Wes

I would be happy with 14th.

Does this rumour really all stem from Tim Vickery (probably best English expert on South American there is) being asked on TalkSport: "Villa fans would like to know a little bit more about the River Plate defender Eder Balanta. Could be off to the Villa. What have you heard about him?" Yet there was absolutely nothing in the press about it (as Tim would've mentioned it) and heck, there was nothing on Twitter, the crackden of rumour and misinformation, prior to the discussion either.

If we were to carry on spending (big if) I think it'll be a developmental right back, right winger and maybe Adebayor. Depending on if Gil is available I think we play 4-3-1-2 at Bournemouth.

That's Baker staying then! Heard on radio he just signed an extension?

Think we'll see Holgate at RB with Bacuna now seen more as a right sided midfielder. Although I know it's a CB you crave!

We have completely changed the chassis of the squad. First couple of months are going to be full of very scattergun performances. Hope VTers won't be too quick to jump to conclusions early doors.

Gestede official on OS too!

Veretout official! Amazing!

Tenuous Morgan Sanson link? Yes please!

I don't think we're going to be getting another centre back. A right back I could see (although probably a younger developmental player rather than a starter). I know a lot of people see Richards as just a right sided full back, and maybe that is where he should be played, but I think he's been assured by Sherwood a Centre Back position. At least until Christmas. He's made him Captain. Why would he then break a different promise and play him in a position he doesn't want? So that leaves three places left in the squad and one left sided starting position. We have Clark, Okore, Baker, Senderos, and Crespo. Crespo is going to be our versatile defender. Can play all the positions. Okore has potential and isn't going anywhere. Baker appears to be on the way out. Senderos I imagine will be doing the same, if theres a suitor. If not, it's not bad to have a veteran presence around. And there's Clark. Who was one of our better players last year. Showed some progression. So our options are likely: Buy a left sided centre back to play ahead of Clark. Buy a developmental left sided centre back. Personally? I'd prefer the latter. I think Sherwood would like the chance to develop him further too. I'm not saying it won't happen, in fact our defence could be much better if we buy a different centre back, I just don't think we'll do it. Not this summer at least.

We didn't enquire about Berbatov. He offered himself to us. Other teams too as he wants to rejoin the premier league. Heard it on 5Live about 1:30am last night.

Guessing that was the #1 right sided attacking midfielder/winger we were after. Sounds like the club would be happy for him to go for that price (which I find odd considering their outgoings already) but if the player wants to stay you can't do anything about it - he has a big chance to be one of the main men there this season.

Pinch me. This guy is utter class.

Was a pleasure to have him play for us. Best of luck to him.

Impressive again. Needs some smoothing around the edges but promising.

I would agree. Normally there would be no chance. But I think he's only got a year left on his contract and Valencia just signed Rodrigo on a permanent deal and Santi Mina (young winger) in the same position from Celta already this summer. They could be inverting either of those to play on the left for sure... If not, then I can see them cashing in on Feghouli this summer though.

Now we're talking. I really like Feghouli.

Don't think he could be classed as box to box. Just a true midfielder. He is more subtlety than athleticism. Just positions himself rather well for someone his age. Progression comes from passing rather than dribbling. And he'll likely stay outside the box rather than go in to it.

I work on the assumption that what players say they've been told by managers is mostly true. If Gueye has been told he'll be right sided box to box in a three, and Sherwoods earlier comments saying he would mirror Delph on the right, I can see us looking for an athletic left footed midfielder to fill his role now. Darder is different. He could be this player too. He doesn't just sit, but can do that if required. Really depends on the kind of balance Sherwood wants. It's hard to judge because there's little previous with him to examine and speculate with!

If Richards was told by Sherwood he would play him centrally I can't see him playing at RB to start the season. If Darder deal doesn't exist/come off we should give £5m to Feyernoord for Tonny Vilhena. Southampton wanted him but with Clasie there maybe they're no longer interested, although they are different types of players.

I'd rather a loan than a purchase. Spurs are so keen to get shot of him I bet we could haggle them down to almost nothing. He would no doubt be a good supplement to the squad as it currently stands (hopefully we would still get a younger guy to develop alongside him) but we just got rid of Bent's wages after all these years. I'd hate for us to be bogged down by another large wage outlay for an aging Striker for the coming years.

Please don't see this as criticism, as I initially asked myself the same kind of question when news first came out that Benteke was going to leave, but I think the very nature of the question is wrong - we can't replace Benteke. At least not on a like for like basis. Let me explain my reasoning. Let's face it. We struck gold with Christian. £7m striker from a lesser league scoring 19 goals in his first season? 49 goals in 101 appearances? Practically unheard of. To simply replace that with another player is asking us to catch lightning in a bottle again - it's unlikely we find someone capable of scoring 20 goals a season for such a low fee straight away. So what do we do? Pay a larger fee for a proven Premier League goalscorer and potentially adapt our system to suit them (eg. Austin) Pay a smaller fee for a proven goalscorer in another league and adapt our system (eg. Ben Yedder from Toulouse) Pay a smaller fee for a young, Benteke clone and reduce the amount of change needed to our system (eg. Embolo, Oulare) The answer to that? I have no idea. That's up to the Villa board and Sherwood. If the suggestion is we're following the Southampton model to some degree I think it's likely to be one of the smaller fee options (supplemented with a loan in case this new player doesn't pan out). What we need is to diversify our goalscorers - more goals from other areas of the lineup. Changing the deeper lying midfield duo could help here, but we can't rely on that. So we need the three attacking midfielders (#10 and the wider players) to chip in with 5+ a season at least.

Wondered when the Oulare links would start appearing. Lots of similarities to Benteke, some subtle differences too. It's almost too "easy" of a link, kind of like when Tim first joined everyone was linking us to every Spurs player, but if we're looking to keep a style with someone wit a physical frame up front then Oulare could easily develop in to that - but I caution he would need time to develop in to that person. If we threw him straight in to the squad he would be under immense pressure to emulate Benteke straight away. That's why I think a loan for another player (Adebayor/Bamford) would make sense. Store Oulare behind Kozak, and the loanee, even Gabby, spell him in to the team and let him develop. He's only 19 (Benteke was 21 when we signed him) and if you watch him you can tell he's still got a lot of growing left to do, he hasn't filled out his frame yet.

LB Ludwig Augustinsson SWE 21 FC Copenhagen S Felipe Avenatti URU 22 Ternana

If Sherwood wants to change our style of attack (which it sounds like he does) we could do a lot worse than look at the Toulouse forward Ben Yedder. Bit on the diminutive side but fast, with great natural balance, and has been a consistent goalscorer for them for a few years now. If he wasn't to work out as an out and out striker in the Premier League could see him adapt to an advanced right sided attacking role too.