January Transfer Speculation (or lack of) Thread

[pedro25]

I'd rather sell Gabby than Bent, with the right players around him I think he would be more effective and clinical in the central striker role.  Rather not sell either of them though and I suppose given their scoring records we ought to get more for Bent I suppose. 

The defence is a worry and perhaps should be prioritized I just think with Hoillett if we dont act quickly someone else will snap him up and he will be a very decent player indeed.  A bit like when we signed Ash Young from Watford, you just knew he was going to be very tasty indeed.

[Olneythelonely]

Gabby would be the last person I'd sell.

[Chris Smith]

Selling Bent to sign Hoillet means you lose the one player who would benefit most from his signing.

[timeoutbigbar]

Is Hoilett in the last year of his contract?  If not then he'd cost more than £10m.

[Concrete John]

There's more Hoillets out there than there are Darren Bents!

The thing is that if we did do that, we'd end up looking for a top striker to put away all the chances were creating.  When you're one piece shy of finsihing a jigsaw you don't swap a piece you have for the one you're missing - you go find the missing piece!

With us we're a few pieces missing in all honesty, and biggest one right now is a solid defence.   

[James]

Hoilett is out of contract in the summer, so the sensible thing to do would be to sign him up on a pre-contract now and get him on a Bosman once the three players we have taking chunks out of our wage bill have left, however, being Villa....

[pedro25]

Bent was our missing piece, I'm certain his addition to MO'N's champions league chasing team would have seen us firmly establish ourselves in the top 4, but he signed Heskey and gradually the rest of the team was firmly broken up and sold on.  Bent came too late for us, Milner and Barry had already gone and Young and Downing were to follow.  Just think what a team like this could have done, Friedel, Young, Mellberg, Laursen, Bouma, Young, Milner, Barry, Downing, Gabby, Bent, with Carew, Petrov, Cahill etc on the bench.

[SteveN]

I'm not convinced that Hoilett is any better than Matt Phillips at Blackpool who, I suspect, would cost less and demand less in wages.

[Matt C]

Hoilett will still command a fee in the summer via tribunal plus he'll be looking for the biggest contract of his career so can't see him being too cheap.

[TheSandman]

And he'll go to Spurs too to add to their vast collection of promising attacking players with dubious end product.

[Dave]

Hoilett is out of contract in the summer, so the sensible thing to do would be to sign him up on a pre-contract now and get him on a Bosman once the three players we have taking chunks out of our wage bill have left, however, being Villa....

That would be sensible, if we were allowed to do it.

Which we're not.

[barrysleftfoot]

  I thought players who were out of contract in the summer were allowed to "talk" to other clubs in Jan.

[cdbearsfan]

  I thought players who were out of contract in the summer were allowed to "talk" to other clubs in Jan.

Only clubs in a different country. They're not allowed to talk to clubs in the same country till the contract expires. Although I doubt very much that certain managers bother adhering to that rule.

[phantom limb]

Anyone else seen this? Old habits die hard I guess.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jan/26/sunderland-kevin-davies-bolton

[Jimmy Smash]

Anyone else seen this? Old habits die hard I guess.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jan/26/sunderland-kevin-davies-bolton

He could have Heskey... or is he just being vindictive?