Villa linked to former Arsenal striker, so why is everyone so upset?

Over the past 24 hours, a plethora of rumors have sprung up connecting Aston Villa with a 26-year-old striker with proven Premier League experience. The man joined Arsenal in his youth, won a scudetto with Juventus and has 56 caps for his national team.

What on earth is the problem?

It's that the man's name is Nicklas Bendtner. A name, it seems, that is synonymous with failure. Should Villa actually sign Nicky B, that's a sign of the apocalypse. A sign that Villa, too, are destined to fail.

Guess what? We're practically already there. This is a club whose owner revealed that he'd failed to pay attention to it for the past month and a half. This is a club whose chief executive officer left amidst wild applause. This is a club that has exactly zero dollars to spend in this transfer window unless they somehow manage to convince some other club that paying millions for Darren Bent is a good idea.

Let's not forget that last season Aston Villa brought in Grant Holt from Wigan in hopes of bolstering their sad striking prospects. Is Bendtner worse than Holt? Is he worse than compatriot Nicklas Helenius, who is likely to never get a shot under Paul Lambert again? At least Bendtner chooses where and when to flash his undergarments.

Until someone takes this sad shell of a club off Randy Lerner's books, things aren't likely to get much better. It's incredibly depressing, yes. But at some point, we Villa fans have to look at the bright side. There are worse things than bringing in Nicky B on a free. His play is entertaining (even if much of that is laughing in a how-on-earth-did-he-miss-that sort of way), his personal life even more so.

And it seems like Villa might be able to raise money by selling tickets to watch Roy Keane and Nicklas Bendtner go head-to-head in training. Or failing that, people might pay to see him assaulting taxis in the center of Birmingham.