Early this morning, Dutch football journalist Edward Van Cuilenbourg tweeted that 20-year-old Manchester City striker John Guidetti has been spotted in Birmingham and that rumors of a move to Aston Villa had begun to emerge. Guidetti spent the 2011-12 season on loan to Feyenoord, scoring an unbelievable 20 goals in just 23 appearances. He made his debut for the senior Sweden national team in February of last season, playing the second half of a friendly against Croatia, playing up top alongside Zlatan Ibrahimovich -a player to whom he has been compared. For me personally, the thought of Guidetti coming to Aston Villa is enough to make me want to take a pantsless victory lap through my neighborhood.
Unfortunately, I do not believe it's especially likely that Guidetti will be coming to Aston Villa. For one thing, all we have to go on is a tweet claiming he was seen in Birmingham and that rumors of a move have followed. Granted, a similar sighting is what led to the Ron Vlaar talk, but there have been several million similar sightings reported as news that turned out to be nothing. Maybe he an Karim El Ahmadi were hanging out; the two played together last season and are apparently good friends. I hear the shopping in Birmingham is excellent.*
And then there is of course the bigger problem; Guidetti is a Manchester City player. In case you haven't noticed, City doesn't seem to be in need of a financial boost. Where a team so fully stocked at forward (and yet still pursuing Robin van Persie for God's sake) might typically see that Guidetti is unlikely to feature in the near future and invest the ~£8 million or so they'd get in return on a more pressing need, City can loan Guidetti to a team where he can play every game and then spend £85 million on outside backs after a drunken night of watching free kick compilations on YouTube. There's literally zero incentive for them to sell Guidetti unless they don't think he's worth keeping around for the future, in which case they'd probably be well served to watch his highlight videos the next time they break out the Courvoisier.
Guidetti is a brilliant young player that could probably walk onto this Villa team and not only start but be a star. His size, strength, technical ability and more well-rounded game make him an ideal strike partner for the brilliant but limited Darren Bent. But unless Paul Lambert is content to take him on loan (and he'd prefer a spell with Villa to the more familiar Feyenoord,) it seems a long-shot at best. I've been wrong before where this kind of thing is concerned, but there's a great deal more reason for skepticism than there is for excitement.
*Darren Bent joke.