Report: Former Chelsea exec could takeover Villa by July

Last week SkyNews reported that former Arsenal captain Tony Adams had partnered with former Chelsea director Paul Smith in an attempt to purchase Aston Villa for £150 million. Today, Sky have updated that story by saying that a takeover "could be done within the next two months" and adding nothing else that we didn't know.

In other words, Sky have started the clock on this rumour's freshness again by providing a piece of information that anyone could have told you. "Could" means that there is a greater than 0% chance that something happens. Name a wealthy individual or conglomerate and you can write "they could purchase Aston Villa within the next two months" and literally never be wrong.

And that gets us to the second half of this: it could be done "within the next two months." Or it could be done within three. Or four. Or possibly never!

I suppose we might be able to take a few things from this. One is that while the initial story was touted as "Tony Adams in on Villa!" it's become apparent that it's really Paul Smith and Tony Adams is tagging along (presumably) for name value. The second is that the fact that the story is still around might be a good sign for it having some legs. I wrote last week that I thought the amount of detail in the initial story pointed to a rumour with a pretty high chance of being based in reality. Now that it's still around, after there has been plenty of time for all sides to deny something, we can buy into it a bit more.

But while this story is going to sweep the Aston Villa internet today, don't be fooled. We don't know anything we didn't last week.