Broken hearted: Makoun follows Young and Hogg out the exit door

You’ll all be aware by now that Luke Young and Jonathan Hogg left Villa, joining QPR and Watford respectively, over the weekend; both signing three year contracts. Although I missed it at the time, Young’s move did warrant an announcement, Hogg apparently slipped away in the night.

I noticed during pre-season that Hogg had been removed from the squad pages on the official site, perhaps that’s got something to do with it. Then again, they’ve currently got Gary Gardner listed as

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Luke Young, Andreas Weimann and Gary Cahill

As someone who loathes the flood of transfer speculation we’re forced to swim through for the best part of 10 months of every year, I was actually pleased that cold water was poured on our prospects of trading in the market some time ago. However, with the transfer window coming to a close next week, there are a few signs of movement. There may be some ins and outs at Villa Park yet.

Luke Young

Luke Young is now confirmed to be

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Ash won’t be let go easily, Sidwell possibly heading for West Ham

Villa will not be letting Ashley Young head for the exit door in January and, if he doesn’t re-consider signing a new contract, the club may be willing to let him run down his contract and leave on a free in 2012. The thinking being that another season with Ash in the team is worth more than any potential transfer fee, but that would depend entirely on how committed he is.

In the mean time, Houllier is hopeful that Ash

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Ciaran Clark signs new contract and 3 months out for Petrov, but no surgery

We really haven’t had chance to see that much of him, but Ciaran Clark has already won himself an army of fans among the Villa faithful and beyond. I’m sure all fans will be as delighted as I am to hear that Ciaran has just signed a new contract at Villa, extending his stay until 2014.

He was inside the last 12 months of his contact and was starting to gain the attention of other clubs besides also being snapped

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Sky Sports News at Aston Villa open training day

Sky Sports were at Villa Park as part of another successful open training day, the third time the club have done this I think off the top of my head, and there’s a nice, relaxed interview with Gérard Houllier here. The gaffer confirms that Warnock will be suspended for Burnley, that Petrov will be out for at least a couple of months, Luke Young should be back in training in a week and Gabby is a week or two

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Portuguese Shorts – July 29th

The 22 man squad arrived in Portugal ahead of the weekend’s Guandiana Cup friendlies against Feyenoord and Benfica on their own private jet yesterday. That includes Luke Young, James Milner and James Collins, who was cleared after a scan on his calf Wednesday morning.

Luke Young’s agent has confirmed that he is discussing personal terms with Liverpool. Meanwhile, Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson insisted on showing his Macedonian hosts the courtesy of discussing tonight’s Europa League match against Rabotnicki, refusing

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Liverpool’s Bid For Luke Young Apparently Accepted

Liverpool have reportedly made a £2.5m bid for Luke Young and Martin O’Neill has confirmed the club have received a bid from an unnamed club with Young currently “mulling it over”:-

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,

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Tale Of The Tape: Carlos Cuellar vs Luke Young

Luke Young’s recent interview caused a predictable little debate here and there about how Carlos Cuellar isn’t a right back, etc. etc. Yes, he’s a better defender, but “he doesn’t offer the same as Luke going forward”. Or words to that effect. Seems like a good time to put their stats alongside each other.

I’ve trawled through the 38 Premiership games from the 2009/10 season and pulled the metrics for the games each player played at right back

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James Milner Can Be Our Wesley Sneijder

It’s been reasonably well reported that Paul Faulkner, and presumably Martin O’Neill, possibly Randy Lerner, will sit down with James Milner after England’s friendlies against Mexico and Japan this month to seek a verbal agreement from James that he will commit to a new contract on his return from the World Cup. The details of that contract will obviously be influenced by what happens in South Africa, but the management team will be looking to sell their vision for

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