It is not at all subtle, and any other Villa fans that check the official site will notice the same thing. If a player is going to be, or could be, transferred out, they seem to disappear from the website. All pictures are replaced with ones of other players, and there is a sudden lack of interviews/features, etc.
It happened long before Milner was transferred; the same happened with Ash recently, and now there is no trace of the turncoat Downing anywhere. The ‘faces’ of Villa now appear to be Bent, Agbonlahor and Albrighton.
This may not constitute evidence of a bid or an intention to sell, but it does give out the wrong messages again. Instead of the Villa Directors parading our players as normal and telling other clubs to clear off, they remove them from the website until their Villa future is decided.
In the very least, it proves that Villa are at least thinking about selling Downing. I am wondering when they are going to start being honest and upfront with the fans, because their attempts to inadvertently shift our attention to other Villa players in order to disguise those that are slipping out the back door are, frankly, pathetic.
Why don’t they just turn the website into an ebay type player auction site? We could see how many ‘watchers’ each player had, and the inclusion of Paypal could improve potential sales.
I may sound bitter and resentful, but the Board’s lack of respect for the fans is starting to get a bit out of hand.