M_Afro

1 hour ago, Adam2003 said:

‘Unless’

For comparison they offered Wilf Zaha £600,000 per week.

Wilf has proven that he can still run in the last 6 months.

I doubt little Phil will fancy Saudi unless the cash on offer is ridiculous. I kind of want to see him succeed at Villa but do accept that if he moves on, it may be good for all parties. It will be interesting to see what happens.

I think that Unai has 4 main targets. We have already secured Youri and I think the other 3 that he really wants are Williams, Goncalves and Pau Torres.
I would have thought that we would have to shell out £130m In transfer fees to secure the other 3 but I really hope that we can do it. Those are 4 big players who are next level to any of our previous NSWE signings.

We need to be careful that we don’t rely too heavily on Unai. You never know what’s around the corner and we have to ensure that should Unai leave, for whatever reason, succession to the next person is seamless. I do trust NSWE to have that covered though and I’m just going to enjoy watching Unai for as long as possible (hopefully decades).

This is all a bit unsettling for a Monday morning. Why can’t we just have a boring off season for once! Oh well. In NSWE we trust!

He’s a classic David Moyes recruit. He will be ok most weeks but never achieve anything other than that.

6 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Rome or Birmingham what a tough choice

Europa League or Conference League

He currently lives in Leicester mate. I should think that he’ll be bloody delighted to shift across to sunny Brum!

I don’t think we are even interested in signing him but if we are, he will almost certainly choose us over Roma. 

I’m not sure he was even that bad this season. Leicester fans are just really annoyed about what’s happened to them.
 

According to Whoscored, he had the 90th highest average performance rating of all players in the PL. His rating, 6.80, was the same as John Stones and Silva, who most would consider as having good seasons. It’s also, only 0.01 behind our very own captain fantastic. 
I think he’s a good player who would be a very smart signing for us. He needs a fresh start and I’d back Unai to turn him back into a £50m midfielder. Having said all of that, I don’t think we are even interested;

10 minutes ago, ozvilla28 said:

Konsa and Mings we're a rock in defence how many goals conceded in 14 games  ? That was one of the best partnerships in the Premier League that was never going to change .Carlos has to work for it if he wants it.He has the quality and skill no doubt.

I know but we have to consider ffp. Part of managing that is selling players at the right time. That’s exactly what we did with Ings and I suspect there will be other similar outs this summer. I think that Diego could be one of those along with Buendia. We need to operate intelligently. That means selling some decent players along the way.

I’ve got a feeling that Diego may leave this summer. We are likely to sign a starting centre back which could potentially push Diego back to fourth choice. I suspect he will not be happy with that and I also feel that it’s not a good position for the club to be in, having such an expensive resource so far down the food chain. They’ll maybe want to sell him before his value totally plummets. 
It’ s also much better to have Chambers as fourth choice. He is likely to be more accepting of that position, he offers cover at right back and centre mid too. He is also fairly low value and won’t suffer from a vastly depreciated transfer value like Diego.

I obviously don’t know anything but I also think it’s odd that he didn’t get hardly any game time after his injury. Unai said that he was ready but never played him. If he was in the plans, I’m sure he would have been used a bit more often. It just feels like a good time to cash in.

17 minutes ago, Wes said:

I don't think this precludes signing Nico Williams at all. Williams could play in that second striker/right sided striker or winger role. I don't think Asensio is as plausible an option on the wing as he's not so good 1v1 and I have questions about his defensive contribution which that wide midfield role is required to put in.

 

You could line up like this quite easily:

-------------------- Watkins ----------- Asensio --------------------

Ramsey ------- D. Luiz -----------  Kamara ------- Williams

 

NOTE: This is just an example, I'm not saying this should be our starting XI, or our best XI, or anything like that - it's just an example!

 

Whether we have the budget and so forth to achieve all that is another matter. They may have other targets in mind, such as a Luiz Henrique.

 

I agree and If we get the right players, they’ll be plenty of times where Unai will step away from 4-4-2. He’s used 4-4-2 this season because it was the best fit for our current squad. I expect much more flexibility in formation next season.

This news has totally destroyed my focus and laid to rest any hope of me actually achieving anything positive this morning. If we do sign all of these players, I won’t be able to afford to go and watch them at this rate, as I’ll almost certainly be unemployed!

This has got Luc Nilis vibes (hopefully with a much happier outcome).

2 hours ago, ianifratti said:

I like his tenacity but I think Buendia could be leaving this summer. He never looks happy on the pitch to me. When he loses the ball in a tackle he complains to the ref instead of chasing back and he doesn’t seem to celebrate with teammates when we score. It’s just my opinion and I could be wrong but considering the players we have been linked with in the transfer market recently, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Buendia was sold 

I also think he will leave. He doesn’t appear to be in the best 11 in the opinion of Unai and we will aim to improve upon that in the summertime obviously. 
He is a decent squad option but teams like us can’t afford to have expensive players, in their peak, fulfilling that function within a team. We need either experienced players like Young in that role or talented youngsters with a big growth ceiling as our back ups. 
As a club, we have been really bad at timing the sales of our players. Now feels like a decent time to sell Emi. I think we could still get a decent fee for him, maybe £25m and we could buy a youngster, with similar attributes but a much higher growth ceiling, who would likely be on lower wages, to fill his position as a squad player.

The 2 obvious positions to improve upon are RB and then the Second Striker. After that a proper ball playing centre half and another centre mid of the quality of Boubs and Doug for competition. Then maybe an upgrade on Buendia. That’s 4/5 new quality players supported by 2/3 top quality youngsters. Total 6/7 new players in. 

I went for Emi motm. His save at 2-1 was massive. He’s a massive player for us. He’s been brilliant all season again. UTFV. Europe baby!

This has got 3-3 written all over it. 

Get Cash off. He’s all over the place. We’re lucky to be leading that but fortunately Unai should be able to settle them down now. Still lots of drama in this!

Been awful so far. Get Young on.

City have thrown in the towel. We definitely need to get a win now

15 hours ago, Rustibrooks said:

In full swing with Villarreal, Nicolas Jackson arouses strong interest from Aston Villa where Emery could work with him again. Napoli also interested. 21, the Senegalese scored 11 goals in 24 La Liga matches. Profile to follow. #Mercato

I really like the look of this guy. He is young, fast, strong, skilful and unlike many similar players, he plays with his head up and makes good decisions. It’s rumoured that he has a release clause of €35m. If true, he will surely go this summer. Hopefully it’s to us.

38 minutes ago, lexicon said:

Archer isn't IMO. 

Maybe not. I think he’s got a lot to prove too. You could well be right mate.