Aston Villa transfers: Martin O'Neill admits he must sell to buy

Jul 24 2010 by Mathew Kendrick, Birmingham Mail

MARTIN O’Neill has admitted he must embrace chairman Randy Lerner’s sell-to-buy policy this summer – despite admitting it is “not ideal”.

O’Neill’s comments about working within Villa’s prudent spending restraints coincide with Thursday’s revelation that James Milner is for sale at the right price. The Villa boss refuses to break his rule on not commenting on transfer targets despite strong links with Stephen Ireland, Robbie Keane and Aiden McGeady.

But O’Neill reluctantly accepts that if he is to bolster his squad in readiness for next season then he must sell players to generate funds for reinforcements.

Lerner hinted at this policy during his annual address in May when he confirmed that six of Villa’s fringe players had been made available for transfer.

“This year is going to be exceptionally difficult,” said O’Neill, who is still awaiting acceptable offers for Luke Young, Curtis Davies, Nigel Reo-Coker, Habib Beye, Steve Sidwell and Nicky Shorey.

“That said, in terms of links with players, there is no point in me mentioning names.

“We are going to be linked and very obviously, even without wanting to lose players of the calibre of Milner, we would want to try and recruit some players.

“But as the chairman mentioned way back, maybe it is a case of probably having to sell to buy and that is something you would have to be really constructive about. That is something I am building into at the moment.

“I just mentioned we are in a position probably at this moment where we would have to sell to buy.