Rob182

PieFacE, I suppose it boils down to whether we value a player at what he is ACTUALLY worth or what a team would pay for him. If we were in debt and needed to sell some players straight away then we'd probably get a price closer to their real value. Milner - £17m? Gabby - £13m? Young - £15m? They're my guesses. But we'd be stupid to sell them for that amount in our current situation.

I wouldn't. In 2 years time we'd be regretting it - Keane would be winding down his career and Gabby will probably still be improving and breaking into the England team.

It's a good job no-one said it then..

Of course. I understand that and don't expect all transfers to be done but around half. Let's be honest, in his whole time as Villa manager, generally, we signed players towards the later stages of the window rather than the first 6 weeks. So it's obviously something he prefers rather than sorting out the deals early. As we know, he goes on holiday just after the season as well. It's not as if, he's been in charge 4 seasons and been late in moving just once. It's every year. I believe getting the right player is more important than the time but it would be nice and beneficial if we did do transfers a little earlier... Maybe the wheeler-and-dealer in MON knows that if he does his deals near the end of the window, then the clubs we're buying from don't have as long to try and get a better price. It's our price or nothing. Although.. if that was the preferred method then we'd have to be constantly crossing our fingers that our targets didn't get sold to other clubs!

astonvilla news & views You can read the original posts here.. that's where I read them because I, also, was late to read them before they were deleted! :winkold:

I really want to get this game, but I've only just got my PS3 and I have GTA4, Fifa World Cup, LittleBigPlanet, Heavy Rain, God of War 3, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 & Sega Megadrive Collection to play yet!

i wish you was right but sadly i havent seen anything to suggest delph will be anywhere near as good as milner. hopefully in due course he might but at present not convinced Delph is a different type of player to Milner, but I think he'll be just as good - if not better! Delph is so comfortable on the ball, he has a lot more skill and technical ability than Milner. He dribbles around players with the ball almost stuck to his foot. All he needs is a bit of Premiership experience and he'll be a major player for us and, I believe in time, England. Delph was our best player on the pitch against Blackburn in the FA Cup - even if he only played half a game. It was his vision for a crossfield pass to Young who then set up our first goal IIRC.

that shirt would be gash..

..... Hang on a minute.... I said this to you last week when I came to your house!??!!!! What else have you been spouting around VT as "your own"?.... I'm gonna check all your posts!

I got my PS3 last Friday!.. Robbb182 is me.. feel free to add me!

It'd be a waste of an opportunity to replace Milner with a £30m player. IF we do sell him for £30m then I'd like MON to buy a replacement for about 10-15m. Centre midfield isn't the biggest problem for us at the moment. If we get £30m for Milner then we should use that, on top of the money from selling fringe players, to really boost the quality of the whole squad. - A striker - A midfielder or two - A fullback

Daily Star says we're lining up a £15m "swoop" for Bentley & Jenas. If we got our fullbacks, centre mid and strikers sorted AND we magically found lots of money .. then I wouldn't mind it, just to boost the quality of our squad. Although.. I'd prefer Keane and O'Hara for £15m personally.

Great song To the tune of Adams Family I'm guessing. I like it, except for the 3rd line which has too many syllables.. it could be - He's absolutely awesome, From corners he will score some, In our defensive foursome, His name is richard dunne,

O'Neill hasn't mentioned him, all he's done is place a price tag on him. I didn't say he had... That would have read "O'Neill should stop mentioning him". I was simply posting my opinion.. that Milner staying will rely on us bringing in some good signings to show our ambition.. and that O'Neill should get onto it straight away.

I'm not too excited at the idea of signing Doyle. He'd score goals for us but I agree with you in that he's not the higher calibre of player that we should be looking at. If we keep Milner but sell the fringe players - Sidwell - £4m ? Beye - £1.5m ? Luke Young - £4m ? Davies - £6m ? Shorey - £1.5m ? NRC - £5m ? (all random guesses..) That's over £20m to spend (plus a possible addition from Randy of a few million). I'd be happy with us spending £15m on a quality striker and £5m on a right back. I'd even be happy with us keeping Cuellar at rightback or bringing in a cheap youngster like Clyne - if it meant that we could fork out £20m on a top class striker.

I think O'Neill should forget about Milner now. He's gone to the WC and we wont do any deals until he's back. I hope that O'Neill is now concentrating on looking for players to buy to show Milner that we have ambition to compete next year - I think this could be what Milner signing an extension will rely on.

If this happens.. what are the bets that MON buys another winger and pushes Downing into the middle? :winkold:

I thought that one of Clyne/ Matthews could play on the left

I completely disagree. We're going to also have the money from selling the wantaways.. Sidwell, Beye, Shorey, NRC, Davies, Luke Young. I think Ireland would be a like-for-like replacement for Milner - he's better technically but just doesn't have the workrate of Jimmy. As much as I love Milner, he's not irreplacable. £30m + the money from the fringe players could easily get us Ireland (£12m?), a striker (£15m?), a quality rightback (£8-10m - like the purchase of Warnock) and a few youngsters (Clyne - £2m etc). If the summer window panned out this way, I wouldn't be too disheartened (especially as we'd be getting rid of players that we don't plan to use, and bringing in players that we would utilise) - OUT Milner, L Young, Sidwell, Beye, Shorey, Davies, NRC IN Ireland, Striker, Rightback, Clyne, Matthews

Would there be an amount that would make you more comfortable with us selling him Richard? Or do you believe that we shouldn't sell him to a rival at any cost? Richard, I think we do have ambition but, because of the amount of money they have, the difference is that their ambition is showing straight away and our's is long term.

It does, but it's nothing that we can't turn around (turning it around will be down to MON, but I trust him) Spurs sold Carrick/ Berbatov/ Keane and it worked out okay for them. If we keep Milner then we're showing real ambition and it'd be amazing to be able to build a squad around him for the next 10 years (optimistic maybe) If we sell him then we can use the money to replace him (Ireland being the most obvious choice) and also get an improved striker and possible right-back with the money. (Also we can add on the money from the sales of Beye, Shorey, Sidwell, L Young & Davies) Though I'll be gutted if Milner is sold, I'm confident that Randy & MON will take as much as we can from City.

It is a bit of an unfair poll tbh.. I wonder if Spurs would swap finishing 4th for 5th this year if it meant we won the WC?.. I'd happily drop one place in the Prem for that.

We all know that Randy's a businessman! And I think he's going to have more involvement in this years transfers.. so who knows!!.. he doesn't seem the type to be intimidated by a £25m offer for a player we'd love to keep. av1 - I agree with you, prices these days are ridiculous (£6m-£8m for Delph?!)... but I suppose it's the difference of what a player is worth and what a club want for the player.

At £30m so is MON I don't think it's unrealistic to ask for £30m at all! We're talking about Man City.. the richest team in the prem and one of the richest in the world. We're not going to say to them "Well.. Milner is worth around £17m.. so you can have him for that" are we? The price should go up a couple of million because he's YPOTY, a couple of million because it's Man City, a couple of million because they're a direct rival of ours, a couple of million because he has 2 years on his contract. It's a stupid price but that's modern football. We have to move with the times and, though it's stupid, we shouldn't accept a penny less than £30m.

All things considered, I think it's a fair price.. Owen Coyle was saying that Cahill would cost £30m, Lescott went for what? £20m?, Arsenal were rumoured to want £80m for Fabregas, the fact that we payed 3 or 4m more than he was probably worth at the time.. Not to mention that he's Young Player of the Year, the new rule for homegrown players and it's the richest team in the Premiership after him. I think £30m is a price that both parties would be happy with! £30m or £20m + Ireland or £15m + Ireland + Onouha I think any of those deals would be good for Villa