Fabian Delph - Signed for Manchester City

[Dante Lavelli]

Villa need to sort a new contract for Delph. His current deal runs out in 2015, so hopefully they will act soon - only 18 months left like Hoolahan at Norwich. Fair play to Houllier for signing him on a 4 year contract in March 2011 when he was going through a serious of injury set backs.

Definitely.  I could see a top six club sniffing about if they thought they could get him on a free.

[Toronto Villa]

God I hope not, don't want to get them tapped up or injured.

We really do need to stop with this desire for our players not to get picked by England. Do you not think that players can get tapped up outside of the national team set up? Or that they don't have mates on other teams that they stay in touch with, or via common agents?

And why on earth would we not want our players playing at the highest level? It means they have done well and by extension so have the club. I want our players, of all nations to be representing their country because the message it sends is that you can achieve those ambitions playing for us and not have to join a so called "bigger" side. We cannot live in fear of our players leaving because quite frankly it is always going to happen. What we must do is put in place an environment where they don't want to leave and understand that they can be successful with us.

[pauliewalnuts]

Paul Scholes made it pretty clear what goes on at England matches with players from clubs like us - in fact, he specifically mentioned Villa by name.

I don't care too much about England so I'd really rather our players didn't play for the national team. I don't want them to risk injury and I don't want them to start getting itchy feet after hanging around with the likes of Gerrard and co..

[john e]

God I hope not, don't want to get them tapped up or injured.

We really do need to stop with this desire for our players not to get picked by England. Do you not think that players can get tapped up outside of the national team set up? Or that they don't have mates on other teams that they stay in touch with, or via common agents?

And why on earth would we not want our players playing at the highest level? It means they have done well and by extension so have the club. I want our players, of all nations to be representing their country because the message it sends is that you can achieve those ambitions playing for us and not have to join a so called "bigger" side. We cannot live in fear of our players leaving because quite frankly it is always going to happen. What we must do is put in place an environment where they don't want to leave and understand that they can be successful with us.

agree with this,
 I don't think the England set up has done us any favours over the years but that's no reason why we shouldn't want all our players turning out at international level,
 surely it can only be good for there experience and development

[Jarpie]

International games haven't been IMO at highest level in ages, probably since early or mid 2000s. World Cup 2010 was the worst world cup I've ever seen and Euro 2012 wasn't great either. Quality of the national teams have IMO plummeted since the 90s and early 2000s when football had its' golden generations in many countries, not just in england.

The real highest level is Champions League, and players know this.

[BoskoDjembaSalifou]

I completely disagree. The World Cup is the #1 competition in football, every player should aim to play in (at least) one.

[Toronto Villa]

International games haven't been IMO at highest level in ages, probably since early or mid 2000s. World Cup 2010 was the worst world cup I've ever seen and Euro 2012 wasn't great either. Quality of the national teams have IMO plummeted since the 90s and early 2000s when football had its' golden generations in many countries, not just in england.

The real highest level is Champions League, and players know this.

so you're saying the Spain side that won the World Cup in 2010 wasn't as good as some of the sides that have won previous WC's? I think you will find very few that would agree with that. That Spain side has been outstanding now for about 5 years and have a solid chance of repeating. Top players can play in the CL every season. Do you think Ibrahimovich would rather be sat at home rather than be in Brazil? The chance at a WC comes around once every 4 years and for some because of who they represent never at all. Players want to play at the peak of their profession and nothing is higher than the WC.

[dekko]

The only problem I can see with sorting out a contract extension for Delph is that, as he was initially signed in the era of massive wages, he might have to take a pay cut to fit in the new wage structure (unless Lambert makes an exception for him).

According to Hairyhands (the only reliable and confirmed ITK in the history of the internet) he's the highest paid player on the squad after Gabby (not counting the bomb squad).  More than Benteke even.

[RickySlade]

Paul Scholes made it pretty clear what goes on at England matches with players from clubs like us - in fact, he specifically mentioned Villa by name.

Sorry to just jump into the general conversation but I was just browsing and saw this.  What was it that Scholes said and how were the Villa linked?!

[RickySlade]

I've just realised that I have ballsed up and included my question in the original quote.  Very clever; still, I'm interested to see the response.

[Jarpie]

International games haven't been IMO at highest level in ages, probably since early or mid 2000s. World Cup 2010 was the worst world cup I've ever seen and Euro 2012 wasn't great either. Quality of the national teams have IMO plummeted since the 90s and early 2000s when football had its' golden generations in many countries, not just in england.

The real highest level is Champions League, and players know this.

so you're saying the Spain side that won the World Cup in 2010 wasn't as good as some of the sides that have won previous WC's? I think you will find very few that would agree with that. That Spain side has been outstanding now for about 5 years and have a solid chance of repeating. Top players can play in the CL every season. Do you think Ibrahimovich would rather be sat at home rather than be in Brazil? The chance at a WC comes around once every 4 years and for some because of who they represent never at all. Players want to play at the peak of their profession and nothing is higher than the WC.

Spain side in 2010 was one of the best ones I've seen in world cups and they have been consistently great for the past 5-6 years, but the general quality of the teams and especially the games in 2010 was even worse than in 1990 (the first tournament I saw). Spain and Germany are now the exceptions IMO, even Italy has worse team than they had in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Especially in europe so many countries had their golden generations in late1980s-1990s and early/mid 2000s, such as Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Yugoslavia, Czech, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, England, Ireland and Netherlands, and that IMO shows in the international games nowdays.

In Africa they had two great teams in the 1990s, Cameroon team in 1990 and Nigeria in 1994 and 1998, after those teams the quality of individual nations/teams haven't been as good.

The players might still respect world cup and european championship very highly but CL is gaining on it rapidly, and world cup and euro champ. doesn't shine as brightly as before, hopefully this changes in brazil wc but I'm not holding my breath.

I still stand by my opinion that quality of the play/game in world cups have decreased considerably.

[PaulWinch again]

Paul Scholes made it pretty clear what goes on at England matches with players from clubs like us - in fact, he specifically mentioned Villa by name.

I don't care too much about England so I'd really rather our players didn't play for the national team. I don't want them to risk injury and I don't want them to start getting itchy feet after hanging around with the likes of Gerrard and co..

It's a tricky balance, because I think we'll struggle to keep hold of players if they don't feel they can fulfill their international ambitions with us.

[Toronto Villa]

the thing is we don't really know about the quality of the WC until it begins. We know some of the nations that are traditionally strong and are likely to perform well. A lot of what you are saying about those countries is based on hindsight. Look at a country like Chile or Belgium or Ivory Coast. They have every chance of creating some excitement and surprises. For every generation there are new countries that could do really well. We just don't know.

[pauliewalnuts]

Sorry to just jump into the general conversation but I was just browsing and saw this.  What was it that Scholes said and how were the Villa linked?!

It was much reported at the time, but here's a link mentioning it:

‘I always felt that players, especially at clubs like your Aston Villas, try to use England as a way to get to a top club. I think they are very selfish people.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2013011/Which-Paul-Scholess-England-team-mates-calling-selfish.html

[Monty]

I always liked Scholes. Nice to see him a little indignant on our behalf. The indignation's mutual as well - the England team for a decade and a half should have been built around him, but instead he was shunted out to 'left midfield' (the most English position) to accommodate the egos of massively inferior players. People talk about England not having a Xavi or a Pirlo, well, we did, and we didn't even know it.