. If we can get into a position to enter the Europa for 2015 that would be cracking but Im not sure I can quite see it.

Good.

Lets just be clear. It wont be sorted until the window closes. Even if he is staying there will be reports all summer that he is moving. Even if he signs a new contract tomorrow, there will be reports all summer that he is moving. Even if it is sorted before pre-season, It's not going to be sorted before the window closes in the media and other clubs' eyes. The only way this gets sorted quickly is if we sell him quickly, which we wont. It would be nice if he signed a contract and the media left it alone but it isn't going to happen.

A look at the stats, all pulled from Squawka. I apologise for the length of this post, and dont expect many people to read it haha. PASSING Possession We managed an average possession of 48%. This puts us 13th in the league, just below Newcastle and Fulham on 50% and just above WBA on 47%. I expected us to be a bit better in this to be honest as generally when we get going we are very good on the ball. Unsurprsingly the best teams in this area are Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool, Man United and Swansea. The bottom 3 being Reading, Norwich and West Ham. We just need to keep that up, get some confidence into some positions and possibly some experience to calm things down when sometimes we panic. You can see this when we score and then concede almost instantly, you can feel it happen. I dont particularly want more experience, to be honest you can probably get around that panic with just better players. Westwood doesn't often panic like the likes of Clark and Bennett do. Interestingly, our highest Possession was 57% when we lost 1-0 to West Ham and our lowest possession % was 37% when we beat Liverpool 3-1. I think this gives a bit of credence to us needing to find a talented CAM, somebody who can find those defence splitting passes and chip in with some goals. We can counter attack brilliantly (i.e. 3-1 vs Liverpool) but when we are passing the ball around on the edge of the box we just are not finding that last killer ball enough. Con talks about Bannan but his final ball isn't good enough, he may have good stats but he hasnt made the impact a player like that should have. A left-back version of Lowton will also be crucial to get more balls into the box. Chance Creation This is backed up with Chance Creation, we created 334 scoring opportunities throughout the season, meaning on average we create 8 chances a match, just under once every 10 minutes. I think we've gotten better since January we have been great going forwards and I thought we would have made many more than this. Bottom 3: Sunderland, Stoke and Reading Top 4: Liverpool, Spurs, Man City and Everton Game with most key passes: 16 in 1-1 Draw with Baggies Game with least: 4 in the 4-0 loss to Spurs Passing - Accuracy 15th in this too with 78%. Think we can build on this, again when we are in our element we are a very good footballing side we just still have this thing where we pass backwards without finding that killer ball, get it back to Baker or Guzan and then lump it forwards, lose possession and then defend. Where we could have just tried a more intricate pass with a higher chance of success than lumping the ball to Benteke. Top 3: United, Arsenal, Swansea Bottom 3: Stoke, Reading, Norwich Best Game: 88% Villa 3 - 2 QPR Worst Game: 66% Villa 3 - 3 Everton Passing Style Average Passing Length: 20m Backwards Passes: 15m Forwards Passes: 21m Long Balls: 42m Average pass length is 12th highest is the league, quite good in fairness. I would like to see it come down a bit because I think our long balls are just stupid at times. Benteke wins a lot of aerial duels but I'd be surprised if we keep possession much from them. Top 3: Norwich, Newcastle, Readin (all 22m) Bottom 3: Arsenal, United, City (all 19m) Largest average pass length: 23m in 3-1 win over Liverpool Lowest average pass length: 16m in 2-1 win over West Ham We made just under 14000 passes. 7000 less than Arsenal (top) and 2000 more than Stoke (bottom). Interestingly: Game with most attempted passes: 541 in 1-0 loss to West Ham least attempted passes: 199 in 3-3 draw with Everton Most completed passes: 460 in 3-0 loss to Man U Least completed passes: 131 in 3-3 draw with Everton Again shows that when we have all these lovely passes, we just dont have that final ball, the killer pass. Most long balls and lowest possession = beat liverpool 3-1. Most completed passes we do all season: 3-0 drubbing to United. If we dont counter attack successfully we fail. Fortunately we have this base where we can make all these passes to build from. Put in a key CAM and we could really rifle up the league. DEFENSE Defensive Errors We made 28 defensive errors this season (9th highest). 8 of those led to a goal being conceded (11th highest) fully expected us to be higher up here. Some of our errors are very basic though, it needs sorting. Most errors: Arsenal, Newcastle, Wigan, Liverpool Leading to goal: Wigan, Arsenal, QPR, Newcastle Most errors: 4 in 1-0 loss to Fulham Least: 1 in 3-1 loss to Everton Convinced Squawka have some errors in their stats here! Defensive Actions Total: 2601 (1st place, 200 ahead of Spurs in 2nd) Clearances: 1654 (3rd, 6 behind 1st place Spurs) Blocked Shots: 177 (2nd, 1 behind 1st place Sunderland) Interceptions: 770 (2nd, 9 behind 1st place Southampton) Quite clear this. We are asking a lot of our defense, they are the most active defense in the league by a long way, 10% more active than the nearest defense to them. The midfield needs sorting to give them more protection. Hopefully our recent move to 4-3-3 with Gabby and Weimann protecting Bennett and Lowton has helped a bit rather than leaving them out to dry. Least active defenses: Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool I meant to go on a bit further with this but I cant type any more haha. There are a lot of Stats over at Squawka and it makes for quite interesting reading

Jordan Adams @Jordanadams001 Not ITK but Stephen Ireland has just changed agents to W3 Soccer Management, LLC, who are based in the USA..

I think we could keep Benteke this summer, however, if we don't Lambert could do a lot with £30m. Add to that £8m for Bent and maybe £3m for the likes of Ireland, Given and Hutton and we suddenly have £40m. I wouldnt expect us to spend all of that but we could maybe see us spend £30m over the summer and January. It could certainly see us take a step up in our recruitments, where we may have signed say a Bennett we could instead sign a Cresswell. Im against selling Benteke but for circa £30m we could hugely improve the squad (depending on his replacement)

Next season I think. New manager, no money to give them to get their own squad, likely to lose atleast Fellaini, possibly Baines, unlikely to reinvest all the money they get for those players.. if we keep Benteke I think we will finish above Everton

Zero chance of Bony, very similar to Benteke this season, has had an absolutely explosive season. We missed the bus on him and then signed Benteke instead. Which is fine, infact it is incredibly encouraging to know that we were after both of them. It's clear that that type of player (in terms of style of play, potential value of the player etc) is crucial to Lamberts system, as such I wouldnt expect us to sign Aubameyang (who also had a similar season to Benteke/Bony in terms of impact at Saint Etienne) as a replacement, I agree if we were to sign him it would be to play in Weimann/Gabbys role. Presuming the links last summer to Aubameyang and Bony were real + us actually signing Benteke, that is 3 strikers who have all had superb seasons after being relatively unknown by mainstream footie fans a year or 2 ago. If Benteke leaves just have to trust Lambert to do it a 4th time.

Also, only Messi and Ronaldo have scored more in 2013. That means Benteke has outscored the likes of Aguero, Van Persie, Rooney, Falcao, Lewandowski, Ibrahimovic etc etc. So anybody thinking it was going to be a nice case of asking him politely to sign a new contract and him doing so with no fuss about moving is living in a dream world.

If Benteke leaves this summer it's going to be an absolute nightmare just to hold on to Weimann and Lowton for August. We all know the plan though, buy young, up coming players with resale value and try to build the club up around them. Theres only one reason why you choose players with resale value. It's to sell them. We cannot compete with the top 4, hopefully we find a lot of gems all in one go and manage to take the league by storm and push for Champions League and be the next Dortmund but it's very unlikely. We are more likely to find players on the up, build them up and mix them with players from the academy, all going well we sell a few on for huge sums of money and go again. Yes, it sucks to lose Benteke after 9 months but if we get £30-40m for him then its a good start to that and we have to put our faith in the scouting network to find another.

Heres another version of the quotes, translated better than Google. 101greatgoals

Poorly translated by Google from here. Basically saying he wants to get the most from his career.

Nursey of The Mirror saying Lambert is after: 2 Fullbacks (1 being Cresswell) 1 Experienced Centre Half (Lescott) 1 Creative midfielder (Luke Murphy) Mirror As far as that goes, I would like all of those but I really 100% cannot see Lescott coming in. Presuming Nursey is right (I know, its the Mirror, but still) Guzan Lowton Vlaar Lescott Cresswell Westwood Sylla Weimann Murphy Agbonlahor Benteke Could be quite nice! Chuck in a young, direct winger/wide forward (Lestienne would be lovely) and a striker to deputise/replace [next summer] Benteke (Finnbogason for me) and I would be very happy. But I cannot, at all see Lescott and I think Cresswell will be out of our price range for a left back considering we spent £3m on Bennett just 10 months ago.

Would love Finnbogason at Villa. Think he'd be a great deputy to Benteke and could probably be our replacement for him come the end of next season.

Berbatov to Turkey. Bent to Fulham.

^ No. As much as I agree with parts of what your saying. We should not, at all be keeping him

Kendrick, Birmingham Mail

Don't like this idea of fans dumbing down expectations with signings. We paid £24m for Darren Bent a couple of seasons back so what is £9M in the greater scheme of things. I am expecting to see us spend £35M - £40M minimum this summer or I will be really disappointed. The Breakdown is £25M readily made available & the balance £10M-£15M generated from players moving on. With that I expect minimum 7 new players of at least 2 costing near the £10M mark & 5 with the £15M -£20M Balance We have at least £120M coming into the Club with the new tv deal, gate money, matchday revenue, banqueting & Merchandising, so the transfer figures listed above are not unrealistic especially when you take into account the moving on of our vastly overpaid non playing players. Your going to be very dissappointed. I think we will spend around £9m net and about 15-20m in total depending on player sales. I reckon one £9m signing and one £5m signing (Those being a CB and CAM, not sure which will be the £9m one, hopefully CAM) and then 3 £2m signings.

Along those lines I think if we are to have one 'marquee' signing this summer it will be in the CAM role. I assume this marquee signing would be in the £7-9m range, like Benteke (and assuming we get a good fee for Bent), there are a few youngsters across Europe who would be able to play in that position. A few highly rated players I would like for that position would be: (I think these players would likely be out of that price range and probably out of our range anyway but just players I would like to see, I can dream a little bit) Hiroshi Kiyotake (Nurnberg) Will Hughes (Derby) Koke (Atletico) Not really young but Ilicic (Now relegated Palermo) More of a winger and more affordable Yohan Mollo (Saint Etienne)

Is there absolutely, any chance, what so ever, of Hiroshi Kiyotake? He's been an absolute revelation in the Bundesliga, features towards the top for stats in Europes top 5 leagues for Assists, Key Passes and Completed Crosses. That would be a coup. Although I assume he is out of our reach

Using that list I think a very successful window would consist of: Smithies, Dragovic, Cresswell, Hunt, Lestienne, Finnbogason Guzan Lowton Vlaar Dragovic Cresswell Westwood Delph Lestienne Hunt Agbonlahor Benteke Bench: Smithies, Bennett, Clark/Baker, Sylla, Gardner, Weimann, Finnbogason would be lovely. With Finnbogason ready to take the reigns for when Benteke inevitably leaves. More realistic may be: Smithies, Dunk/Chester, Cavanda, Murphy, Gale, Deeney/Clayton.

Think there are a few reasons for it: He's been quoted as saying that he feels he is ready to play at a higher level, He's very good friends with Westwood, they've played together since they were 9. It's clear to see how highly he thinks of him. We've been linked He was in the Football League Team of The Year Right age, and plays a position we need players for Lambert has definitely been to see Crewe play, likely to watch Murphy (I'd also take Max Clayton!) I dont think its 100% nailed on. But it just has a lot to back it up. From reading that interview with him on our OS it's clear to see he has the mentality that Lambert would want, he isnt going to cost the earth. Probably £2-3m if Crewe hold out on us. We'll see but I'd like it to happen.