Philosopher

Helenius was Bents replacement! Benteke will be replaced. The club statement alluded to the fact that we will need time to sign a replacement. I don't like the idea of starting the season with an untried prospect up top on his own or with one of Zog or Albrighton on the right as for me this will really upset the system in place and put us close to square one. So pissed by this news as Benteke leaving is basically to worst single thing that could happen to villa bar Lambert leaving or going bankrupt.

I would say to any club interested to **** off and don't call me until you are willing to offer the fee I want for him and make sure its before the first game of the season! I would say to Benteke and his agent your going niwhere unless our valuation is met! You can strike or try and upset the dressing room but if you do we will then be well within our rights to let you rot in the reserves, so my advice to you is to be proffessional get on with your job and work hard for the team like you did last season and let us and your agent handle the transfer business.

If we get more than 25m and he doesn't go to Tottenham or Liverpool then I can accept it, If he goes to either of the aforementioned team then I will become a premier league ref and and stab him in the chest (hoping to not get beheaded for my troubles)!

Delph looked really good in the second half of the season, he looked like he had got the hang of the pace of the prem and was actually dictating our play initating many attacks and showing good movement to always be available and looking to play one two's. To me he is similar to a young roy keane (not saying as good, but a similar type of player, I would say keane was a better reader of the game and had more energy, Delph better technique). Putting himself about and getting stuck, but also always making himself available making forward runs from a deep lying midfield position. Problem is diving into tackles is frowned upon these days, I lost count of how many times in a match he would make a good challange winning the ball by diving in but a foul would be called. However I believe he is starting to get better in that area as he is now comfortable with the pace of the league now. If your struggling to keep up you are naturally going to have to dive in more in the role he plays.

I don't think a single person thinks he will but then when you've got someone trying to praise him for not giving away fouls it is a relevant thing to question. So far we've established Bannan doesn't tackle, doesn't have a physical presence, doesn't get assists and doesn't score goals. Doesn't seem to have much going for him really. I'm not backing Bannan, on his attacking record. I am pointing out that the statement that he gives away fouls was quite reasonably answered by Con. You can't come back then and say, 'ah yes but that's because he doesn't tackle' lol. The bottom line then is you don't back Bannans attacking play & you then state that he is never going to give you tackling & physical presence either? Forgive me, but what type of player does that add upto then & what does he bring to the table then to justify selection? As according to you I don't understand football or understand Bannan please enlighten us with your unparallelled footballing technical genius & appraisal as to what this magic ingredient & enigma is & what the rest of us alleged footballing ignoramuses are missing? Where do I start with this one? I'm not saying Bannan deserves a place in the team. I'm saying there are plenty of sticks to beat him with but if you're having a go at his defensive attributes, you either don't understand football or you're trolling Con. I think most of you are trolling Con, I think that's pretty pathetic. Grow up. This gif is **** ace! Bannan is a good player with a lot of limitations! If you build your play around him he can be a very good performer, but to do that you have to prove you are worthy of it, he has yet to do that! People talk about too many hollywood balls which is true, but he is actually very good at them and just need to pick and chose his moments better. He is easily the best passer we have in our squad. He works hard too, but he needs to learn to box clever and draw fouls and add some petrov esque spoiler tactics! At this point it makes sense to send on loan or on his way, as the only way he will develop those qualities is through first team football which I can't see him getting enough of here!

She's behaving like a liar! When people get that defensive it usually means they're lying! Hope she's right about him signing don't care when so long as its this window! She is chatting shit about Belhanda really guzumped by Kiev!

Thats the point though we paid way over the odds for decent british players when there are exceptional foreign players going at half the price!

8.5m for dwight gayle, how much did we pay for Benteke again? The price for british players is ridiculous one good season in the championship makes a player worth 8.5m! I don't want us signing another british player EVER! We develop our own so we should just continue to suppliment that with foreign players!

This seems dead now, however 2 years on his contract, if he refuses to sign a new contract that could change. But I don't like it when players move on after only one good season at a club. I am convinced that a quality attacking midfield playmaker is our priority now that we've got in a CB. We probably have a number of potential targets. Money probably is an issue, but not so much transfer fees but wages, so a high earner probably needs to be moved on first.

The cat claws are coming out now! From what I remember the only link she really defended was the whittingham one. Otherwise she was just constantly having to defend herself for posting twitter speculation which is something that everyone seems to be doing now (the posting of twitter speculation that is). Personally I think that twitter is full BS and I stay away from it!

I think some are being rather harsh on Belhanda! Montpellier were determined to sell him this summer because he had only a year left on his contract and he didn't want to sign a new one. Montpellier accepted the bids from Kiev and Al Jazeera, no other bids were accepted! Belhanda was stuck with a choice between two teams offering lots of money, but less then great on footballing grounds. He probably never wanted to go there in the first place, but was left with little choice as there weren't any teams from top leagues willing to pay the asking price!

Have to echo the thoughts of most, his set piece delivery and visionary passing is exactly what we lacked last season, also seems to have decent close control so should be able to play under pressure too. £5m sounds like a fair price to me.

Not as simple as that! Yes there may very well be outgoings, but why sell two strikers because they have signed two midfielders! Not gonna happen. IF they sign a striker then its fair to infer that a striker may be leaving but otherwise! They already sold Balotelli in jan without replacing him! Secondly Benteke has also stated he wants to say in the prem and Arsenal are the only champions league team in the prem that have been linked so the reasoning is sound! A champions league team is the only genuine step up as Villa could be in and around the europa league next season if Benteke stays! The only reason he is linked to Arsenal is because of the mistranslation I'm on about. Its made up paper talk. As for him stating he wants to stay in the prem I would love to see where he's said that? Genuinely, I haven't known him to say that. And with Citeh I just don't think Benteke is a big enough name yet. They will sign a star striker if any, maybe Cavani? As I was saying Man Cith doesn't make sense! Do you research as I have read that Benteke would prefer to stay in the prem, I think it came from his agent! Plus he has mentioned how he liked to watch Arsenal.

Not as simple as that! Yes there may very well be outgoings, but why sell two strikers because they have signed two midfielders! Not gonna happen. IF they sign a striker then its fair to infer that a striker may be leaving but otherwise! They already sold Balotelli in jan without replacing him! Secondly Benteke has also stated he wants to say in the prem and Arsenal are the only champions league team in the prem that have been linked so the reasoning is sound! A champions league team is the only genuine step up as Villa could be in and around the europa league next season if Benteke stays!

To me its clear Benteke has eyes only for Arsenal really. Thats to only team that would make him throw his toys out the pram and Arsenal have their eyes on Higuian. If Arsenal sign higuian then benteke won't be approached to Villa will be in control. If however Arsenal do come on strong then Benteke will most likely try to force things. Personally I remain confident. There is nothing to gain in going to liverpool or tottenham! No champions league football and Villa are prepared to give him a healthy pay raise so why leave? Now if Man City, Man U or Chelsea come things change! But I can't see that happening. People are talking about x y or z leaving city but that won't happen until pellegrini sits down with his players and as they are all on either international duty or holiday then its not happening soon!

Kendrick does know things, he will know more than any ITK. Problem is, I'd imagine he's too close to the club to say anything interesting to us. He needs to keep all his contacts happy and if he's leaking everywhere they won't be happy and give him easy-to-write exclusive interviews, tickets to special events and such. I don't think he does personally. Very few people are ITK in regards to Villa and mostly their info comes from agents (and usually not the player in question's agent either). Kendrick just tries to give the illusion! I have never read an article of his where he states something I didn't either think of or hear of previously. kendrick might know stuff, but he has to toe the line to continue to get bits from the club. there's very little chance he publishes anything he does know without the club's permission So what good is that? So he can get to little interviews that no one really reads properly that doesn't help to sell papers. Its the transfer exclusives that sell papers thats why the tabloids spend so much time making shit up! Kendrick won't know ANYTHING until things are at a very advanced stage! Anything he gets before that is to suit Villa's agenda. Its that simple!

Maybe your right, but if he was after a higher profile target it is unlikely that he would be able to get it done be any major moves in the transfer market have happened as is the case at the moment. Generally in order to make a significant signing you have to wait for the big clubs to make their business clear first. Thats just the way the transfer market works. Being as Belhanda is probably on the radar of at least 5 other clubs its not surprising not move has been confirmed. Usually when links are as strong as this Villa release a statement denying it if there is no interest, but that hasn't happenned. This doesn't mean anything will happen, but for me it confirms that there is an interest.

Kendrick does know things, he will know more than any ITK. Problem is, I'd imagine he's too close to the club to say anything interesting to us. He needs to keep all his contacts happy and if he's leaking everywhere they won't be happy and give him easy-to-write exclusive interviews, tickets to special events and such. Yes! Con's called that right. Kendrick has to be pragmatic & diplomaticif he wants to stay in favour & garner useful information. Whats the point for a journalist to 'garner' information if he can't publish it? Does that nt defeat the point of having the info in the first place? This is just not true IMO, he isn't being diplomatic he just doesn't know much!

Kendrick does know things, he will know more than any ITK. Problem is, I'd imagine he's too close to the club to say anything interesting to us. He needs to keep all his contacts happy and if he's leaking everywhere they won't be happy and give him easy-to-write exclusive interviews, tickets to special events and such. I don't think he does personally. Very few people are ITK in regards to Villa and mostly their info comes from agents (and usually not the player in question's agent either). Kendrick just tries to give the illusion! I have never read an article of his where he states something I didn't either think of or hear of previously.

Kendrick doesn't know shit until a day or two till its done. People say he's reliable, but he never really gets an exclusive so whats that say to you? He probably trawls this site looking for information! I take no notice of what he says. We have had five signing so far, everyone of them were posted on here before kendrick wrote anything! And all the info on here was first reported on from the selling club abroad, Villa don't leak anything, and certainly not to kendrick!

You could be right (in regards to holmans wages), but generally free transfers get a generous wage as a result of no transfer fee so I think 40k is a fair estimate. After all he is an international and an important player for his team at the time of signing him.

Oh gardner is more of a central midfield playmaker / Box to box player rather than a proper attacking midfielder so I reckon he is probably competing more with Delph and Bacuna. I Think Lambert wants to be able to play with a CAM in our midfield 3, with the option to sacrifice the CAM against the top teams in the league in antiscipation of no having much of the ball.

We have almost offloaded Holman who plays in the same psitions as belhanda, and if we Sell bent then their will probably be a 40k difference in wages and 5m in transfer fee to his replacement Helenius. I reckon that would give us plenty of room financially. Also Ireland has no future at Villa so that means we only have 3 attacking mids including a raw and unproven Tonev and an injury prone Albrighton (and they are mostly likely backups for gabby and andi). Plus none of them, with the exception of Zoggy is a natural no 10 which is what we really need and what Belhanda is. Also the theme of this windows seems to be to increasing competition and so for me there so no way Lambert will go into the season with only one CAM who hasn't even proven himself at Villa yet in two season with us. Not buying a no 10 in this window would be a mistake, as such a player would offer the team an entirely new dimension.

I do. Arsenal and tottenham seem to have other priorities right now. For Tottenham keeping Bale and signing a top striker. For Arsenal a striker and central midfield destroyer. Although both clubs maybe interested as Arsenal released Arshavin (plus Gervinho's inconsistency) so have room (and need) for another AM and Tottenham may need to replace Bale. Also both of those clubs probably have other options as well, and in Tottenham's case they will have somewhere close to 80million to spend if Bale does leave so will probably look to a more established player and see Belhanda as a squad player if they target him! Because of this I honestly believe that it will probably be August before Belhanda moves anywhere. At the moment if we are interested (which seems more likely than not) we definitely have a chance of landing him! Why do I believe we are interested, because not just the Montpellier president, but the player himself have mentioned our club, yet the only source saying otherwise is the BMail's Kendrick who only gets what the club want him to! Throw in the fact that this is the type of player we are in desperate need of then it makes sense that we would at least make an enquiry. It also seems to me though that we have other options we are looking at too, as well as the fact we probably need to at least shift Bent (and preferably Ireland too) to afford the 40k plus wages Belhanda's representatives would no doubt be demanding (as well as a 8-10m fee). Also with Holman seemingly gone there should be space. Holman being a free was probably on around 40k in wages.

Actually no we can't all agree, I believe CB is his best position, irrespective of the stinker of a season he had. Belhanda please Randy!