Villa agree £7.8m fee for Cuellar

[Kintyre Forum News]

Aston Villa have agreed a £7.8m fee with Rangers for their highly-rated Spanish defender Carlos Cuellar.

Villa invoked an exit clause in the player's contract for that amount after Cuellar, 26, made it known he wanted to play in the English Premier League.

"My ambition has always been to play for Spain and I believe that playing in the biggest league in the world will help me realise that," he said.

The player will now discuss terms and undergo a medical at Villa on Tuesday.

Cuellar moved to Ibrox from Spanish side Osasuna last summer and enjoyed a superb debut season for the club, helping them to the Uefa Cup final and winning both the Clydesdale Bank SPL and Scottish Football Writers' Association player of the year awards.

Rangers manager Walter Smith expressed his disappointment at Cuellar's decision to leave, having insisted the club did not need to sell him in order to balance the books following their shock Champions League exit last week to FBK Kaunas.

"This has come as a surprise and I am disappointed," he said.

"Carlos Cuellar has been a great player for the football club and inevitably there has been speculation about him playing in the Premier League.

"The club has received a substantial uplift in fee and we will now reinvest in the team."

Cuellar is set to become Villa's sixth signing of the summer following manager Martin O'Neill's capture of Curtis Davies, Steve Sidwell, Luke Young, Nicky Shorey and Brad Friedel.

The Madrid-born centre back declined Rangers' offer of a new contract and substantial pay rise, but paid tribute to the club as a whole.

"When I told Martin Bain [Rangers chief executive] on Sunday that I wanted to leave, I did so with sadness," he said.

"The Rangers supporters have been fantastic to me, but I am young and I want to play at the highest level and I hope they will always welcome me back. I want to thank them for everything."

[The Hitman]

I am disgusted! Bhougerra and Cuellar would have been excellent in defence. Now we are relying on Kirk Fatfoot, Weirs Way and give us each day our dailly foul. Smith needs to see sense, 7.8 million??? Definately worth more than that.

The money better be re-invested in a quality midfield player.

[Trapper]

Apparently Osasuna get 25% of the transfer fee as well!

[A Horse called Juan Face]

Smith needs to see sense, 7.8 million??? Definately worth more than that.
.

Nothing at all to do with Smith. There was a clause in his contract. It says so up there.

[The Hitman]

Well Martin Bain or whoever draws up the contracts should be sacked. Surely a player of Cuellar's calibre should be worth more than 7.8 million. Another example of why Scottish teams cant compete at the highest level. When Rangers have to sell their best asset to Aston Villa - a sad day. Apparently Novo, Boyd and McGregor are next! What are Rangers playing at, they should be starting every week!!!

[A Horse called Juan Face]

Sacking Martin Bain is pretty much what all the Rangers fans on 606 are saying today. If I was one, I'd want him sacked too. Contracts with escape clauses are just invitations for players to bugger off. Not much consolation for Rangers but he's either going to do exactly the same to Villa or be another Boumsong. I bet Rangers didn't put another sell-on clause in his Villa deal either.

[The Hitman]

Its actually quite shocking when you consider the team Rangers could have at the moment had they not sold all their assets

Giovanni Van Bronkhorst, Boumsong, Cuellar, Hutton, Gennaro Gattuso, Michael Mols (ok he is past it but still playing for Feyenoord)

Still need a good foil for Boyd though.

[Trapper]

You honestly trying to say that van bronkhorst and gattuso would'v wanted to stay at rangers all this time?

[The Hitman]

No I don't believe they would have, I meant in theory they could have a cracking team, instead we are left with old has beens that were never very good in the first place. Fair enough Dailly and Weir are honest hard working players but do not have the class or flair that Rangers require to challenge Celtic. Too many players are just booting the ball up the park, as they have no abilitiy to pick a pass and our ball retention at the moment is woeful.

[Sheik Yir Erse]

Without getting in too this too much, Cuellar was signed for £2.3m only 1 year ago. That's when the escape clause would have been put in his contract at £7.8m. I'm quite sure that if you had told the public about it at the time, no-one would have batted an eyelid, because at that point he was worth £2.3m.

Escape clauses generally do not vary with current market value, they are set in stone at the time of signing the contract, therefore you're effectively asking Martin Bain to have predicted that Cuellar's value would have gone up by over 350% - don't think that's feasible really.

I can however understand why Rangers fans might be hacked off with Bain, but don't really think this one can be pinned solely on him.

Just my tuppence worth.

[peenkles21]

At the end of it, Rangers are now a selling club, as with celtic and any other team in the SPL.

If a rich club like totenham cant keep a hold of its captain and best players, how can you expect teams in scotland to? I dont know about Martin Bain but if someone asked me to put a release clause in their contract, alrm bells would be ringing!

[The Hitman]

At the end of it, Rangers are now a selling club, as with celtic and any other team in the SPL.

Apart from Stilian Petrov I can't really think who Celtic have lost recently to a big money buyer. It seems it's always Rangers that are the ones selling. If Rangers had made the Champions League, would Cuellar be sold? I don't think so, I think he would have stuck it out for a while longer with the promise of Champions League Football, something he will never get at Villa.

Cuellar to be at Man Utd for season 2009-2010??

[sentrano]

Yes but Celtic can no longer buy big names like Sutton and Hartson anymore therefore have to buy mediocre players such as McDonald etc. No disrespect to these players but they wont get a bigger team than Celtic its just Celtic have have got the best out them and have done well in competitions with these players...... and Im a Rangers fan.

A £5million profit is actually good as a year ago I dont think ANYONE would have thought he would be worth that, never mind this £12million being branded about. I think Cuellar is a good player but I also though Boumsong was when he was at Rangers, Im not saying he will but Carlos might not be as solid playing against Rooney, Drogba and Torres every week.

Changing the point a bit but Ive said for years that Smith cant manage a team on a budget, he cant unearth any talent, cant play a decent brand of football and now has sent the club back 10 years!! Yes getting to the UEFA final was amazing but how much luck did we have and I think we actually only won about 2 games to get there. It was a false dawn! But The majority of fans dont think he has much blame for this!! Even when we got 9 in a row he was rubbish as we had no challengers and we were spending £15million most summers on players such as Prodan, Rozental, Porrini, while celtic were buying Larsson for peanuts! We were getting pumped by AEK Athens, Levski Sofia, Grasshoppers regularly then getting bigger humpings by the really big teams. He cant take a club forward and has no tactical ability...unless that tactic is '9 at the back'!! Advocaat gets too much of the blame for the financial position were in but Smith gets no blame when he spent fortunes on rubbish!!! At least we played good football under Advocaat!

I know we cant spend the money like we did but cant we get a manager who can work on a budget. Hes spent around £20million since returning, yes its not much compared to english teams but its still a lot!!

[joe_ruesgen]

I think that the Cuellar sale is a great piece of business. Time and time again, Rangers go out and find good centre halves for next to nothing and sell them on for a great deal more. As someone already pointed out in a previous comment, no-one knew that Cuellar was going to develop into the player he did and if you had to tell Rangers fans that they would receive 7.8M for him after only 1 year then I think they would take it.

With regards to Celtic, they no longer seem like they need to spend great deals of money on players as they are now producing good young players through their youth squads who are now breaking into the first team (McGeady, McManus to name two). Even cheap guys like Scott MacDonald and showing that you don't need to break the bank to find good talent and I'm sure if we were to sell him on we would get at least a couple million for him. I agree that Scottish football has become a market for selling talent to English teams, but with the current financial troubles teams have been having, selling players is definitely the way to go.

[A Horse called Juan Face]

Cuellar to be at Man Utd for season 2009-2010??

No chance, have you heard of Ferdinand and Vidic? Man Utd just sold a Spanish defender who actually was on the radar of the national team, they're not going to buy one who's nowhere near it.

Sheik, the point was about having an escape clause in the first place. Like Peenkles said, why sign someone and put an escape clause in the contract, its an invitation to be disloyal.

Sentrano, I'm surprised you were let on the computer long enough to post that.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/footbal ... 559740.stm

Wonder if he has an Esclapez clause in his contract? Oh dear.