switters

you know you're in the depths of deadline-day madness when someone is assessing the facial hair of a random guy in a car who is probably one of our own youth players!

They spent £8m on 20 year old Dutch international Marco van Ginkel this summer. Kevin De Bruyne was a similar price a couple of years ago, as was Lucas Piazon. Clubs like that do look at higher price brackets but not exclusively.

Exactly. Lambert clearly loves a last minute bargain yup. it may well be that the intended strategy for this summer was do 90% of business early and then wait around to see if we can get some late bargains when clubs are more desperate to sell than we are to buy. which also means we may end up not signing anyone else, 'cause late deals are always a risk, but I reckon we'll pick up at least one player on deadline day.

seems Liverpool want him. http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/aug/29/liverpool-brendan-rodgers-shay-given

They've yet to sign a single player good enough for the top 4. Fwiw, we have at least one. Paulinho and Soldado are both top 4 quality for sure. as are Vertonghen and Lloris. sorry, misunderstood. shouldn't jump into conversations I haven't read properly

You might not think Bannan played well, but he didn't play badly, other wise we would not have won so many games when he played. Given the number of times we lost last season, we could not afford any slackers, and the fact when Bannan played we were more likely to get a positive result shows he wasn't a slacker. He's not in the team because his style doesn't fit Lambert's system and that's that. That "open goal" sounds like a description of Delph's miss against Fulham (?). Bannan did well here and don't forget we scored from it. Balls to it, I'll bite. This is ridiculous. You include the video as tho it substantiates your point when it does the exact opposite! It was a terrible miss and yes, 10x the miss versus delph's. Delph should have scored but it was nowhere near as glaring as this. You live in lala land mate, really hope you follow bannan to wherever he goes it's not a terrible miss. it was an instinctive shot with very little time to adjust position, hit the inside of the post and was clawed off the line by the keeper.

Great win to start the season. We had some luck with 50-50 decisions, but took the chances and Guzan kept us from conceding more. He'd be my MOTM though Gabby was key in winning the two penalties, and Delph & KEA put in v.good shifts. kept pressure on Arsenal midfielders which didn't allow them to settle & they couldn't get Walcott/Cazorla/Ox in the game. also Clark deserves some credit considering the response on the matchday thread when he was brought on was akin to welcoming the apocalypse. bit ropey distribution, but we didn't concede while he was on.

I think it's much less transfer fee than wages. I'm fairly sure we'd pay 8m+ for a good young player as long as they are not asking for crazy wages. for all the transfer failings over past few years, board can also look at successes like Young, Milner, Downing and look around the league and see that sometimes 10m gets you a player worth 25m in a year or two. I don't think they'd have a problem making a big initial investment on a player if they think it's a good long-term investment. but certainly transfers like Luke Young are not going to happen anymore, ultimately what hurt us most was having way too many players on top flight first team wages, e.g. at the end of 2010 season we had L.Young, Warnock, Shorey, Beye, Dunne, Collins, Cuellar, Bouma & Davies all on the books! that's 9 established defenders all on probably 40k+ a week. utter insanity. those lot probably averaged around 5m mark transfer fee - expensive but not crazy money in football terms - but having all the 4 year contracts on 2-3m a year simultaneously was the killer

how much longer contract does Delph have? has he signed an extension since he joined?

Nice to see lots of different players getting on the scoresheet, can only be good for confidence.

It's perfectly possible that it's not about money, anyway. Blackburn have been a complete car-crash ever since Venky's took over - how many managers they had in last 3 years? this is a big move for Bannan and I wouldn't blame any player for not wanting to go to a club that changes manager every 6 months.

Next up for the bomb squad, I'd imagine. I think he'll be given a chance at some point as he had injury problems a lot of last season and I think he could be a Lambert-type player - maybe not in position but in attitude & work-rate. but certainly this is make or break season for him. maybe needs a loan to get some game time & find form

I think villa-revolution is going to miss Bannan more than Con. He seems even more obsessed.

Cisse only got 8 league goals last season. after that they've got Gouffran (more of a winger, not prolific) and, er, Ameobi. they got Ben Arfa & Cabaye who can score from midfield, but still think they look lacking for goals overall.

doesn't make a great deal of difference with someone like Fonz. it's probably the case that no-one else wants to pay him as much as he's currently on & he's got a year left with us so our choice is either pay him off (which will cost most/all of the year's contract), let him go to another club for free (but presumably have to pay some/most of his contract anyway, 'cause he won't have requested transfer) or loan him out (and probably split the contract with loaning club). I don't think the club is stupid - if we were able to make money selling these players we would, but seems we're mostly having to look for least-bad option.

wish him well at Blackburn. never deserved to become the hate/joke figure he seems to be for so many on here. some of our more derided youth players like Hogg and Osbourne have gone on to do alright in Championship & others like Whittingham thrived (and is now deservedly back in the Premier League). of course there's also many examples of players who drop down and then keep dropping so only time will tell on this one.

simon dawkins? Dawkins loan was more like an extended trial - if he'd been up to scratch, we probably would've signed him.

player it's easiest to compare Bent to is Inzaghi. great movement & poaching ability, not too much else.

I just think this thing about attitude & workrate is a piece of received wisdom with little substance, where the real problem with his performances was simply the lack of end product. He just didn't produce enough to justify a spot in the team.

I agree he had a number of chances & not taken them, I said the same thing, but the other stuff is just you projecting on him. Okay I'm sure he's happy he's paid (as everyone is), but how do you know he doesn't care, doesn't have desire to win or doesn't want to play? Maybe he is just less expressive than some footballers.

I do sometimes think Ireland gets a bit excessive criticism thrown at him. I've got some sympathy in that he joined the club at the worst time possible and has been here 3 years under three different managers (well, 5, if you factor in brief spells of MacDonald & McAllister) who all wanted to play different styles of football & none of whom signed him. this isn't so bad if you play a role that is always consistent - every manager plays CBs in relatively similar way, for example - but Ireland was sometimes played as more holding midfielder, sometimes behind the striker, sometimes box-to-box & didn't often gets runs in one position or with the same team-mates where he could really strike up the understanding which is necessary for creative player to thrive. He has been disappointing in performances, no question & ultimately he has to take the blame that he never made a role his own in the chances he had, but I don't think he quite deserves the reputation as a waster or someone who didn't try. He's just a player who couldn't find form in one of the most unsettled periods the club has ever had. Clearly it's best for all concerned if he moves on now. I expect if no taker comes in soon, we'll agree some payoff (6 months of wages?) to allow him to find somewhere as a free agent. wouldn't be surprised if he went to one of the semi-retirement leagues (US, Australia, UAE, China...)

I think so, as soon as he scores a goal or two. After all, he's not done anything truly unforgiveable, slagged off the club etc.

tbh, a deadline we make only has limited power, unless Benteke then signs a new contract..I mean, if no-one bids before our deadline but someone comes along with £30m a week or two after, I suspect we'd sell..So even if he stays for now, the saga will most likely continue right up to deadline day.

Other countries than England exist. there's a few clubs with big money floating around in France & Germany now, for example. PSG or Monaco maybe (though I think both are well set for strikers as it stands).

Care to share what your thinking is? I am sure we could all do with a chuckle. Sure. I've managed to establish some important facts ... at least some of which seem previously to have been lost or ignored in this thread: 1) That the supposed £25m min. valuation figure (and anything higher) comes simply from media reports - not a very reliable source of information when it comes to transfer stories. 2) That Downing handed in a transfer request. This resulted in him being sold despite the Villa manager having previously stated that he was not for sale and he would not be leaving Villa in the summer concerned. This leads me to think that Benteke's sale to Spurs, for less than £25m, is not as impossible as most VTers profess to believe. I've also been thinking about the some of your other high profile sales: * Villa refused to sell Barry to Liverpool because the club's 18m valuation wasn't met. But then the club lost 50% of that price when he was sold to City for 12m a year later. * Downing's 20m price tag was paid by Liverpool during a time that club were still deep in their much-regretted phase of paying crazy prices for players left, right and centre (pace Henderson, Carroll etc). * Milner was sold for 20.5m (when Ireland's valuation was taken in account) to moneybags city. * Young was sold for somewhere between 15 - 20m, again to a very wealthy club. From this I conclude that Villa's "high-price" and "tough" negotiating stance is perhaps not quite all that it's cracked up to be ... and that when it comes to a player (Benteke) who has handed in a transfer request - and a player for whom no sign of a bidding war is emerging (at least not involving any clubs that Benteke is willing to sign for) - all talk of £25m+ is perhaps actually based on not much more than wishful thinking. My thoughts can be greeted with hoots of derision if you wish, but at least I have based them on some actual facts, rather than mere Villa-biased assertion. Let's look at it like this: a lot of things factor into the price players go for: age/potential, nationality, experience, contract length, position. When it comes to Benteke, age/potential, contract length & position all point to high price - goalscorers are the most expensive players, he's 22 & has 3 years on his contract. Nationality - doesn't have English premium, but he is EU, French speaking and doesn't have African Cup of Nations or anything to worry about. Experience - only one season in Premier League, but a very successful one. Barry, Milner, Downing and Young, all pretty good prices when you factor in things like age & contract length. Barry was 28 with 1 year remaining on contract...12m is a good price. It wasn't a loss of 50% due to weak negotiation, merely that price goes down when contract is expiring. Young also had 1 year remaining, so 16m was good price. Downing, we got what we asked for - healthy profit - that Liverpool were splashing cash is neither here nor there, the point here is that he only moved because they hit our asking price. And again Milner I don't think you can argue we sold cheap, though the Ireland part-exchange was a mistake (but this was at a time of being v.unsettled with O'Neill quitting). Barry saga with Liverpool proved we don't sell when we don't have to, and we were arguably in a weaker position there than with Benteke (higher wages, shorter remaining contract). Downing & Milner prove we'll sell players when they want to leave and a price is met. But there's certainly no reason to think Benteke's price would be lower than either of them, so I'd put 20m as absolute baseline. The 25m figure might be made up by the press, but I think it's a reasonable estimate considering the above. Could be a few million either side. Also, the information of who is or isn't interested is coming from the same source, so if we doubt this, we can equally doubt that Spurs are interested, that Spurs is where Benteke wants to go or that other clubs aren't interested. not all clubs are as loud as Spurs when it comes to leaking to the press, so absence of information does not mean no-one else is interested.