here's a quote from the transfer section on football365...
VILLA WON'T LET YOUNG GO
The Guardian claims that Aston Villa 'will not countenance selling Ashley Young when the transfer window reopens next month and are so determined to prolong the England international's spell at the club that they have refused to rule out the possibility of allowing him to run down his contract and leave on a free transfer in 18 months' time.'
It almost goes without saying that Villa would prefer Young to sign a new deal, but such is their determination to hang on to the forward for as long as possible that they are 'prepared to give serious consideration to Young seeing out his deal if he refuses to sign improved terms when they seek to resurrect new contract talks in the summer. There is a school of thought within the club that another 12 months of Young's services could be much more valuable than the significantly reduced transfer fee they would receive for him at the end of this season.'
interesting. i forgot all about his remaining contract but surely we must make a move for ashley young now while we can out bid a lot of teams, if not in the summer but run the risk of losing out to spurs. lets hope he wants to leave and we can pick him up at around £20m maybe construct some sort of swap deal involving babel or a couple of youngsters. he would be my top target out of all. i know the new owners don't want to throw money at the problem but to improve a squad and get quality young players you have no other option than to spend. we simply cannot wait long enough to bring in 18-21 year olds and develop them in the reserves etc. there are major holes in our first team that need addressing asap because if we don't we may fall too far behind and it will be too late to rebuild. this is make or break for hodgson... if i see carlton cole / david bentley and the likes sign i wont be happy. they are poor man's players.
