Aston Villa sale rumours rise from the ashes thanks to Secret Footballer

Oh deary. Here we go again. Aston Villa have been sold! If you believe an in-the-know twitter account. Which you probably shouldn't. Have a look:

Randy Lerner has agreed to sell Aston Villa to the American Pheonix Group.

— Secret Footballer (@TSF) February 24, 2015

Pheonix, eh? In his next tweet, the Secret Footballer did correct his spelling to Phoenix. Now, I'll grant you that TSF is a slightly better-than-average ITK account, but I would put absolutely no stock in this whatsoever. Where's the follow up? Where is the reporting from other media? Who in the world are the Pheonix [sic] group?

Well, to the last two questions, I'll offer Steve Wollaston writing in the Birmingham Mail:

The company doesn't seem too obvious to find on the internet, it looks like this company here is the most likely.

Personally, I would get a bucket-load of salt and keep taking a pinch for now.

I'm not sure I buy that he's found the company, but that's mostly because "Phoenix Group" is escaping my Google-fu. There's plenty of things that come up there. So Steve could be right! Or he could be wrong!

Either way, it doesn't really matter. Feel free to ignore TSF. We've heard from Tom Fox that Randy Lerner has renewed his interest in the club, so sale rumours seem a bit off. There's also the problem of someone wanting to buy this club now. Relegation is not a certainty, but it seems more likely than ever. Why would you buy a club on the precipice of doom? If you want cut-rate, you can find other, cheaper clubs. And if you're committed to Aston Villa, why not just wait and see how this season plays out. No matter what happens, things are unstable enough that you'll likely get the claret and blue on the cheap.

If something does develop from this (against all expectations), we'll let you know. But for now we can write it off.