Summer 2010 Transfer Thread: B*llsh*t, Rumours & Wishes

[old man villa fan]

Rumours of Heskey going to Sunderland for £1.5m.

Alrighty then. I'd take that dosh and loan Bellamy for the season.

How would people feel if we got £2m for Heskey and gave it to him so that he could reduce what he would want in wages to around £40k a week (2 years to go on contract at £20k per week = £2m approx.).  In other words, this would be equivalent to a free transfer but reduce our wage bill by around £6m over the next two seasons.

Personally, I would say that would be far better than keeping him and having him run down his contract.

Not sure how much Sidwell is on but a similar type of deal might be the way forward.

[JUAN PABLO]

I see Manure have signed another striker


Manchester United have pulled off another surprise transfer coup by signing Portuguese striker Bebe - heading off interest from rivals Real Madrid.
The 20-year-old is regarded as one of the best young talents in Portuguese football and United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has quickly made his move after being tipped off by former coach Carlos Queiroz.
The fee is believed to be in the region of £7m

[Rigadon]

More doom and gloom from various rags and virtual rags:

Liverpool boss Roy Hodgson is considering making a £14m offer for two Aston Villa players with England defender Stephen Warnock, 28, and Bulgaria midfielder Stiliyan Petrov, 31, his targets.
Full story: caughtoffside.com

Manchester City midfielder Stephen Ireland is putting his proposed move to Aston Villa - as part of a swap deal with Villa's James Milner - on hold as he waits to see whether Tottenham will make a late bid.
Full story: Daily Mirror

Aston Villa are preparing to bring Arsenal goalkeeper Manuel Almunia to Villa Park as part of a triangle of moves with Fulham keeper Mark Schwarzer joining Arsenal and Villa's Brad Friedel moving to Craven Cottage.
Full story: Daily Mirror

The keeper 'story' is my favourite! 

So, according to the papers, on top of losing our manager we're losing Warnock, Ashley Young, Petrov, Freidel, Curtis Davis, James Milner and Luke Young and the one signing we may have made is waiting for super duper Spurs to make an offer.  But the fringe players are sending each other champagne bottle texts celebrating MON's exit and toasting the arrival of Sven.

One can but hope they are making all of this up.

[Mazrim]

I wish the Mirror would just go out of business. Absolute dross.

[Guy M]

There's a reason Jones is signing for Stoke, it shouldn't take one too long to work it out!

Keane to Sunderland?

[Mazrim]

Our wage bill last season was 85% of turnover, Randy wants to get it down to 60%. Our turnover has increased due to the sponsorships meaning that the 60% is going to be closer to where we were anyway. I would guess that RL didn't want to see anymore Marlon Harewood's seeing out their contract and leaving without really being a part of the squad and having no value at all, that's fair enough for me. I fully expect money to be made available if required.

The 85% was for the year ending May 2009.  Since then we added a significant number of players so I should imagine the 85% will have gone up quite a bit.

Have the club actually stated that they want to get wages:turnover down to 60%.

Last season we had extended cup runs, increased prize money and more recently we've agreed two significant sponsorship deals as well let a number of players (and the manager) go so I would expect, as things stand now, the wages as a percentage of turnover to be significantly less. But we'll see.

[richard moore]

There's a reason Jones is signing for Stoke, it shouldn't take one too long to work it out!

Keane to Sunderland?

It's rather more obvious than that if you have seen him play of late....

[VillaAlways]

I see Manure have signed another striker


Manchester United have pulled off another surprise transfer coup by signing Portuguese striker Bebe - heading off interest from rivals Real Madrid.
The 20-year-old is regarded as one of the best young talents in Portuguese football and United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has quickly made his move after being tipped off by former coach Carlos Queiroz.
The fee is believed to be in the region of £7m

Sir Alex who was supposedly happy with his team and wasn't signing any players this window according to himself

[Chris Smith]

There's a reason Jones is signing for Stoke, it shouldn't take one too long to work it out!

Keane to Sunderland?

Rory Delap.

Jones is aboput as mobile as a lamppost but ideal for him to aim his long throws at.

[Concrete John]

Rumours of Heskey going to Sunderland for £1.5m.

Alrighty then. I'd take that dosh and loan Bellamy for the season.

Heskey to Sunderland for £1.5m?  No issue with that.

Bellamy on loan?  Not for me, but if we're out of time on 31/8 I'd take him on a deal to January.

However, the Heskey story sounds like lazy journalism "Manager x has just offloaded a striker and one of his ex-players is of a similar type and probably available.  Must be true!"

[Concrete John]

About the Ireland thing and would a new manager want him:-

If we presume that he'll be in late in the window and have little or no time to sign his own players, he'll want as good a squad as possible to work with until January/next summer.  I think that Ireland is of sufficient quality that any manager would rather have him than not, so would prefer this deal was done as opposed to an extra £10m in the bank he couldn't use straight away.  On the other hand some of our expected departures are of the quality where a new manager wouldn't be all that bothered if they were sold.

[Chris Smith]

More doom and gloom from various rags and virtual rags:...

Under normal circumstances I wouldn't give stories like this a second thought. However, I have that sinking feeling that our failure (so far) to get rid of the players we had hoped to move on will prompt the Chairman and CEO to make their proposed savings elsewhere. I'm not saying it was I think will happen just that I have a nagging doubt whereas normally I would just pay no attention.

[Brend'Watkins]

More doom and gloom from various rags and virtual rags:...

Under normal circumstances I wouldn't give stories like this a second thought. However, I have that sinking feeling that our failure (so far) to get rid of the players we had hoped to move on will prompt the Chairman and CEO to make their proposed savings elsewhere. I'm not saying it was I think will happen just that I have a nagging doubt whereas normally I would just pay no attention.

It would be a PR disaster for them to start off loading our star players now.  I believe, with the exception of Milner that simply will not happen at this time.  You might also I feel be reading too much into the finances of the club based on MON not shifting the deadwood and getting the wage bill down.  We still need to do this but not to the detriment of the team, that would be a disastrous move.  Lerner is not all of a sudden penniless.

[Simon Ward]

Our wage bill last season was 85% of turnover, Randy wants to get it down to 60%. Our turnover has increased due to the sponsorships meaning that the 60% is going to be closer to where we were anyway. I would guess that RL didn't want to see anymore Marlon Harewood's seeing out their contract and leaving without really being a part of the squad and having no value at all, that's fair enough for me. I fully expect money to be made available if required.

The 85% was for the year ending May 2009.  Since then we added a significant number of players so I should imagine the 85% will have gone up quite a bit.

Have the club actually stated that they want to get wages:turnover down to 60%.

That is the long term aim but you could do that two ways, either by decreasing wages or increasing turnover!

[Mazrim]

Chris, your instincts are to think those stories are bollocks. Good, trust your instincts and cheer up.
You're begining to sound like one of your adversaries.

Its free for all week on negative Villa stories and the worthless oxygen thief hacks are cashing in.
I could do better myself in 2 minutes flat.
Here we go:

"HUGHES EMERGES AS TOP VILLA TARGET
Andy Fublevis with another Mirror exclusive.

Randy Lerner is about to appoint Hughes as Villa boss. Yosser Hughes that is!
The cheeky opportunist unemployed scouse twat wandered into Randy Lerner's office as the Amercian trickster was unloading all of Aston Villa's filthy lucre into a swag bag - money Martin O'Neill had been sworn on a blood oath - and asked for a job. The american shrugged and said he could be manager for all he cared and so Hughes will begin a 10 year contract starting Monday on £200 a week which is all Villa can afford. His first job will be to try and punt Ashley Young and Gabby Agbonlahor to Spurs who also have to sell to buy but we're choosing to ignore that because they're great, and his second job will be a bit of rendering by the garages followed by a lick of paint and some stud walls in the gymnasium to form lucrative luxury flats."