Villa’s swoop (are all transfers swoops?) for Newcastle’s Habib Beye means away grounds this year will rock to the Happy Days theme tune,

Sunday, Monday, Habib Beye
Tuesday, Wednesday, Habib Beye
Thursday, Friday, Habib Beye
Saturday, Habib Beye, rocking all week with you!

from bbc

Aston Villa have signed defender Habib Beye from Newcastle United on a three-year contract for an undisclosed fee.

The Senegal international right-back, 31, follows Stewart Downing and Fabian Delph to Villa Park as boss Martin O’Neill’s third major summer signing.

He was Newcastle’s Player of the Year in 2008, and reached the Uefa Cup final with Marseille in 2004.

Beye had also been given permission by to speak to Hull City before opting to join Villa.

Discuss the transfer here

The €2m first prize certainly made this a meaningful and lucrative pre-season tournament.  Certainly much better than playing Nottingham Forest away.

from the Guardian

After neither side were able to make the breakthrough in either normal time or extra-time, Villa took the spoils in the 12-team pre-season tournament after winning 4-3 on penalties against the Italian side.

Both sides missed twice in the initial five efforts of the shoot out, with the Juve duo Vincenzo Iaquinta and Alessandro Del Piero – who would have won the trophy for his side with a successful penalty – having poor shots saved by Brad Guzan, and Steve Sidwell blazing over for Villa and Chris Herd being denied by Gianluigi Buffon.

But it was to be Villa’s night as, after Carlos Cuellar had confidently stroked home his side’s sixth kick, Nicola Legrottaglie smashed his effort over the crossbar to give Martin O’Neill’s side another impressive scalp having also beaten Atlante and Porto after losing their opening match of the tournament to Malaga.

There was little to separate the two sides in an evenly-fought opening period of the final, in which the Juve striker Iaquinta misssed one of the best chances when he headed wide from close range after Mauro Camoranesi had nodded Felipe Melo’s deep pass back into the danger area.

Melo also went close with an early 25-yard shot for Juve, while for Villa Ashley Young and John Carew both tested Buffon with efforts from outside the box as the first half finished goalless.

Juventus, who had beaten Real Madrid in their semi-final, turned up the heat after the break and David Trezeguet missed a gilt-edged chance in the 57th minute when he blazed well over from six yards out after Jonathan Zebina had pulled the ball back from the byeline.

Iaquinta, who was proving a real menace to the Villa defence, then headed over from a Zdenek Grygera cross before Guzan made a superb double save to keep Juventus at bay.

The impressive Guzan then did well to deflect away Zebina’s half-blocked shot after the Frenchman had latched onto Camoranesi’s clever pass and burst into the Villa area.

Juve kept pushing and Iaquinta, having also been denied by a crucial last-ditch tackle by Curtis Davies, put another chance over the bar as Guzan raced out to meet the tall striker near the top corner of the box.

It was pretty much one-way traffic in the closing stages in favour of Juve, but Ciro Ferrara’s side could find no way through as the match went to extra-time.

The additional periods could not find a winner either, so the final went to penalties where Villa’s youngsters came out on top against their more illustrious opponents to claim the fourth edition of the Peace Cup

Curtis Davis scored a 20th-minute own goal, with Petrov hurt a minute later.

But Villa hit back through Marc Albrighton, John Carew and Ashley Young to clinch a semi-final against either Porto or Besiktas.

We went into the match needing to beat Atlante, the Concacaf Champions League winners, by two clear goals if they were to reach the last four after suffering a 1-0 defeat by Malaga in their opening match of the tournament.

In Friday’s other semi-final, big-spending Real Madrid face Italian giants Juventus.

Discuss it here

from the bbc

Well I was going to do a picture of Barry for this story, but I don’t think he’ll be around much for us to use it again. Although he’s not actually put in a transfer request I understand that he’s told the club he wishes to link up with his mate Stevie at Redscouse.

Now it’s simply down to them to come up with the cash. Now that might be easier said than done. When Martin O’Neill said that Rescouse’s initial offer was a mish-mash of players, we all assumed the likes of Carson, Finnan, Riise and Pennant. Apparently not, if their offer to Newcastle for Milner is anything to go by. The players in that swap deal were players known only to their clubs and mums and dads.

Villa, clearly not strapped for cash, having given up multi-million pound income from shirt sponsorship, have set the price. So can Redscouse come up with the £20M? I somehow doubt it, and wonder if that’s going to leave us with a peeved captain all season. Either way, well done Redscouse, you tossers, for conducting all this through the press. I hope you’re stuck with your Yanks for ever.

Actually, and I’ve been meaning to post this thought somewhere else, this is one of the main things that’s wrong with football these days.

Like Barry, footballers see the Champions’ League as the be all and end all of football achievement (that and their Bentleys).  How can you attract quality internationals without offering them CL?

Money won’t do it alone, because, you need the money from the CL to pay for international stars.  Teams in the CL have the money to buy, not one, but two internationals for every position because of the CL money.  It’s a catch 22.  The rich clubs buy all the players to stop the also rans stealing their place in the CL.

Which brings us back to Barry.  Selling Barry to RedScouse makes them stronger and us weaker.  We can’t buy an equivalent replacement because if there was one, they’d be on their way to a CL team.