‘Get Over The Bentley Bid – It’s Over’

AstonBurrito has been discussing the David Bentley situation in our forum thread: Click Here and following the quotes from Martin O’Neill confirming we had a bid rejected and he is now moving on to other targets, the Vital Villan member said:

You me, and the rest of the Villa faithful have to let it go it’s over.

It is true that we need players, and we need players on the right hand side of the pitch, there is absolutely no dispute about that.

There is no questioning Bentley’s ability, he came to the fore last year and is an outstanding talent in the game, still with potential to develop. I really think the fact that Spurs have come in with a low bid though signals the crux of the situation, and that is that he has a preference to go there, as there seems to be no interest in him from the top 4.

How much would we have had to pay for Bentley in a real world? £15m, £20m? No one knows what the offer was on the table, but i’m sure it was substantial, but if the player does not want to join, then there is nothing that can be done.

What we do know is that players who join Villa do so because MON doesn’t pursue players who have an agenda to fulfil outside of football. He could well have seen something in Bentley which has made him believe that he’s not suitable for the club or the dressing room, and certainly not worth the £17m that it would take to bring him here.

There is also a myth that MON is not willing to pay over the odds, despite the fact that he did so (admitting it himself) for both Ashley Young and Curtis Davis. But I also remember him commenting on both players attitudes to the game, praising them for this aspect of this, and that is more the reason why he chose to go the extra mile and sign them.

If a players heart is not in the club 100% i’m sorry, but I wouldn’t want us to spunk £20m on them just to prove a point or make a statement to the rest of the league. In the long term policies like that serve no purpose whatsoever to the club, and it’s just a pointless route to go down.

I also think this situation has been made worse with the several purported ‘in the knows’ who have added fuel to the fire with no substance or evidence whatsoever, and to be fair it’s not just Eircol who has done that, I think every Villa site has one person who claims to have had insider knowledge on this ‘deal’ and all of them have been exposed as complete muppets.

So in short, there is no interest in Bentley and life goes on. There will be others though, some we will sign, and others we won’t. To be completely frank, we have a massive game tomorrow, and all of the players and management should be concentrating on that rather than a player with the ego the size of Birmingham.