Young days away from joining Man.Utd

[Somniloquism]

Sir Alex got Valencia scoring, I don't see any reason why he wouldn't improve Ash's game also, and those improvements would happen just from being given a concrete role and being brow-beaten into being more direct again.
Getting Ash in still won't solve Sir Alex's problems in central midfield though which is the real issue.

I think you will find he was scoring for Wigan and playing well until Manure's interest in him grew and then he went off the boil for the rest of his stay. Ring any bells.

[Caiphus]

Valencia went from less than 1 in 12 to more than 1 in 7 in the transfer, which is pretty significant.  Ash is already at more than 1 in 5 with room to improve as long as he can take instruction.

Would anyone consider taking Valencia in a swap?  I wouldn't.

[Matt Collins]

Valencia would be a great signing but fergie will never sell

[villa1]

Valencia always looks distinctly average to me.

[JUAN PABLO]

Like whom?

It's not like he can go and buy Messi or Villa.

like Sanchez

[Dave]

Yup, that would certainly be better than Young.

But given that he has a goalkeeper, an entire central midfield and potentially a striker to replace as well as getting another winger in he might decide that he's better off spending £15m on Young rather than £40m on Sanchez.

[AsTallAsLions]

The issue is is the fact that our best players don't feel we can compete... Barry, Milner, Young and Downing... all bought into the 5 year plan and now are all off to compete for honours, which we have fallen back from competing for.

That is what has to be addressed.

Spot on. Bottom line is that these guys were more or less promised honours at some point during their careers for Villa.

That was the deal when MON took over, 5 year plan, build the team and improve progressively until we win something. MON decided that losing Barry and then Milner was enough to derail that, and jumped ship. Now Downing and Young have realised their ambitions aren't going to be fulfilled here either and are leaving.

By a combination of happenstance and poor/mis-management, AVFC is slowly sliding into irrelevance. You can hardly blame anyone for getting out.

[usav]

But yet we spent 28m on the England number 9.

[lovejoy]

But yet we spent 28m on the England number 9.

But we spent the entire season in the bottom half of the table and got knocked out of one cup by Blues and the other using a B team. If I didn't support Villa and I was one of them I'd want to leave too.

[olaftab]

Sir Alex got Valencia scoring, I don't see any reason why he wouldn't improve Ash's game also, and those improvements would happen just from being given a concrete role and being brow-beaten into being more direct again.
Getting Ash in still won't solve Sir Alex's problems in central midfield though which is the real issue.

Valencia's goal tally improved simply because he played for a much much better team than his previous  club. Even Berbatov become a prolific scorer at OT.  Ash will improve  because Fergie will lay the law down and  get him playing to his strength not just do what he wants to do on the pitch as with us.

[Villa'Zawg]

But yet we spent 28m on the England number 9.

I thought we spent £18m with add-ons?

[olaftab]

After tonight, I can see Ferguson looking for somebody better than Ashley. Either that or he'll give up ever trying to win the Champions League again.

I am with you Mark as exactly the same thought has crossed my head today. If United had won Fergie would have said OK I just need a bit of tuning to keep us at the top therefor   Ash would have  fitted in. After last night he is in a shock state knowing full well that United are  very short of being the best in Europe. I think it's time for him to start again with a new blue  print that means much higher quality players than Ash however I doubt if Manure board will back him. They are happy at winning the PL and being there or there about in the CL last 4. That keeps the sponsors happy and TV money keeps rolling in.

[olaftab]

"The king is dead", "long live the king...... Agbonlahor, at least he wants to play for Villa.

I want to play for the Villa but that is not going  make us a very good team!

[amfy]

The issue is is the fact that our best players don't feel we can compete... Barry, Milner, Young and Downing... all bought into the 5 year plan and now are all off to compete for honours, which we have fallen back from competing for.

That is what has to be addressed.

Spot on. Bottom line is that these guys were more or less promised honours at some point during their careers for Villa.

That was the deal when MON took over, 5 year plan, build the team and improve progressively until we win something. MON decided that losing Barry and then Milner was enough to derail that, and jumped ship. Now Downing and Young have realised their ambitions aren't going to be fulfilled here either and are leaving.

By a combination of happenstance and poor/mis-management, AVFC is slowly sliding into irrelevance. You can hardly blame anyone for getting out.

Isn't it chicken and egg though? Have these players been leaving because the 5 year plan has been failing, or is it failing because they keep leaving.

I believe the anger with Barry was because it felt like we just needed a bit of tweaking and we would be there. His move epitomised our problem - the team he went to weren't even ahead of us at the time, but soon would be because him and players like him would go there for the money they had, not only for wages, but to pick a fatasy team.

By the time Milner left last year we could already see that we were stagnating, and now nobody really blames Young for wanting a move at all.

Truth is that the 5 year plan was scuppered by Man City's mega bucks. Spurs had played a long game that has come to some kind of fruition at around the same time. Spurs have also had their phase of struggling and losing a few better players after touching the top places, and then came back with a bigger impact. Hopefully this will be us too. That is the only way we can hope to do it. Trouble is, in the modern game, this kind of patience is in shorter and shorter supply for players and fans.

If we looked like we were on the edge of something big then maybe we could persuade Young and Downing to stay, but we're not. However, I think we can hold Downing for another season and if things go well he may be persuaded to sign next year.

The reality is that for the present we actually need our plan to take account of losing one top player a season, but we do need to keep it to one!

[john e]

i think the reality is very simple,
 players will always move on to bigger and better things,

if we want a player and Aston Villa is percieved as a club to be bigger and better , he will move here,
 if somewhere else wants one of our players and they are percieved to be bigger and better in the players eyes, he'l be off

this works for 95% of transfers, if not more nowadays