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Young & Adebayor to Tottenham ?


Bryan72

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Martin O'Neill sensationally quit Aston Villa on Monday after failing to receive assurances that he would be allowed to re-invest all the money from James Milner's £24million sale to Manchester City.

The Villa manager was upset at being asked to mount a drive for Champions League qualification without funds being made available by owner Randy Lerner and called time on his four-year stint at the West Midlands club.

O'Neill resigned at lunchtime in typically enigmatic fashion after deciding that meeting those expectations without adequate resources was simply too tough a task.

He was hoping all the cash generated by Milner's defection, which is likely to be completed in the next 48 hours, would be handed over in addition to the proposed arrival in part-exchange of £8m-rated Stephen Ireland.

The turmoil at the club was made worse last night with the news that Tottenham have renewed talks to land Ashley Young for a fee of around £18m.

On Friday, O'Neill said of the Milner situation: 'I will be speaking to the chairman about it. He and the chief executive have been dealing with it. They are the ones who have the answers to that.'

Leaving: Milner will follow O'Neill out of Villa Park when he completes his £24m Manchester City move

Leaving: Milner will follow O'Neill out of Villa Park when he completes his £24m Manchester City move

But whatever was said does not appear to have been enough to convince him his future lay at Villa.

He hinted at his mindset during the same briefing when he said: 'Losing your best players at the club would cause anyone a headache. I am trying to build something.

'It happened a couple of seasons ago with Gareth Barry and it didn't get resolved and I'm not sure anybody here wants to go down that route again.'

Spurs interest: Redknapp is keen on Young

Spurs interest: Redknapp is keen on Young

O'Neill had given little indication of the bombshell he was about to drop when he asked to see Lerner's right-hand man, Paul Faulkner, at lunchtime yesterday.

He took training and his players noticed nothing out of the ordinary in their boss's mood. It seems O'Neill's assistants, John Robertson and Steve Walford, had no idea either. Both were still in their jobs last night.

But relations between Lerner and his manager have been strained for some time. The rift stems from an agreement struck 12 months ago in which Villa's boss was allowed to stretch his summer transfer budget beyond its original limit.

O'Neill bought Stephen Warnock, Richard Dunne and James Collins late in the transfer window at a cost of over £16m. That was sanctioned by Lerner on the understanding the Villa boss would trim his squad last January.

But he brought in only £3.5m by selling Craig Gardner as Villa reached their first Carling Cup final for 14 years.

O'Neill said before the Wembley showpiece he had the final say on every aspect of club life. But Villa's hierarchy were unimpressed with the finances.

Figures for the 2008-09 season showed Villa's wages had jumped from £50m to £71m. Their loss before tax was £46m, and the cost of chasing success at Villa has so far cost Lerner almost £180m.

Out of time: Villa owner Randy Lerner (centre) was disappointed O'Neill broke their transfer budget deal

Out of time: Villa owner Randy Lerner (centre) was disappointed O'Neill broke their transfer budget deal

The inability to reduce outgoings remained a source of friction. Villa's top brass suspected a story had been planted in the media linking O'Neill with the top job at Anfield leading up to their Carling Cup date against Manchester United.

After that defeat came a seven-goal thumping at Chelsea, and Lerner was upset by the manner of the defeat and the communication received from his manager.

Rumours began circulating of a bust-up between the pair. O'Neill intimated he was in his last season at Villa Park and gave what looked like a farewell speech at the club's awards dinner in May.

The situation appeared to have been resolved two days before the final match of the season, although O'Neill repeated he needed a clear message from his chairman about funds for team-building.

In contention: US coach Bob Bradley is among the candidates to replace O'Neill

In contention: US coach Bob Bradley is among the candidates to replace O'Neill

Faulkner said last night: 'The club would like to thank Martin for the great work he has done over the past four years. He has helped establish Aston Villa in the upper echelons of the Premier League, has taken us to Wembley and we have also qualified for European competition for the past three years.'

The timing of O'Neill's departure, five days before the start of the Premier League season, could hardly have been worse. Reserve team manager Kevin MacDonald has been made caretaker boss, with Sven Goran Eriksson the immediate favourite to take over, although he is unlikely to fit the profile set by the American hierarchy.

United States manager Bob Bradley is also heavily fancied. However, Jurgen Klinsmann was reportedly the No 2 target when O'Neill was appointed in 2006 and Ajax boss Martin Jol will also feature highly on any shortlis

Been linked all summer, really want him to sign and would be a great signing, Young and Lennon down the wings is enough to rip any team.

Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp may be interested in making a move for Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayor as he looks to strengthen his side for the coming season. Roberto Mancini has insisted that the Togolese international is very much part of his first team plans but the former Arsenal man has already stated his interest in a proposed move to Juventus fuelling speculation that he isn’t entirely happy at Eastlands.

The 26 year old had a decent, if not spectacular, first season at the club and with all the recent arrivals and the likely return of Robinho to the club from his loan spell, the powerfully built forward may be worried he could lose his starting spot for the forthcoming season. This may be what led to his comments relating to a potential move to Serie A.

A similar occurrence angered Arsene Wenger when Adebayor attempted to engineer a move to AC Milan and within a year the player had to be offloaded to Man City. In his first season at the club the former Monaco man managed 14 goals whilst Carlos Tevez powered on to register 29 goals and collect an array of Player of the Year awards.

Harry Redknapp is thought to be looking to bring in new strikers and has been linked with moves for the likes of Klaas Jan Huntelaar and is reportedly considering offloading Peter Crouch whilst White Hart Lane forwards Robbie Keane and Roman Pavlyuchenko are also by no means first team certainties.

A move for Emmanuel Adebayor would probably run at around £22m and a bid could well fall on deaf ears but nonetheless is appears to be a move Redknapp is considering.

Adebayor quotes relating to potential City exit: “I will be sorry to leave the Premier League, but in Europe there are other top leagues. Juventus are a great club in which I would like to play for.”

Not really a reliable website, not sure about this if it was to happen - hate the guy, but on the other hand, hes a great player.

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Keane, Defoe, Crouch, Pavyluchenko, Adebayor to choose from is pretty good. They have been very quiet in the window so far.

Would be surprised if HE was to get his game ahead of the rest.

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Those 2, on top of the current squad, would seriously give us the quality and variety to make a real push for the top 2 or 3 positions.

The current lot aren't set up for 4-5-1, 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, but these 2 players would allow us to do exactly that, when the time called for it.

ITK today is Young for £20m (£9m + Keane, valued at £11m), which I would be happy with. If Adebayor was to cost around £22m, we'd (in my opinion - not ITK) fund it with the sale of Pavlyuchenko for about £12m. Again, Ade' for Pav' + £10m is a fantastic upgrade at a reasonable price.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyOsBZvG6vE

Quite simply a fantastic player.

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Ashley Young would be a fool to go to Tottenham IMO.

Some of the more credible journailists have been saying that one of the key factors in Martin O'Neill leaving Villa was the break down of his relationship with Ashley Young and the reason it broke down was because Young had been askng/demanding to be played further forward and through the middle. Perhaps that was just shenanigans on Young's part in an attempt to engineer a move away, but you can't overlook that he did play upfront against Valencia at the weekend.

Now if he moves to Tottenham there is no danger that he's displacing Defoe upfront and Redknapp tends to be a be a fan of the big man/little man partnership so where on earth does he fit in?

Saying that Redknapp has said in interviews (this months FourFourTwo to be exact) that he's toying with the idea of playing 4-5-1, especially away from home. If that happens then there is a chance that Young could play in the hole, but I'd far rather see Modric deployed there should they go with that set up.

Young's a good, versatile player. But is he really worth the rumoured 20 million fee, especially when you have two better players in Defoe and Modric ahead of him.

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Joe Jordan was speaking the other day saying Keane was the best player during pre season so i see him starting the league if hes done that well in pre season. They also have Dos Santos IIRC Who can also play as a foward, so im not sure on the Adey story.

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