Seeing as the Mirror is reporting it - it must be true. "Aston Villa have valued Gabby Agbonlahor at a staggering £12million as their former manager Martin O'Neill prepares a bid to take him to Sunderland. As MirrorFootball revealed last month , O'Neill wants a new spearhead for the Black Cats' attack and is keen to go back to one of his old clubs for England striker Agbonlahor. However, the Brummies are holding out for a massive fee for the 25-year-old local lad, who is their acting skipper while Stiliyan Petrov receives treatment for leukaemia. O'Neill needs a new striker, with Nicklas Bendtner's season-long loan from Arsenal about to end and Asamoan Gyan unlikely to return to Wearside from his loan at UAE side Al-Ain. Agbonlahor is his first choice, but Villa will ask for a higher fee than he is budgeting to pay at this stage." ************************* I would love this guy in our team. I think he is brilliant, better than Bent. With the right services this guy can get 15+ a season easily. I think 12million is a bit steep. I would say a figure of about 6-8million would be resonable. With MON at the helm he would be brilliant for us. He has a huge amount of pace, hell of a shot - from outside the box too -, and his overall play is brilliant. I hope we get him.
MoN has to sort out the strikers we already have before he will think about buying anymore... What happens to Gyan and Wickham (20m plus worth of strikers) will determine his next move.
Villa may well ask for 12 mill but doubt they will get it, I would back Short in any negotiation. Gyan I don't care about, he will be sold and I don't care who to and Wickham I can see going and I wont lose sleep over that.
I have a couple of Villa mates who reckon that Gabby is playing for a move at the moment even though he is presently skipper - saying that they are a pair of miserable b*ggers at the best of times, so they could be reading that wrong. If it is true though I can see that price coming down quite a bit as Villa look to offload. I reckon he would be a good addition to the team but I am not sure about him as our spearhead.
12 mil is a bit steep but, he is 25 and an England International and unfortunately that is the price we should be looking to pay for a good 15 to 20 goal a season striker. I'm sure MON will haggle a bit if we do go for him and, I would have thought 10mil plus add ons to be closer to the mark. Even if it is 12mil I'd take him he does what our strikers at present aren't doing scoring goals, he was played out of position last season so only scored a handfull of goals. I can see him getting closer to the 15 to 20 mark with the way we play and the wingers we have now, all we need then is a play maker in the middle and we are half way there to a decent side.
£12 million? About double what he's worth. Improvement for you on the rest of your strikers mind. Not a 15-20 goal a season striker either.
i'd take him but not for 12m, seems to get played out of position under mccleish, o'neill would get the best out of him i reckon, offer 7m and throw in elmo
The thing that always surprises me are the I would not take him at that price comments. I think 12 mill is OTT but then again its not my cash, if Short is willing to pay 12 mill and MON is then that's OK by me.
At £12m for a quick but average goalscorer (5 this season) we should look abroad for somebody better and on less wages, although I suppose his 1st touch will make Campbells look good!
Any negotiations with Villa could be swayed by the 6m top up on the Bent deal. Say we offered 6m and waived the Bent clause that could take that deal to 24m from 18m. I've always like agbonlahor but his development has ground to a halt at Villa. I don't see him leaving unless they get an offer to good to turn down but I can't see that happening. Good deal for us would be cash + Gardner for agbonlahor. If their expecting 12m straight then id rather get two 6m strikers together like Fletcher and Odemwingie.
If Agbo' does leave Villa, another bonus is that one more of Bent's 'suppliers' will leave and drop him further in the s**tpan de deserves to be in. Price on the bestard!!!
I'm a fan of his, I think he offers a lot, he holds the ball up well, and is lightening quick. He's not a great goalscorer, but then he is often shipped out left/coming deep to receive the ball. You know what though, an Agbonlahor/Bendtner strikeforce sounds really attractive to me, potentially at least, if we could get them at around £14million the pair, the the income from Gyan's loan and fee combined could buy both, in theory. Ellis & Randy are big pals, supposedly, i'd say we offer £8-9million, but have add ins taking it to £12million, incentivised on goals scored. Allegedly Villa still owe us around £8million for **** chops anyway, so there's a nice little bit of leverage. In essence we could possibly end up with Gabby & Bendtner for a zero balance, freeing up Whickham for a loan stint (in the Premier League for me, WIGAN would be perfect with the chances they create, and shank...).
I personally dont think we are at a level to loan players to other premier league clubs I also dont think wickham is good enough for any prem team not even wigan. If you look at the bottom 5 or any possible 3 coming up he'd be lucky to get on the bench at most of them. Imo he needs to go down to the championship atleast till January.
The best thing that could happen regarding this is for Villa to get relegated, then I'm sure the price would drop... As for Wickham, I don't think any of us have seen enough of the young lad to write him off!
My point is not that Iwantahor is not a bad player, he is probably better than average, but he is not a goal scorer, we need two goal scorers at least. Our last few games have shown what a lack of a goal scorer means. IMHO SB splurged cash out on Wickham/Ji when a goal scorer was need. If we spend what funds we have on more non-scorers we have little cash left for the biggest hole in the team squad ATM, our priority has to be at least one goal scorer, they generally unless you are luckily like the skunks, do not come cheap.
Who has 5 league goals this year and is joint top scorer. All opinion but id play him ahead of wickhan. Id even play Connor sammon ahead of wickham atm
