Villa Boss Explains Exits

Martin O'Neill has explained to the official site why, with a depleted squad, he decided to let two players leave Aston Villa.

With the exits of Peter Whittingham who moved to Cardiff and loan exit of Eric Djemba-Djemba who is now at Burnley, O'Neill said:

'Peter has gone to basically resurrect his career and get it going again. He has undoubted talent, but I think now is the time for him to go and play regular football. He's taken that opportunity. Eric Djemba-Djemba hasn't been featuring for us and therefore it's an opportunity for him to go and play some games.'

'This makes perfect sense for the pair of them. But, while we've got a couple going out, we would naturally want to bring people in and we're working strenuously at that to do something.'

It is obvious that jumper jumper was never going to be played so to get shot was the decent thing to do for the player but with no new arrivals, it does seem a strange strategy selling Whits for so little and carrying on from what we've seen over recent years where I'm told the youth policy has saved us but can't count how many of our youth products are now established Premiership players, let alone international players.

I think it is obvious that the short term way forward is a buying strategy and look for the likes of Ridgewell, Cahill and Agbonlahor to continue to blossom and remain in the Villa set up. Far too many of the golden generation have failed to make the level or to generate much income from their sale. Cooke, Stefan Moore, Foley, Myhill etc all spring to mind.

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