Aston Villa 2013/14

well sure, it's not like this is new experience - all our best players have left in recent years. Barry, Milner, Young, Downing..Him requesting transfer does weaken our position though.

And as Lambert's ethos has been to constantly say he wants 'hungry' players, it would very much go against that to keep a player who doesn't want to stay.

debaser wrote:well sure, it's not like this is new experience - all our best players have left in recent years. Barry, Milner, Young, Downing..Him requesting transfer does weaken our position though.

And as Lambert's ethos has been to constantly say he wants 'hungry' players, it would very much go against that to keep a player who doesn't want to stay.

Yes but requesting a transfer he foregoes his 10% cut. If his value to aston villa is say 18 million and a club offered that without a trasnfer request Benteke would get 1.8 million. With a transfer request a club may offer 16 million, but aston villa virtually get the same, but Benteke misses out. This is the thing that would annoy about a transfer like suarez, he seems like he wants to move to real madrid, but he hasn't put in a transfer request so either he doesn't actually want to move and it is just the media or his agent, or he wants to move and have the 10% (4 million euros) as well.

Transfer requests are more transparent, and therefore more honest.

Deb, so im driving in Germany the other day in the middle of nowhere, and look what is on the right side of the table...I mean road..muhhahahah.





Were you part in this? And why can't I get Villa out of my life!!

I think the world is telling you it's time to start supporting Villa

Villa just finished a little pre-season tour of Germany. dunno if that was fans or something official.

is that the Aston Villa bang bus?

Roman Aglennovich wrote:is that the Aston Villa bang bus?

is there any Villa players in particular you're hoping to bang?

not anymore

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23383683

Nice one Benteke.

he'll probably go next summer but if we get another season like last one from him, it's win-win.

Just as I was convincing myself Benteke would have been a good signing

Perhaps for the best, nice to see Villa holding onto him. 25million would have been a risk.

first half hattrick from Benteke in a friendly tonight. nice he's staying

Do you see Villa doing much better this season Debby? Genuine question. Keeping Benteke was excellent for you but missing out on Hooper must have been a blow? What do you see your strongest 11 as?

Missing out on Hooper

I'm fairly confident we should stay out of relegation battle & have a better season. would like to think healthy midtable minimum. First summer of stability since DISGRACE left (Benteke mini-saga didn't amount to much in the end).

It's a very young squad, probably even younger than last season on average, esp once Bent, Given, Ireland & Hutton are gone and I'm still not sure about defence - those are probably the big unknown factors. If it clicks I think we got a team capable of scoring a lot of goals. it's whether we can stop conceding so many!

Expect first XI to be a continuation of the formation we ended last season with, but with a few tweaks of personnel:

Guzan
Lowton-Okore-Vlaar-Luna
Westwood-Delph-Bacuna
Weimann-Benteke-Agbonlahor

backup:
Steer
Herd-Baker-Clark-Bennett
Sylla-ElAhmadi-Gardner
Tonev-Helenius-N'Zogbia

+various youngsters: Carruthers, Grealish, Daniel Johnson, Burke, Donacien, Webb been getting gametime in pre-season & some could feature.

that said I'm not sure Lambert is one who exactly goes for fixed first XI. I think a core of Guzan, Lowton, Vlaar, Westwood, Benteke are all pretty certain starters but others will change depending on opposition, rotation, etc.

Isco Benny wrote:

debaser wrote:first half hattrick from Benteke in a friendly tonight. nice he's staying

what are you so angry about? You've still got Adebayor

(seriously, why you not signed a striker yet?!)

Cos Adebayor is the best and has definitely changed for Spurs cos they're special .

Tottenham are apparently getting £85m for Bale. I'm sure Villa could be convinced to sell Benteke for <£85m plus Adebeyor. Win/Win.

I don't see Villa being a title threat this season, but they will be better than last season. A settled defense should see them finish top half, but I don't see them challenging Chelsea, Man City and Liverpool for the title.

Lambert

This looks like this is our final tally, barring some late deals.

Transfers in: Aleksandar Tonev (AM, Lech Poznan, £2.5m), Jores Okore (CB, Nordsjælland, £4m), Leandro Bakuna (CM, Groningen, £3m), Nicklas Helenius (FW, Aalborg, £2m), Antonio Luna (LB, Sevilla, £1.5m), Jed Steer (GK, Norwich, free), Libor Kozak (FW, Lazio, £5m)

Total ~£18m

Transfers out: Richard Dunne (CB, QPR, released), Andy Marshall (GK, Millwall, released), Eric Lichaj (RB, Nottingham Forest, released), Jean Makoun (CM, Renne, £2m), Simon Dawkins (end of loan), Brett Holman (AM, Al Nasr, free), Derrick Williams (LB, Bristol City, free), Darren Bent (FW, Fulham, loan w/ £2m fee), Barry Bannan (CM, Crystal Palace, £1.75m), Nathan Delfouneso (FW, Blackpool, loan), Samir Carruthers (AM, MK Dons, loan), Graham Burke (FW, Shrewsbury, loan), Stephen Ireland (AM, Stoke City, loan)

Total ~£5-6m

Not huge spend but we've brought in some good young players and cleared out a fair number of fringe players, which will definitely have improved wagebill. Seems like a good window, definitely Lambert's squad now. Delph is about the only player left who he didn't sign and also didn't come through our youth team. Look well covered all round, albeit very young.

Guzan/Steer
Lowton/Herd-Vlaar/Baker-Okore/Clark-Luna/Bennett
Westwood/Gardner-Delph/Sylla-El Ahmadi/Bacuna
Weimann/Helenius-Benteke/Kozak-Agbonlahor/Tonev

+ Given, Hutton, N'Zogbia (unlikely to be involved)
+ Siegrist, Donacien, Webb, Johnson, Albrighton, Grealish, Bowery (fringe/youth)

Taken Given on loan.

christmasborocooper wrote:Taken Given on loan.

Judas c**t

Kozak went and got a broken leg.

This needs a bigger thread, but this one will do for the moment – Hitz is out.

http://www.zeit.de/sport/2014-01/thomas-hitzlsperger-homosexualitaet-fussball

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/25628806

next one roman neustädter

Good on him. A very bright guy - Mervyn King, the governor of Bank of England and a Villa fan -was a friend (no, not in that way) when he was at Villa.

Also good on Podolski to support him too.


Podolski10

Brave and right decision. Respect, Thomas Hitzlsperger. His outing is a important sign in our time.

another small step of progress. guess it won't be too long before an equivalently well-known player comes out before they are retired.

won't be surprised if it's one of our ex-players.