brummie

Would say so. Not a chance Decent purchases so far and we've barely made a dent on our transfer cash yet. It looks like we've sat down and thought about who we're going to buy, and have realised we need to start spending a bit more money. Three more decent signings and we'll finish top half.

It isn't, it is 8m plus bonuses. Ayew had been told he could leave for that, then we took an interest and Lorient hiked the price massively. We said no, Ayew said he was annoyed, and apparently has foregone some pay outs he was due from Lorient to make it happen. The way I look at it, this is a replacement for Weimann - sold him to Derby for 2.5, thrown 5.5 more in and got Ayew in instead.

http://i.imgur.com/5j3sWJJ.jpg I know you lot are mostly young, cool kids, but I can't look at that photo without thinking "what a fucking disgusting collection of tattoos". Why on earth do people think that sort of shit looks good? Sell the cunt.

I'm quite heartened by the way the wider football world has responded to Delph's injury today. I know it is all very childish and I am way too old to be laughing at this shit but this tweet made me chuckle quite a lot. as did this http://i57.tinypic.com/2d7val0.jpg

Christ, I hope it's nothing trivial. http://www.barchick.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/party.gif

12m euros. £12m according to Skysports. They're wrong.

12m euros. Slightly better, going to need a lot better alongside him though http://i4.birminghammail.co.uk/incoming/article79993.ece/BINARY/gabriel-agbonlahor-221356492.jpg

12m euros.

I'm not so sure. Austin strikes me as an old school striker, the type to find the final touch, to take the chances, but without doing a great deal more than that. We've only recently got Darren Bent off the payroll, a striker who does exactly that. I find it hard to believe we'd go out of our way to spend that much money on a striker of that type (if I am judging Austin correctly).

Farewell, then, Benteke. Disappointed he's gone, but I don't blame him, he's too good to be poking around the arse end of the table for any longer than he already has. He could have hung around for a better move, though, I think, could have played CL this coming season. I'd wish him all the best but I have a pathological hatred of Liverpool (in common with pretty much everyone else who grew up in the 70s and 80s not supporting them). I certainly wish him no ill - unlike that fucking SNAKE Delph. 32.5m. We now need to spend that and build a new spine to the team. So long as we get to spend that plus the 8 from Delph, I'm relatively happy. I am certainly far happier that we've started using our fucking brains and getting in highly rated players from abroad instead of overpriced MONesque shite from the UK, or Lambertian £2m wasters. Watched our friendly last night and Amavi looked very promising. His stats are amazing. Hopefully we'll bring in some others along those lines.

Your second sentence answers the question posed in the first. If I had my way, I'd put an end to this sort of nonsense at the other end of the scale. All that badge kissing bollocks and, worse than anything else, the "scored against you, but used to play for you, so deffo not going to celebrate" bullshit that seems to have appeared the last few years. Incidentally, Gueye was talking about playing for one of the big clubs in Europe one day. To get there, he's going to have to do extremely well for us, which is fine by me. We've just finished 17th. I don't think there are many Villa fans with illusions about that. If these days the likes of Southampton - Southampton FFS - are sometimes seen as a more appealing option to the likes of us and you, that's a reflection on the crushing lack of ambition some clubs - who should really know better - show.

Not really. Anyone who thinks players aren't almost all like that is kidding themselves. The only reason that is being reported at all is due to Delph's u-turn.

One thing I am enjoying so far is being linked with more interesting players. I've no idea what Anthony Martial at Monaco is like, or Breel Embolo, or Obbi Oulare, but they sound like players who suggest we've done some actual scouting and are trying to get promising players in, rather than hoovering up shit like we have the last few years.

Benteke is ace. People point to him struggling last year, for a spell, but forget he was out injured a while, and even when not injured, he was playing for that Lambert side which never got the ball to him. Disappointed he's gone to Liverpool, but him leaving is no surprise. If Sherwood gets the full 32 to invest then it's the right deal to do. Gueye and Amavi are both supposed to be excellent, and the other names we are linked with at least suggest the days of parsimony may be over. Adebayor can fuck off, mind

Also, re appeasement, that'd require them actually giving a fuck what the fans think in the first place - something they've not done for four or five years now.

He's supposed to be very good, but we've been linked with him for ages now, so it doesn't look like appeasement to me. To be honest, we need two or three more quality players at least. I suspect Gueye, who we have signed already, is the Delph replacement. I'm just encouraged we're not poking around 2-3m lower league dross yet, like we have in recent summers.

That's Euros and it is "up to" rather than "for this amount" Everything I have read reports it as 10m. Interesting, though, that we've remembered how to spend money. Someone must have remembered the PIN for the Visa card or something

I think part of it is that professional footballers are by definition extremely confident individuals, which is one reason they're in the premier league to start with. I don't buy the whole "it's about the money" argument when players go places like that, despite all the evidence to suggest they won't get a look in. I honestly think a lot of them think they're good enough to do it. I bet Rodwell did when he went there, I bet Scott Sinclair did too. It's not just about money. It's about success, too. It used to be in football that having money was no guarantee of success. What we have now, though, is a situation where the most salient fact is that not having money is a guarantee of no success. That's why we have situations whereby your board and ours think staying up is enough. Why Ashley can say he'll only leave when you win something and then adds "and by the way, I consider finishing in the top four winning something". Why the Arsenal manager can punch the air like he's won the league on the last day of the season when Arsenal secure a top four place by beating Wigan. I don't even think Man City want half of these players they buy. With the likes of Sterling, it's like a game of dare. Press link them with him. Liverpool want huge money. Stupidly huge money. At that point you just *know* they're going to sign him, because they have to, they've been linked with a stupidly big transfer fee, they have to make it happen. It's pretty fucking sad, really, to think how much emotional energy we put into this circus, and it's all for no reward.

I don't begrudge him going. We've been awful for four or five years now. We've shown zero ambition, we've had a tight fisted recruitment policy, we've demonstrated that all we care about is not getting relegated. I wouldn't fancy much more of that if i was a player. I can barely bring myself to watch it now, and I've been watching us for over 40 years. It's the way he has handled it that makes me want to vomit. I suspect Benteke is on his way out too, which disappoints me, but I don't really bear him any ill will. That's because he hasn't put the club through the sort of fucking circus Delph has, the last week and a few months ago when he signed his new deal. Deep down I suspect he knows he's a cunt. He apparently removed all pics of his family from his instagram account this afternoon. Ridiculously over the top, but he knows he's made himself look an absolute cunt. He didn't even look hugely happy in his signing photographs. I'm not one to get annoyed without good reason but the way he has handled this has turned me from one who'd wish him all the best to someone who genuinely hopes he spends the next three years sat on his arse on their bench before washing up at some grim hell hole like Sunderland or Stoke.

This is the statement on our official site. The curtness of it, for the club captain, says it all, really.

The amazing thing is that he will genuinely think that statement makes things better.

Vlaar has been a first choice since he came here. In three seasons, he's featured in 79 of 114 league matches for us. The ones he's not been in, he's been injured. I don't recall him ever getting dropped. That's basically 70% of our league games, he's been fit for. What's more, he seemed to specialise in injuries that'd do you a month at a time which made his appearances very fragmented. Apparently him and his agent have turned up in Rome trying to get him in at Lazio.

Wallace above is bang on correct. The media get their heads around something they see as fact. Another one for us was that we were "a strong counter attacking team" and had "lots of pace up front". We were a very good counter attacking team, yes. Under O'Neill, over five years ago. As for the pace up front, Weimann has none, Benteke doesn't have a huge amount, and Agbonlahor has lots but doesn't have a brain. We'd hear it all the time. It's much like the way the media talk about you lot and go on about how you won't accept cockneys, or you drove Pardew out or whatever. Vlaar wasn't rubbish for us, far from it, but the problem is, as was said, he had an amazing world cup. That came after a mediocre season for us, and was followed by more mediocrity and further long term injuries. I see he needs another knee operation this summer, so he's currently without a club and has got knee knack yet again.

Ha ha http://i.imgur.com/I0HvUSy.jpg

If Benteke is going to Liverpool, Delph will have known this last week, as will Benteke. In the case of Delph the whole thing is made a bit more galling by the fact we spent 8m on him, watched him be almost permanently injured for three years, gave him a new contract, stood by him, got him into the England squad, and watched him do this. I wouldn't blame him if he'd just sat out his contract and fucked off to Man City, but all this other shit around the transfer, totally avoidable.