January Transfer Window - Rumours, Links, B*llsh*t and Made-Up Nonsense

[WikiVilla]

We had the chance to sign Robbie Keane over a decade ago.
we don't want to be doing it now

[JJ-AV]

Sell Ireland.

Replace with this man:

[villa1]

Who is he?

[TheSandman]

Adel Taarabt (sp?)

I'm not convinced about him and whether he can make it in the PL but lets face it: Ireland could be replaced more than adequately with a crash test dummy.

[JJ-AV]

Yeah, Tarrabt.

QPR made him their captain though, so might be tough to get him.

Potential world beater.

[villa1]

Ah yes. Also hugely frustrating.

[Phil from the upper holte]

I watched him a few times, he's good but he knows it! He rarely passes and try's to do it all himself

[Irreverent ad]

I watched him a few times, he's good but he knows it! He rarely passes and try's to do it all himself

Sounds like a good replacement for Ash then!

[KevinGage]

I'm reading more into Ashley Young's absence yesterday with an "injury"
I fear he is being off-loaded in Jan

If there were one thing we could do to simultaneously take away any remaining positivity at the club, to reinforce and give credence to the "selling club" stuff we keep hearing, to deflate the supporters any more, to make a truly shit season even worse, to make relegation a real possibility, to make it look like we'd given up, and to flag up our ambition accordingly, it would be to sell Ashley Young in January.

I understand why players insist they don't want to stay at clubs and get offloaded in the summer, but to sell a player like that in January could only be about one thing, and that would be the slightly increased transfer fee we'd get from having a further six months on his contract.

I know what you're saying, but if the player is insisting he wants out (and I'm not sure we're at that stage yet) there isn't a huge amount we can do.

There has been this perception created out there that we are a selling club now, whether we like it or not. Ably abetted by the sterling efforts of James Night Nursey and co vomiting out 'sell to buy' as some kind of mantra in every article even remotely associated with Aston Villa F.C.

I think it's horseshit, as I do with the desperate justification that as RL hasn't spent any money in the calendar year 2010 = he never had any intention to do so and has given up the ghost. 

It would take the shortest of attention spans in January 2010 to forget the huge outlay that occured just four months previous. And the events of the  summer just gone have been well documented.

Yet because we haven't publicly come out and said the sell to buy guff is just that (apart from General K on this and other sites) misinformation from the Mirror and elsewhere suddenly starts to be accepted as fact. We can't come out and officially rubbish every bullshit article loosely concerned with goings on at VP.

So the next best thing we can do is to invest in transfers and squad building this Jan and beyond. My only concern is that I'm not entirely convinced that I'd want GH having free reign at the till, but that's a different argument altogether.

[old man villa fan]

At the end of last season I thought Keane could be the answer but he has come nowhere near Spurs 1st team this season and not many appearances from the bench.  I was wrong.

Keane is yesterdays man.  If it was a loan, the salary might be worth a gamble for the short term but Spurs want to sell and he would want a 3-4 year contract and that would be an expense we should not even be thinking of.

[KevinGage]

Re Keane:

It's hard to shake the notion that he's on a downward spiral, I've said as much beforehand   and the clubs linked with his signature bear that out.

But:

If he goes to the B-lose you just know he'll score against us, and any other goals he gets for them or another struggling side could impact on our season the way things are going.

As much as he wouldn't be a long term answer, if he came in for the remainder of the season and scored 5-6 goals in our colours it would possibly be a worthwhile short term solution.

Long term we'd need far better, but lets get this complete arse of a season out of the way first and ensure we're still in the division. For all the bright play of some of our wingers and midfielders at times this year we've struggled to score goals.

[old man villa fan]

13m is a joke. if he went for that i'd be seriously worried about the state of our finances

We need to get as much as possible if that's the route that we are going down. It sounds cheap but whats the going rate for a player entering the last year of his contract? We got £12m for Barry so....

I just don't get peoples thinking about selling Young in January.  There will be no difference in what we get for him now compared with in the summer.  There will be a queue of the big clubs wanting him in the summer and if there is demand the price will match what we want for him.

The comparison with Barry is not valid as Barry had one last big transfer in him and as we are seeing now, he is on the way down.  Young could be sold on again for a high fee even if he is sold in the summer.

My hope is that we do everything possible to try and convince him to stay.  We do have a lot of options in wide positions but he is the best.  With Young as one of two wide players we can make the system work but with Downing and Albrighton as wide players we are too weak across the middle.  The days of two wide players in 4-4-2 have gone and unless they play in a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1 they are a luxury stuck out on the touchline we cannot afford.

[old man villa fan]

Re Keane:

It's hard to shake the notion that he's on a downward spiral, I've said as much beforehand   and the clubs linked with his signature bear that out.

But:

If he goes to the B-lose you just know he'll score against us, and any other goals he gets for them or another struggling side could impact on our season the way things are going.

As much as he wouldn't be a long term answer, if he came in for the remainder of the season and scored 5-6 goals in our colours it would possibly be a worthwhile short term solution.

Long term we'd need far better, but lets get this complete arse of a season out of the way first and ensure we're still in the division. For all the bright play of some of our wingers and midfielders at times this year we've struggled to score goals.

How do we get him in for the short term though unless it is a loan deal and I do not see Harry doing us any favours unless it helps him get more for him in the summer.

If we sign him it will be on a fat 3-4 year contract we end up in the same position as with Ireland etc.

[koreanmeatballs]

It's almost certain if he goes to West Ham/ Wolves/ Blues he will score a winner against us.

[old man villa fan]

Why are we in a rush to get rid of players in January.  Unless we get a very good offer for a player we should keep them all until the summer.  As we have seen, our squad is nowhere near the strength or depth we need.  We are not going to add more than 2 or 3 players and they may be players for the future rather than the present.  Therefore we should be keeping the current squad unless that too good an offer comes in.