After 4 years of MON at Villa we should be used to his comments and the way of thinking but these comments today whilst in Portugal I have to say I am not encouraged by the words but do they reflect the reality ?

ON TRANSFERS

On incoming activity, he added: “There’s nothing imminent – let me put it that way.

“We’re on the lookout and we’ll see what does develop.”

This will of course anger many as it is clear we need a few gaps filled with quality players. However with caution that MON could say this today and sign someone next week and to add that the number of current moves are very low.

DISMISSING YOUNG and PETROV RUMOURS

On Young “I had a bit of a wry smile about it. It’s part of the game, it’s just that some things go close to the knuckle, if there are certain things that are well off the mark and are detrimental to the football club and the way we’re running it of course I’ll get irked.

“But not those type of things.”

On Petrov “But that doesn’t mean that teams like Liverpool wouldn’t be interested in him because he’s a top quality player. But as we speak, no-one from Liverpool has contacted us.

ON PETROV CAPTAINCY

“Players will say things through him and he will voice that opinion to me, whatever that might be and from that viewpoint it works pretty well. He’s not frightened to put his own opinion across and he’s not frightened to act on behalf of the players. He’s been excellent.”

ON MILNER

“I’ve left that with the chief executive and the owner and I’m sure that they’ll fill me in with what might have developed.

“I think that there is some sort of dialogue going on and I think that you can see that Manchester City have made an offer which has not been accepted and it hasn’t reached the valuation that Aston Villa are putting on James. Who know what might happen in the foreseeable future? The answer is I’m not sure myself.”

This interview on the OS is one of the most comprehensive I have seen from MON for a long while addressing all the recent news and rumours and either dismissing or confirming them.

From this interview I can only conclude the future of Milner and the selling of the likes of Sidwell and Shorey is vital to our whole transfer policy. Also very noticeable is that every interview when asked about Milner he is making it clear he has nothing to do with whether he gets sold or not, which as I posted a couple of days is a major gear shift for MON.