Martin O’Neill revealed today that Nathan Delfouneso will be travelling out to Portugal tomorrow to link up with the rest of squad and he’s hoping the striker can play some part in Sunday night’s match against Benfica at least. Even if he doesn’t play this weekend, just being with the squad and not stuck at home is good for him ahead of the new season.

The same thinking applies to James Collins who is nursing his calf, but a little Algarve sunshine, golf and team bonding can work wonders I hear.

It’s funny how quickly things can change. Unable to field a recognised striker until young James Collins came on for the final third of the first pre-season game against Basingstoke, MON now has his complete strike force at his disposal; Agbonlahor, Carew, Heskey, Delfouneso and Weimann.

With Delfouneso and, to a lesser degree, Weimann both trying to force their way into MON’s first team plans, it does beg the question about the likelihood of any new strikers joining without someone heading for the exit door.

Incidentally, Sunderland played Benfica on Tuesday and were beaten 2-0, with the Portuguese side putting in a very impressive performance from all accounts. It might be an interesting benchmark to see how we compare so soon afterward. Steve Bruce fielded a 4-5-1 with Kenwyne Jones ploughing the lone furrow, but with 5 strikers at his disposal, MON is surely more likely to field 2 up top.

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Martin O’Neill
There has been an offer from a football club, which Luke is mulling over and if it doesn’t materialize then he would also join us [in Portugal] because he needs to play some football soon. We will see how that develops.

My personal opinion is one of slight disappointment, but I won’t lose any sleep over it. I like Luke, always have done, but in the “Tale of the Tape” I put his performance at right back against Carlos Cuellar’s in the same role statistically and showed there wasn’t a whole lot between them. Carlos certainly isn’t anywhere near the appalling right back some insist on portraying him as.

On the more positive side, in the “Inside-out Wingers” I made the case that we need the overlapping forward runs we would associate with Young and Warnock to unlock the real benefits of playing Ashley Young and Steward Downing on the “wrong wing”.

You pays your money, you makes your choice I suppose. It seems overly simplistic, but it’s become a truism that Cuellar offers the stronger defensive options and Young offers more in attack, at least in open play.

I do hold a lot of value in full backs as auxiliary attackers. In fact I tend to think of them primarily from that perspective, but it’s impossible to dismiss the defensive nightmare Young had at Stamford Bridge and the number of times that Cuellar snuffed out any threat down his side of the pitch, it’s become difficult not to imagine that Cuellar helped save more points than Young could have contributed to gaining.

All Things Considered

As The Guardian points out; Luke Young had a horribly unfortunate start to last season. Firstly he was injured when the squad were out in Spain for the Peace Cup and, before he was fit again, he took another knock back with the terrible personal tragedy of his brother’s death.

Rumours about a falling out with Martin O’Neill persisted, but I’ve never seen anything to convince me, frankly. MON rightly or wrongly brought in Warnock, Dunne & Collins since he was also dealing with the fact that Curtis Davies required shoulder surgery at the time and, as far as I’m concerned, once fit, Luke Young fell to 5th choice among the defenders. Yes, it’s true, the way MON operates, that could also be interpreted as “5th favourite”.

Once the foursome of Cuellar, Collins, Dunne & Warnock were thrown together for the first time against Birmingham City, it was clear that we had a rock solid defensive unit. Until Collins picked up a knock a little while later, Young was unable to get his way back in and frequently relied on filling in at left back rather than right.

Young publicly expressed his frustration during the close season at what he saw as not getting a fair crack at playing and I can certainly understand his perspective. However, I take the view that collectively we had one of the best defenses in the league and if it ain’t broke, why fix it? We did struggle for goals somewhat, but you’ll never convince me that was because Luke Young wasn’t playing so, in final analysis, I have to place greater value on Cuellar’s defensive abilities over Young’s attacking qualities.

Show Me The Money

Luke Young is apparently also one of the club’s highest earners, I don’t think I’d be far off the mark if I claimed he was earning £45k/week. That’s over £2m per year and with our wages to revenue ratio being what it is, this has to be viewed pragmatically.

With Carlos Cuellar likely to resume his position as first choice at right back, Eric Lichaj likely to be signing a new contract and making a serious attempt at staking a place in the first team squad, Habib Beye offering a slightly less effective, but probably considerably cheaper version of Luke Young, and Young himself unhappy, it’s an absolute no-brainer that a significant offer would have to be accepted.

By significant offer, I mean a sum that wouldn’t be far from his residual value on the balance sheet, and that’s what we seem to have received from Liverpool. It will be interesting to see how it pans out as Young is no more likely to be first choice ahead of Glen Johnson than he is ahead of Carlos Cuellar, but perhaps he will be happier knowing that to be the case up front and feeling he has a fair chance of competing.

Ultimately, as I said on Twitter when the news broke and received a negative response or two; it’s a shame, while I’ll be saddened to see him go and I do value him as a player, £2m off the wage bill isn’t to be sniffed at, we do have options and we’ll be fine.

If Luke does go, I’ll simply say thanks and best of luck.

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AVFC Official Site
James Milner trained with the rest of the Villa squad today at Bodymoor Heath. He and the manager, along with chief executive Paul Faulkner and the player’s representative, Matthew Buck, had an amicable conversation and, while James will not play in tomorrow’s game at Walsall, he will fly with the squad to Portugal on Wednesday ahead of the Guadiana Cup in which Villa will compete with Benfica and Feyenoord this weekend.

Perhaps, like fattening the Turkeys before Christmas, it’s in our own interest to keep the player fit before selling him. Or maybe the whole thing has been an elaborate act to fool everyone into thinking he’s leaving, thereby stalling the entire transfer market, before we swoop into action, getting the jump on everyone in the process.

Maybe I shouldn’t think so much. Now, where’s my tinfoil hat?

On a more serious note, if he doesn’t prove a disruption, there’s no real harm in him travelling to Portugal I suppose. I’m not sure there would be a whole lot of logic in playing him if he wasn’t going to be part of the team going into the season, but then again the window does close after the new season begins.

Ironically, I’ve seen one or two others around the Villa sections of the interwebz expressing a frustration and boredom with what they see as a “saga”, when the reality is that very little of any real substance has actually happened so far. At least in the public arena in any case. For me, it’s only just started to get interesting, but then I make a point of sticking as far away from those tabloid rumours as possible.

That said, a swift resolution one way or t’other would definitely be welcome.

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All three will be reasonably happy with their performances. Nathan Baker was solid, tidy and well disciplined at the back for England. Perhaps caught out positionally a little early on, as Austria fired the opening salvos of the game, he recovered well and played out the full 90 minutes with an assured, confident style.

Andreas Weimann used his pace and tenacity to make a nuisance of himself throughout the game. He’s a pretty unselfish player, setting up several good opportunities for his team in the final third and he looks like he has something of the poacher about him.

Nathan Delfouneso played much of the first half in wider positions, both left and right, and in a slightly withdrawn role supporting West Ham’s Frank Nouble, who fired England into a 2-0 lead with two very impressive strikes, although the Austrian keeper will want to have a look at the tape for the second.

The Fonz had two very good chances to add his name to score sheet in one-on-one situations with Philip Petermann, the Austrian goalkeeper, and may be disappointed that he didn’t manage to finish at least one of them. The first opportunity came in the first half with a clever run into space in the middle, but Petermann was off his line quickly and smothered Delfouneso’s attempted nutmeg well.

The second chance came late in the game with Nathan in full flight and a lot of space in the right channel. Petermann was again off his line quickly, but Delfouneso might be willing to admit that he telegraphed his jink to the right a little and the Austrian was again able to snuff out the chance.

Otherwise, it was a very solid display from the Fonz and I was particularly impressed with his general reading of the game in a supporting role. His touch, composure and ability to spot the pass combined with his positional sense reveals his maturity and I remain optimistic that this will be his breakthrough season.

When we talk about strikers playing deep and linking up play, in the fashion that Heskey will often be defended, this is what we really want. Not only can Delfouneso drop deep to collect the ball and run the channels, forcing defenders to leave space, he’s a genuine goal threat in the way Heskey rarely is these days. He’s also got a trick or two up his sleeve that Ashely Young would be proud of and pace to burn.

As a footnote; contrary to the belief that Villa can’t scout further afield than Glasgow, Weimann is one of three young Austrians at Villa at the moment and while goalkeeper Thomas Dau and defender Dominik Hofbauer do qualify for the under-19s, neither are part of the Austrian squad in France.

England will play Holland on Wednesday before the final group game against hosts France on Saturday.

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Nothing like a good old beep test on your first day back at work after a long break, eh? The OS has some fantastic pictures of the first team back in training, kitted out in new purple gear with the FxPro logo emblazoned on the front. I’ve just borrowed a few here, but there’s lots more on the OS, so go check it out. I think I’m a fan of purple for the training kit, there’s a certain logic to it.

It looks like just about everyone is there except the World Cup foursome, who are excused until July 25th, and Nathans Delfouneso and Baker, who are travelling to France today with the England Under-19s.

They’ve got about 11 days to work out the summer cobwebs before the first pre-season friendly in Peterborough on July 19th. I’m starting to get a little excited here, but also saddened by the knowledge that Sunday’s World Cup final signals what will surely be a tumultuous frenzy of baseless transfer speculation for the rest of the window.

Ah well, the relative peace has been nice while it lasted. Release the transfer hounds!!

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After spotting that Nathan Delfouneso had also been omitted from the travelling party, and doing a little digging, I found he and Nathan Baker were in Ukraine representing England Under 19’s in their European Championships.

The Under 21 tournament is held every two years, so that won’t affect our build up this year, but the Under 19 version is held every year and both Nathans have just been confirmed in the 18 man squad to travel to Normandy.

England’s group games will be against Austria on July 18th, Holland on July 21st and France (the hosts) on July 24th. The semi-finals are scheduled for July 27th with the final taking place on July 30th. If England make it all the way to the final, as they did last year – losing 2-0 to hosts Ukraine – it’s unlikely that the two players will be available for Villa’s pre-season fixtures until the final game, Valencia at Villa Park on August 6th. It’s possible that they could travel down to the Algarve for the Guadiana Cup game against Benfica, but I doubt that’s likely.

With the World Cup still in action and following England’s appalling display, it’s difficult for me to begrudge two of our players taking part in this competition. In fact, it’s probably very good for their development in the longer term. On the other hand, Delfouneso is very much on the fringe of the Aston Villa first team now and I would imagine MON would be far more willing to get him on the pitch earlier in the season on the back of a strong pre-season showing. Which is to say, less likely without a decent pre-season with the rest of the team.

However, that’s idle speculation on my part and, in any case, the Europa League play-off matches will be played on August 19th & 26th and I’d be very surprised if Delfouneso wasn’t given a good run out in those games, assuming he’s fit and available.

MON has already made it quite clear that he had intended to use the Europa League to give some of the periphery players games last season and intends to do the same again this time out. It’s therefore very much in Nathan’s own interests to go all out to make sure we don’t fall at the first hurdle this time. If we can get into the group stages this season, it almost guarantees 6 games that young striker can expect some significant pitch time.

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• Michael Johnson
• Stephen Ireland
• Shaun Wright-Phillips
• Adam Johnson
• Gareth Barry
• Patrick Veira
• Nigel De Jong
• Yaya Toure
• David Silva

I suppose from our perspective, and, I suspect, a lot of teams, that’s a pretty intimidating array of talent. I can’t help wondering whether that’s something James Milner feels he should join to improve his game, or whether he would be reluctant to risk not playing as much as he does now. He likes to play, we know that.

I suppose there’s the longer term view that Champions League could well be on offer in 2011/12 with City, but then again, it might not. We all know that these super egos could fail to gel, they could rack up a run of bad results, the manager could be shown the door and the wheels would fall off the wagon.

Wishful thinking on my part perhaps, but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility. On the other hand, if everything slots into place and these guys actually play well together… well, it doesn’t look too promising for the rest of us, does it?

England Sticks With Fabio

In other, unrelated news, the FA have just confirmed that Fabio Capello will remain on as England boss, which I think is good news. He’s made a few mistakes for sure, not least leaving Ashley Young and Gabby Agbonlahor behind, but there’s no question that he’s a top notch manager. When you consider the alternatives, it’s clearly the best option and common sense has prevailed in my opinion.

Pre-Season News

And finally, back to Villa, Peterborough have been added to the pre-season fixtures and tickets for the Guadiana Cup games in Portugal have gone on general sale. I’ve added details for both to the pre-season page.

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It’s an intriguing policy and one I personally feel isn’t too clever in the long run. Equipping your up and coming talent with competitive experience, albeit at a lower level, may well be the smart thing to do according to conventional wisdom, but it remains to be seen whether handing the wholesale development of the players outside the first team to other clubs is the way to go.

By contrast, there were three players at Villa last time out whose development MON specifically wanted to keep in house; Nathan Delfouneso, Marc Albrighton and Ciaran Clark. He more than likely wanted to ensure they were available for the first team too.

How Tottenham deal with the rehabilitation of players following injury I’ve no idea, but whatever it is, they won’t be alone next season. Stoke, Fulham and Birmingham City have joined Tottenham in electing not to enter the Reserve League for 2010/11, forcing the introduction of a new format for the remaining 16 teams.

For 2010/11, there will be three groups; two in the north; A & B, and one in the south, which will include Aston Villa. The teams in the south will play a 20 game season, while the teams in groups A and B will play a 19 game season, before the winners of each group meet in a play-off for the right to play the winner from the south in the final.

I presume hosting the final will continue to alternate between north and south, in which case it will be the south’s turn next season.

The groups will be as follows:-

Are the days of the reserves league numbered? I would hope not, but it will be very interesting to see whether this trend continues. You can bet the other Premier League clubs will keep a very close eye on how Tottenham et al get on over the coming seasons and it’s equally likely that the clubs in the Championship and below are going to be extremely happy with these developments. Between the 4 Premiership sides no longer competing in the reserves league, it could easily mean 40 or 50 players being available for loan next season.

Everyone’s a winner? We shall see.

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After a couple of successful loan spells at Lincoln and Leyton Orient under his belt last season, I was curious about what the future held for the 21 year old and I was delighted to learn just now via MLSsoccer.com that Eric has been offered a new three year contract. Apparently it’s just a matter of his agent, Steve Kelly, flying over from America next month to finalise the deal.

This will obviously add to the speculation surrounding the future of both Luke Young and Habib Beye at Villa, but there’s no suggestion that Lichaj is expected to be first choice right back.

“He’s very close to the first team,” said Kelly.”I’ve had many discussions with Martin O’Neill. He’s had interest from other clubs, but they are showing how badly they want to keep him. This is a serious contract.”

It would seem unlikely in any case since Carlos Cuellar will almost certainly be returning to full back next season, making Young and/or Beye’s Villa career look all the bleaker. Lichaj’s best bet, perhaps, will be to aim for some playing time during the domestic and European cup competitions and hope to impress enough to get the nod at right back should Carlos have to cover for either Collins or Dunne.

My suspicion is that MON would prefer deeper cover there as far as the Premiership is concerned, but it may well be a question of priorities and he’s certainly demonstrated in the past that he’ll look to fill other gaps in the squad first.

Hopefully we’ll get a clue about MON’s plans during the pre-season, but we won’t know for sure until the transfer windows slams shut at the end of August. In the mean time, I’m extremely pleased to lean that Lichaj is more than likely among those plans in some form or another.

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