Zat Knight Linked Out But Talks IN?

contradicts these growing reports that he is on his way out doesn't it?!

Is he that bad for a 4th choice CB (considering we get another) - who is Man Utd after Vidic, Rio and Evans?? Who is Liverpools after Carragher, Agger and Skrtel?? Chelsea after Terry, Alex and Ivanovic (now that Carvalho seems on the way out). He is not a bad option after Davies, Cuellar and a.n. other!!

while i dont rate zat that highly i agree with deano. you do need capable players that can at least come in and do a job when required, but who are also happy enough to sit on the bench most of the time. If i could also be so bold as to compare us to Utd - think of darren fletcher, nani and, when he was there, phil neville. id love to have 4 world class CBs (for that matter id love to have 1!) but its just not realistic.

MF also just wrote an article on exactly the same thing... sorry MF, I beat you to it! lol. Same conclusion though, the reports link out but his quotes contradict that! Mixed Opinions On Zat Knight

You've got to love the media during the transfer windows, anything for a few extra column inches and if you believe them today Zat Knight will be a Bolton player by the end of the week.

Now this isn't really surprising as ever since the end of last season there have been rumours about Knight leaving to join either Blues, Wolves and most recently Bolton and whilst he's a good squad player and a devout Villan, very few would argue he's of the quality sufficient enough to warrant a regular first team place if our hopes this season are to again make a run on the Top 4.

The Express and Star state that Gary Megson looks set to have won the race for the centre half but the only snag is Villa require a replacement in first as Monny is fully aware of our frustrations at the size and talent of the squad given the departures of both Gareth Barry and Martin Laursen.

He doesn't plan on allowing anyone else to leave and further fuel the feelings of discontent until he makes a few moves of his own.

The immediate problem money wise that fans will jump on if this deal goes through is that Zat cost us £3.5 million when we signed him from Fulham, but the E&S suggest that a fee of only £2.5 has been/is agreeable.

However, for all the sense that does make as a potential deal, Zat himself is on the official site this morning suggesting that he could be Martin Laursen's replacement.

Speaking of being delighted that with pre season training under way it's 'back to business', he explained the obvious loss that Laursen was to the club, he further spoke about his desire to gain that first team spot now it's open.

Now if the plan was an informal/provisional bid has been accepted for Knight it makes no sense whatsoever to assume the player would not know, and in those circumstances to put him on the OS talking about his aims for representing Villa this season. But it wouldn't be the first time something strange occurs would it.

We sold cahill which was a bad mistake, so why follow up with Zat unless we have someone better to come in.

PAh, not going to bother in the future! lol

There has been so much speculation this summer linking Villa players to other teams, we already have a bare minimun squad so why do people think we are a stock market where every share is for sale lol. We have 3 standard defenders in Davies, Cuellar and Kinght. We need a new laursen because no matter how hard the others try they will never be as high a standard as him. In a ranking i'd say Knight is on par with Davies, with Cuellar as the 3rd choice. Knights postional play is alot better than Davies, but davies reads the game a lot better. We desperately need to sort the defence out though. Clearly, the fact we conceded the same amount as sunderland last year suggests that.

This is because a lot of brit sports journalists are nothing but gossip mongers who make a living off doing ***** all but printing *********.

Zat stays end of. Now Barry's left he has the best left foot in out team. God bless you Zat.

lerneravfc has hit it on the nail. If you were to read all the papers from the end of last season you would see several thousand different reports on all the transfers that are being made. In fact less than 1% of the stories are true. Having worked in press and radio for many years I can tell that many of the stories are in fact just . . . . . . . . . stories. Some made up by agents to generate pay rises for the player, or maybe to let the mgr know that they are supposedly in demand and therefore they must be worth a place in the team and not on the bench. Some is scaremongering. Most are just lies. I used to drink at the Queens Head in Brum city Centre when I worked at the Birmingham Mail. This was the pub of choice for many of the journos as it was next door. If the conversation was on football and somebody said they had heard that Villa were buying/selling a certain player, then invariably it was on the back page te following day. Usually it would say 'sources reveal that player x is about to sign for/or leave the club, with Villa lining up A N Other rumour to replace him'. Next thing the national papers would be reporting that A N Other might be joining Villa and is unhappy at his own club. The fans of A N Other then get peed of with this player for wanting to leave their club. This then causes all sort of problems. The best response is just to ignore it all, pretty much like M'ON does. What is said in the press regarding transfers is mainly rubbish and should be treated with the comptempt it deserves. This article sums it up. Wolves, Bolton, The Dildo Salesmen and more, have been linked with Zat. The only official comment is on the OS saying he is looking forward to fighting for his place. Yet we still would rather talk about unfounded rumours. Laughable.

I hope he stays, we need more players at this club that come out and say they don't want to leave, he's villa born n bred and i wouldn't want to leave would you!