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In, Out and Shake it All About


limpid

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by PB

PB takes a look at the latest transfer gossip

I don’t agree with transfer windows for a whole host of reasons, not least amongst those being the fact that message boards like this spend months getting themselves into a lather of excitement and expectation in the build up, and then, when the window finally opens, there is a mass feeding frenzy of speculation, rumour and counter rumour. Everyone is very much on edge, a situation not helped by the fact that we seem to have gone several years without winning a game. Everyone can see our need. Everyone can see our billionaire owner. Over to you Randy? I have my doubts that it is that simple, but still I can sympathize with the viewpoint.

Anyway, I felt it was time to get into the spirit of things and have a look at the gossip, and it really is for the most part no more than that, surrounding Villa at the moment.

Out

Well, young Peter Whittingham seems to have kicked his last ball for the Villa. Rarely able to get a spot in the team despite our crippling injury list, the former U-21 international is going to join Championship contenders Cardiff City for £300,000. Peter’s contract expires in the summer, and looks unlikely to be renewed. In some ways it is a shame to see one of your young guns stepping down a League, but Peter rarely reached the heights of those dizzy days early in O’Leary’s reign when he looked like he might be the real deal.

Ulises de la Cruz – remember him? – might be, according to rumour, heading back North of the border to join Scottish Champions Celtic.

Also said to be heading North of the border is full back Aaron Hughes, who is allegedly a transfer target for his old club Newcastle United. Hughes, something of a contentious figure these days, might feel a little miffed that O’Neill has signed a young Manchester United reserve to play in his spot. The Northern Ireland captain is one of those players that fans seem to either love or hate, with the latter camp currently seeming to be the bigger of the two.

According to Milan Baros’ Mum - yes seriously his Mum – the Czech international striker is wanted by Chelsea. His agent, talkative at the best of times, has confirmed the interest. While this news might surprise his many detractors, there can be little doubt that a Baros that is properly switched on is a genuinely top class player as he showed in the Cup game this weekend. While Martin O’Neill has become, it appears, the latest manager to run out of patience with the occasionally brilliant, occasionally invisible striker, it is possible that Mourinho feels he can spark that latent talent into something approaching consistency. I think, personally, that it might just be the best deal for all concerned, especially if we can use Milan to prize away from Stamford Bridge the, and I use this prefix because everyone else does, mercurial young winger Sean Wright-Phillips.

This brings us very neatly to:

In

As mentioned above, Villa are apparently trying very hard indeed to secure Ian Wright’s adopted son (is that right? I think it is.). There is some debate about whether this would be on loan on permanent, and there appears to be even more doubt about how happy the young winger would be to leave Chelsea. We will see.

A lot may depend on whether or not Villa can secure a deal for Watford’s young starlet Ashley Young. With Moore and Agbonlahor, I can’t see Villa wanting both Wright-Phillips AND Young, and my belief is that one of these is plan A, while the other is plan B. It could well be that Villa’s interest in Wright-Phillips has increased since Watford increased the asking price for Young to a silly £9m.

With Milan Baros apparently heading for the door, we are in need of a striker. Well, we needed a striker anyway, but now we REALLY need a striker. There was some talk about Kevin Doyle, the free scoring Reading striker for £5m, but in my opinion this is just speculation. I think that the strong rumours concerning Liverpool’s Craig Bellamy are more likely to be true. O’Neill has already rescued this lad’s career once, and will probably feel quite confident that he can do it again for the striker with a reputation roughly akin to a mix between Attilla the Hun and Robbie Savage. £9m though?

Then there are the “bolts out of the blue”. Villa have been linked with all manner of continental players, for the most part probably the work of agents gabbling to the press more in hope than expectation. Some Egyptian lad who’s name I’m not even going to try and spell or pronounce who looks tasty on YouTube (which seems to be taking over from Championship manager as the way for the masses to judge players), another YouTube star from Romania and probably some others who I have forgotten.

Meanwhile, Martin O’Neill has said, very bravely in my opinion, that he hopes to sign five players of the “Petrov” quality this window. He has also said that this might be easier said than done and he might have to plug the gaps in his plans with stop gap signings towards the end of the window if things don’t go quite as anticipated. We will see

PB

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TBH I thought Peter was just mentioning UDLC going to Celtic as he's a recent ex-Villan. I didn't realise Pete had missed that bit of summer business :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Did you see that DLC scored for us at the weekend. 60 yard run from the right back position, powering past the Blades midfield, quick one-two with Harper (and a lucky deflection), coolly slid the ball past the advancing Kenny for his first Reading goal.

He looked shaky in his first few games for us, but looked assured on Saturday.

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Did you see that DLC scored for us at the weekend. 60 yard run from the right back position, powering past the Blades midfield, quick one-two with Harper (and a lucky deflection), coolly slid the ball past the advancing Kenny for his first Reading goal.

He looked shaky in his first few games for us, but looked assured on Saturday.

Mmmmmm, I would savour that if I was you, it will be a collectors piece!

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