Fabian Delph - Signed for Manchester City

[Matt Collins]

Would there not have been the option for the club to resist the rock bottom value Delph placed on himself?

Yes, but all that would then happen is he leaves for free rather than for £8m.

I think this is going to be the new 'why didn't Barry take the penalty' line.

I know it's ridiculous but I can feel my blood pressure rise every time someone questions why we inserted that clause.

[peter w]

Well lets just say £12m-£16m then.

I think he realises that £8m is very low so if he wants to keep his options open fair enough but 8m is no longer fair to us, the club he chose to stay with.

I meant that it's about a third of his market value rather than half - the current England midfield seems to be Henderson, Delph and Wilshere. If somebody tried to buy either of the other two then there wouldn't be any change from £25m, so I'd expect Delph to not be a million miles from that.

As for the second point, sometimes things aren't fair. Hopefully the club see it as a cautionary tale about not waiting for such a long time before offering new contracts to our better players. Like I say, if things go badly for him then he has an out and if they don't then it doesn't matter how much the release clause is because he stays with us.

But if it was only as a precautionary clause because of relegation then once we avoided it the clause would have become redundant. it wasn't so no matter what has happened he is still holding a ridiculously low release clause over our heads

It still might happen. We could go down next season. Sherwood could turn out to be a two-bit chancer who messes the club up even worse than the last lot. This way he has options.

I completely get that Delph's contract situation benefits him far more than it does the club. What I don't get is why it would be in his interests to even think about having it removed. What would be the point?

So, the twat doesn't just up and leave I guess. And us looking like idiots and small-time at the loss of our captain 1 week after saying he was looking forward to the start of the season. At least we've got time to get used to it but we've now lost Delph, Cleverley, benteke will go and that's a lot to replace and get going fore the start of the new season.

The building blocks were there and now we've got to try and work out what and who more or less completely from an attacking perspective.

[manic-road]

Vlaar Cleverley Delph and Benteke have either left or about to leave, that is pretty much the spine of our team. I just hope that Tim is solidly backed by the chairman and board to get decent replacements in as this easily be the year where we end up one place worse off than last season.

[brian green]

I suspect that I am being thick Dave but I would like to know what the net loss would have been to the club if we had said "Sorry Fabian, we can't give you a new contract with the release clause value set so low."  If the new contract only started from when the old one expired then I am being thick and I apologize.   If however, the new contract kicked in with immediate effect, it actually cost us money to retain him while he intended all the time to trigger the release clause.   We got Benteke's release clause spot on, I wonder why Delph's was not.

[Ads]

A spine of the team that finished 17th, where one of those players cost us crucial goal after goal, where one scored zero and made fewer through balls than Phil Jones, where one of them played well in 6 games, but was utter shite in the other 31.

Let's not kid ourselves that we've lost anybody that isn't very easily replaceable with a bit of ambition, which we appear to be showing.

Benteke will be the only significant loss, because he's ruddy world class. How we replace him will be tough, but I fully expect the midfield and defence to be significantly stronger than last season.

[Malandro]

A spine of the team that finished 17th, where one of those players cost us crucial goal after goal, where one scored zero and made fewer through balls than Phil Jones, where one of them played well in 6 games, but was utter shite in the other 31.

Let's not kid ourselves that we've lost anybody that isn't very easily replaceable with a bit of ambition, which we appear to be showing.

Benteke will be the only significant loss, because he's ruddy world class. How we replace him will be tough, but I fully expect the midfield and defence to be significantly stronger than last season.

Putting the pressure on Sherwood Ads, what are you planning?

[Dave]

I suspect that I am being thick Dave but I would like to know what the net loss would have been to the club if we had said "Sorry Fabian, we can't give you a new contract with the release clause value set so low."  If the new contract only started from when the old one expired then I am being thick and I apologize.   If however, the new contract kicked in with immediate effect, it actually cost us money to retain him while he intended all the time to trigger the release clause.   We got Benteke's release clause spot on, I wonder why Delph's was not.

I don't think it's an unreasonable question to ask. If it cost us money in the first place (i.e immediate payrise and signing on fee) then you're right, there probably wouldn't have been much point doing it. It's conjecture though, as I don't think we'll ever see the minutiae of the contract he signed. I think it's safe to say though that the whole £8m won't have been paid to Delph over the last six months, so we've made more than if he hadn't signed it.

On the difference between Benteke and Delph, it's just because one of them could leave for nothing six months later, the other couldn't do so for another two years so we had quite a lot more bargaining power.

[brian green]

Thanks Dave.  Before I let it drop for fear of upsetting somebody I will put it another way.
Back in the day when Ellis ran the club and I, along with thousands of others, was a shareholder I could simply draft a letter to Ellis saying "Dear Mr Ellis, Fabian Delph was allowed to insert into a new contract with the club a release clause placing a valuation on himself at approximately one third of his true value.  I am writing to you to ask if Fabian Delph at the time of signing his new contract was offered a financial inducement or loyalty bonus of any kind and if not why not?"

[Risso]

I suspect that I am being thick Dave but I would like to know what the net loss would have been to the club if we had said "Sorry Fabian, we can't give you a new contract with the release clause value set so low."  If the new contract only started from when the old one expired then I am being thick and I apologize.   If however, the new contract kicked in with immediate effect, it actually cost us money to retain him while he intended all the time to trigger the release clause.   We got Benteke's release clause spot on, I wonder why Delph's was not.

Because Delph's contract was going to run out, and he could have walked away for free, so as Dave has pointed out a few times, because of how long we left it, the player held all the cards.  There were two options:

1) Keep paying him at his old contract rate, player leaves for nothing this summer
2) Agree to his demands re the pay rise and release clause, player leaves this summer (or some time after) for £8m.

[Risso]

I should also say that if he got say, a £30K pay rise per week, if that was 25 weeks then he's pocketed £750,000 extra, which still leaves us in profit from the £8m.

He's still an absolute toilet of a man though.

[dave.woodhall]

Whilst I can understand the anger and disappointment at Delph leaving. Let's just think about it for a moment. Is he that great a player?

He's nowhere near a cowans, platt, houghton, Richardson, Taylor, Merson etc etc. the list is endless. Delph is decent, but we have had much much better midfielders. He gets in the worst England midfield I have seen in a long long time, but that means jack all in my opinion. I think he can be easily replaced and he will disappear into obscurity at City.

I might be wrong, but I'm confident he won't feature for England much beyond this year

On that note - would Ian Taylor have got into the current England team? The answer might come close to judging how good Delph is. 

Delph and Milner are not recognised by fans who they have not played for. I don't think he is as good as Milner if I am being honest, but he is a very good player. Not sure where Ian Taylor comes into the equation Dave, he would say himself he probably didn't have the talent. He is a massive role model for Villa fans as he feels the highs and lows that we do.

The reason I mentioned Taylor is because I see him as a bit of a benchmark, who at his best was part of a team not far off genuine title challengers. Anyone better is undoubtedly a quality Premier League player and this isn't revisionism but I'm not sure whether the footballing Bono is at that level.

[peter w]

I can see why £8m was inserted but not why it wasn't linked to relegation. If it was an open ended £8m release clause then I think the club should have refused. Not saying that on reflection and as a spurned lover, but that was way below his value - half or third - and given signing on fee, improved wages - it still was a ridiculously low figure.

Also, I don't really buy into the the club getting something rather than nothing for him. The wages he would have been on would have been something we got for him. A paltry figure for a current Englanbd international who could go and do what he did at any time was an insult.

[Malandro]

Ian Taylor was a better player than Delph, I have no doubts about that.

[Olof's Beard]

So I guess I am alone in acknowledging some degree of understanding towards how this has all worked out.  For me, which is worse:

Player A who hears of an offer from one of the successful clubs, packs up his wares and can't wait to get out the door without a moment of thought for Villa.

Player B who hears of an offer from one of the successful clubs, thinks about it, speaks to them, thinks about us, decides he can't leave, speaks to his family and friends again, decides that the offer might not come again and goes.

I personally think player A.  Everyone is angry so immediately create a default position where he has gone for 'the money' or 'lied' in his statements.  Neither is true.  By all accounts he hasn't had that much of a pay rise and do we really think that when he made these statements that he didn't at those moments intend on staying?  It all points to someone who was genuinely torn.  Of course it has ended up being a PR disaster and first thoughts are he has made Sherwood, Wilkins, the players and the fans look silly but why has he?  Everyone knows what happened so the only person who actually looks silly is Delph.

For me Downing was way worse as he clearly had no regard for the club whatsoever.  Do people genuinely think Delph doesn't give a poo about Villa?  The one thing that he does need to explain is the release clause being so low, if he had even set it at £12 million then it would have been half acceptable, whether he was looking for insurance or not.

I am uncomfortable with modern day football and the way clubs like Man City have grown in to graveyards for young English players but I am equally uncomfortable with people sitting on the internet posting vile abuse about a bloke who has decided to make a career move.

Villa will move on.  Benteke is one heck of a lot more difficult to replace.

[Matt Collins]

I can see why £8m was inserted but not why it wasn't linked to relegation. If it was an open ended £8m release clause then I think the club should have refused. Not saying that on reflection and as a spurned lover, but that was way below his value - half or third - and given signing on fee, improved wages - it still was a ridiculously low figure.

Also, I don't really buy into the the club getting something rather than nothing for him. The wages he would have been on would have been something we got for him. A paltry figure for a current Englanbd international who could go and do what he did at any time was an insult.

Sorry I've read that twice and I don't follow the argument. Surely it's as simple as whatever contract with whatever release clause we could persuade him to sign was better than him not. The only question is whether this was the best deal we could get. Given how much of a surprise it was that he signed I'd guess there's a good chance it was the best deal we could get