Two Villa transfer rumours that are BIG RISKS!
The two biggest rumours that are doing the rounds this morning are Michael Owen and Silvain Distin. Both these signings would be big risks for Villa. Ones that could turn out well or could backfire and leave us back at square one.
I’ll start with Distin and leave the excitement of Owen still to come. Silvain Distin is the Portsmouth captain but made his name at Man City. Since joining Pompey, Distin has not been as good as his glory days, giving away a lot of fouls and making mistakes that we aren’t accustomed to with him. I’m not saying that he has ‘lost it’ but he is not the top class centre back that he once was and he isn’t as good as Laursen, who we would prefer (and need) to replace like-for-like.
Distin is also approaching 32, so doesn’t have a great deal of time left at this level, so to spend £2m on him, albeit not expensive for a player these days, I see it as a waste. I also don’t see it as a solution to our Laursen Condundrum.
If MON could get him back to his best then maybe I would come round to this idea, but for now I’m not on board. Maybe I’m aiming too high.
Michael Owen
Onto the big news; the England star has been linked with us for a donkey’s yonk but now it seems like the rumours are beginning to take on some reality. It looks like a bid for Owen is close, but the discussions about his wages will not be conducted quickly, unless either a) he is ready and willing to earn a lot less or b) Lerner is prepared to smash our wage structure (£60,000 a week for an injury prone player is not our usual style). It’s not that we are tight with wages, but we aren’t Man City and we don’t just throw money at players to try and get their attention.
The BIG risk with Owen though, even if we get everything else sorted out, is his fitness. The small-man’s time at Newcastle was fraught with injuries and if we are to buy a goal scorer, we are going to need him available every week.
Owen has spent 4 seasons with Newcastle and only made 71 appearances, even though the Toon have played over 150 games in the league alone since his arrival. A player that will miss more than half the games, and on top of that cost us a lot in wages, isn’t top of my list and certainly won’t be top of Lerner’s.
It’s not that easy to write Owen off though. The temptation of him is always there. He has scored 29 goals for the Magpies in 71 games, an impressive tally when you remember two things; 1) he hasn’t exactly had great supply, as Newcastle have not been enjoying good times much during the last 4 years, and 2) he has constantly been coming back from time out, so adjusting back to the pace of the game and the Premier League.
All in all, I guess the jury is out for me on Owen. I’d love the Owen of old. The Owen Liverpool and England had all those years ago. But I wouldn’t want the Owen Newcastle had, draining the resources and sitting on the physio table.
Whats new rumour-cat? This week’s Villa transfer gossip
"Let go Randy, I need this cheque book. Come on, I promise not to write too many zeros." MON
I’m back, with the latest Villa shenanigans and I’m going to go through some of the most exciting rumours that are floating around. I haven’t just been a lazy scoundrel mind you, I’ve been blogging over at Footbo on footy in general and yesterday I did an interview/blogpost for a *spit* Birmingham City blog, and he’s doing a return one for us next week.
But anyway, there has been so many rumours that I have had to ignore some of the obviously made up ones, otherwise you’d never get any work done for reading about all the players who are coming to Villa this summer. And I know how much time you all already spend reading Villa blogs and other websites when you should be working. I still need to get one of those ‘Quick the boss is coming’ buttons installed on this website 
The biggest transfer rumbling around is Randy Lerner’s comments that there won’t be as much available to spend as last year. Now this could be mind games or it could be the truth, but either way it’s not all bad news. What we need to do is buy better, not buy dearer. For what we have spent in the last few years, we could’ve vastly improved our team, but many of the signings have not been great. I won’t go into who right now (maybe another day) but it is obvious to most that we haven’t been particularly shrewd with all our signings of late.
Enough of all that though, let’s get down to business, there’s gossip out there that won’t spread itself;
- An interesting rumour doing the rounds at the minute is that we are interested in Liverpool’s young striker; Ryan Babel. I love the sound of this for a number of reasons; first off I like that we are being linked with players from the team that finished 2nd in the Prem. Much better than Scottish or Championship clubs if you ask me. Babel will also not come cheap, so if we are to sign him then we know that the club is not going to scrimp and save to a detrimental extent. It’s not all sunshine and roses though, Babel suffers from a problem we are not already short of; he doesn’t score enough. He is more of a winger-cum-striker so maybe he could help us to create more chances, but in reality, is he something we need? I feel we already have what he can offer, so whilst I wouldn’t mind the extra strength, we need a goal scorer and a commanding centre back more.
- A big rumour around is that we have already began inquiries leading to us signing David Bentley from Spurs. I’ve already said my bit on him and my opinion is still the same so rather than repeat myself, I’ll just link back for you: http://astonvillablog.com/whats-new-rumour-cat-latest-villa-transfer-gossip/ It does seem odd as our first priority to be a winger (see above) but there is no shortage of wingerumours (<– d’ya like what I did there? I made up a word…. hmmm nah it’s crap, it will never catch on)
- Michael Owen. Another I’ve covered before and another that will be both good and bad. Owen is a great talent and he is EXACTLY what we need up front. Now I don’t know if everyone agrees with me on this but I feel that if we had a player who did nothing else all game but poach, we would score twice the amount of goals. We create chance after chance after chance (even during our off spell we still created a fair bit) but don’t convert enough. The big problem with Owen though is his injuries. He makes Darren Anderton look good! If he could stay fit, and come to an agreement on wages, he’d be perfect. Thats a big IF though.
I’ll cut it there and pick up where I left off tomorrow. I know I only covered 3 people so far but i don’t want you all getting sacked for reading super-long Villa rumour blogs! So check back tomorrow for another bunch. There’s no shortage I assure you
Martin Laursen: Yo, tell my girl yo I’ll be Gone ‘Til United
Wyclef Jean was Gone Til November, but much closer to our hearts; Martin Laursen is pencilled in to be back by the Man Utd game. As is always the case with injury return prediction dates, it’s not guaranteed, but what a great bonus it would be to have him back in the side for that tough game. We will be gunning to get a long awaited victory against our bogey side in April, so all the quality we can muster will be accepted.
Transfer rumblings
Just a quick note on the minor rumours around, Kevin Doyle’s name has popped back up again but if we make the top four this season I doubt O’Neill will look to the Championship for his new recruits.
The other one is Michael Owen, but I really can’t see O’Neill paying his wages when he has such a torrid time with injuries. Cut price and he’d be a maybe.
Five points clear of Arsenal and twice as likely to win the league
Villa were yesterday moved to level odds with Arsenal to win the Premier League this season.
Now they have been moved to twice as likely.
Villa’s odds are now 33/1 and Arsenal’s have fell from 40/1 to 66/1, after a Villa victory and a late-scraped draw for the Gunners saw us move 5 points clear of them in the top four. Liverpool’s 1-1 draw at Wigan and Chelsea’s 2-0 home win over Middlesbrough means they are both a solitary point ahead of us, and Man Utd are 3 points ahead with a game in hand.
Whether we can keep the pace till Read more
Is Michael Owen on his way to Villa?
With Villa linked with Owen pretty heavily over the last 6 months, will the signing of his old Liverpool and England strike partner open the door for him to come down to the Midlands too?
Michael Owen’s career has been extremely successful, having won the FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup with Liverpool and he has won PFA Young Player of the Year, BBC Sports Personality of the Year, Premier League top scorer and the Ballon D’Or, as well as netting 40 goals for his country. But his current venture leaves him sitting just 2 points off the bottom of the table with Newcastle.
Owen’s Read more
Villa Transfer gossip 26 Nov 08
Transfer rumours and/or transfer seculation. You know the type, the tiniest little hint that a player may be of interest to a club and then bam! it’s all over every newspaper, blog and forum before the player or clubs involved get a chance to say “I don’t fricking think so mate!”. So let’s be honest and call it gossip. The stuff that’s usually about celebrities and keeps forty year old ladies entertained in offices all over the world. Well, us footy fans are no better. There’s nothing we love more than a made up story about how Man City are about to bid £2bn + Richard Dunne + a bag of maltesers for Ronaldo, Rooney and Alex Ferguson! Read more
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