Well Joe Bennett has officially joined you lot on a 4 year deal from us. Fee is 'undisclosed' but it's believed to be 2.5mil rising to 4.25mil from one of our reliable journos. Not sure how I feel about this to be honest. Obviously gutted that we've sold yet another one of our academy products but at the same time Mowbray obviously has his targets and needs to raise a bit of money in order to push ahead with deals. He hasn't been able to offload the deadwood (McManus and McDonald) so selling one of our better players was inevitable really. Bennett was absolutely class when he broke into our side under Mogga two seasons ago, leading to many (including Mowbray) hailing him as a future England left back. His progression has somewhat stalled in the past season though and considering our new signing George Friend has put in some excellent performances at left back, I'm not even sure a fully fit Joe Bennett would have been guaranteed to start at the moment. With all that being said though, the lad obviously has bags of potential. You're getting an attack-minded full back but defensively he's still a bit suspect, he'll only get better at that over time though. I wish the lad all the best in the Premier League. Hopefully he starts for you this weekend and scores against the geordies for us!
Cheers for the heads up Magooder, got to admit I'd never heard of him until a few weeks ago when we were first linked with him, I've read mostly good reports about him so far.
The fee is 3.25 up front rising to 4.25 on appearances. I am a fan of joe bennett a nice lad with a decent future ahead of him but and I mean this in the nicest way,,,you have been proper rinsed. If we had got £2M for him I would of been delighted but £4.25M OMG . He is decent at going forward but often fails in the final ball and is error prone and will get torn apart in the Premiership. Good luck Joe, hope you prove me wrong .
I see Shay Given is expected to leave this summer, was great for you in the 2011-2012 season... hasn't really had a look in since PL came in.
How much you lot think you'll be spending in the summer ? Looks like one of your targets is Aleksandar Tonev from Lech Poznan with Celtic & Werder Bremen also after him.
It won't be anything silly but hopefully with mega wages gone if the likes of Given, Dunne, Ireland, Bent move on then hopefully there will be enough for 6-7 new players to come in, reports of this Bulgarian Tonev for £2-3M so that's a start if rumours are true..
Agree with the above - we won't be making any major signings and will be good to get rid of some of the dead weight higher earners - but if we can keep hold of Benteke and Weimann - thats most important though it looks like Benteke's being advised to look elsewhere.
http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/12691/8756419/Transfer-News-Aston-Villa-in-for-Younes-Belhanda would be a very big signing and with the above space opened with departures I can see where the extra money would be coming from. Doubt he'd choose Villa over bigger cities with CL football but I'd like seeing Villa add some talent and improve further for next year.
Saw that you're lining up a bid for Helenius at Aalborg. Shame he has to sign for someone we're likely to finish quite close to in the table. Pretty similar to Benteke in his style, and only 21/22. Great player.
We have signed two new players today Okore and Bacuna well chuffed with them look good from the video's I've seen of them.
You guys have been making some impressive moves this offseason. I like how you made them pretty early as well. I hope you guys are able to keep Benteke this season. If so, I think you will be the most improved team by the end of the season.
Villa today signed Nicklas Helenius from Aalborg. On paper a really good signing. Young striker, knows where the back of the net and already got two caps for Denmark under his belt. Don't know if he has got what it takes to cut in the EPL but good to see Lambert bringing in young talents
Another one here impressed with your start so far. Got some good young players early on and don't look to be done yet.
Villa going about their business well in the transfer market. Lambert knows what he is doing instead of throwing crazy wages and transfer fees to Premier League journey men.
