Why Downing sale is good business

Saturday, 16/07/2011

by Steven Green, Shoot's Aston Villa blogger

With the news we all feared about Stewart Downing’s move to Liverpool finally being confirmed this week, Villa fans can sit back and reflect on what is actually a very good piece of business.

Downing joined Villa in the wake of Middlesbrough’s relegation two years ago with a broken foot and some serious bench time to look forward to. When he did finally make his bow towards Christmas he was uninspiring to say the least.

Last season though saw him in fine form. Note that I say fine form and I haven’t peppered that sentence with all sorts of over the top superlatives. To the neutral that’s what he was, a shining beacon in an ailing Villa team. To us he was simply just the in form player of an out of form side.

It does beg the question though; are Villa just a selling club?

Well, yes, yes we are. Ever since I was a child it’s always been the same. David Platt being the first one I remember, but if you look over the star names who have left us over the years like Yorke, Southgate, Ehiogu, Barry, Milner (pictured) Young and finally Downing, you will know that Villa have always replaced that departing star with somebody else.

The club can pride itself on attracting top young English talent and then selling them on for a higher fee, sort of like Arsenal but for English players. In truth, it’s probably the best way for the club to exist. Using the names above we can see how shrewd the club has actually been.

                                                Bought for                        Sold for

David Platt                                    £200,000                        £5.5m

Dwight Yorke                                    0                                 £12.6m

Ugo Ehiogu                                    £40,000                          £8m

Gareth Southgate                           £2.5m                            £8m

Gareth Barry                                    0                                 £12m

James Milner                                   £12m                           £26m

Ashley Young                                  £9.5m                          £16m

Stuart Downing                              £12m                           £20m

The club will see players like this come and go but no doubt they’ll do it and get the best out of them before moving them on.

To the neutral it may look like the club is in decline but there is comfort to be taken in knowing that Liverpool couldn’t keep Torres, Manchester United weren’t big enough for Ronaldo and even the richest club in the world can’t hold onto Carlos Tevez.

I’m aware that as a Villa fan I’ll probably never be truly satisfied, we are not Barcelona and will very rarely keep hold of our best players as long as a ‘bigger’ club comes knocking.

But that’s fine, the list above tells me that we’ll carry on and survive, we always do!

• 

• Have your say