First Vlaar, now Delph. The Birmingham Mail have reported that Tottenham have smelt the blood in the water (Delph's expiring contract) and will follow the Napoli route of offering an almost insulting transfer fee to prise one of Villa's assets away in January, rather than in June.

The good news? Villa might get £3 million for Fabian Delph instead of nothing and that should lower the damage of any new signing Villa make. The bad news? Villa lose a player who should be going for almost three times that amount. It reeks of terrible management by AVFC, there must have been something that they could of done in the summer to bolster the fees for Delph and Vlaar.

Now Aston Villa look set to lose two star players for a joint fee of around.. Wait for it.... £4 Million. That is barely enough to cover Tom Cleverley in, let alone rebuild the squad. The saving grace of this deal is that Tottenham might still consider a swap deal with Moussa Dembele being packaged off to Villa, which would provide us with, well, at least something.