Aston Villa rumours and surely some players coming in soon

Saturday is August and we are playing competitive league football two weeks into August. You have to fancy that signings are coming soon don't you?

Well, there is quite a bit of speculation today, mostly about players coming in thankfully and they include Distin, Bent, Delph and Milan Jovanovic.

The first one about Distin is quite interesting. They say that O'Neill is hopeful that Distin will be travelling to Spain this week but that Pompey are holding out for a fee of about £4mn after a £2.5mn bid by Villa. If this is true, they're doing this because we sold Knight before getting a replacement.

The Darren Bent one is back and this time it is between us and Sunderland. He's not pretty and is beginning to look like a journey man player who probably has little incentive to actually do any work these days with the money he has in the bank and I'm ultimately not convinced. But if Carew does go, he would be a good replacement, in so much that he's a big man.

The Fabian Delph thing isn't really about us but reports in the papers are saying that Leeds want £8mn. for him and that interested clubs have been informed. Now, Leeds are owned by Ken Bates so he will know how much he can get for his player and he will try and milk it, but £8mn. for a kid that is unproven even in the Championship, I'm not sure anyone would be mad enough to pay this.

Lastly today, before I search out coffee and bacon sandwich, it's Milan Jovanovic. He currently plays for Standard Liege, the same team as Steven Defour and they have him down as an attacking midfielder and striker, so I'm guessing he is a bit of both. He isn't Defour and he is quite a bit older at 28 which sort of suggests we won't be paying the £8mn. that it is rumoured Standard Liege will want for him.

Four rumours, less than three weeks to the start of the Premier League season. Surely they'll be players coming in this week?