Aston Villa lose their backbone, how will they stand tall now?
Last summer it was THE transfer saga of the summer, the whole Gareth Barry to Liverpool story. It began early, prior to the window even opening, with Rafa Benitez stating an intent to sign the Villa midfielder. It royally pee’ed off Martin O’Neill and a public war of words began.
Liverpool made an offer, Villa rejected it. Liverpool made another offer, Villa rejected it again. Liverpool made yet another offer and, guess what, Villa rejected it yet again. It’s possible that more offers were made and rejected but by this time everyone was so bored and pigsick of it all that they just wanted it to be sorted out one way or another.
Villa (or should that be Martin O’Neill’s stubbornness) won the battle; Barry stayed at Villa. But it wasn’t as straightforward as that. Barry had spoken to the papers, saying that he wished to join Liverpool and he criticised Martin O’Neill while he was at it. This seemed like a risk-free thing to do, as he would be heading to Anfield any day now, so why not? But when that didn’t happen, Bazza found himself stripped of the captaincy, banned from the training ground and fined 2 weeks wages.
So what at first was an exciting face-off, then crescendoed into a frenzy of will-he-won’t-he, only to peter out and start to lose steam as it got tiresome and repetitive and then eventually it became downright boring. By the end, neither Villa fans nor Liverpool fans could give a damn whether he went or not, so long as the news spoke about something else. Y’know, kinda like how we currently feel about Susan Boyle and MP expense claims in the UK!
Finally, the window closed and Barry remained at Aston Villa. He realised he was stuck there, but it didn’t seem like he was exactly delighted by the situation, after falling out with the boss, losing the armband and then getting boo’d by the fans. He saw out the year, but it seemed very unlikely that he would stay at Villa to see out his contract.
Barry didn’t waste much time getting things into place, being announced today as the first signing of the transfer window. The rumours were abound for a while, but then it meant little as there was a rumour out there on the blogs and in the papers linking every half decent player the world over with Man City. Their endless bags of cash will ensure that rumours will swarm around them like flies around… errr… doo-doo!
It came out yesterday that Barry was in talks with City, but I doubt many expected it to all be wrapped up so quickly. It kind of makes you wonder if this was already half-arranged during the season.
Barry has gone back on his original reason for leaving Villa, which was an ambition to play Champions League football, to join a team that arguably has the same chance of reaching that goal as Villa. He has said that he wanted to join the Manchester club as they have ambitions that match his own, despite joining a team that aren’t in Europe at all but Villa being in the new Europa League.
Life without Barry
It will be odd to see us line up without Barry in the team, after being such a huge part of the team for a large part of his 12 years here and how we go about replacing him will be fundamental to whether we can continue to build on the success we have been enjoying since Randy Lerner purchased the club.
It was reported in the papers yesterday that Martin O’Neill has told Steve Sidwell and Nigel Reo-Coker that they will play much bigger roles for the club this coming season. This reeks of ‘I’m not going to replace Barry’ or maybe ‘I’ll replace Barry with a young up and coming player for the future’.
Sidwell has not proved too useful for us to date, so a big improvement from him would be required to keep us where we are, never mind grow.
Nigel Reo-Coker has shown promise for us, putting in good performances when he gets the chance, but he has generally worked best when alongside Barry. He may have it in him though, I have more faith that he could fill Barry’s boots than Sidders and he will like the chance to play as the more attacking one in the middle. So maybe NRC is the answer. Can you tell I’m more trying to talk myself into it than anything else?
Rumours about replacements will now be rife though, no matter what MON hints at, so we’ll take it as it comes, keep our fingers crossed and hope that Barry wasn’t as fundamental to our success as we fear. Cuz he’s gone now, he’s no longer an Aston Villa player (how weird is that?!).
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
If these rumours are true, we could be in for a much less successful season next term, so enjoy this one while it lasts
It’s not exactly new information, but it is now time that it’s ugly head needs to be reared and dealt with as an imminent reality. The word on the street is that Randy Lerner is suffering due to the credit crunch and won’t be in a position to fork out for the players we so desperately need to continue our growth and to complete the job we were doing so well at for a large part of this season.
It is being suggested that we will need to sell in order to raise cash for transfers, with Harewood, Shorey, Knight and Gardner mentioned by the Express & Star.
Progress-wise I wouldn’t be averse to seeing them go, but I do have my reservations;
- Gardner is a great bloke to have in the squad as he will always give 100% and is very versatile
- Shorey is finally starting to look the part and there is no guarantee that Bouma will be able to rekindle his old form and fitness, so we could be left exposed at left back (which we all know would see Luke Young switched to there and a makeshift RB drafted in)
- Knight is a lifelong Villa fan, so as one myself, I will always have a bond with him, I concede that we would probably be better off cashing in though
- Harewood wouldn’t be a great loss but is doubtful to raise the kind of cash that would buy us anyone great
As mentioned though, none of these would bring us rakes of cash, so we’d probably only get one big player from selling all four of them and we have already shown that to grow, we need both a bigger and better squad.
You have to sympathise with Lerner in some ways; the guy has done some great stuff for the club so far and has raised us from a club who were struggling to stay in the top flight, to pushing on the Big Four and knocking on the Champions League’s door. But until we achieve that goal, the club will probably cost him more in transfers than he will make back and at the end of the day the guy is a businessman.
If we made it into the Champions League for a few seasons and started to progress in the competition, then he would be laughing, but he must be seeing that as a very big IF right now, with the US and the UK in financial struggles and his fortunes looking far from stable.
The irony is, that to get the kind of money we need, we’d have to sell the players who are most likely to get us there. You have to fancy that Barry will be going either way, which will bring us some money (not as much as last summer’s figure, but still not a bad figure) but also the rumours of Chelsea offering big money for Ashley Young could prove very tempting for Lerner.
The Champions League has distorted football since it’s inception, making the top clubs so much harder to compete with. If you can get into it you have much more chance of staying in it, but now that we have the Big Four situation here, it is going to take years for any club to properly get amongst them, even Man City will need time. How they can fix it is a whole-nother subject and all ideas have their downfalls. Maybe they could limit how much of the earnings can be spent on signing new players and paying wages, but as I say that’s another topic for another day.
So will he be willing to splash the cash this summer? Is his heart and faith strong enough to take the risk during a time of uncertainty or will he play it safe and risk the wrath of some fans?
Are our fickle fans making a mockery of the club?
The last few days have seen both the press and the internet consumed by the story of Villa fans booing during the Tottenham defeat. I have had my say on booing before and have therefore tried to let it pass by without really saying much, but four days have passed and it’s still being talked about by blogs, news sites etc, so now I feel I’d better put AstonVillaBlog’s two-pence forward.
At Aston Villa we have bunch of fans who like to boo. Let’s not beat around the bush about it as the whole nation is only too aware of it now, if they weren’t already. I’ve read and seen plenty of opinions on it in the last 2 days and there seems to be a unanimous agreement with the way I feel about it; Booing is out of order and not helpful in fixing a problem.
But Villa don’t need to be singled out for this, as we are far from the only team to have had boo’ers. Arsene Wenger has had many boos and critics during his reign and look what he’s acheived.
It’s just part of the game I suppose but it all boils down to one simple premise;
You can please some people sometimes, but you can’t please all the people all the time
They are the words of Bob Marley, paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln and they are very apt to this situation. The boo’s are coming from a small minority of Villa fans, who don’t appreciate everything Villa have achieved this season. Since Martin O’Neill and Randy Lerner steadied the ship, Villa have gone from a club who feared relegation to now being a team who are dismally disappointed to have Arsenal go above them. For me that is a great acheivement.
Yeah, in the past Villa have been a very dominant team, winning the league and European Cup in the early 80s and the league cup twice in the mid-90s and mid-70s. But our main period of dominance was over a century ago. In the 1890s Villa were very successful… but that was in a VERY different time. The world of football nowadays is VERY money orientated, and breaking into the top four of the Premier League is a huge, huge achievement, even if we don’t finish there. Be realistic boo’ers. Appreciate where we are.
It’s not like we ‘did a Hull’, we were still in the top four with just 10 games left and we are still very much in with a shout. To me, that is massive. I am proud.
We got everyone talking about us and believing we can finish 4th.
We got loads of players in the England squad.
We got into the top four for a sustained period, well into the season.
We got Arsenal and Chelsea worried (whether they are too proud to admit it or not, we did).
We beat Arsenal at their place and held both Liverpool and Man Utd to draws, not conceding to either team (and this is 2 teams who’ve both scored 49 goals so far this season).
And we did it with an exciting brand of football, attacking teams with pace and skill, just the way you dreamed of when you were 12, playing over the park with your mates and commentating on yourself if you made a counter attack.
This season has been a fantastic ride. I’ve loved being a Villa fan. It’s made all the seasons of boredom seem worthwhile. I’m proud of Aston Villa, and Martin O’Neill, and Randy Lerner, and Gabby Agbonlahor. They’ve all done so much.
And nothing is over yet. Keep up the fight boys. I, for one, will be there cheering you on all the way to the wire.
Up the Villa. All the way.
Ian Wright believes Villa set the standards by which the big teams should follow
Can you do that? I can. It's easy y'know
We all know that Ian Wright is real character and a goal scoring legend but now it seems he is a man of sound knowledge too as he publicly approves of the way that Villa do things.
He was actually speaking, in his column in the Sun, of the disrupt at Chelsea Read more
Martin O’Neill: Stubborn old goat or wise old sage?
The transfer window has gone but the after effects of it are still everywhere, with the arguments raging over Arseshaving’s switch to Arsenal, and now the topic of scrapping the window is on everyone’s lips. Yet again it was a record breaking January window, continuing a trend that has seen the total spend grow every year (excepting ‘07) since the window’s inception in 2003.
The first window saw the Premier League clubs spend £35m on players, a figure that had doubled by 2006 to £70m and more than doubled by 2008 to a staggering £150m. This obscene amount of money was then increased further this year to £160m, but this was very nearly £268m had Kaka not been brave enough to turn down mega-riches. I have a lot of respect for Kaka, I’m not sure I could turn down £108m in wages over 5 years. I would just think of it as a temporary measure and then be set up for life, if I couldn’t find it in me to enjoy it at Man City (which as a Villan might be hard but as a Brazillian I’m sure I could). So fair play to Kaka, you’re a bigger man than I. Mind you, he’s a lot better off than me already, so not so eager to jump in bed with the Abu Dhabians.
How does all this have anything to do with Villa?
I’m coming to that, be patient. I just wanted to meandre for a while and show off my statistical knowledge.
So. Martin O’Neill.
Deadline day transfer gossip
The transfer window closes at 5pm this afternoon, giving Martin O’Neill very little time to secure any of the signings he (and we) was hopeful of making before the window slams closed and shuts the cold and snow outside and all the Premier League players in. The final day is rapidly becoming known for its madness and rushed deals, and also for a LOT of money changing hands.
What does this mean for Villa? Well as everyone knows; Villa are very secretive in their transfer dealings. They keep it as secret as they can and then once the deal is done, they never admit the fee, preferring to label it ‘undisclosed’. This practice resorts the press, the Villa blogs and the fans to speculate. Speculate to accumulate they say, and that’s what we wish to do. Accumulate a squad big enough and good enough to compete at the level we have recently found ourselves.
So in the last chance we’ll get before the summer, let’s dive deep into the transfer rumours and discuss who we do and don’t want at the club. Read more
One signed, a new target and injuries begin to stack up
What are the goings on at Villa Park on the day the footballing world was informed that Randy Lerner is the 15th richest football club owner in England (2 of the top ten own QPR) and that Jermain Defoe returned to Tottenham, making it his second stint at Spurs, his second stint under Redknapp and costing them increased wages and £6m difference in transfer fees, just one year after selling him for £9m.
First the bad news; Gareth Barry has a groin strain which may keep him out of the Baggies game and beyond. It kept him out at the weekend and Villa are currently awaiting the results of scans to reveal the extent of the damage. Groin strains can be a real bitch, I pulled mine four years ago and its never healed, but then I doubt Bazza will be using the NHS’s Russells Hall Hospital up Dudley to sort his!
Villa Transfer gossip 1 Dec 08
The transfer window is getting ever closer and the rumours are hotting up. If the papers are to be believed then come the end of January, Villa will have about 18 news strikers! Upfront certainly seems to be where the rumours are mainly centred around and after the weekend’s display against Fulham, it’s obvious why. So let’s have a look at what’s being said:
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