Luke Young to miss three matches

BBC Sport - Football - Aston Villa full-back Luke Young to miss three matches

Aston Villa defender Luke Young is set to miss the next three matches with a torn hamstring.

The 31-year-old missed last Saturday's 0-0 draw with Chelsea after suffering the injury in training on Friday.

Scans show the problem is worse than feared and the former England full-back is likely to be out for two weeks.

He will miss Saturday's clash at Sunderland, Wednesday's Carling Cup tie with Burnley and the home match against Birmingham on 31 October.

At 7.70, Habib Beye is a bit expensive after getting 10pts in Villa's clean sheet draw against Chelsea. But he may be worth the investment over the next few weeks if you have money to spend on defenders, or are selling Bale to afford other purchases.

About Face (and other transfer bits)

Football365 | All The News | Football News | BEYE MAKES VILLA SWITCH

The news over the last days made it seem that Beye was a done deal at Hull which seemed like a great signing to us here at the blog. The news that Villa have swooped in and made him theirs comes as a bit of a shock but has to be considered an excellent move none-the-less. With Nigel Reo-Coker having been leaned upon heavily at right back last season, bringing in an actual right back who played well last season is a strong move for Villa in their mini-league with Spurs, Everton, and Citeh to be the best team outside the Big Four (sorry Citeh fans/Johnny-come-lately's - they aren't going to break the Top Four this season).

Assuming that Villa are going to be pretty good, Beye will be very good between clean sheets and his attacking stats.

In other transfer news - BFMV (that's Big Fat Mark Viduka for the uninitiated) has signed for Pompey. Sounds like he must weigh 300 lbs right about now but come early November he should be rounding into form and getting ready to put on his famous Transfer Window run of good form. Between he and Kanu Pompey have a really nice strikeforce...if the year were 2003. This year, not so much.

Aquilani is also official at Liverpool and about the same time Viduka is, err, rounding into form, Alberto will be back from the injury he is currently carrying. I guess if he's your guy, he's your guy and a few weeks out with an ankle knock isn't a big deal.

Two good moves

The F365 Transfer Blog: Friday August 7

08.10: Morning everyone. Couple of things from last night to let you know about before we get on to the real business of bulls**t pedalling - Sebastian Bassong has completed his move from Newcastle to Spurs for about £8million, while Newcastle have also accepted a bid from Hull for their other good defender, Habib Beye.

In addition to the move for Bassong that we have discussed previously in this space, it looks like Beye will be on his way back to the Prem with Hull. That's at least two good moves this week for Hull who have otherwise had a pretty frustrating summer. Beye was a pretty good fantasy player for a pretty useless NUFC team last season so no reason to think he won't be at least as good for Hull this season. Who knows, maybe we'll see a few stretches like the one they had at the beginning of last season that saw them essentially accumulate enough points to stay up before November.

Why not more NUFC transfers out?

Image via Wikipedia

The Chuckles Gossip

Hull want to sign Habib Beye from Newcastle...

Among other items found in the always amusing Football365 gossip column is this note about Habib Beye being a target for Hull. Sort of makes you wonder why more of NUFC's useful pieces (insert your own joke here) haven't been the subject of more rumors. I suppose it may have to do with the fact that the club is in such a mess that no one is sure who is making the decisions but still, Transfer Rumors tend to be pretty much baseless so why not more involving Newcastle?

I'd personally think that Beye (Villa?), Bassong (who, to be fair, has appeared in the rumor mill pretty regularly with Arsenal, Spurs, and Fulham all rumors), Guthrie (Sunderland?), Geremi (Pompey), Guttierrez (Stoke or WHU?), Ryan Taylor (Everton?), and Nolan (Big Sam reunion at Rovers?) would all be useful additions to Premier League sides. They may not all be starters and some are likely overpaid for the role that they are currently best suited for. That said, it would seem that NUFC need the money and there are plenty of teams that need to improve the depth of their squads.

Just something to ponder this morning while we're waiting for some actual news. Plus, I figured I should write something about a team other than Arsenal as I warm up for the new season.