brommy

Totally bored of this whole "saga" now.

 

If an acceptable offer comes in, we should accept it and kick the tosser and his word removed of an agent out of the door, let the pair of fuckwits be someone else's problem.

The club have already officially confirmed they intend to do that.

Nope. I expect his agent will be busy on the phones tomorrow am. (Outgoing calls as opposed to incoming).

"I have player, very good, *crosses fingers* very cheap. You want to buy?"

i have a question: what if benteke change his mind and stays would the fans forgive him?

After many years of similar situations I've stopped emotionally investing in players which makes it easier and sometimes even unnecessary to 'forgive'.

If CB performs well for us on the pitch, it makes it easier to forget his shenanigans off the pitch.

I've seen enough teams have great pre-season results only to struggle at the start of their season and vice-versa to realise they matter little.

Much as I would like him stay. Id be happier if we just got him sold and invested a decent wedge in a new striker. What I fear happening is that he moves close to the end of August - and we don't get a replacement in. - A scenario which may not displease Randy Lerner though.

In your eagerness to sell, how low would you go?

 

I am not eager to sell. I m about to spend  over £1k on 3 season tickets  - and thats a decent whack on my salary. I would love to sit there with my lads watching Bentekke pile them in.

 

History suggests that in this scenario - the player gets his move. So Id rather get it done and get a new striker bedded in for next season. In answer to your question if we could conclude sale and replacement quickly - I would go as low as £22m - that still trebles our money.

Fair enough. Spuds may just go to £22m but I think that's too much of a bargain.

Much as I would like him stay. Id be happier if we just got him sold and invested a decent wedge in a new striker. What I fear happening is that he moves close to the end of August - and we don't get a replacement in. - A scenario which may not displease Randy Lerner though.

 

Why wouldn't that displease Lerner?

Please, let us not drag this into a 'Lerner will be glad not to replace a player because of the fee and wages' debate.

Much as I would like him stay. Id be happier if we just got him sold and invested a decent wedge in a new striker. What I fear happening is that he moves close to the end of August - and we don't get a replacement in. - A scenario which may not displease Randy Lerner though.

In your eagerness to sell, how low would you go?

I still cant believe he wants to go to Spurs

He triples his wage ('only' doubled by little old Villa), its in 'that there larndan' and he'll have been convinced he's the final piece of their jigsaw. He'll also be able to sit in the Emirates to watch midweek games.

This is what has happened.

Spurs want him

They tap him up

Leak stories to the press.

Tell his agent he can earn 3x the money.

They get the thumbs up.

PROBLEM the agent tells them we want 25m+

They cannot afford this and convince the greedy agent and naive Benteke to hand in a transfer request.

They tell Benteke Villa will panic and sell for 10m less.

They tell him this will assure a bigger wage.

He falls for it.

Spurs pile on media pressure for a week.

This culminates with the transfer request.

We don't back down and they shit themselves.

Now comes the stories how Benteke is worth the 15m and how we should feel so lucky, so happy and excited they - the mighty spurs want to buy him.

As much as we don't know the facts, I'd be surprised if it was much different from this.

A gullible, impatient, ambitious, some might say greedy player lead by an agent who appears to have made a huge cock-up.

If CB was on £50k per week, I'd be worried. Being on £20k/week should make a big difference to our stance.

If he does stay, what does he come out and say to the media/fans about the whole situation?

Nothing of interest to me. I'd rather he did his talking on the pitch for us.

He really has **** himself over. Spurs will not pay £25m + for him. He will be stuck at Villa for another year and will have to do a hell of a lot to build his bridges with the club.

To be honest we are a fickle lot. If he ends up sticking around we will be chanting his name again by September.

It's why I refuse to 'put the boot in'. He doesn't need to be my favourite player or profess his undying love for Villa to score goals for us next season. Things can change and we could still get a good season out of him. Let him score 25+ league goals for us next season as a farewell gift.

Did Barry sack his manager after the whole Liverpool fiasco or did I just imagine that?

That is my memory as well.

On the Benteke thing then I think that Villa need to decide what price they think he's worth. If it's truly £25m, if they think he'll be worth than that next year, and will add a lot to the side in the mean-time then they should hang on to him. Personally having watched him a few times I wouldn't value him anywhere near that highly, and I'd be surprised if other clubs do either,

I stopped here.

Me too.

TJ, other than your personal valuation of CB, your post seemed well considered. As someone who has been watching top level football live in England for over 25 years and also saw virtually every minute of Benteke's play last season, I can assure you he is worth every penny of £25m. He had the occasional 'off-day' but for the rest of the time much of his play was outstanding. Even if the end product wasn't a goal, much of what he attempted came off and this was in a terrible team for the first two thirds of the season.

I genuinely hope no club values Benteke above £20m whilst he's a Villa player. That will send him a message about which club values him most and he'll be with us for another 2 seasons. If he still wants out then we'll get £15m to £20m with one year left, as we did with Young.

if we could get lukaku id be happy with that

Unlikely Chelsea would want rid of Lukaku; even less likely Lukaku would want to join us.

Bent

Hutton

Ireland

Given

Warnock

 

all players on higher salaries, some with bad attitudes that Lambert had no problem leaving to rot. Am sure if Benteke did anything stupid like sulking, disruptive or strike Lambert will have no problem doing the same

I agree.

RL and PL aren't going to be vindictive against a fellow human being, HOWEVER, they need to decide on the value CB is worth to the club and stick to it; otherwise we'd end up saying "sorry your unhappy Christian, you can leave for whatever the first offer we receive". CB's value will be partly based on what wages will be 'lost' if CB sticks around without performing, which fortunately for us is relatively small - a high value should therefore be placed.

I really hope the 'insider' report in the Sun is correct. Without taking the piss, £30m is a good fee to demand. Depending on RL's nerve and CB's attitude, I'll guess at a still decent 'over £25m'. Less than £25m doesn't make much sense to me.

The Sun report the following from a 'Villa insider':

“It’s pretty straightforward. Benteke has three years left on his contract and therefore the club is in a strong position.

“Randy Lerner will not be bullied into selling. If no one comes up with our valuation of around £30m then Christian is staying.

"He will then have a lot of bridges to build with the manager, his team-mates and the supporters.

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/5005728/Aston-Villa-prepare-for-battle-to-keep-Christian-Benteke.html#ixzz2YdDUbWmQ

 

Would love it if this was genuine.

 

On another note these things only ever happen to us when we're on the up. Nobody came after McLeish's squad. Who do people think will be next summer's Benteke? I reckon Tonev.

Okore

Lambert's handling of Bent in the last month has been pretty surprising. He completely justified his actions during the season though. Why he would exclude him from the squad and locker room is bizarre as it doesn't give us any sort of bargaining power with Newcastle. We could have even taken advantage of the Benteke situation to get more for Bent if we'd been a bit more astute about this.

 

Lambert clearly feels it's of more benefit to have the guys he no longer wants out of the squad from the outset of the season, even if it means devaluing them.

Perhaps PL realised Bent had no incentive to move to another club, on a likely to be smaller contract, if Bent is still happy training and/or playing with the first team?

I'm going to be interviewing Brian Little about this Benteke situation on Unity FM on the Sports Lounge which is on from 1-3pm this Saturday.

If any of you guys have any particular questions you may suggest then let me know!

You can catch it locally on 93.5 or online on www.unityfm.net.

How he would handle the Benteke situation if he were manager and if he were owner?

If you move away from just Benteke questions:

Would he currently try to accomodate Bent in the first team, in the squad, or move him on to free up a wages for younger players?

Realistically, what would he do if he inherited Stephen Ireland on the contract he's on.

There will always be players earning more or less money than they are currently worth to the club. As much as we dislike it, 'over-performing' players have the right to request a move and 'under-performing' players have the right to keep taking the cash their contract gives them.

Some of us see a player who has previously provided a near 1 in 2 goal ratio and dream of accomodating him in a successful Villa team. Our manager, who has worked with him for a whole year, doesn't believe Bent can get the goals that negate his lack of all round play and/or doesn't believe the system that most suits Bent is the most successful system for the team. He also sees a player occupying the wage of 3 or 4 potentially great team players or 1 or 2 currently great team players.

I can't honestly say whether I would have handled the situation the same way or any differently. Although we can all make mistakes and judgement errors, I believe PL isn't vindictive, isn't an idiot and wants the best for our club. On that basis, I'll bow to his better knowledge of the whole issue and, as unfortunate as the situation has become, trust his call.

 

The manager doesn't rate him and has frozen him out.

Bents time at the club is over.

That doesn't make the way in which Bent has been treated by the manager right though.

 

Without the full picture, how do we know whether it is right or not? Given the full facts there is a chance each one of us would do the same.

well, i knew this day would come i didn't expect it to be this soon. i am deeply dissapointed in benteke i would understand if u guys would ban me from the website.

Why on Earth would you get banned?

 

idk i have no words for it im very upset...

Any direct quotes yet?

Everything seems to be pointing to Benteke staying if we have told Bent he is no longer wanted. I can't see us letting both players go.

 

I don't think the two things are in any way linked.

I'm also not convinced the two are linked because of pretty much what SikhInTrinity wrote, but if they were linked, I think I'd rather have a season of a rising Benteke than two seasons of Bent. I still rate Bent and it's a shame he's not on less money so we could keep him as a more than capable squad player, but I think we all know how special CB is.

Chelsea, citeh, Arsenal (he's a massive fan, don't you know), Spurs willing to wait, Atletico preparing a £20m bid. Yawn.

If Benteke leaves will that impact on the sale of Bent?

Possibly. What do you think?