The thing annoying me most about this Hoolahan business

at the moment is nothing to do with my anti Hughton sentiments or desire not to see one of my favourite players leave the club. It is the fact that through the current round of agent/Villa propaganda going out in the media it is being presented that we are the bad guys here. And what is our supposed crime? Not selling poor little Wes (on ?30K a week no doubt) to a premiership rival who have offered us a derisory fee for him. Its not us saying no to his transfer request that is stopping him from going, it may not even be the fact its Villa (although i think that plays a part), the biggest reason he's not being sold is we don;t need to sell anyone and nobody has made a decent offer for him (regardless of whether there is a transfer request involved or not).

Mata has just gone to Man United for over ?30m quid. Now i'm not saying Wes is as good as Mata but he only 2 years older, they are similar style players and have probably played about the same amount this season. On his day i think that Wes can influence games at this level in the same way. You do not get proven, premier league attacking midfielders for ?750,000 (or even ?1.5 m if you believe the original reports), especially in the January window. Yet not one of these journo's running these stories has made anything other than a cursory mention of the pathetic fee being offered.

This all smacks very much of whole Lambert episode where through a media campaign Villa/Lambert tried to make out in the wake of his departure that he had been entitled to walk free of compo due to our unreasonable conduct. Its their modus operandi and for that reason I most definitely would not sell to Villa unless they offer us a ridiculous fee (which they won't). That grubby little club with their a**ehole manager should not be allowed to get another one over on us.

PS Grant Holt can stop sh*t stirring with his retweets as well. I loved that man when he played for us but sadly he too appears to be of the Lambert school of "no sentimentality."

Posted By: Jim, Jan 23, 09:22:10