Aston Villa deflect low-ball Stoke City bid for James Chester

The Telegraph (John Percy) have today revealed that Aston Villa have pushed back a bid from Stoke City for James Chester. Percy states that Stoke’s initial bid is believed to be half of what Villa are seeking for the player. A £5m bid has been rejected as Villa want to, at the very least, recoup their £8 million outlay on the player. Since he’s improved during his time at the club, and he is in his peak years, it’s thought that Villa’s high-bar is around £10 million. This is backed up by The Mirror, who are reporting the same information.

In truth, that’s a very fair price for James Chester, who has been nothing but a massive success thus far at the club.

However, it has started. The tearing of the fabric of Villa’s reality. The current feel-good Aston Villa squad are set to be dismantled, in time, so that Villa can acquire the funds needed to run the club and meet financial fair play commitments. Rumours of a Jack Grealish move to Tottenham have not yet been made tangible, but the situation at Villa has been made very real by a low-ball offer for a key player. All of this along with Villa’s release of loanees Robert Snodgrass, Lewis Grabban, Sam Johnstone and Joshua Onomah, means that Villa are looking almost threadbare compared to the team that lined up for the play-off final a few weeks ago. That’s not the truth, Villa still have depth, but they’ve already lost half a team.

We’ll keep an eye on this - it seems very real to us. A painful reality is now setting in.