And so - our behemoth Benteke has asked for a transfer - it is sad - but you cannot keep an unhappy player. I have no doubt the shiny suits of Chelsea and Tottenham even Man Citeh have been busy over the last months.
Like an idiot I am finding it hard to believe. I keep thinking - doesn't the kid know we love him? Maybe it's a negotiating ploy.
But it cannot be a negotiating ploy. Villa were ready to offer Benteke their top package. It can only be greed - sorry - ambition as Gareth Southgate would call it. It's a shitter. A real shitter. It feels like someone's died.
Benteke has has plenty of time to think this over - he feels nothing for the club - he wants his glamour move - prompted by his agent Mr Eris Kismet.
http://www.lavenir.net/sports/cnt/DMF20130201_00262815
The lovely ErisNow Eris needs some examining. He wasn't a player. Wasn't connected in any way with football. He was in fact a teacher. But he was a teacher who wanted to be an agent. So he spent five years trawling around kids soccer - giving out his card - and earning nothing. Today he has a mighty empire of ..... five clients. Four unknowns and Christian Benteke.
He has been in Benteke's ear since Benteke was a little kid. He makes a great deal over the fact they come from the same town.
Kismet was very happy when Benteke came to Villa's attention - feeling that at last he would get his place in the sun. Kismet has said that he felt he arrived when Villa sent a private jet to pick him and Benteke up and bring them over to negotiate a contract.
He felt that Villa had brought some humanity to football - and was happy that Christian was going to get to fulfil his dream of playing in the Premier League.
Eris might be small fry but he has one big fish - Benteke - and Eris wants only the best for 'his' player. He is unlike most other agents in that Eris likes limelight. Google his name and search images. About five turn up - and in three of them it is a players photo - but Eris has slid in there.
That shirt looks big enough for Eris.
Happy to be in shot. The smiling agent - always looking to raise his profile.
Eris is not short of giving out his opinion to whoever will listen - drawing from his vast experience of er.... vastness. But it is when talking of agents to a seminar of amateurs that he reveals something.
"Initially, I was proud to be a FIFA manager to have a recognized worldwide license. But now, when I introduce myself as a players' agent, I'm embarrassed. It is very misunderstood, and rightly so. It is not a world of sharks, it's worse. With a shark, you know what to expect. With an agent, it can still be a surprise. " Yes it can Eris. Indeed it can.
The dream of playing in the Premier League must have been replaced then. I wait with interest to see the reason they invent for wanting away from Villa - because Eris likes to have a reason, a case, it means he can talk to the press - which he likes very much.
Farewell then Christian Benteke - we loved you - but you didn't give a shit about us. Your dream it seems is not enough - a new promised land beckons - wealth beyond reason - the top table - all that jazz - it is only now that I find myself beginning to hope that you are in fact - the new Emile Heskey - one dazzling season followed by decades of well paid mediocrity.
And FU Eris. The promised land for you consists of a number of concentric descending circles - you will be in the one below estate agents and tabloid journalists.
