VillanousOne

Surely we need to replace what we sell? And to some extent we were low on numbers to start with. Heleneius Tonev Okore Steer Bacuna Luna So we have signed 6 We have got rid of Dunne Dawkins Bannan (Any i have missed?) and Petrov has retired Which leaves Given Ireland Bent Hutton Delf Stevens and possibly Zog - although I am not 100% sure we want to sell him, but I doubt we'd block a move if someone came in for him. Donacian, Herd and Webb are clearly going to be preferred as right back cover to a new signing. We might get rid of Bent but for the rest it sounds like loans with subsidised wages and other bullshit will mean we don't get rid of completely anytime soon. Which begs the question if when the season starts no-one has come in and taken them and we have to pay them why not just reintergrate as clearly no-one else wants or can afford our dead wood. I have no issue with Bent and Given being a part of our team, they have done little wrong. We are some way from getting rid of enough dead wood to justify any more signings.

Hope Zog can play a full role for us this season. He suffered because he is seen at times as a luxury player, but for all the talk of needing an AM - Zog can do that job once we have a settled team and play different formations. Hopefully having Helenius and Tonev will mean we can actually play a different way when we need to and a way that suits Zog. Sticking him in a 3 man attack doesn't really work, although he did ok at times. oh and he was never close to being in the bomb squad.

We did not sign Delph to be a defensive midfielder, he didn't play that way at Leeds at all................ but yes we know he likes a tackle. We have only managed one full season out of the guy since he signed and he was pretty decent when he got a run in the team, but at the time he broke through we needed more steel in the middle, as defensively we were shocking. I'm sure if we actually manage to stop conceding **** ridiculous goals this season and we settle as a mid table team a bit, we'll see much more from Delph's game. We've seen that he wants to get forward and that should tell you everything you need to know right now.

“I think we had a really good conversation and I was full and frank with him and, in my opinion, the best thing for him was to stay at Aston Villa for another year.” PL Hmmm so a year is a long time but the fact he says only another year kind of goes back to us only expecting him to stay one more season, which makes the extension seem a bit odd.

So is the extension an improved contract/better wages or just and added couple of years?

brought a tear to my japs eye

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/tottenhams-transfer-market-go-slow-blamed-david-2057470? This is how Levy does business, it sounds like he gets into a players head unsettles them and then hopes they and their agents do all the leg work for them, based on that article I can quite see a long period of inactivity followed by a derisory bid. Benteke must have the will of a storm trooper after being so easily led to the dark side. Also I don't hate Spurs as a club, I respect the football they play and AVB, and I appreciate they are in a far better position than us now, but living in London i know many Spurs fans and they are by far the most deluded egotistical bunch of whiners I have ever met, even worse than Geordies and Scousers. Most Arsenal and Chelsea fans I know are level headed football fans, but Spurs fans literally have this undeserved smugness based on nothing and if you get two of them in the same room it is unbearable. Many here will remember how every season their pathetic itk nobs would claim Ash Young was about to sign for them and he never did. They were linked to Downing for years and yet we signed him. That club sput more hot air than a round the world balloon race.

No. You misunderstood me. I think we're doomed. DOOOOOOOOOOMED. AHAHAaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Doomed. ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGH, i'm leaving for the Ukrane immediately in that case.

And this is what will annoy the hell out of me...Lambert should get at least the profit he makes on Bentakey to re-invest Hey, here's an idea. We could think about maybe waiting to see what does happen and THEN get super worked up over it. Are you saying then that he won't go for at least 10 mil less than he's worth because a Spurs fan or London based horribly Spurs biased media says he will, or that we won't get Jermaine Jenas and a packet of ball bearings for him? You mean to say that Lambert, Faulker and Lerner have got this................. and we may aswell have faith they'll do the right thing for the club? You mean to say that we may actually unearth some more gems in the transfer market and end up actually better off than we were last season and not be completely reliant on one player....... a player that if injured for any significant length of time would mean relegation. You mean to say Lambert and co probably saw this coming and prepared for the worst or at least are setting a plan B in motion now?

He and who?

Was it Bony who we went for before we signed Benteke but his club pulled the deal?

sounds like Castaignos has had more high profile interest although he did get in hot water for spitting at Inter Milan! Internazionale (2011-2012)[edit] After rampant speculation during the January transfer window linking Castaignos with Italian giants Inter,[11] On 4 March 2011, Feyenoord announced that they had agreed to terms withInternazionale, selling Castaignos for a fee believed to be around €3 Million upon the completions of the 2010–2011 season.[12] He featured throughout preseason, most notably scoring the opening goal in a friendly against Celtic on 30 July 2011.[13] He made his competitive debut for Inter in a Supercoppa Italiana, coming on for Joel Obi in a 2–1 loss against Milan, where he played in front of 70,000 people at Beijing National Stadium, Beijing China PR. He made his full league debut in a 3–1 loss against Novara. Castaignos scored his first goal in Serie A in an away match to Siena on 27 November 2011, latching on to Thiago Motta’s through ball before firing low past Brkić, which proved to be the gamewinner.[14] On 17 February 2012 in a 3–0 loss against Bologna, Castaignos was involved in alteration with Andrea Raggi after Castaignos spat on Raggi in the 85th minutes. After Serie A officials reviewed footage of the incident, he was subsequently banned for three matches.[15] His actions caused Inter to immediately move him into a reserve role, scoring twice in three appearances for the reserve squad. In April 2012, Castaignos suffered an hamstring injury, missing out for the rest of the season during a match against Calcio Padova.[16] At the end of the season, Castaignos announced his intention to leave Inter in favor of a 'big club'.[17] Castaignos was linked with Liverpool.[18] Liverpool tried and failed to sign him in the January transfer window.[19] Tottenham Hotspur also displayed interest,[20] as well as West Ham United,[21] Everton,[22] and even including his former club Feyernoord.[23] FC Twente (2012-Present)[edit] On 28 July 2012, Castaignos made his return to the Dutch Eredivisie when FC Twente agreed to terms with Inter Milan for 6 million euros.[24][25] Castaignos was seen as the replacement for the former Twente striker Luuk de Jong, who had been sold to Borussia Monchengladbach. On 12 August 2012, he made his debut, coming on for Dmitri Bulykin in the second half, in a 4–1 win over Groningen. On 26 August 2012, he scored his first goal and set up a goal for Dmitri Bulykin in a 3–1 win over NEC Nijmegen.

Afreo is 24, Luc is 20, both emerging talents in Holland - who have had one or two seasons at the top level, very much Lambert style signings and already have international experience at u21 level with Afreo having played as a senior international. sign em both!

Get rid of ASAP take the money and have faith the club will uncover a new striker that will make us forget the mike Tyson faced ungrateful berk. As a team we over relied on one player, we need to better than that.

It's weird for some reason we all expected Ireland to be this amazing player, most of the time he played he did ok but never really found a role in the team that worked. Lambert either wants grafters or strikers, the concept of a creative midfielder barely exists in his teams. McCleish player 10 defenders and one striker, Ireland could pass the ball fwd so was therefore out best player at that time. I don't think he deserves the hate he gets on here, but I admit he really must do something to wind managers up to get binned off repeatedly.

Ba would be a good signing but he won't reduce his wages from 70-80k down to the 40k we would want to pay. Lukau x 2 did well at WB so I'm sure Mourinho would want to see him play first before writing him off, plus the bloke said last season that Tekkers should move to a bigger club so is clearly as much of a big time Charlie as Benteke wants to be. If we sell Benteke I expect us to gamble again on a relative unknown successful in another less thought of division and 6-10 mil in value 40-60k wages. I don't think there is a single striker ot player in the prem ship Lambert would bother with, it is the most bloated overpaid overrated league in the world full of mediocre players getting paid buckets of cash to do **** all. Look at the England team on all levels, shite and when teams like Villa develop young stars like Crowley any word removed can poach them for peanuts.

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/aston-villa-interview-paul-merson-5072152 Anyone else read that and want to tell Merson to shove it?

Forcing him to stay another year is a horrid route to go down, as he will get roasted every time we think he is not trying or performing well and will end up getting booed. Gareth Barry was a consumate professional, I expect Benteke to play silly buggers if we force him to stay and as much as it's right to make him rot in the reserves i'm sure we would rather he **** off asap and we used the money to rebuild the squad further. Based on rumour and conjecture it would seem Lambert already had about 10-15 mil or more to spend on further re-enforcements. Add another 20-25 million for Benteke, and we would be able to massively improve the overall team to a higher standard than we would if we kept him. I don't want us to sell him on the cheap, but i just want this whole **** saga ended asap. If Benteke has any sense he will look to a club bigger than Spurs - however much better than us they are at the moment they are still a one man team who have one **** all in decades. If they decided to pull out of transfer to David Villa because they thought they could get Tekkers on the cheap then they are barking up the wrong tree.

He makes injury prone defoe and headless chicken Adebeyawn look pony The only thing he has against him is that it was his first season, but I can't see many players in the world scoring the way he did in a team battling relegation. A large % of the goals he scored he did on his own. If they can stump up 17mil for Paulinho who is still a relative unknown quantity at football at prem level and can't be that awesome if no other club was in for him, then they can **** pay of 20 mil for Tekkers.

Out of interest again, because I honestly can't recall, did any of Downing, Milner or Young put in a formal transfer request? Only Downing declared publically he wanted to join Liverpool, but I don't think he handed in an actual request

but in the process have given benteke opportunity to maximise his contribution to the team and in the process at least quadrupled his value . We would never get for bent what we paid for him. This far into his contract and on his wages I would suggest the most we could get would be 10 or 12 m . So the club, ergo manager, are bad at handling players as shown by the supposed loss of money on bent or wonderful because of the fact that we are going to get a huge profit on benteke. But we could have done that without alienating Bent by freezing him out of squads in favour of Bowery, what exactly did playing Bowery over Bent achieve that we couldn't have been found out by sending him on loan which we will have to anyway as Bowery doesn't look like a Prem player yet.

Haha you believe shit from the Mirror like it's true. Seriously??? Not just the Mirror though, loads of journos are running with this shit

The Real Madrid of London try and act like they are one of the big boys again, I really can't see them paying that either, they must be paying Adebeyawn a fortune in wages and Levy can't be happy that they are not in the Champs league and haven't won **** all in decades. Spurs are good at **** money up the wall though, all there fans claim they have spent nothing, yet they rank only behind the top three in outlay - and yet the sell most of their best players just like we do. I thought the he was quoted as saying he wanted to play for Arsenal anyway?

Except that this probably wouldn't have been his best chance. If he's as good as most of us think he is then he could've stayed for another season and likely had much better options next summer. he's only 22 also, so hardly his last chance is it.

What is he supposed to do though? The player doesn't want to be here. He could grow some balls and tough it out. I am betting Lerner's pockets are deeper than Benteke's! So if the player goes on strike, then what? Leave him on the bench like everyone else is saying? What good is that going to do? He don't want to play for us anymore. Get rid and get someone who gives a ****. Aside from Chelsea and Man City Every prem side is forced to sell off their best players, even Arsenal had to do it with Van Persie and Manure had to do it with Ronaldo. Such is the power of players and their cANT agents Benteke's sale has nothing to do with mismanagement or ambition and the money will be reinvested, but the fact is we could not afford the wages of a player that cost 25 mil which is why we won't go down that route. 10/15 mil maybe.