Rumours have started to circulate over the last week that Aaron Cresswell will be leaving Ipswich for Aston Villa.

The Villains were at first reported to have made a bid of £3.5 million for the young left back but Paul Jewell has revealed that they only made an enquiry, with no formal bid made.

Although Aston Villa have now signed defender Ron Vlaar they may still be interested in Cresswell as Vlaar mostly plays as a centre back.

Cresswell had a great debut season for Ipswich and at the young age of 22 he has a very encouraging future ahead of him. He is one of Paul Jewell’s best signings as he joined the club from Tranmere for a bargain price of at most £375,000 (which could go up to £520,000 with add-ons).

A lot of fans don’t praise Jewell enough for this signing and as a fan you should only be able to dream of your club finding a 22 year old who gets voted player of the season in his first season for such a cheap price.

Even though Jewell has made it very clear that he wants to keep Cresswell he has been using the familiar saying of “Every player has his price”. His comments suggest that if Villa or any other Premier League club were to make an offer of around £3-4 million then he would gladly accept that offer.

Obviously from a business point of view this would be a fantastic deal, as the club would be selling him for 7 or 8 times the price they bought him for. Even though Tranmere would be entitled to 20% of the profit that Ipswich make from the deal it would still give the club enough money to find a replacement.

Although the deal might make sense from a business point of view Ipswich fans don’t turn up to Portman Road on a cold December night for business they come to see entertaining football and hopefully to see Ipswich win games. Like I highlighted earlier it isn’t easy to find a 22 year old capable of earning the player of the season award in his first season for any price. If Jewell was given say £2 million from any potential deal to reinvest in the team I doubt he would be able to find a talent like Cresswell.

Even if he did it would be pretty difficult to ensure that the player signs for Ipswich and not another team. Ipswich have already failed to convince a lot of players this summer to join and instead they have joined other Championship sides. Obviously Jewell hasn’t realised how lucky he was to find Cresswell and not have to worry about another side hijacking the deal.

For this reason alone it would such a disaster to see Cresswell leave. Of course it would be great to give Jewell millions to spend but big money only attracts a certain type of player and we have already seen so many big money signings fail to justify their price. Players like Leadbitter, Norris, Priskin and Bullard have were all either bought for high transfer fees or given expensive contracts and have all disappointed.

If Ipswich were to sell Cresswell it is likely that the money from the deal would just be spent on another overpriced and over-rated player.

The main issue is that Cresswell would be almost impossible to replace. It would have been much more pleasing to hear Jewell come out and say that Cresswell isn’t available at any price, hopefully that would put off any buyers. By saying “Every player has his price” Jewell may have encouraged Premier League clubs to throw in a few cheeky bids in an attempt to unsettle the young left back. Hopefully Paul Lambert and Aston Villa will look elsewhere but it will be a long summer for Ipswich fans having to worry about losing one of our few good prospects.

[ad_pod id='writer-1' align='right']