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Okore and Bennett Depart

Early in the week Joe Bennett was apparently going to be allowed to join Sheffield Wednesday, a club he was on loan at last season, on a free transfer. According to the Birmingham Mail, he’d passed a medical, agreed a three-year contract, and had Di Matteo’s blessing. Then Dr. X got involved.

That Tweet is as clear as mud and things didn’t really get much clearer from there. Talk about hanging your dirty laundry out for all to see. More on this subject below.

By Saturday morning Bennett had secured himself a transfer to Cardiff City, only now accompanied by a fair degree of angry fans’ spittle on his back. Again, it was a free transfer. With one year left on his contract at Villa, his residual book value written off would be a shade over £300k. So no biggie in the grand scheme of things. Or it shouldn’t have been, anyway.

It’s fair to say Jores Okore’s exit was a lot more low key. A crappy tabloid that shall not be named reported him on a jet plane Friday night destined for wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen. When the team sheets were released at Bristol he wasn’t in the 18 and as the referee blew his whistle for kick off it was announced that he had indeed returned to Denmark.

No idea of any details of the transaction yet. At 24 years old though, the centre back’s best days are very much ahead of him and they won’t be with us. That’s a damned shame if you ask me.

#fuckbringpolite, Jores. #fuckbringpolite

Putting The Twit In Twitter

I don’t want to make a habit of commentating on what anyone says on social media, including our club’s new owner, Dr. X. However, that’s not going to be easy if he, or whomever is operating his account, is going to continue publishing Tweets which are, let’s just say, inflammatory in nature.

Being open and approachable is fine; a “breath of fresh air” as many fans have opined. But micro-managing phone systems and kiddies’ merchandise? Spilling the beans on transfer dealings, in and out? Openly criticizing players? Come on, man, this is unprofessional and not a little embarrassing.

Providing content for the tabloids and blogs is a bit lame, but that’s the world we live in. However, when you’re generating headlines outside football circles because you’re quoting an extremely controversial figure, you definitely want to reconsider what you’re Tweeting.

But the Mao quote is pretty much beside the point for me. I’m slightly more bothered about the populist bullshit that was the real purpose of the Tweet:

Quotation from Mao:We must have faith in the masses! Truly fans’ viewpoints are even better than scouting reports!

Really, Dr. X? I guess, as Michael Gove recently put it, “people in this country have had enough of experts”. This sort of nonsense will resonate with a certain section of the fanbase, no doubt, but everyone else ought to feel uncomfortable. Insulted perhaps.

I don’t want to belabour the issue though. If Dr. X’s Twitter brings you joy, fill your boots. Each to their own. I happen to think he’s walking a dangerous path and it won’t end well if he doesn’t reign it in a bit.

Loaned Out

Jordan Veretout’s gone to Saint-Etienne for the season on loan. There’s no option to buy baked in though and he’ll have three more years on his contract beyond that so maybe he’s not done at Villa yet. Or maybe he’ll spend a season in the shop window and will be an attractive purchase for someone next summer. He won’t be in claret and blue during 2016/17, that we know.

Speaking of loans and contracts; Kevin Toner signed a new two-year deal and headed out Walsall in League One until the new year. Henry Cowans has also headed out for the same period, he’ll be in the league below at Stevenage.

De Laet

A little bit out of the blue, this one: we signed a new right back. Ritchie De Laet transferred from Champions Leicester for about £2m, signing a three-year contract. He played enough for Leicester last season to get a Premier League winners’ medal and then finished the season at Boro, helping them win promotion. And he still ended up in the Championship.

Though he’s a right back, he can play anywhere across the back line. He’s 27, pretty much coming into his prime, but he’s had more clubs than Rory McIlroy so I don’t know how attached anyone should get.

Bristol City 3 Aston Villa 1

The good news: Mile Jedinak and Ritchie De Laet both made their debuts, both in the Starting XI. Jack Grealish scored a nice goal early on; you can see the highlights on the match hub page. We were largely on top for the rest of the half and should have gone into the break further ahead.

The bad news: We weren’t further ahead and then had to play the second half.

The second half was another story once again. Bristol equalised and then took the lead a minute either side of the hour mark. Tammy Abraham tied it up before turning provider for Joe Bryan. Lee Tomlin killed it off with nine minutes remaining with a beauty of a free kick. Up where the spiders live.

Villa, on the other hand, picked up no less than seven (7) bookings.

So that’s August finished with a record in all competitions of played six, won one, drew two, and lost three. The one win was against Rotherham. They’re currently in 22nd position having taken a 4-0 hammering at Barnsley. Though they had a comfortable points gap from relegation, they’ve occupied the final position of safety in the table the last two seasons.

Rotherham.

Clearly there’s much work to do.

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