I'm an optimistic person when it comes to the summer transfers and I fancy we're going to see some real quality coming to Villa Park this summer. Martin O'Neill is no mug and he knows what is needed. Randy Lerner is no mug either and he must see what is needed too.

Now that we've qualified that we've not got any mugs at Aston Villa, all we've got to do now is wait for it to happen.

First rumour today then is José Manuel Jiménez Ortiz who currently plays for Spanish top flight side UD Almería. He is also known as Mané, is a left back and is 27 years old. Hands up, I know nothing about him, but the talk is £9mn. so you've got to fancy he has something about him.

Next on the list is Spurs midfielder David Bentley and you know what, I'd really like this one to happen and I wouldn't be surprised if it happened soon.

We were interested last summer and actually made an offer to Blackburn but the player picked his boyhood team and by all accounts, we didn't offer enough. But that sort of doesn't matter, what it does show is that O'Neill was interested in Bentley.

I also fancy that Bentley would fit in with us too. We need a right sided midfielder that can cross and we also need to add quality. Bentley is a quality player, but is he going to bring the real quality needed to take us to the next level? It is a gamble, but you've got to fancy that if we can get him for £6mn. then it is a very safe gamble.

Before I go, a quick summary of some other things; Reo-Coker is probably off with Spurs, Everton and Fulham all apparently interested. Manchester City are also interested in Barry and the paper talk is that they'll pay him £19mn. over four years. Would Carew get that much?

Lastly, David Wheater isn't going to ask to leave Middlesbrough. Someone is going to have to make an approach first. I like this in a professional. Call it lazy or loyal, it's just nice.

Something later from Doc, but for now, that is your lot.

Comments (45)

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Mark said:

... I'm assuming we will lose three first team regulars (including Laurson) I would like to think we could end up with five new players who would expect to start regularly. I'm hoping Sidwell gets off to a flyer after a season bedding in. I'm hoping we buy a centre half who can head the ball, I don't believe we have one at the moment.

Comment 1, made on May 25, 2009 at 10.43 am

Mike Carter said:

... On top form today Damian. The Bentley rumour seems to be gathering pace now, I'd also like to see it happen but I'm a bit worried we're going to pay over the odds, considering he's not wanted where he is. Wouldn't it be great if we could get Tom Huddlestone as well? In a 4-5-1 (or variant thereof) I think he'd fit in perfectly. The Reo-Coker news is interesting. I find it strange other top clubs are after him when it's clear he's struggled to cut it with us.

Comment 2, made on May 25, 2009 at 10.43 am

Steve said:

... £6 mill for Bentley that cost £15 mill 12 months ago you boys are having a laugh

Comment 3, made on May 25, 2009 at 10.45 am

spooney said:

... '' Bentley is a quality player, but is he going to bring the real quality needed to take us to the next level? It is a gamble, but you've got to fancy that if we can get him for £6mn. then it is a very safe gamble.'' 6mn i hope your joking , the fact that spurs paid around 15mn do you really think theyd let him go one season later for nearly 10mn less the only way that would happen is with a swap deal including barry

Comment 4, made on May 25, 2009 at 10.47 am

Damian said:

... Steve What, like Robbie Keane leaving for £20mn. then coming back for £12mn. six months later. Having a laugh like that are we? Anything is possible in football ...

Comment 5, made on May 25, 2009 at 10.47 am

spooney said:

... Damian that was only due to the repayment scheme we had in place with liverpool, the sum was actually nearer 18 . . . get your facts straight

Comment 6, made on May 25, 2009 at 10.50 am

Mike Carter said:

... I think you'd be surprised. Crooked Harry clearly does not want Bentley. So what if no other teams are interested? Supply and demand - could be a case of either cashing in on him or paying him to sit his arse on the bench every week.

Comment 7, made on May 25, 2009 at 10.53 am

Bigdave11 said:

... o how i really do hope you or somebody signs bently. You will soon come to realise that he is lazy,overrated and not all that good at crossing a football as he is made out to be....i have witnessed his very very average perfomances way to often this season...you have been warned, do not get excited about signing him!!!

Comment 8, made on May 25, 2009 at 10.55 am

davspurs said:

... Sad to see david go but if i were villa fans i would firstly forget hudds he is going nowere .And bently is the sting in the tale because i live near city well a smelly 24 miles away but the word is hughes is comming for ashley and barry and if you dont sell he will scupper the bently deal by out bidding you he is going to weaken you then everton for lescott and arsenals ady muscles weaken and defeat is rivals .coys

Comment 9, made on May 25, 2009 at 10.56 am | url

K4AVFC said:

... Steve.. Yeah we are having a laugh playing in europe next year! Where as you blow another £50million and achieve nothing as usual, typical spurs.

Comment 10, made on May 25, 2009 at 10.57 am

spooney said:

... I disagree , in recent times the way that spurs have sold players it is either with a very small loss ie (tanio , malbranque and chimbonda) or with massive gains ( michael carrick , berbatov) . The club is to well run financially to allow that big a loss and im sure that mr levy would not let him go at that price unless it was with another player comming our way. Im sure not too long ago man city were in the hunt for him anyway?

Comment 11, made on May 25, 2009 at 10.58 am

Damian said:

... spooney sorry to do this to you. but it was actually £19mn. with the potential for a further £1.3mn in compensation, according to your chairman however, the fact remains. you sold him for x and six months later you brought him back for a sum much less than the original deal. my point is, anything can happen in football and this wouldn't surprise me

Comment 12, made on May 25, 2009 at 11.00 am

daniel wheeler said:

... he's crap. let him go to city or stay at spurs.

Comment 13, made on May 25, 2009 at 11.05 am

Mike Carter said:

... davspurs I dare say there is a rumour floating around somewhere that Hughes is prepared to buy NASA, McDonalds and the entire Accrington Stanley squad as well. And if you believe it then more fool you.

Comment 14, made on May 25, 2009 at 11.08 am

Chrisodon said:

... I'd rather a star player than someone who couldn't cut it at spurs.

Comment 15, made on May 25, 2009 at 11.09 am

Michael said:

... have a look at the 2nd bottom picture on the villa website from yesterdays game, looks like barry knows that it was his last game, he looks a bit upset, instead of his usually expression-less look.

Comment 16, made on May 25, 2009 at 11.19 am

Michael said:

... also, look at the bottom picture, is cueller trying to scare the s**t out of baby young? lol

Comment 17, made on May 25, 2009 at 11.20 am

Chrisodon said:

... I Didn't know webcam was a dad, shocked me seeing that.

Comment 18, made on May 25, 2009 at 11.23 am

Pete Hutton said:

... haha the spurs fans have gone rather quiet all of a sudden!!!

Comment 19, made on May 25, 2009 at 11.27 am

Mike Carter said:

... He has 3 kids! One of them is called Luke, how confusing

Comment 20, made on May 25, 2009 at 11.27 am

Seb said:

... Where did you get that £6m from? Bently wouldn't be sold for less then double figures becasue the spurs board run a financially sound business (which is probably why we underperform on the pitch but that's another matter all together). £6m wouldn't buy us a good replacement or proven performer and despite a bad year Bently is worth more then that to us in terms of squad depth and quality etc. So if Villa are thinking they can nick a bargain they're probably mistaken. Although as we 'need' to sell to buy there is definately a deal to be done but only if the price is right (which is probably 10-12m)...

Comment 21, made on May 25, 2009 at 11.29 am

Mike Carter said:

... Surely if he only plays the role of a bit-part player, coming off the bench every now and again, then £6m could buy a suitable replacement? £10-£12m is the money you would pay for proven starter-quality, which clearly Bentley has not been for Spurs.

Comment 22, made on May 25, 2009 at 11.30 am

Chrisodon said:

... Jesus it wasn't that long ago he was blasting out millions of potential youngs in front of a webcam.

Comment 23, made on May 25, 2009 at 11.31 am

Chrisodon said:

... Mickey the thing with barry is he had a chance to go like a hero in our eyes but instead he'll just be another player leaving due to his antics last summer.

Comment 24, made on May 25, 2009 at 11.33 am

Cookiemonster said:

... Mickey86 - good call - Ugly Betty or what! Was at the gane as usual yesterday - we are just that little bit of quality away from being a really good side. Just need a better type player to play that final ball, see the pass and importantly snap up the half chances/full chances that we seem to create. I would like MON to re-think how we are coaching the defenders especially - it's panic stations everytime the ball comes near our box and with a keeper that doesn't dominate, better teams would have scored against us in the first half yesterday. Anyway - as always I look forward to the close season in the hope of us really improving our starting eleven this time. I am not overly bothered about us signing 'big names' - so l;ong as there is some joined up thinking in our recruitment policy that gives us a more secure defence and options of how to play with the players at our disposal. Thanks for a great blog Damian UTV

Comment 25, made on May 25, 2009 at 11.34 am

Hmmmm said:

... I can't see us selling Bentley for anything below 10 million to be honest. You're welcome to him though, I don't have anything against the lad, but he really doesn't fit into the way we play. Though do you lot really need him with Milner and Young already running down the flanks?

Comment 26, made on May 25, 2009 at 11.44 am

oloftheother said:

... Bently would be a welcome addition, and allow Milner to move centre field

Comment 27, made on May 25, 2009 at 11.50 am

Altan Kargaci said:

... Was'nt at the game yesterday , just wondering what Barry's body lanuage was like at the end . Did he look like he was saying goodbye?

Comment 28, made on May 25, 2009 at 12.15 pm

All Seeing Eye said:

... Well you need new blood after royally getting found out as a one trick pony club. if you lose ashley young you'll be dead in the water. i hear spurs and chelsea are sniffing around him.

Comment 29, made on May 25, 2009 at 12.47 pm

Chrisodon said:

... I Also hear spurs are skint this summer....Shame really it would have been funny to see what other poor players they'd buy.

Comment 30, made on May 25, 2009 at 12.53 pm

Pat McDermott said:

... i recon if were gonna get bentley it'll be around the £8mill mark, no way will it be double figures for a player who hasn't really played since January but i do think 6 is a bit low

Comment 31, made on May 25, 2009 at 1.02 pm

Villa4life said:

... I too think we need 5 to 6 players in...... that is based on the fact that Barry is off, and with Laursen retiring. These players have to take us to the next level.... We should keep MRC and Carew.... we need to build a squad and we don't need to sell to spend!... The problem we had this year is that the players played too many games.... We did not have anyone to replace some one who was out of form or suffering from injuries..... When Ashley Young gets injured who have we got as cover???...... no one!.... so MON needs to stop moaning about the small squad as next year we will play even more games in this Europa League...... Buy some players that can push for places and not some low quality ravel.

Comment 32, made on May 25, 2009 at 1.18 pm

Seb said:

... I i said before we don't NEED to sell. Unless you're willing to pay what he's worth (taking past form into account) you won't get him. All this 6-8m talk is absolute rubbish, for that money we couldn't buy a player as good as Bently so no point in selling. End of. Any talk to the contrary is naive

Comment 33, made on May 25, 2009 at 1.25 pm

Dan Price said:

... they wont want to sell him for £6m as it will look like they are idiots, but if they were to swap him for Nigel (who they can claim they value at £12m) then it looks financially - shall we say "kosher". On a side note I really dont want to see Nigel go, i could see him fit into a 451 with Petrov and Milner in the middle, bentley out on the right. Ive got to fancy we are going to pick the bones of Middlesborough and Newcastle with regards to... Owen Obafemi Collocini Gutieres Downing

Comment 34, made on May 25, 2009 at 2.30 pm

mikey18 said:

... I think it will be Tottenham selling to the highest bidder...and thats why redknapp came out and said he needs to move on in not so many words to let the rest of the world know hes for sale and spark the bidding! He'll go for about 10mil which isn't bad business considering they paid 15-17mil for him, hes on about 80k a week, which is around 4mil a year so just taking him off their books is worth 4mil to them and a 10mil fee sees them recoup most of what they paid for him. Of course it depends on what the bidding is like

Comment 35, made on May 25, 2009 at 2.54 pm

colm tarpey said:

... Dan. really? Collocini, Gutieres? the only i would like to see coming out of all those players listed is Martins...Jesus...if that boy got decent service no tellin how well he would do...owen's finished...yesterday was a wake up call for any of us who would like to see him coming to Villa...he had a half hour and didn't get or even want a sniff...let him go and concentrate on the nosebags...downings good but we dont need him....

Comment 36, made on May 25, 2009 at 3.11 pm

Kiwivillan said:

... Can we try and get a GOOD defender. Wheater and Richards are not. Has anyone who thinks we should sign them watched them play much? I think not.

Comment 37, made on May 25, 2009 at 4.12 pm

Adey Stuttard said:

... Harleystaggers, I agree with you, out of those mentioned only Martins would be welcome by me at Villa. Downing is rubbish, Owen, as you say doesn't want it. Wouldn't mind a punt on Bassong from Newcastle though, only young and has said he wanted to leave if they got relegated. Bentley, yes at under £9 Million, bit not if Barry stays!!

Comment 38, made on May 25, 2009 at 4.17 pm | url

essexyid said:

... ok, firstly you're dreaming if you think you're gonna get bentley for £6m. we're going to have to pay the 2nd and 3rd installments to blackburn over the next couple months, taking the deal to somewhere around £13m (the rest was apps, us qualifying for europe and bentley playing for england), so i highly doubt that after forking out another £7m (currently we've paid 6, 5 to arsenal and 1 to blackburn) levy will then sell him on at an epic loss. also, spurs have loads of money, don't listen to a word harry says. in the run up to the january transfer window he said there was little money available and that we would have to sell 1 or 2 first team players in order to fund any big moves. then we spent £45m+

Comment 39, made on May 25, 2009 at 5.22 pm

Adey Stuttard said:

... essexyid, You and other Spuds need to read the original post It is a gamble, but you've got to fancy that if we can get him for £6mn. then it is a very safe gamble. Damian is saying IF we can, not we can. Levy has shown in the past he has no problems wasting money (I may be wrong but did they not sell Defoe to Pompey for £9M then bring him back for £15M, Bent at £16.5M, Pavylechenko at £?M) We can dream of getting Bentley for £6M can't we?

Comment 40, made on May 25, 2009 at 5.40 pm | url

Joseph said:

... I dont understand all this talk of us getting "found out" the only thing people found out was that our squad was too small to compete for a Top 4 place over the 38 games, and most of us fans knew that anyway. We had a poor 3 months but still finished Top 6 so that says alot about the teams below us. With a good 5/6 more quality players who can come in for some of the guys who were tired and or out of form we can definatly do better next season. If you look at the performances over the season its not like towards the end other teams started to play against us in a certain way its just that our key players were either very tired or missing and we didnt have much in reserve to come in and replace them. Depending on the signings in the summer I definatly think that within the next 3/4 seasons we can establish ourselves as definate contenders for a Top 4 finish and trophies of some sort. Bentley's a good shout and although I think £6mn is abit under the value of him, I definatly think that depending on what he himself wants to do we can get him for under £10mn. If he wants to go then theres no point Spurs keeping him and they will sell to the highest bidder so it probably depends on who wants him and where he wants to go. I think City will definatly be after him but if a club with some form of European football want him you'd fancy he would rather play there. I think Fulham may well have a look at him and Everton could go for him if they can find the cash. I dont think any of the Top 4 will want him so perhaps its between Us, Everton, Fulham & Man City. he will have something to prove like he did when he went to Blackburn and so hopefully this again would bring out the bes tin him. I dont think Man City will be getting the quality of player they are hoping for, I doubt Barry will go to either Spurs or City as neither are playing in Europe and I dont think Young would want to leave to a club below us anyway. Neither players seem that money hungry and in particular for Young a move to a club not in europe make no sense considering he wants to get into the England starting XI.

Comment 41, made on May 25, 2009 at 7.07 pm

Craig Grant said:

... Talk of players wanting to play European football is all very good but they want to play Champions League football. Villa can't offer that and nor can they offer a good chance of trying to win the UEFA Cup because despite having a great chance at winning that this season your manager dropped a boll0ck and sacraficed actualy doing something of note for a pipe dream that everyone, apart from him it seems, realised was no where near possible....yet. If UEFA cup really is a lure for players (which i doubt it is anymore) then i'd imagine they would only want to play for a manager that respects the competition and wants to win it.

Comment 42, made on May 25, 2009 at 7.21 pm

Craig Grant said:

... Damian...good work locating the Keane transfer story and proving the fee was £19mill plus £1.1mill further compenstaion (or whatever it was). The further compensation wasn't anything to do with Keanes transfer fee, it was a payment to stop us from reporting them to the FA for 'taping up'. The £19mill is being paid in installments though. If you think any club apart from Chelsea or City will pay £19mill up front for a player then you're a fool. The 2nd installment they were supposed to pay us was waived and we paid around £5mill for Keane (i believe), so Liverpool ended up making a small loss, which was basically a fee for having the player for 6 months. As for Bentley, i'd imagine the first team that offers over £8mill will get him.

Comment 43, made on May 25, 2009 at 7.37 pm

peel parker said:

... What Accrington Stanley squad? You mean Sean McConville and Paul Mullin about the only 2 players currently under contract for next season?

Comment 44, made on May 25, 2009 at 7.41 pm

Simeon said:

... O'Neill is no mug? Untrue. Lerner is no mug? The jury's out, although given that he hasn't sacked O'Neill, it looks like they're heading for a guilty verdict. Therefore, there is no grounds for optimism. On Reo-Coker, I think it would be a real shame to see him go (though if I was him, I'd be battering down O'Neill's door, and then battering Martin himself for making him look like a fool by playing him at right back). He has passion, determination and is a leader. As good as Petrov has been this season, we've missed Reo-Coker in the midfield. Why O'Neill didn't play both Nigel and Stan alongside Barry I don't know. With Barry off, we should be talking about Reo-Coker being our new captain, but due to O'Neill's actions, such a suggestion is laughable. Good luck Nigel, and here's to the rest of your carrer as a central midifled player, rather than a reserve right back.

Comment 45, made on May 25, 2009 at 8.21 pm

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