January Transfer Thread: Speculation, Lies, Absolute Cr*p and Bosman Rumours

[Jarpie]

Fear not, Drama Queens:

clicktown

Villa need Lerner lifeline: Billionaire owner will foot the bill to ensure Premier League safety
By NEIL MOXLEY
PUBLISHED: 22:52 GMT, 13 January 2013 | UPDATED: 22:52 GMT, 13 January 2013
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Randy Lerner viewed the latest episode in Aston Villa's descent with growing worry, reluctantly admitting to himself that he will again be called upon to safeguard his club's Premier League status.
The American billionaire has a live feed of every Villa match beamed to him via satellite link and, within minutes of the final whistle, he swaps his thoughts with chief executive Paul Faulkner.
His verdict after watching yet another defeat was that 'doing nothing is not an option' after Rickie Lambert's penalty divided the teams during this desperate relegation dogfight.

Help: Lerner (right) is willing to spend to save Aston Villa from relegation
The message from across the Pond on Saturday night was that Lerner is ready and willing to foot the bill, should Villa boss Paul Lambert find the experienced centre-half and midfielder he desperately needs to add know-how to a side that is lacking direction and organisation.
There have to be limits. But there is now a realisation that the purse-strings will have to be relaxed a little more to avert a third brush with relegation.
Lerner, who purchased the club in 2005 for £65m, has pumped at least another £150m into Villa and most notably used his wealth to positive effect when signing Darren Bent in a £24m package two years ago.
That move paid off and the other key message from the hierarchy on Saturday evening was that the club would not panic over the managerial situation.


The decision-makers would be well within their rights to do so - Villa are now in desperate straits.
In the short-term, the statistics are damning. As are performances. And results.
In the medium-term they paint a picture of steady decline. It is little wonder to 30,000 regular visitors they are in such a mess.
In the last 38 games - a Premier League season - Villa have collected just 30 points.
They stayed up by the skin of their teeth last term. Alex McLeish was relegated with Birmingham City in 2010-11 having garnered one point more than Villa used to survive.



Current boss Lambert's grand plan is sensible in conception but is proving disastrous in execution.
The Scot keeps beating the drum, maintaining his belief that his club are close to mid-table safety. The fact is, Villa are closer to the bottom of the table. And QPR and Reading are picking up results.
Eight goals conceded without reply in three home defeats to Spurs, Wigan and Southampton have caused Lerner's worry.
And Lambert's repeated platitudes smack of the orchestra playing while the Titanic sinks.

Worried: Lambert's side have lost four of their last five league games
While the youth in Villa's ranks has been trumpeted - the average age of the back four was 22 - it has taken a few words from striker Gabby Agbonlahor to put it into perspective
'It's not like they are 16 or 17,' he said, 'people say they are young but that doesn't matter.'
It is the quality that counts. To this eye, Southampton defender Luke Shaw, 17, looks an England prospect already. Villa are coming up short.
As Southampton striker Rickie Lambert said: 'When we got promoted, we knew we didn't have much Premier League experience in the squad, only a couple who had played Premier League.
'We knew it was going to take us a while to get used to it. Now I feel we are getting used to it and improving every game.'
Villa aren't. They are stuck in reverse. And, once more, the club needs to call upon its' well-heeled American patron to shift them into gear. And quickly.

Moxley's normally pretty reliable.

Lambert must be happy about that leak, now every club we're gonna buy players from just upped their asking prices by 1-2 million.

[brian green]

That Moxley piece was just a PR puff designed to deflect some of the well deserved venom of the fans aimed at the owner and the manager.

As for Lerner, in the immortal words of that daughter of Solihull Mandy Rice Davies -= he would say that wouldn't he?

There is no scrap of evidence that we have identified the players that we need, that they are willing to come to a club which the owner and successive managers have put in such a mess, that the reduction of the wages bill and the capping of wages which has been the club mantra for the last three seasons is to be abandoned or simply selectively breached.

I do not buy into all this bullshit about the owner getting a live feed of all the games and being on the phone to the club after every game.   That is not football club hands on ownership.   That is playing with toys.

There are three in this shitty bed.   The owner, the manager and the fans.   Who is going to do the pain?   The fans are.   We are the ones going to work this morning to face yet another day of ridicule and mockery.   We are the ones counting how much money we have left to get through the week after shelling out to see another disgraceful apology of a performance by one of the worst Aston Villa sides in living memory.

The owner will play with his toys and release pre-digested platitudes like Nero tuning his fiddle.   The manager?   Now there's hard one to work out.   Who is he going to telephone this morning?   What enquiries is he going to make? Is he going to write an e mail to the owner saying the wage bill reduction has to be history?  None of these.   He is a latter day Mr Micawber who is going to sit in his office until the window closes hoping that something turns up.

Why am I so hard on the manager?   Because I am a realist and I live in the real world not in the world of PR puffs by the likes of Moxley.

Lambert will look after Lambert.   His best career path, and he knows it, it to follow in the footsteps of O'Neill and McLeish.   He sits tight in his office until the window closes having gone through the motions of this or that enquiry about this or that loan deal or signing.   Nothing of any substance will happen, we will carry on being battered and we will be relegated.

Lerner will see that one of his toys is broken and discard it.   Lambert will await the arrival of whoever picks up the broken toy and move on with the proven copper bottomed excuse that Villa did not back him adequately and their failure was not his fault, just like O'Neill and just like McLeish.

Faulkner will breath a huge sigh of relief, trouser a golden handshake and go back into credit card banking.

We, the fans will do the pain.   Prepare yourselves for it.  It is coming.

[VillaAlways]

Nursey has just said on TS that the ammount of money provided will depend on whether we are able to shift the high earners and it's very hard to believe that this isn't true.
If it wasn't why have players not been identified before the window opened and in the team now,especially given the dire circumstances we are in.The type of player we need does not fit into Randys payscale I'm afraid

[brian green]

As I said, Mr Micawber waiting for something to turn up in the form of buyers for the overpaid deadwood accumulated by previous managers.   The perfect do nothing cop out.

[sid1964]

I hope that we can get rid of our high earners, but to be honest who would want them!

They have let this club down big style.

I will never forgive the likes of Ireland, Bent, Hutton, Warnock, Dunne for the way that they have both played for our club, with there half hearted effort and the way that they have behaved off the pitch  (slagging off Cowans etc...) and yet fans say give them another chance... FFS if I were the manager they would all be training by themselves after everyone else had gone home.

[VillaAlways]

As I said, Mr Micawber waiting for something to turn up in the form of buyers for the overpaid deadwood accumulated by previous managers.   The perfect do nothing cop out.

Nobody would have them on loan,never mind buy them

[Jarpie]

I hope that we can get rid of our high earners, but to be honest who would want them!

They have let this club down big style.

I will never forgive the likes of Ireland, Bent, Hutton, Warnock, Dunne for the way that they have both played for our club, with there half hearted effort and the way that they have behaved off the pitch  (slagging off Cowans etc...) and yet fans say give them another chance... FFS if I were the manager they would all be training by themselves after everyone else had gone home.

Dunne and Bent haven't been that bad but Ireland, Hutton and Warnock are atrocious. Bent and Dunne have had bad luck with injuries this season and Bent haven't gotten a good run of games because of that.

Although, if we can get rid of Dunne, we could get two players with his salary in, same with Ireland and Bent salaries.

[andyh]

I hope that we can get rid of our high earners, but to be honest who would want them!

They have let this club down big style.

I will never forgive the likes of Ireland, Bent, Hutton, Warnock, Dunne for the way that they have both played for our club, with there half hearted effort and the way that they have behaved off the pitch  (slagging off Cowans etc...) and yet fans say give them another chance... FFS if I were the manager they would all be training by themselves after everyone else had gone home.

I don't understand how or when Dunne has ever let us down ?
Injury prone maybe, but letting us down ? 

[eastie]

If that report were true I can't quite see why it would take Lerner until Saturday to decide doing nothing is not an option, we have known for months where the problems lie and what needs doing.

I just hope that lambert goes for experienced premier players this time and not more lower league ones.

[oldham_villa]

Great comments again Brian.

[supertom]

Bents struggled for injuries for a year or two with us now. That may be part of the reason Lambert doesn't fancy him. Bent originally lost his place under PL because of injury.

I don't buy Moxleys article. I never buy any article which apparently quotes Lerner, without really quoting him. The guy's deathly silent. We have no idea what he's thinking or what his logic is and Moxley certainly doesn't. Nor Nursey.

I'll look at the hard facts for now, and that is. Jan 14th- signings: None.
We don't look remotely close either. What the reason is, who knows but we should have had 1-2 in by now, because we're desperately short on quality.

[Jimbo]

Given our desperate, desperate position, you'd think that two weeks into the transfer window, we'd have lined up some experienced players to bring in. But no.

[eastie]

In the case of Huddlestone, Tottenham would want a £2m loan fee (maybe even more with the current circumstances). Which makes you wonder what other sorts of loan fees clubs would want. There's no way Man United would make Welbeck available and I thought because Sinclair had already played for Swansea and Citeh that the rules wouldn't allow it?

Cannot play for more than 3 teams in a season , Sinclair would be an option.

[VillaAlways]

I hope that we can get rid of our high earners, but to be honest who would want them!

They have let this club down big style.

I will never forgive the likes of Ireland, Bent, Hutton, Warnock, Dunne for the way that they have both played for our club, with there half hearted effort and the way that they have behaved off the pitch  (slagging off Cowans etc...) and yet fans say give them another chance... FFS if I were the manager they would all be training by themselves after everyone else had gone home.

I don't understand how or when Dunne has ever let us down ?
Injury prone maybe, but letting us down ? 

Really ? Do you remember Houlliers season when he turned up about 2 stone overweight?

[supertom]

I hope that we can get rid of our high earners, but to be honest who would want them!

They have let this club down big style.

I will never forgive the likes of Ireland, Bent, Hutton, Warnock, Dunne for the way that they have both played for our club, with there half hearted effort and the way that they have behaved off the pitch  (slagging off Cowans etc...) and yet fans say give them another chance... FFS if I were the manager they would all be training by themselves after everyone else had gone home.

I don't understand how or when Dunne has ever let us down ?
Injury prone maybe, but letting us down ? 

He and Collins caused problems when Houllier was here. Think there was drink involved. Someone will be able to recall better but Dunne's attitude has been brought into question here. His fitness has been a problem too, not just injuries, but he came back from pre-season in 2010, looking overweight. Houllier didn't think many of the squad were fit enough and clearly Dunne was one of the players most riled by this.