Villa chief pushes on with new faces mission

Paul Lambert is hoping to secure a double deal to take Christian Benteke and Joe Bennett to Aston Villa before the transfer deadline.

The Villa chief spoke out after watching goals from Fabian Delph, Chris Herd and Darren Bent send his side through to the third round of the Capital One Cup at the expense of League One Tranmere at Villa Park on Tuesday evening.
And, having had one reported bid of £5.5million turned down by Genk for Belgium international, Benteke, Lambert is not giving up hope of luring the forward to Birmingham before the end of the week, while Middlesbrough's England Under-21 left-back, Bennett, is also on the wanted list.
Lambert said: "It (the Benteke deal) is not something I've thought about because of the game. I'll wait and see.
"There is no point in me talking about it until something happens.
"Tomorrow we've just got to try and see where we are with Genk and they will probably throw the ball back in our court.
"I will wait and see what happens between now and Friday.
"With Joe Bennett, hopefully something might happen on that. Has a bid gone in? Near enough.
"I won't talk about his qualities until I know (if a deal has gone through). It's unfair on Villa and Middlesbrough and unfair on the lad himself."
He added: "We are trying with a few players. I just need to wait and see if anything happens.
"If we can do something with a few people, we'd like to do something. There are three days to go and things go for you and against you.
"It's been like that so I will wait and see."