As MOMS reported earlier, this is the week where Villa owner Tony Xia suggested that their would be a bit of an exodus from Villa Park. So far though, the biggest noise is that Brad Guzan is expected to be a Middlesbrough player by the end of the week.
Micah Richards Interest Cools
Earlier today, national newspaper reporters covering the North-East reported that Sunderland have not tabled a bid for Villa defender Micah Richards and that it was unlikely that new Black Cat boss David Moyes would be interested.
Idrissa Gueye Interest Warms
Moving on though, it seems that things are firming up for Idrissa ‘Stats Man’ Gueye, with Everton reported to have triggered his alleged £7.2m relegation release clause.
MOMS has previously mentioned interest from France, but it looks likely that the Senegalese midfielder will want to stay in the Premier League.
With Villa having paid between a £1m-£2m more than the release clause, they will hope that clubs like Southampton and also Leicester City (Kante replacement?), who have previously shown an interest in the player, will enter into a bidding war to raise the transfer fee.
Villa CEO Keith Wyness has tweeted about the Gana situation, saying that ‘We do not welcome any interest in this player from any club’. If the release clause exists though, then Wyness’s sentiments are academic.
Based purely on Gueye’s performance vs Telford in preseason, there would be no sleep lost over selling him. His stats last season didn’t really equate to an end product, when you consider the team finished on 17 points.
While he offers good energy, breaks things up and keeps things ticking over in midfield, sometimes his distribution of longer passes was lacking and he rarely offered much in the final third when he ventured forth.
With Villa needing to shed players to condense the size of the squad and wage bill, Gueye like most of the current squad is expendable.
Certainly if Villa got their money back for him, it would be interesting to see if it sparked any incoming spend. At the moment, MOMS isn’t expecting much of a Net Spend going into the new season.
UTV
Is it me? Or am I the only villa supporter to think we haven’t moved any further forward under Dr Tony than we did under Lerner.
I still have major doubts about the new owner, where is the 30,40,50mil he’s said the new manager would have? He’s gone from that, to saying you have to learn from past experience and not just splash money around. Again we are selling or giving away players before we bring players in, other than the 3 we have signed (hardly take your breath away do they). He initially said Gana, Ayew etc would not be leaving…..looks like they are both off plus others. If he, has he claims has the financial clout, what was it? 600mil in a UK bank account? Why don’t he purchase the players we need first then offload the crud, like Man C did. He also said he wanted the new players in really early so they would have plenty of time to gel before the season kicks off. It seems to me that the only difference between Tony Xia and Lerner is Tony speaks to us via Twitter and that is becoming more embarrassing by the day……boo our rivals??? What’s that about?
I still feel there is a massive pot hole in the road not too far away, does anyone really know anything about Xia he’s Recon group and his so called 5 other registered companies that no one can find registered. I’ve read all the previous back ground explanations of him, all pretty much the same and I would suggest supposition, nothing on Forbes or any other personal rich list, he’s pretty much an unknown like most from the Far East. I suspect a Caron Yeoung, or similar. I hope I’m completely wrong, but something don’t feel right with me, please let me be wrong.
Biddind war? I don’t think so. It’s mandatory for the club to accept the bid once the release clause is met. There is no need to raise the bid regardless of how many clubs are interested, hence there will be no “bidding war”.
There is supposedly a time limit for other bids.