Wes

Now Praet?

Are these guys on twitter just going through my old posts?

Competition for Bennett. Not a clear replacement. I imagine they'll let them fight it out in pre-season for the starting role in the hope that competing agaisnt one another increases both of their abilitiy in the long term.

Bit of talk of us trying to sign Dyer from Swansea. Can't see that though. 

The source of that particular story is a wind up merchant on twitter.

Don't give him the time of day.

Okay Chosen Few - Who next? I am expecting another total unknown from our fantastic scout networking system to be revealed soon. The way things are going we'll soon be using that well known Stingray saying, "Anything Can Happen In The Next Half Hour!"

 

How fabulous is this transfer window so far? So, sooooooooooooo lovin' it.

Helenius at the weekend/next week hopefully.

After that? If rumours are to be believed Jed Steer, a Norwich youth keeper, to provide competition for Siegrest for that backup role.

As far as i've heard Bacuna likes to play CM, so he will be the missing piece in your ?????/Gardner. I know Wiki says winger, but he's pretty versatile i've heard. 

It's because he is so versatile that I simply decided to put him in the squad buffer for now but you could well be right.

How I view the squad currently assuming Helenius' move does work out:

Guzan/Siegreist

Lowton/?????? ----- Vlaar/Clark ------- Okore/Baker ----- ??????/Bennett

Westwood/El Ahmadi --- Delph/Sylla -----------

Weimann/Albrighton -----------  ??????/Gardner ------------ Agbonlahor/Tonev

Benteke/Helenius

Squad: Steer, Herd, Bacuna

In:

Bacuna £unknown

Helenius £unknown

Tonev £2.5m

Okore £4m

Steer - linked

Out:

Lichaj: Free

Makoun £2.5m

Overall

£4m+ out thus far

Anyone seen a reported fee?

That additional keeper will be Jed Steer from Norwich should the twitter ramblings be believed.

I agree though, there'll be a left back brought in to provide competition and, depending upon outgoings, a forward thinking central midfielder.

Fantastic! Welcome Jores!

Welcome Leandro!

Seems there'll be a friendly match between us and FC Groningen as part of the deal. May be next year though.

@con_villa or something like that

Yep. He has since, wisely, deleted his tweet as he would've likely got his mate in a lot of trouble.

Dutch reports say it's done. Waiting for additional info. Seems a deal was in place last Saturday.

Three year deal.

Maybe Lambert plans to use him at left back?

I think he'll be our swiss-army knife. The 7th name on the subs bench. Can be played almost anywhere.

If he's replacing anyone I would think it would be Holman. Unless the coaching staff have a specific role for him in mind he could played as the attack minded central midfielder that has been mooted to be incoming.

hes almost signed and we didnt even have a thread running for the poor lad.

It was created and immediately closed last night because the only concrete link at the time was traced back to a Villa fan's tweet. Seems he actually did have information from the club.

This kid seems incredibly versatile.

In his last season he played:

AM: 7 times

CM: 4 times

RB: 5 times

LW: 1 time

RW: 16 times

If we're really in for Bacuna, then I don't think we're after Belhanda anymore as they'd be playing in same position unless we're getting rid of KEA and/or Holman.

Holman is widely expected to be on the way out. Lambert gave him a fair shot but he was McLeish's signing.

Time to open up the main thread. Looks like Bacuna is real. Which also means the Norwich keeper link is true.

When do we stop signing wingers and forwards and start looking at the defence. Not that im complaining about Bacuna. Saw him playing once and was excellent

Yes we should only sign players in rotation. One attacker in. One defender in. Then an attacker. Then a defender again.

Or we could get the players we've obviously targetted for some reason, no matter what their position, as soon as we can!

Just shows the power of social media. One fan tweets something that we don't know the validity of, which is read by a fan of another club, and then that appears on a fansite's main page, which is noticed by a larger site, which then gets picked up by a Sky journalist back here.

@GraemeBailey 1m

Reports in Holland say Aston Villa are making a move for Groningen winger Leandro Bacuna, who in-turn want Southampton's Steve de Ridder.

If a Sky sports journo is tweeting about it then maybe there is more to this then....

I still say wait until we see a newspaper or website article, not from a fan site, before we get too excited.

Apparently the account tagged in it @Voetbalzonenl tweeted it first.... in dutch.. lol So maybe... Just maybe...

Aye, but I think he got his information from this Villa fan's tweet posted earlier in the day.

TWITTER BULL SHIT ALERT.... PLEASE LOOK AWAY IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ

 

Dutch Football ‏@football_oranje 51s

Aston Villa agree a fee for FC Groningen's Leandro Bacuna (via @voetbalzonenl ) #avfc #eredivisie

 

Seen this a few times this last hour..... He's a Winger akin to Lens from PSV...

I've seen a handful of mentions of Leandro Bacuna of FC Groningen expected to move to an English club this summer, potentially us.

Beware though. It seems all the talk linking us to this guy comes back to one tweet from one Villa fan's account so take that in to account.

File under sketchy twitter rumour for the time being.

Petrov possibly suggesting Tonev, Laursen possibly suggesting Okore...

Which other ex-Villa players could be suggesting players for us? It does appear we're using our connections well!

Carew suggesting Valon Berisha.