It's Press Silly Season - Gardner To Leave

Ok, don't do many of these but following on from the fuss about the incessant Ash to Spurs nonsense, it'll be nice to put this one to bed about Gary Gardner before it takes on a life of its own.

Skysports.com has today released a thoroughly unquoted, speculative story about starlet Gary Gardner being tracked by Inter Milan and a number of rival Premiership clubs with the intimation that he is off and that Villa are 'keen' to hold on to him.

Gary Gardner as we know has huge potential and has been a shining light at all levels he's played at so far for both Villa and England.

Prior to his unfortunate knee injury he was tearing up trees in our youth and reserve campaigns and looked odds on to soon finding himself sitting on the first team bench such was his influence in games, let alone his eye for goals.

Sky 'understands' - yes that's a posh media term for saying bull-cough and has recently replaced the tired and tested 'sources close to' in an effort to give inventive stories and lazy journalism some credence (and sadly it works as shown by the fuss about Phil Thompson yesterday) - that 18 year old Gary only has one year left on his contract and a host of clubs are keeping tabs on his situation and are no doubt ready to pounce.

A 5 star stating the 'bleedin obvious' award goes to....

Any club worth their salt would be keeping tabs on a player with the potential of Gary Gardner, I'm reasonably confident our Academy are keeping tabs on other clubs Academy's for similar players. It would be naive to think other wise but that doesn't make a story does it.

So introduce and intimate the club are worried they could lose him, ah now we have a story with an angle. An angle that will excite fans hoping their club might be in for him and an angle that will annoy the chuff out of Villans everywhere at the thought of him leaving.....especially on the back of Milner to City, O'Neill to his P45 and the never ending Ash to Spurs BS.

Villans are already irate so tap into that and we have a story that will gain clicks, get adverts shown and the fact there's absolutely no substance to it is irrelevant.

Gary Gardner would be chuffed to bits with his progress bar the injury. He was pulled into the reserves by 'now' caretaker manager Kevin MacDonald regularly and he's seen elder colleagues like Clark, Bannan, Albrighton, Hogg etc pulled into the first team because Mac rates them. He knows Mac rates him, so why the hell would he want to go off to another club, let alone Inter Milan (Sky name check the Spanish Waiter as somebody who is a confirmed admirer of him during his time at Liverpool but don't bother including that 'confirmed' quote) at this stage of his career when he knows fit and back on form he has a cracking chance of really pushing on here and making a proper name for himself?

It makes absolutely no sense whichever way you look at it, the only truth in the piece - which going off a comment in another article here has appeared elsewhere today, so likely a fluffy PA feed on a quiet news day again - is that Gary Gardner is a talented youngster and clubs keep tabs on other clubs players.

But again, that's not a story unless you can find a hook.

The sooner people stop falling for the hooks, the sooner we'll have an accurate press in this country and going off the last few days, a few more fans without blood pressure problems.

To be ITK you just need to realise 95% of what you read in the media is total tosh.

Vital Villa on:

Vital Villa on:

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