Andre Villas-Boas Reportedly Willing To Sell Rafael Van der Vaart

Hat tip to Hamburg SV fan and Bundesliga savant @dan_bu for this one, since I probably wouldn't have found it otherwise. According to Dieter Matz, the author of Der HSV-blog at the website of the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper, Tottenham Hotspur manager Andre Villas-Boas is willing to sell Rafael Van der Vaart, but the player himself isn't interested in making a return to HSV. Here's the original text, in German.

Denn, das wurde mir aus verlässlicher Quelle zugetragen, Tottenhams Trainer Andre Villas-Boas ist entgegen erster Behauptungen sehr wohl gewillt, Rafael van der Vaart abzugeben. Auf der Suche nach Ersatz soll der Portugiese bereits fündig sein. In der Premier League ist das bereits seit einigen Tagen bekannt - und auch der HSV soll informiert sein. Dennoch, und diese Zeilen dürften Kühne weniger freuen, die ehemalige 23 des HSV ist seinerseits wohl nicht gewillt, zum HSV zu wechseln.

This says, roughly translated, that Matz has heard from a reliable source that Villas-Boas is willing to let Van der Vaart leave. He believes that Villas-Boas is already looking for new players to buy if and when he sells Van der Vaart, and that both HSV and multiple Premier League sides are aware that Van der Vaart is for sale, but that Van der Vaart would not be interested in a move to HSV.

I'm not a regular reader of Matz or his site, but his credentials are indicative of him actually being a respectable journalist. He regularly attends HSV training and interviews people inside the club, so this is not some random guy with a blog. I have no idea how good his sources with Premier League teams are, but he's been very much on top of recent transfers in and out of HSV a couple of days ahead of time.

Also worth noting: This isn't Villas-Boas' decision to make. Even if AVB wants to sell Van der Vaart, he's not going to leave if no one meets Daniel Levy's valuation of him. That could be a break-even fee, or that could be £15m.

There's no reason to assume that Van der Vaart is on the outs just yet, but this is worth keeping an eye out for.

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