Transfer Whisper Report--Aleksander Tonev

Although reports on Twitter as of now say nothing is "100% official", it does appear possible the Bulgarian will be wearing the Claret and Blue for the next campaign. My personal scouting assessment on him? It's difficult to gauge from the current YouTube videos I've seen circulating and that is simply because I question the quality of the competition he matched up against. That being said, he far and away looks to be the most superior central playmaker Villa has had for quite some time.

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, other clubs (including a certain Champion's League club) are strongly pursuing Tonev, and it shouldn't be necessary to remind everyone that we've seen this movie before....

According to the Daily Mail:
"Aston Villa have made a £3.5million bid for Lech Poznan winger Aleksandar Tonev. Manager Paul Lambert made his move with Celtic and German side Werder Bremen also in negotiations for the Bulgaria international. Tonev comes highly recommended by Stilian Petrov but is leaning towards a move to the Bundesliga."

That doesn't exactly give me the warm and fuzzies that we've locked him up, and there is nothing to report on the Official Villa page.  Sorry if I pissed in any of your cereal bowls, but below is a video for your viewing pleasure of Tonev ice skating on the pitch:

Shay, We Barely Knew You

Shay Given has revealed he has held talks with Paul Lambert about his future and both player and manager agree he should be playing first team football.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner the goalkeeper said of the meeting:

'Last night I had a meeting with manager Paul Lambert and we both agreed that I should be playing first-team football and that's not happening at Villa right now.'

With Bradley Guzan replacing him between the sticks last season and performing well whilst it would be good to have somebody of Shay's calibre pushing him in training and ready to step into the breach if needed, you'd consider it very unlikely that he'd be willing to play that role at his age now where, let's be honest, he has only got a handful of years left in the game and he wants to be playing.

He also has a long contract left with us and with many wondering if Benjamin Siegrist is now ready to step up (although personally I still think he'd benefit from a good season long spell out, but on a youth deal that can be assessed every 90 daysto ensure he's getting the game time) Shay will no doubt have to be willing to accept a lesser contract, but at the same time there's not much chance of us commanding a fee that represents his quality.

It'll be interesting to see what the summer brings in this regard.