Aston Villa in £23m Spurs Swap Deal: Plus other Rumours Linking Club to Everton, Man City and West Ham Apparently!
Friday, 03 July 09, 06:48 AM · Comments (39)
It seems the rumour mongering has now begun in earnest and Martin O'Neill's search for new blood is evident all over the web and newspaper back pages.
Foremost amongst these speculative moves are those that appear to entertwine Aston Villa with fellow top six chasers Tottenham. The following information was located on sites both dubious and less so.
Spurs defender, if you can call him that, Michael Dawson is apparently a player of great interest to MON, but for the life of me I can't think why as he has always looked like a donkey to me. Then of course there is the constant speculation linking Robbie Keane to a move to Villa Park and the Birmingham Mail claims such interest is very real and could in fact involve a certain John Carew moving to White Hart Lane in just such an exchange.
Two other players continually, somewhat randomly, connected to moves to the club are Michel Bastos and more recently Markus Berg, not exactly household names and therefore in many ways perhaps infinitely more likely to be realistic targets.
The school of thought with these, for want of a more correct word, journalists, is that the following process can be adopted when making the most out of each and every rumour morsel. First you have the genuine story, where a player or another is ‘actually' one who interests one team, let's say for arguments sake, that club is Everton. These ‘journalists' then try to get more mileage from such a story by making the next logical, if wholly incorrect, step of suggesting that the self same player now greatly interests all the teams in a similar standing to that one team, Everton.
That player will then become the subject of a myriad of made up fiction tales linking him to Tottenham, Aston Villa, Fulham and West Ham then to get the final remaining pieces of meat out of the initial rumour you then suggest that Man City are interested, because after all they want to sign every player on the face of the earth, don't they?
Everyone loves rumour season, some will lie and say they can't stand it and most will begrudgingly admit that it enlivens that period of the year when no football of any note is taking place. It's a necessary part of the process but one that can be at times equal parts exciting and irritating.
The old adage of "I'll believe it when he is parading around the pitch with a scarf" is accurate but can take the fun out of the whole process, and let's face it it's just a bit of fun and should be treated as such just as long as those creating these fictions (and make no mistake 99.9% of these are made up out of thin air) realise that they are nothing more than fantasists who serve a purpose rather than being ‘actual' professional journalists, then we should all get on just fine!
Oh yes, and the club were supposedly after Titus Bramble, hopefully someone's idea of a sick joke!
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39 Comments · Add yours
Good piece, I think you have summed up the rumour mill merry go round aptly. As for the players linked with the club i think Berg could be a goer but the others less likely. I wouldn't even want Robbie Keane at Villa Park!
Interesting how you left out the mention of Ashley Young comletely
"It seems the rumour mongering has now begun in earnest"
Except this is just more speculation?
"Then of course there is the constant speculation linking Robbie Keane to a move to Villa Park"
Which would actually be against Premier League rules, having already played for Liverpool and Spurs in the last 6 months?
Now you know that i'd love to take Ashley to The Lane but one I dont think Villa are stupid enough to anger there own fans like that and 2 we seem to be linked to every other left winger on the planet
if you think michael dawson is a donkey then you know absolutely nothing about football you idiot. he is better than any villa centre back by far and would walk into you team.
Yid30 is right, we are all afraid of mentioning the possibility that we lose Ashley Young because he is our talisman. I personally don't think he will go to Spurs but nothing's impossible. The signing of Bastos who is a brilliant young winger who I have seen live dozens of times (only joking, read a report on tinternet but as that's where everyone else claims they're footie knowlege from thought I'd join in) makes it more likely we would release Young.
Dawson is like the Centre Halves we already have, good alongside a reliable seasoned (good!) Centre Half like King or Woodgate but panics and looks average if not. I would like Berg and Bastos as they look like they have good potential and I have followed their careers closely (oh shit forgot I'd already admitted I've hardly heard of them). Berg looked good at U21's at least
Reply to zac:
You're joking right? Every Spurs fan friend of mine knows Dawson's limitations, he is average at best. Granted we are a bit weak at the back, what with Laursen having to retire, but I assure you that Zat Knight and Curtis Davies are no worse than Dawson
please take Robbie ''short pointy bloke'' Keane off our hands, he only looked good when Berba was at the Lane. Don't want to see Dawson go, he is class and reminds me a little of Terry, he will be an England man one day. also think MON could turn around the fortunes of Bentley as he is a good player but Lennon is much more effective.
i hope you boys have a good season and between us we kick Man shitty all over the place and keep them in mid table obscurity!!!
why does speculation continue to surround john carew? he has already plainly stated that he will be at villa next season. from memory it would have been less than 3 weeks ago. ashley is a different story however.. i personally dont think we would be likely to take offload ashley in a swap deal let alone a swap deal with tottenham (i dont want to antagonise any spurs fans with that comment but i undoubtedly will have so i will explain myself)..
aaron lennon is a good winger dont get me wrong.. id prefer we took him off your hands than bentley (who id still like to take off your hands), but what would be the point of a swap? we might make a bit of cash on top for a swap with lennon (who u wouldnt let go anyway) but IMO it would be a bit of a step backwards. he isnt quite as good as young yet, and we would have to go through that 'gelling' period. if we were going to swap him with anyone, it would have to be someone like ribery, where we would have to offer extra cash. and even then, it mite not even be a step forward.
as such, i doubt ashley young will be going anywhere, unless it is for a demonstrously large sum of money from a club that offers him CL football and a massive wage.. which is why i am starting to get a little worried with chelsea continually sniffing around.. but i still think we will keep hold of him.
in other news, phil hughes will take england to pieces in the ashes.
I can see the link with Dawson as Laursen replacement - he is goes for everything in the air, he is big and young although has had a couple of years Prem experience. Think it would be a good move if the price is right
Reply to Andy:
Zak Knight is very very average. Dawson is in the Terry mould. Brave, committed, strong in the air and reliable. He had a bad season in 07/08 after being an absolute rock in the previous season. Last year he looked much improved and much more confident, sadly for him King & Woodystayed fit and he had few chances.
I think most fans would admit that your CB region needs improving, and this is the sort of defender you need, ano nonesense sort. I would notlike to see him leave WHL.
Reply to Devonshirespur:
I agree he is in the Terry mould but not in the same league, he seems to switch off in games and whilst you're right that our centre back pairing isn't the best I really don't see Dawson as an improvement.
Thank goodness you are not a Spurs fan or have any idea about players. Dawson is a great player who played exceptionally well then had a lean spell. The end of last season he was Mr reliable. Still your defence is perfect Not. You had a real good run in, so you know all about defenders.
You're very harsh on Dawson. He's a fine player and better than what you have now. But he's not better than Laursen but then again, Laursen was a class player.
@ folkestone yid. Don't you mean Pointy Shouty Bloke?
Anyhow, I too was amused at the lack of Ashley Young's name in the article... That would be an awesome signing for Spurs but I doubt anything other than a straight swap for Lennon would tempt MO'N into a deal.
Villa should be looking to build; they have a small squad (NOT the smallest despite claims) and a fair backer in Randy.
The move to replace sponsors with a local charity was an utter class touch - alongside Barca in the not-cash-driven stakes. I wish my club would do the same.
Spurs would cope with losing any of the players mentioned and I'd be very happy to see the back of Keane, Bent, Bentley, O'Hara and Gilberto. Dawson is ace - but playing with heart does not make up for some lapses in judgement and no pace. Give us £6.5m. Or Young.
Whilst I do have a soft spot for Villa, I don't think you should shun any Spurs players really. Villa had a great season last year, but to have a great season and still finish so far off 4th spot sums it up really. Dawson would be a good addition to Villa and he is actually an immense young defender who is going to get better. I think many of the stars at Villa enjoy playing for O' Neill, but if the squad continues to lack depth and you do not challenge for anything, then these ambitious players will want to move on. You may have finished above Spurs last season, but no one can argue with our ability to invest in the team. With Harry Redknapp steering the ship, maybe Ashley Young could be tempted to head south again. Lets hope so.
I would love to see Marcus Berg and as for Ashley Young, I cannot for the life of me see MON selling him to Spurs!
ha ha ha young for lennon plus CASH ha ha ha thats funny!!!
Keane is well past it.... to be honest there are not many players in the spurs team that would warrant a run out in our reserves.... You could have Carew, Young or the Erdington Flyer Aggy, it would not make a bit of difference...you are a badly run, badly supported team who trade on their london location, without which you would be a stoke or leicester at best
Where do you get "they buy everything don't they from"?
We only but quality players now, from clubs who cannot keep them happy!!
Bye
Do you know,for a change. I was actually enjoying reading some good natured banter between two similar stature clubs. A bit of rivalry obviously but a mutual respect and some reasoned arguments from both sides. Then just to spoil it along comes a complete knob head. Sorry the rest of you sensible villa fans but you have an IAN... Twat.
Spurs are poorly supported and badly run and are no better than Leicester or Stoke. Well if this is just to provoke a response.... It worked.... Or you are just a know nothing twat who watches a bit of footie on telly once in a while when your mum lets you. For the record Dawson is immense and would be good buy for anyone but does need an experienced partner to get the best out of him but I really hope he doesn't go. Shame bentley hasn't been a success for us but think mon would get him playing better. Good luck next year let's hope we both have a good one
I agree with what was said before regarding "Big John" Carew. Carew is integral to our future plans and we can ill afford to lose another one of our leaders. With Laursen and Barry now gone, Carew i think is the number one choice for captain. He is adored by Villa fans and he has said on more than one occasion that he has no intention to leave because for the first time in his career he feels settled and that is reflected in his peformances the last 2 and half seasons. He is an inspiration and a great choice to take the armband.
I'm not quite sure what is going on with MON! Why have no players been bought in yet? I understand we must be patient because he hasn't let us down yet. But we have a seriously small squad and we aren't, as it stands, going to compete with the likes of Everton, Spurs & Man City, let alone Arsenal. There are all these rumours flying about, but we've not heard a single thing from O'Neill. Where is he and what is he doing? I am concerned about his ineffectiveness in the transfer market. We can't seem to attract the top players still. We should have a lot to offer with European football and all, but there is a real worry from myself that we're going to fall behind those aforementioned sides. Our squad was wafer thin anyway, even before we lost Laursen and Barry. We need to get players in asap and we need some sort of sign that we do have the necessary ambition to continue our progress and get in the top 4. Maybe Barry left because he didn't see that and in Man City he does.
I think bringing in Sol Campbell would be a good move. Then maybe Bentley as another option on the wing or centre midfield, Gudjohnsen up front, Berg perhaps. I would love us to get Darren Bent because he possesses pretty much everything, an all-round centre forward. Also Borowski from Bayern and Mesut Ozil, a player who i have seen a lot of and was very successful in the European U-21 Championships Final destruction of England.
Wait and see time!
I agree with qldvilla, Phil Hughes will definitely take the Poms apart this ashes series.
Reply to spurssid:
m8 maybe lennon is a good player (ur best player by a million miles ever!) but lennon is well out of youngs league, i value lennon at around 15-20mill so id want at least 10 mill plus lennon, bt i cant see ashley going to spurs anyway cz no offense bt it would be a step down and probably ruin his career, he would go to a club like arsenal chelsi manu liverpool maybe even man city cz of ther huge spendin power and chance of actually getting into the top four, bt not to spurs where all the players no matter how good turn into a bunch of **** like some of the wasted players, robinson, bent, bentley, chimbonda, jenas, modric, pavlyochenko, dos santos, woodgate, ledly king,gomes, the list goes on and on bt frankly the list is getting bigger for every word i type, lets face it your club spends a fortune and wonders y there so sh*t well its not the players its the dodgy people u employ. im amazed at some spurs fans saying that villa r a smaller club than spurs, although villa r in brum unlike spurs who r in london thats the only reason they have faNS ( tbh ther all foreigners wanting to watch the english game) we hv a bigger stadium, more history more succesful history and now, we hv better management, were in the europa cup(u arnt in anythink other than wht all clubs are in) we finished higher in the league despite hving a smaller squad, we hv much better players i mean other than lennon. carew agbonlahor, milner,(used to be barry),(used to be laursen)petrov, young, frediel possibly cuellar r betta than all of ur players apart from lennon so i see exactly y spurs r sayin they r bigger than us (not) its like halifax sayin ther bigger than man u just plain biasednes. plz dont go down the root sayin youll finish higher than us, and that u got more points than us in the last part of the season cz thats just un true unlees some miracle happens, plus if u havnt noticed already villa do tht every year, we do really well and get ourself into a gr8 positionand then screw it up at
like last season we got into the top4 bye 8 points and then screwed it up and the season b4 when we could have easily jumped everton into the top5 bt lost to wigan wen everton lost and in 2004 on the last day fell out of the top 5 to newcastle, bt still even through all this were stiil a bigger team and guees wht weve got more points than u in the prem with the excact same amount of games played all time which shows either you were really sh*t or we were really good bt seems as u had the 7th best points after chelsi arsenal newcastle manu liverpool & us (we were 5th btw we were obviously quite good in the past maybe betta than spurs mite u say also feel free to go onto wiki and check the honours im sure youll find that weve won more aswell which is good seein as ur the worst team in london behind west ham who hv had hardly any funds (how embarassing betta than spurs the team that spends loads and gets proven quality the turns the into sh*t)
Reply to spurssid:
mate what is so laughable about that.. do you really think that lennon would be valued higher than young or even the same as young? young has been in the team of the year two seasons running, picked up the young player of the year award plus 3 player of the month awards (of which lennon only picked up one)and has been capped by england several times..
further to this, he has attracted interest from chelsea and barca in the last few weeks.. please explain to me (in no uncertain terms) what lennon has done to warrant a higher valuation than young.. or is it just because you are biased?
Lmao @ this site calling other sites dubious.
LMAO @ this author calling dawson a donkey, Name me a single defender you have better than him.!
School of thought ? apparently after reading this, you never attended school! LMAO, A fucking wet drip of life you are!
Reply to rob:
Bouma, knight, cuellar, L. Young, davis maybe even shorey bt wen we had laursan he was betta than the whole of ur team n not even our best player this shows spurs r (sh@t) not long till we see lennon at villa park for 15 mill hes better than bentley alrhough if martin oneill had his way bentley could be immense like he was at blackburn and then wat happened just ask spurs theyll tell u its normal that they do that to all there gr8 players well not so gr8 now
cant wait till we play tothnem its gonna be funny scoring goals for fun past gomes i reckon 5-0 to villa, is nyone actually thinking that spurs can get into the top 6 or 4 or even top 10 other than spurs there over rated cz there a london team and its not like a london team to be absolute sh*t nyway villa will be hving the last laugh
other than spurs there over rated that should read other than spurs fans
Reply to Folkestone_yid:
will you get of Robbies back FFS, he made a mistake but now he is back get behind him.
All this Keane baiting is doing my nut in, it twats like you that give our fans a bad reputation.
when he is back scoring 20plus goals next season lets see where the moaners are then.
oh and yea that sums up for footy knowledge "only looked good with berba" yea thats been proved by how good he has looked at manure LOL u idiot.
and Dawson, class??? he is ok and does a job as back up, but not sure if he will ever be much more than that.
And finally his nickname is PSB as in Pointy Shouty Bloke, not SPB are you sure you are really a Spurs fan????
coys.
Oh Ian an you are so provocative,I always thought that leicester and Stoke were on a par with vanilla really,they certainly have more passionate and vociferous fans than the Vanillans,especially coming from smaller urban areas too,what do other fans of Villa think?..
Reply to PJ:
We actually only had a great half a season cos we crumbled on the second half, had our second half of the season been even half as good as the first half we would of been breezing a top 3 finish, the loss of the laurson and of course the pressure was too much
To be fair the facts are Spurs have won 24 major trophies to Villas 22 Spurs just edge it im afraid, im a newspaper reporter i just read the facts
Every year same old story...no signings, frustrating or what. I came home from work the other day and said to the other half "Villa signed anyone today" she looked at me in disbelief and said don't be so stupid "it's not the last day of the transfer window today". The worrying thig is that she doesn't know anything about football but even she knows how Villa and MON work.
AY to spurs is getting more real now. There are a lot of talks and confirmations of deal on both spurs webboard and Villatalk. IMO if Ashley move the reason must be because he wants to move back to south.
Regarding Spurs vs Villa, i believe Spurs have been more successful in the last 10 years if you look at stats.
League Position
Year Spurs Villa Everton
99/00 10 6 13
00/01 12 8 16
01/02 9 8 15
02/03 10 16 7
03/04 6 14 17
04/05 9 10 4
05/06 5 16 11
06/07 5 11 6
07/08 11 6 5
08/09 8 6 5
Avr. 9 10 10
Trophies:
Spurs Carling Cup Winner 08/09
'To be fair the facts are Spurs have won 24 major trophies to Villas 22 Spurs just edge it im afraid, im a newspaper reporter i just read the facts'
Well that makes one more Villa trophy than I can find (you aren't, I hope , including the Inter-toto cup) and SEVEN more spurs trophies - or are we counting the Charity Shield?
Sorry Chap but I think the European Cup and the Supercup (against serious opposition) trumps a CWC and a couple of UEFA's. 7 league championships against 2, 5 League Cups against 4 - You have won one more FA Cup than us though.
I first went to Villa Park in 1970 - our first year in division 3. You were doing rather better at the time. Despite that who has done better since? Given your location in the richest and by a huge factor largest city in the land and the fact that for most of my nearly 50 years you have run second only to the Arse in that city you have to be better than Villa, in fact the nations greatest at one thing and one thing only; under-achievement.
Chris, suggest you count again. Villa and Everton have both won many more trophies than Spurs, not to mention with a bias towards bigger wins, the League and European Cup.