It is almost too difficult to keep up with this mad and frivolous spending spree that Villa have embarked on, but lets see what has been making the news!
Obviously we now have Kevin Philips as a player, his agent says we are the team he wanted to join some while back when GT enquired. However his price tag at the time was £10million. Philips also said he should never have moved to Southampton, he was never happy and the move didn’t ‘feel right’. To be fair DOL wanted him when he bought McCann and Sorenson but Doug……yep, you know the rest. £2.5million for a top striker and he wouldn’t stump up the cash.
DOL said about Philips ‘The lad has got plenty of experience, scores goals and he’ll do a good job for us.’
Berson is set to stay at Villa having seen a proposed move to Espanyol fall through. I hope he does stay, the glimpses I’ve seen showed a quality player. Who knows, given the chance he may be a valuable asset. Won’t know unless we play him. Never made sense playing Hitzlbeefburger after he agreed to leave us did it?! Apparently Villa wanted the £1.8million they paid Nantes for him last summer back and Espanyol wouldn’t cough up. Berson made 13 appearances and DOL was quoted as saying: ‘He’s shown nothing spectacular,’ Great way to motivate DOL!
Loads of praise heaped on Steve Stride. Not 100% sure why, he is only doing his job, but hey ho, well done Steve!! DOL said ‘I identified the players we needed and gave my list of players to the board. They’ve delivered four of them already. This can be a very frustrating time for managers. You know what you want to do, but it doesn’t always go according to plan, but it’s gone very smoothly for us so far and Steve deserves a lot of credit for that.’
Former Villa defender Alpay has been released by Japan’s Urawa Reds after picking up 3 red cards in 7 games.
New keeper Stuart Taylor has set his sights on the No1 jersey, Sorenson says he isn’t worried but will be on his toes and goalkeeping coach says that Taylors attitude is spot on and should also bring out the best in Sorenson. Steele was recommended Taylor by Arsenals goalkeeping coach Bob Wilson.
No further takeover news. The Ranson consortium are currently looking at the books and discussing whether to make a formal approach. All hinges on Ellis basically. The whispers suggest it is widely accepted that Doug won’t be able to return to his all seeing all doing role of Chairman, CEO and chief bottle washer. As ever with Villa, time will tell.
No updated news on the health of Doug either.
Laursen is confident he will be fit for the new season after putting himself through a tortuous training regime.
Thought for the day: Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.
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