Christian Benteke

If we win tomorrow that's European football we can dangle in front of his nose.

Anyway, he didn't go last time the media went into overdrive, maybe he'll stay anyway. He looked miserable when he played for Lambert this season but Sherwood had him smiling (and scoring) again.

If he nets the winner tomorrow, and he will, :) he can leave with my blessing. I'll be gutted of course but what can you do?
I hope we get a takeover and he gives it another year to see how that develops. But if a Chelsea or Man City come in and meet the clause, it may be too tempting for him.

Let's hope for the best but try and empathise. It's not his fault we've been trawling the bottom recently. In fact he's kept us in the league at least twice and shown loyalty last year by signing a new contract.
We're hopefully rebuilding back to the top again but its going to be a long process and he may feel too long.

There's no nice way of saying this - If we are selling him for £32.5m - I wish we had a bloke with a track record in the transfer market spending the proceeds....

smetro wrote:
There's no nice way of saying this - If we are selling him for £32.5m - I wish we had a bloke with a track record in the transfer market spending the proceeds....

If the bloke who is going to be spending the proceeds hadn't come in to the job we'd have no premier league football next season and Benteke would be off for half the price.

Both good points.

Headline
"Simon Mignolet promises to convince Christian Benteke to join Liverpool"

Well its done wonders for you simon - !

Sherwood willing to break the wage ceiling to keep him at the club. Where has that money come from? Can we still get a partner in for him like Austin? Would you all want him to stay or not?

mefromhere wrote:Sherwood willing to break the wage ceiling to keep him at the club. Where has that money come from? Can we still get a partner in for him like Austin? Would you all want him to stay or not?

2 things spring to mind here. First, Delph and Agbonlahor earn more than Benteke....I think the £75k a week touted for him brings him in line with those two....so not truly breaking any structure and the money is covered with the release of Darren Bents wage.

Second, I'm not sure he is suited in a front two...particularly another target man like Austin.

ViewFromT2 wrote:

mefromhere wrote:Sherwood willing to break the wage ceiling to keep him at the club. Where has that money come from? Can we still get a partner in for him like Austin? Would you all want him to stay or not?

2 things spring to mind here. First, Delph and Agbonlahor earn more than Benteke....I think the £75k a week touted for him brings him in line with those two....so not truly breaking any structure and the money is covered with the release of Darren Bents wage.

Second, I'm not sure he is suited in a front two...particularly another target man like Austin.

Except Austin isn't a target man. If you'd watched QPR at all you'd have seen Austin played around Zamora up top, Zamora being the target man.

Dazzle wrote:

ViewFromT2 wrote:

mefromhere wrote:Sherwood willing to break the wage ceiling to keep him at the club. Where has that money come from? Can we still get a partner in for him like Austin? Would you all want him to stay or not?

2 things spring to mind here. First, Delph and Agbonlahor earn more than Benteke....I think the £75k a week touted for him brings him in line with those two....so not truly breaking any structure and the money is covered with the release of Darren Bents wage.

Second, I'm not sure he is suited in a front two...particularly another target man like Austin.

Except Austin isn't a target man. If you'd watched QPR at all you'd have seen Austin played around Zamora up top, Zamora being the target man.

Worked well for them didn't it!

smetro wrote:
Headline
"Simon Mignolet promises to convince Christian Benteke to join Liverpool"

Well its done wonders for you simon - !

And yet Villa are the only club (correct me if I'm wrong) to get charged for tapping up.

Trotters wrote:

smetro wrote:
Headline
"Simon Mignolet promises to convince Christian Benteke to join Liverpool"

Well its done wonders for you simon - !

And yet Villa are the only club (correct me if I'm wrong) to get charged for tapping up.

Personally don't see anyone paying £32.5m for him, but if they do then that is great business for Villa.

I don't want him to go but he does restrict the way we have to play in my opinion. Get it wide, get crosses in to him fine, but if opposition stifle that game plan, then he becomes very ineffective.

Interesting to hear Ray Parlour and Alan Brazil talk about him this morning, basically confirming my long held belief....his movement is a big weakness in his play. He's too easy to mark, that's why playing the passing game never suited us at all and the goals dried up. All three of our 'strikers' are like traffic cones!
Don't think Mertesacker has ever had an easier game in his life....had the cigar on!

ViewFromT2 wrote:

Dazzle wrote:

ViewFromT2 wrote:

mefromhere wrote:Sherwood willing to break the wage ceiling to keep him at the club. Where has that money come from? Can we still get a partner in for him like Austin? Would you all want him to stay or not?

2 things spring to mind here. First, Delph and Agbonlahor earn more than Benteke....I think the £75k a week touted for him brings him in line with those two....so not truly breaking any structure and the money is covered with the release of Darren Bents wage.

Second, I'm not sure he is suited in a front two...particularly another target man like Austin.

Except Austin isn't a target man. If you'd watched QPR at all you'd have seen Austin played around Zamora up top, Zamora being the target man.

Worked well for them didn't it

It worked very well for Charlie Austin, scoring 18 Premier league goals. And it is Charlie Austin we're talking about, rather than QPR as a team.

This is the problem of course with him being an isolated striker, it's all very well knocking the ball up to him for our runners to support and run past him etc but if those runners are tied up tracking the runs of the oppositions runners, as was the case big time against Arsenal & indeed Southampton then he is basically one very easy to mark striker and his only remaining strength is his amazing Arial ability, The issue though is it means the players crossing the ball to him are doing so from long range as they are then behind the play, this means it is easy to read...in the Cup Final Arsenal knew this and got their keeper to come out and punch it off his head...Simple! Southampton did exactly the same in the 1-6. We then had nothing left as it proved apart from when Gabby came on and had to try to run it in from deep which he did and should have at least had a penalty...but Benteke's threat was very easily nullified by simple tactics.

For me Tim should have brought Sinclair on as he could have run down the wing and crossed thus giving more time for the midfielders to catch up with play and cause a lot more problems.

Arsenal prevented us getting crosses in and it worked, Benteke was pretty much completely neutralised. While I'm not suggesting that 'As long as Arsenal play well they win' isn't a valid point, anyone thinking tactics had nothing to do with Saturday needs to re-watch the game objectively.

I love Benteke and I would be delighted if he stayed. But I do think people who say he is 'world class' are aiming a little too high. He is world class in terms of what he is great at, but a world class player needs more in his locker. Frank Lampard was world class at his best qualities in terms of making late runs etc, but would I describe Lampard as a 'world class footballer'? Hell no.

Possibly getting a bit bogged down in semantics there but hey, it is what it is!

Whether he stays or not though, we definitely need AT LEAST one new striker in.

Benteke isn't world class yet, but another 2 years at the top and he will be. Maybe less. He has all the attributes to be brilliant, just needs to develop.

Does he remind anyone else of Zlatan? Tall but can play it on the deck, bit of swagger about him. But can go missing in big games if defended against properly

Villa_Dan wrote:Benteke isn't world class yet, but another 2 years at the top and he will be. Maybe less. He has all the attributes to be brilliant, just needs to develop.

Does he remind anyone else of Zlatan? Tall but can play it on the deck, bit of swagger about him. But can go missing in big games if defended against properly

Yes he may well be. There aren't *that* many strikers out there that I'd swap him for. I do love the bloke. I just feel that some of our fans expect too much from him, and when things don't go to plan they presume it's 'laziness', however I feel that is often far from what's gone wrong.

He can't win a game against the top teams on his own.

Then again who can? Short of Messi or Ronaldo the list of players at that level is very short. I think world class is thrown around too easily. Tekkers is an elite strikers IMO That level below world class.

Villa_Dan wrote:He can't win a game against the top teams on his own.

Then again who can? Short of Messi or Ronaldo the list of players at that level is very short. I think world class is thrown around too easily. Tekkers is an elite strikers IMO That level below world class.

Yeah, I'd go along with that.

I think I am just being pedantic about the 'world class' term. Like I get with the word 'legend'. Me and some Villa fans definitely do not see eye to eye on who they class as Villa legends, my criteria is always harsher, but then I think the word legend should have some value 

Legend is different. You could say only players who won us major honours are at that level, but then you've the likes of Mellberg and Laursen. Legend is a much more subjective term

Oh of course. I'm okay with it not being limited to medal winners. Paul Merson is my biggest gripe. Didn't do enough in big games for me. Ian Taylor on the other hand, with far less natural ability - the bigger the game, he better he seemed to play.

Mind you, I saw Collymore described as a legend on Twitter the other day. I actually unfollowed the person because of it, ha!

Back to Benteke, just got round to reading his interviews, he seems happy enough but his agent seems to be indicating European football is the thing he wants. I've no idea how this will pan out to be honest.

His agent is a major gobshite

He kinda looks like one

Living off the talent of others and a face you want to smack

Villa_Dan wrote:Living off the talent of others and a face you want to smack

Robbie Williams?