Mass Exodus From Villa This Summer?

I'm not one to say I told you so, but 'I told you so'. I said months ago that players would want to leave Villa in the summer and suggested that Milan Baros could well top the list.

We already expect Lee Hendrie, Djemba-Djemba, De La Cruz, and quite possibly Mark Delaney to leave in the summer. The question on our latest poll was which departure do you most expect, 45% voted 'more to the point, who will want to stay?'. 45% of FANS questioning why the players would possibly want to stay at Villa Park? Amazing, but that is the Ellis (and now O'Leary) effect. No matter how much the manager insists he still 'has the dressing room' the performances on the pitch echo what happened at Leeds (where he also insisted to the end that he still had the dressing room, despite 'that' book).

Anyway, Baros' agent says there is a clause in the 24-year-olds contract that would allow him to leave after the World Cup. You can just see it now, he will repeat his fantastic Euro performance and the top clubs will come knocking. Some fans say that Baros isn't the quality we need. I think they are wrong, he makes the right runs, he gets in the right positions and he rarely gets the supply. Fair enough he has missed some very good chances recently, but then again, he has been the only striker to get in those positions in order to score.

You can expect a story to come out of Villa Park denying these quotes some time soon, but ..........?

His rep, Pavel Paska said 'Yes, there were really many clubs interested, but they didn't have enough money to afford him. It was necessary to pay the transfer fee and, together with this, to also not lower his wages. Eventually, Aston Villa were the club which fulfilled it. Of course, we think about the possible transfer out of Aston Villa after the World Cup. There's an option in Milan's contract for this case.'

So, he joined Villa to get regular football but also Villa were his only option. Will the same be the same after the world cup?

Also, what happens if bigger or more ambitious (for more ambitious, with Ellis still in charge that would surely cover 15 Premiership teams for a start?) clubs come in for our few quality players? Will Mellberg want to hang about if O'Leary remains? Would Gareth Barry turn down a move to a top club with ambitions of Europe? Why should our players want to remain at Villa when all the club is doing is drifting at best, sinking at worst?

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