Question of Outgoings
In an ideal world, the transfer window would be slamming shut this week, before the season starts. Surely a manager should have a team ready and organised for the first game, rather than waiting until deadline day to make fixes?
Steve Bruce, with a lot of his business done in January, seems to have got most of his squad in place for the season’s kick-off.
The rest of the window will be mainly used for trimming of the squad.
If Bruce’s successful in that, then he’s hinted he might get another face or two in. It’ll probably be later in the window though.
The likes of Gary Gardner and Tommy Elphick, should get a move away, while Villa must see if they can deal with more complicated equations, such as Ross McCormack and Micah Richards. Both on big wages and with their appeal as players on the serious wane.
On the McCormack front, Bruce has indicated recently there is indeed legit interest in the player.
“There’s been an enquiry,” said Bruce. “There’s been enquiries from a couple of clubs, that might happen in the next week or so, we’ll wait and see.”
Black Cat Tall Tales
If you’ve been keeping abreast of your summer transfer rumours you’ll know that Sunderland have been attached to seemingly half the Villa team. Strange considering their meant to be in financial turmoil.
But will it be like their interest in Micah Richards in the January window of 2016, and fizzle out?
First of all, they were interested in loaning Ross McCormack. MOMS has already indicated it would be a ridiculous idea, from a Villa POV, to lend him to a promotion rival.
Then came the story that Villa wanted £8m for an outright sale for the Scotsman. Yeah, good luck with that one!
Alan Hutton’s name has also been thrown into a bunch of clickbait stories, that cite interest in him from Sunderland. The Scottish Cafu has also supposed to be attracting Sheffield Wednesday’s interest too.
Hutton, himself, seems keen to stay and he still looks to be very much in pole position in terms of Villa’s right-back spot.
It’s been suggested to MOMS, that Sunderland is the most likely destination for Tommy Elphick though.This has been backed up by local press reports.
Originally, the centre-back seemed nailed on for the Blues.
It’s expected the deal will be done in a week or too, which seems odd it hasn’t been done sooner.
Why the wait?
As we joked on the upcoming podcast episode, after Elphick cut short his honeymoon last summer to join for Villa, maybe his wife insisted on a second honeymoon to make up for it. This time, there’s no chance of an early return home!
Fickle Forest
Apparently Nottingham Forest had an interest in bringing Gary Gardner to Forest, after previously sampling him on loan.
It’s been suggested to MOMS, that interest allegedly stalled over a bit of bad financial blood between the two teams over the Ross McCormack loan at the end of last season.
Whether it’s true or not, you’d think a deal would be still pushed through towards the end of the transfer window, if Gardner hasn’t found another way out.
He’s too far down in the pecking order in the Villa midfield to stay on, after failing to make a real impact last season.
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