abdulaziz1

30 minutes ago, robby b said:

One of the most amazing goals I've seen! Reminiscent of Maradona v England or Hutton vs Birmingham except that they started their runs from near the halfway line whereas Konsa started from near his penalty box, wow! If only it had been in a PL game (or the winning goal in the FA Cup final).

Not only that, the finishing is not what you’d expect from a defender.

It’s either keep both, or selling Bailey while getting Doku or a player of his caliber. 

4 minutes ago, DakotaVilla said:

Selling Watkins would be absolute madness. Give him a new contract and he will, if he stays fit, undoubtedly break most recent goal scoring records that we have this season.

Hopefully that will mean we win a cup or finish in champions league next season. That will then be the time to see if we can upgrade but it will cost north of 50m and we should still keep Ollie regardless as he would be the perfect squad option for the forward positions. 

Exactly, more time to figure who we need, but if we do so, we should sell him, you can’t keep a 50m asset on the bench, especially as a lone striker. We need to be dynamic on selling and buying. Once you bench Watkins his value will decrease. We can’t afford that. 

The most signing that would make sense is this, yet for me I want Doku (although him starting would not be that helpful for our approach, unless he can do Ramsey’s job), but I don’t want to miss the opportunity of getting a potentially world class.

Felix or Torres make more sense, Torres would be the easier to get. I’d be very happy with him as he’ll add something not in the squad currently. 
Him or Felix on loan, Doku and Pubill permenant, then we’ve done unbelievable job. 
Some friends are saying you guys are doing good job what are you planning? I keep telling them Man City head lol. 
It’s refreshing to say these things as half joke (rather than full jokes).

5 hours ago, Villan_of_oz said:

It's mental how much weight some put on these friendlies.... Winning isn't even a priority! although it doesn't mean it isn't nice to win.

I usually try and refrain from too much preseason VT engagement. I'm getting bored though and the season has started yet

As much as I like to see Villa winning (gutted a bit with the draw losing the meaning cup lol), but still I liked the mistakes we’ve done against Newcastle, I’ve liked the fact we drew to Brentford with trying new tactic. You don’t want teams to figure you out early on. Shipping all these goals makes it easier for Unai to explain to the team, last team we shipped 11 goals in 3 games for our players to start and realize the new approach. Also it gives him more idea on our needs. I liked the fact that Bidace kept starting, wanted to see Kellyman yesterday but hopefully he can have some minutes during the season as well. 

For me, I’d sell him if a very good offer comes. I think next summer we’ll have to upgrade anyway. But I have two concerns, first one is that I would like to see our main players stays so we don’t think our setback (if we had) is because of a player left. Last time under DS I knew that it was all over because Smith success was basically Grealish. This time we don’t really depend on individual (well apart from Emi possibly). I’d like us to try Archer and Duran for some games and see what Watkins really mean for us? 
The second thing is striker signings usually fail than success, so I’d like to see if Duran and Archer can make a big step in their development so that when we get the new striker, we can have a good backup. We can’t risk that right now, and we can’t bench Watkins and take his value off. 
 

With Emery, we should know who’s not a first choice plan before the season ends and before other teams know he isn’t wanted. 
Watkins, Cash, Bailey and Buendia are the most sellable assets we have that we should look to upgrade on them soon. For Bailey and Buendia they’re already part of the squad. 
Emi, Kamara, Luiz, Ramsey, Konsa, Moreno, potentially Diaby and Torres should be part of our plans. McGinn, Tieliemans, Mings, Carlos and so on are great options to have for the squad and currently can’t get us money for their values. 

His issue is his confidence and distribution. He’s not the worst in terms goal keeping itself. Wether his confidence can grow and his presence especially when we need to build up play, that’s a question. But who’s good and will come to be second keeper?

It’s not that we need him, it’s that we if we don’t buy him now then that opportunity will be gone, he could be a world class. If we’re looking to this season only, it makes sense to get Torres or Joao, but if we’re looking at the potential then it’s totally different. 
I’d sell Bailey if it means we can get Doku and I rate Bailey. 

1 minute ago, Jas10 said:

Dunno but links aren’t always extracted or copied directly from tweets, sometimes it’s from website articles, interviews, audio, video etc.

A few different sources have claimed we have an interest in Doku.

Can’t really say how real the link is or what the intent is regarding signing him, whether an offer has even been made or turned down. Apparently, we’re willing to pay so much but not quite meeting Renne’s demands.

Maybe the interest died down after we signed Diaby… the initial link or report of our interest claimed that Doku was an alternative or backup target to Moussa, pretty sure that was from Romano.

 

It’s really hard to tell what the actual facts are regarding transfers tbh… until a player has actually signed

The odd link or rumour from not an obviously fake or bad source just gives us reason to have fun speculating and thinking of where a player fits in and whether we think they’d be a good signing or not…

I think Romano said that we’re interested getting Doku wether or not we got Diaby. (Not quite sure if it was Romano or someone else.

1 hour ago, The_Rev said:

Isn’t it entirely likely that a couple of teams on the unseeded side will become seeded  before the draw is finally made?  Anybody with an asterisk by their name still has at least one more round to play, some of them have two. As I understand it if any on the seeded side lose in Q2 or Q3 then Fiorentina will come over.  

Q3 is irrelevant, the draw would be before they play that. So two non seeded teams could play each other. The seeding will be finalized after Q2. 
But they will mostly do groups and the draw games by it. I doubt they’ll put Fiorentina or even Osasuna with Villa. That’s if they weren’t all seeded this week.

9 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Pretty slow flight that takes 9 hours to get to Kaazakhstan? You can fly to Beijing in not much more than 10. 

I think this certain area is much worse, it’s by Siberia, I would have liked to visit the country (haven’t been there before) but I guess it requires a tough transit. Add to that you don’t want that fixture during winter.

17 hours ago, MWARLEY2 said:

Carney was an incredible youth footballer . But he has really slipped into a non productive player. His only goal contribution in senior football is still the assist against Norwich 18 months ago. He hasnt scored or assisted for a whole season at Chelsea both for the first team and their U21's . That will make a massive dent maybe psychologically. Used to love watching him play but he never really translated that smooth ability into mens football. I hope he does make it under Poch but with Santos and Cesare also competing for a midfield berth i dont think they can have 3 u21s in their squad in that position. 

I don’t know how can we judge players that don’t start games with their numbers. The minutes here and there isn’t enough to be honest. 
Although I’m not sure about the u21 if he’s playing much then that could be a concern.

I saw videos for him, he scores a lot the same way he would’ve scored with his shot for the Buendia goal. I guess it’s a piece of tactic which is lovely to see from him and Jaden, and great that Emery is trying to implement what’s already good by them. Hopefully they score next game to give more confidence for them, and from the manager side.

Selling Bailey and buying Doku (while keeping Bidace) would be shrewd business. Although it will be interesting to see Diaby and Bailey together again.

I think he has to stay, atleast until January. As much as I rate Bailey but with our system he’s limited, with Diaby arriving, we’d do very well if we can recoup the money we’ve spent on him, while getting Doku aswell. With keeping Bidace it would be very balanced. 

17 minutes ago, mikeyp102 said:

Seems he’s jumped a head of Kaden Young in the pecking order. Fair play, must be great experience for him now, perhaps he’ll be used like Emery did with Pino 

What happened with Pino?

2 minutes ago, Knutserov13 said:

The club will not entertain bids for Kamara. The only chance he will go to Liverpool is if there is a release clause in his contract. I sure as hell hope not. Hes a Rolls Royce midfielder that will only get better!

The other thing is we'd hope for once to keep our spine of the team once we're moving in the right direction and had the huge step. Last time Grealish left we had to build again. Just see what can we do now, then next season we can see who to transfer and who to keep. 

11 minutes ago, Zero7 said:

I really like Kamara, think he breaks up the play very well and also reads the game. However I watched the first half yesterday and whilst it's only a pre-season game, he was by far our worst performer on the pitched, looks miles off (yes yes I know it's what preseason is for). He dispossessed so easily and just goes to ground looking for a free kick. Who is our natural backup player in this area. 

Kamara improved after Leicester last season. It's good for him to try and have these mistakes in a preseason. Glad we gifted them goals and not won the game. I slept so wasn't able to watch, but I was worried for us to lose in bad way, or to win it at anycase. I wanted more mistakes from us mixed with good things to add on. Which all happened. Hopefully he'll be ready once the season start. It's also good that Newcastle might think he's a weak link as well. 

7 hours ago, Keener window-cleaner said:

Defensively I would say he is. We are playing with a very high line which requires our back four to be very careful in holding the line, you could see Cash not coping so well with this at several times last season. I think it was the game against Arsenal at home where they ran through several times and often it was Cash who didn't hold the line. Also in other games I have noticed that. Also defensively he is not 100%, a bit clumsy and rash in his tackles and sometimes gives away cheap free kicks. His passing is allthough not bad, not top class either. I think all this contributed to Emery preferring Young as RB last season.

Cash has got a really good engine, running up and down the pitch and gets himself into dangerous positions, creating space for our attacking players. A good lad and a good buy, but not good enough to be our first choice for where we are now imo.  

Last game against Brighton was another one.

1 hour ago, VillaChris said:

I think for Newcastle we'll just go with all of Kamara-Luiz-Tielemans to shut down Bruno Guimaraes. McGinn out left to try to stop Trippier's forward runs. Diaby v Dan Burn obvs....

The VP game we had Moreno and Ramsey running riot down their right (doubt Trippier had a harder game all season outside of Man. City in his own half) but it dosen't look quite so threatening if it's Digne and Buendia attempting to link up down the left.

Newcastle is one of our hardest away games nowadays so it's one of those times you can tweak the usual shape to shut them down as a point up there is obviously a very good result to start the season (huge statement if we actually go and turn them over).

We never win there anyway.

So we need to do what Emery likes by changing some given stats.

1 minute ago, HKP90 said:

I suppose the point here would be: When Foden got that chance and made his name, was his position within the City squad such that he was 1 injury away from being the only player who could play in his role. The answer being no.

Fwiw, I think Diaby will help us in that regard. He could do a job for us up front I reckon.

I don’t think he can. Definitely not better than Archer in that aspect. Regarding Man City, their squad is good yet they give proper chances. I’d pretty much go with Archer as a second striker than getting the likes of Rodrigo. Our striker should be one that would overtake Watkins and that could/shouldn’t be done this summer. Torres is the most sensible signing as he could be relied at as a striker while his main position is different. 
I want Doku, but he’s not the wisest signijg, but a gamble which if we don’t take we might never get him. Would I be happy with Doku and Archer as a second striker? Yes, but would require keeping Duran as well. 
Getting Doku and Torres on loan? Perfect.

I remember watching Foden at the League Cup final and didn’t know anything about him. Weeks or months later he was England regular.

It’s about the chance, sometimes players get good luck showing what they can. Davis for example has a chance to play the other year in the League Cup, and some minutes, he got injured before Wesley, otherwise he could’ve started some games. He didn’t have a proper run. Wesley himself could’ve had an ok career if not injured.

So Archer and Duran need to have game time. So Torres look the most perfect signing just because of this, but I would like Doku as he’s a good player to have.

7 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Ultimately it's just premier league tax. Foreign clubs take note of the ridiculous Broadcasting revenues English teams get and adjust their selling price accordingly. 

If Diaby had wanted to go back to PSG I bet you he'd have been in the 35-40m range.

AC Milan barely even paid 20m for Pulisic in the end. I know he's had loads of injuries in last two years but this is basically guy with similar profile to Diaby in Bundesliga and will be one of the most marketable players at the next World Cup.

Diaby was wanted by his team, Pulisic isn’t wanted as a starter by his team and they need overhaul.

29 minutes ago, ender4 said:

How come no-one has gone for him yet? 

We can’t get to that conclusion, maybe some gone but he wasn’t realistic about his demands, or he’s using some offers to negotiate others. 

When I’m reading that we’re looking at Doku, I start thinking how would we manage the team and wether Emery prefers wingers, but then when you look at Villareal, you can see how many wingers they had, and how many talented players as well. I can’t say I follow them but through the links you could see a lot of rated attacking players. How did he use to rotate or plan new things I’m not sure, nor how they were adapted, but it makes sense that he’s still looking to add some quality.