Fabian Delph - Signed for Manchester City

[JD]

You'd rather Villa were in the fourth division or whatever it's called than have a footballer who used to play football for Aston Villa but left to play for a team years ahead of Villa? I'm no fan of his but he's far better than anything we have at the club now.

I'd rather have lunch with Bono than have Delph back at Villa.

Now you're just being silly (unless while having lunch with Bono you are allowed to stab him in the tongue with a fork.

[KRS]

We don't want him back, and I doubt he'd want to come back either. There is nothing to see here.

[mr underhill]

I'd rather eat Bono than have Delph back

[oldtimernow]

Which ones the round ones , the square ones or the triangular ones?

[oldtimernow]

oops sorry wrong type of dog biscuit

[Hookeysmith]

We all know we were a shambles so if he had announced he was going then not many would have or could have complained - he was earning great reviews at the time and could command a better (than we were at the time) club than us.

Even if (and I have heard this several times) the club agreed to manufacture the £8M buy out and false hope video knowing they would get a fee for him - he is still a high level piece of shit for agreeing to do that.

If he just snaked his way to conning us to gain a move and extra money - he is a piece of high level shit

Either way = he is a piece of shit and will not be welcome at any time

[manic-road]

I reckon Delph will probably end up at somewhere like Stoke.

[brentastonb6]

Does anyone know if he's actually 'won' anything whilst at City , i.e. Played enough games to pick up,a medal at the end of any competition? That will tell me whether he made the right decision.

[curiousorange]

When I went to a Villa Legends night, Tony Morley was well on Delph's side, saying it had been him who wanted to be sure Villa earned a decent amount from his sale. I did wonder if this was known fact in Villa circles or if Morley was being an ex-pro and seeing it from Delph's viewpoint.

The argument falls down for me somewhat when you see the pitiful release clause, which surely had been driven down by the player's representatives and agreed to by a Villa in dire need of a crowd-pleasing announcement, and then all that "I'm staying" cobblers before he pissed off. If he had the club at heart that release clause should have been tens of millions; he must have been pretty sure he was leaving to agree a new contract which would do right by Villa in the first place.

[Karlos96]

Does anyone know if he's actually 'won' anything whilst at City , i.e. Played enough games to pick up,a medal at the end of any competition? That will tell me whether he made the right decision.

According to wikipedia the only thing he has won with Man City is the League Cup.

[KevinGage]

When I went to a Villa Legends night, Tony Morley was well on Delph's side, saying it had been him who wanted to be sure Villa earned a decent amount from his sale. I did wonder if this was known fact in Villa circles or if Morley was being an ex-pro and seeing it from Delph's viewpoint.

The argument falls down for me somewhat when you see the pitiful release clause, which surely had been driven down by the player's representatives and agreed to by a Villa in dire need of a crowd-pleasing announcement, and then all that "I'm staying" cobblers before he pissed off. If he had the club at heart that release clause should have been tens of millions; he must have been pretty sure he was leaving to agree a new contract which would do right by Villa in the first place.

There was a suggestion that at the time he signed, we were in the early stages of the takeover that ultimately hit the skids in the summer of 2015. He spoke about exciting times for the club and wanting to be part of it-which would have been at odds with the bulk of Lambert's tenure, let's be honest.   He signed hoping that the club would finally start to punch its weight again - but had a contingency just in case Lerner made a balls of it (he did).

That's one theory anyway.

[Dave]

The argument falls down for me somewhat when you see the pitiful release clause, which surely had been driven down by the player's representatives and agreed to by a Villa in dire need of a crowd-pleasing announcement, and then all that "I'm staying" cobblers before he pissed off. If he had the club at heart that release clause should have been tens of millions; he must have been pretty sure he was leaving to agree a new contract which would do right by Villa in the first place.

But nobody was going to pay tens of millions for him. If he'd done that then all that would have happened is him staying with us.

The fact remains that us getting £8m for him was better than us getting £0 for him, and those are the two options that were available. Getting tens of millions for him was at no point going to be an option.

All the new-contract-video stuff and "I'm staying" U-turn was ill-advised, unneeded bollocks but the general principle of signing a contract rather than leaving for nothing was A Good Thing rather than A Bad Thing.

[Damo70]

Delph, Milner, Downing. They came, did okay and went. I am a bit too old now to be as upset I was when Tony Morley went to Albion.

[Ad@m]

Yep, in the grand scheme of things they were all with us for a tiny amount of time. I wouldn't bracket Milner in with the other two though. He seemed to conduct himself with a degree of professionalism when he left.

[Damo70]

Yep, in the grand scheme of things they were all with us for a tiny amount of time. I wouldn't bracket Milner in with the other two though. He seemed to conduct himself with a degree of professionalism when he left.

Milner was sound, Downing bottled out of challenges and Delph did a u-turn a politician would struggle to match.