Premier League strugglers may be forced to sell star asset, but not without a fight

 Aston Villa are determined to hold on to star striker Christian Benteke and will apparently turn their back on offers of £30million.

Whether this means they will take £31million is unclear but the gist of the story in the Sun is that the resolve is there to hang on to the young Belgian.

The headline is ‘We won’t Teke £30m’ I’m presuming that this is the papers play on words and not what Paul Lambert actually said.

The story is quite clear and there are plenty of strong words attributed to Randy Lerner like, adamant and vow and resisting temptation, no quotes obviously but plenty of strong words.

The general perception has been that Villa would pretty much take any offer for anyone to enable Lerner to recoup as much of his outlay as possible from when he was interested in football, Milner, Young, Barry and Downing have all departed in recent years.  

The more cynical amongst you may feel that this is simply a tactic to further drive up the price that is already following his hat trick against Sunderland, rapidly approaching Bale country.

Some of the usual suspects, Tottenham, Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City are said to be circling along with some clubs on the continent.

Lambert deserves credit, he stuck to his guns despite widespread criticism when he dropped Darren Bent and replaced him with Benteke.

If worse comes to worst for Villa fans,(that’s Benteke going and getting relegated) at least they’ll be safe in the knowledge that they have a manager who has the courage of his convictions and who can also spot a player, obviously the player will then be sold but at least he can spot them.

Allen Whyte

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