Graham Taylor: "Wouldn't surprise me" if Villa were sold

 Former Aston Villa and England manager Graham Taylor made an appearance on BBC West Midlands today and added fuel to the fire of takeover rumours surrounding Villa (go to 3 hrs 31 minutes on that recording). Referring to what he called "tittle tattle," he said "it wouldn't surprise me" when asked if he thought Randy Lerner was putting Villa up for sale.

He went on to say that "we've all heard stories like that," but that he had "heard that from I would call a reasonable source or a good source" that the club would be sold if it had achieved safety by the end of the year. He then went on to chastise Randy Lerner's ownership style:

"When an owner pays as much as Randy has... [and] you're not coming to watch the games... supporters, to a degree I think, have a right to expect you to show that interest by your attendance. Not every game, perhaps, but basically to appear more than Randy has been doing."

Taylor was a vocal critic of the ownership of Doug Ellis as well. After his second stint with Villa under Ellis, Taylor called for the club to be taken over and overhauled. He's got no skin in this fight now, so I doubt there doesn't seem to be any personal reason to make these comments. But the long and short of it is that we're not hearing much we haven't heard before. Thomas Jones, who will be writing for us shortly, summed up the story quite well on twitter:

Long and short of it, Taylor said he'd heard rumours of the same sort of thing @Matt_Law_DT said in his article. Nothing new really. #AVFC

— Tom Jones (@tjones6591) May 10, 2014

It's not much new, but it is another piece in the growing pile of evidence that Aston Villa will be sold over the summer. I can only speak for myself, but at this point a no-sale would be heartily disappointing.