Spot on BOF, even Gazton was sure it was OGS....He also still thought it would be him when the papers were saying he is staying at Molde because he didn't want to move his family.
So something must have been said to all these ITK's to make them sure he was coming to Villa.
If I may fight my corner for a moment..
Personally, I hate the term "ITK". I don't claim to be "in the know". What I can say, with confidence, is that I hear stories from someone very much at the heart of AVFC. When this person tells me something, I make a very conscious decision to remove the emotion from what this person is telling me and then, if appropriate, report as much fact as possible to VT.
My history of these kinds of stories is, if I may say so, pretty strong. I don't remember exactly how much I've told VT but this person was spot on about the timing of Richard Dunne and Stephen Ireland signing for AVFC. He was spot on, so I said "Welcome Richard", and he was also spot on about the delay to RD signing on deadline day. When all around us were wringing their hands about the registration forms being delayed, he was absolutely confident that it was done on time and that was borne out.
With the Stephen Ireland deal, I told VT "Welcome Stephen" when it was complete and confirmed hours before it was made official. I was confident enough to do this because he rang me and physically put SI on the phone to me.
With all the upheaval of Gerard Houllier, I was privy to a lot of the internal strife. I took as much of the emotion out of it as possible and report back. Any emotion I added in was my own, and I was feeling a lot of different emotions about the whole Houllier situation.
With Darren Bent's signing, I heard about it after MYSTERYMAN (I think) but there are 2 people on this board who I met for a pint and to watch a match on TV. Tony and Paul will vouch for me, they knew about DB signing before it was even a sniff of a news story.
As for OGS, I was told that it was done. My source (another phrase I hate) had been told it was done. For me to come on here and say "Welcome Ole" wasn't a tough decision given the track record of this guy's information.
For one reason or another, it didn't work out. I don't yet know why, I will hopefully find out eventually what happened. If it's appropriate, I'll pass on that information too.
There's been many times I have heard news and chosen not to tell VT about it. We don't need to know it, and putting it into the public domain would do a lot more harm than good. It would also lead a very definite trail back to the source of the information, so I keep it to myself. That will continue, as will any bits of relevant news that I pass on.
Am I embarrassed about being wrong? Not in the slightest. I give info on here in good faith. What anybody does after that info, or how they choose to bet their money based on what some bloke on the internet says, is up to them.
If people don't want to believe me, that's their right. I absolutely accept that "some bloke on the internet" is more likely to be a spoofer than a genuine conduit of information. Just don't call me a liar, I don't like that
Well said Gazton, you can't always be 100% about things as they do change without you knowning but, I'll always trust what you and MM have to say. I would never say either of you have got something wrong, it's just that things change.