RHM

Uh oh.  It’s suddenly all going public.

Having been left out in the cold after apparently stalling on a new deal, Hepburn-Murphy found himself back in Bruce’s plans for the [dreadful] Cardiff game.

RHM even made a brief [belated] cameo in Wales, but couldn’t do a great deal or shoulder any blame for the loss.

Murphy is now reported to have been dropped *again* after having failed to sign a new deal in recent days, with Bruce having become frustrated at the lack of progress.

RHM will not feature until his future has been resolved.  This would rule him out of the next game, a tricky FA Cup tie against Spurs, at the very least.

This is now worryingly descending into a very public game of ‘call my bluff’, at a time when arguably we could least afford it.

DELPH

If there’s a news report to make you choke on your dinner, it’s the prospect of clapping Fabian Delph back onto a football field.

There have emerged some very dubious [snake-like] links to the forgotten Manchester City midfielder, suggesting that a move back to Villa Park may be on the cards.

The Birmingham Mail [LOL!] say no…but an actual real life newspaper (with content rather than adverts that overloads your browser), [The Telegraph] says that there is possible mileage in a move, if only on loan.

Football is a funny old game…and stranger things have happened.

Could you stomach Delph back at Villa Park?

What would Birmingham City Council do with thousands of inflatable snakes in the recycling bins?

Would we even want Fabian back?

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CLEVERLEY

Tom Cleverley was starting to rehabilitate his career at Villa, but seized [maybe rightly] the opportunity to get off the sinking Lerner ship.

At Villa, whilst he struggled in the early part of his loan from United, he grew in the second half of the season into the player that broke into the England set-up.  Whilst far from the complete footballer, confidence player a huge part in his game.

Equally, when free to get further upfield, we saw a completely different footballer.

Cleverley was decidedly inconsistent initially, but produced a number of performances, and indeed goals, that contributed to us to stay up in the 2014/15 season.

He left for Everton as part of the mass exodus, but now finds himself frozen out of the squad under Ronald Koeman.

Cleverley is linked with a January loan move to Villa or Newcastle.