Aston Villa Transfer Talk.. One In Soon?

The Express&Star have just claimed that
Villa will start their spending spree soon, with players back in training today with a smaller squad than we ended the season with!

I digress. They say that Villa will bid for Leeds young hot prospect midfielder Fabian Delph. (Wiki: Click Here ). The Express say MON is ready to ‘thrust’ 19-year-old Delph into the Premier League next season.

The report claims a quote have confirmed a bid will soon be made. Not sure about that? Do the club really give the nod to reporters before making a bid? £6million is the speculated price.

A report by John Cross in The Mirror has re-hashed, that sounds a bit harsh… repeated… yeah, that is better, the link to Middlesbrough duo Stewart Downing and Tuncay. The red top (that is the paper not the reporter) says we’ll make an £18million double ‘swoop’.

So, there you have it, we’ve stopped racing or battling for players, we are now swooping!

The Mirror claims that Spurs also want 24-year-old Downing but say that Appy Arry has to sell before he can buy whereas Villa have the dosh.

Ah, news just in, The Boro Evening Gazette say Downing might be out until Christmas to make sure that he fully recovers from his foot injury picked up in the match at Villa Park last season. So reports he could be fit and ready to play following his operation where a pin was inserted into his foot, were wrong basically.

The Mirror also says that Martin O’Neill still wants Spurs and England winger David Bentley with Everton and Manchester City also tracking him. Why can’t the clubs stop tracking and start buying!? Oh it is so easy for a website editor this transfer business, a few strokes of my keyboard (steady!) and we’ve got a signing.

On the Tuncay link, they claim he does want out but would rather move to London. Reports last week were saying he wanted a return to Turkey. Hmmmm, don’t you just love press talk!?

The Mirror dismiss the reports saying that if we buy Downing that it will signal the sale of Ashley Young to Chelsea or Manchester United saying that Villa are looking to build. Suppose every player has a price, with the obscene money being spent recently, maybe we should put £60m on his head…not sure how much on the rest of him… boom boom.

Again in the Mirror, I’m trying to stretch this out as there aren’t many links today… say that Villa are still interested in free agent and octonarian Sol Campbell.

There was talk of a rejected bid on the Sky Sports News Ticket yesterday during the day. Not really seen much of a follow up to that, might explain the lack of action in bringing in David Bentley though if Spurs are trying to use their player/s as bait? Full ‘details’ which to be fair are pretty scant: http://www.astonvilla.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=7501527

Peter Crouch linked to Villa recently, might be on his way out of Fratton Park, where to? Well, reports today say Sunderland have put in an £11million bid. Full article: Should Villa Sign Peter Crouch?

The Daily Mail claim that Everton are after Villa left back/right back/sometime midfielder Nigel Hokey-Cokey. This looks like an old link to me, the report a month or so back said that NRC wasn’t happy being played at right-back and wanted out.

The Sun claim that Fulham are battling with Hamburg for Sweden U21 star striker Marcus Berg who has been linked to us several times. The impressive Roy Hodgson has put aside £8million for the Groningen player. The report quotes his manager Henk Veldmate: ‘Those two clubs Fulham and Hamburg are the only ones left who are now in conversation with us when it comes to Marcus Berg. We have had some meetings with both clubs. We will see what happens in the next couple of days. But I can say both these clubs have been concrete in their interest and we know Marcus wants to leave us for a bigger club.’ Another one I’m surprised we aren’t in for, ho hum.

ACE Villa related t-shirts on Vital: http://www.vfootystores.co.uk/villa/