I’m told it involves a rather large Belgian and his star-struck agent. Christian Benteke and his advisor both feel it would be better if said footballer was allowed to ply his trade elsewhere.
I’ve no issue with people wanting to better themselves – and Tottenham are a more attractive proposition than they used to be (which isn’t hard, given they were once managed by Christian Gross).
What’s disappointed me most is that this stand-off has cast a cloud over a pretty positive summer thus far for Villa.
Another clutch of unheralded new signings have arrived – the sort of deals that couldn’t scream ‘Paul Lambert’ more if they turned up sporting glasses, grey hair and a Borussia Dortmund scarf. And then there was the deal which kept Andi Weimann at B6 until 2016 (or when the vultures start to circle).
But arguably the most important signature of the summer was that of Ashley Westwood. Coincidentally, he joined Villa on the same day as the upstart from Liege I was telling you about (I forget his name). But there’s no doubting his commitment to the claret-and-blue cause.
Villa won none of the eight Premier League games Westwood missed last season. A telling stat, perhaps, but not quite so telling as the effect he had on the pitch. You didn’t notice? Well, that’s kind of the point.
Lambert’s described Westwood as ‘the water carrier’, a nickname once disparagingly given to Didier Deschamps by that great French philosopher and actor – and occasional footballer – Eric Cantona. Comparisons to Deschamps are, in this case, both flattering and, dare I say it, accurate.
I first saw Westwood in the flesh just a week before his big move. He captained a young Crewe side that got well and truly battered at Brentford. Within days, Villa had paid £2million for his services. Money well spent as it turns out – Westwood kept, and used, the ball in a way some of his more experienced team-mates failed to do.
What stood out for me when I saw him at Griffin Park that day was not just that a 22-year-old was carrying the armband, but that he acted like the leader, even in a well-beaten side. One day, it might be that Villa tempt him away from the clutches of another club by offering him the captaincy. Given the chance to follow in the footsteps of Dixon, Mortimer, Southgate and Petrov, he would not let anyone down.
Eventually, the saga of the big lad and his move to Spurs will draw to a close. But what will live on is the spirit engendered in this Villa squad. The drive and determination of a group of youngsters – some of them good enough now, others with work to do – that will, in time, form a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
And that quiet determination is represented, in human form, by Villa’s canny number 15.
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