Gillz

Watching him last night made me realise what an absolute gem we have in Konsa.

Both were in a similar position about 2 years ago, now one is miles ahead

Barrow had some big bruiser and in the second half in particular they were getting more physical - Carney at just 17 rode it out like it was nothing.

Silky smooth dribbling and the physique to not be bullied off the ball. Very promising 

The guy just has a knack for scoring goals.

A fantastic squad option and will have fun in the cup runs

Whilst desperately not trying to sounds like Danny Murphy, part of me does wonder why the idea that 'We should target Mings from set pieces' has taken so long to be thought of

A number of time he made really good runs and wasnt feed in. 

A much better performance and will only get better when our first choice wingers are playing in front of him

One of the big differences between this and the Watford game was the fact he drops deep to pick up the ball from Martinez / CBs, turns and plays a forward pass rather than a hopeful lump forward. 

Not saying it was a great performance, but it was better than what we had last week.

Playing a 15 year old against potential U23 years olds is a huge sign of faith from the Villa coaching set up.

Regardless of talent, just the sheer physical development that can happen in those 8 years make it a massive challenge for one so young. All other players will be taller, strong and quicker than him

@sir_gary_cahill - can you shed any light on this? Is he just extremely talented and can therefore compensate physically, or his he one of those freak teenagers who has already had a massive growth spurt and can thus can compete with older players?

It was a promising performance - but Newcastle were really really poor (think they are in real danger of going down this season). Will be interesting to see if he can replicate that type of performance against Brentford.

For me, 'consistency' is one of the key aspects of a player's development - being able to take the little sparks we've seen over the last year or so and turn it into dependable outputs. If Jacob can string a few more performances together like Saturday it will make him near impossible to drop when Sanson returns.

A New Hope

We all agree we need another CB as back up for Konsa and Mings. A loan signing may not seem to appealing, but i would imagine it's relatively cheap deal.

For me, it makes sense because having already spent 70m, and hopefully some more to come, we dont want to be spending another Xmillion on a third choice player when we've already spent so much this season. Fills the gap in the squad and pushes the required expenditure down the road to when clubs wont be trying to fleece us for Grealish money + balance the FFP books a bit

Obviously don't want him to go - and will be gutted if he did - But can we just appreciate something for a minutes.....

Our local lad Jack could potentially be a the highest ever English transfer, the highest ever PL player even. Not bad for a kid from Solihull

He's an absolute superstar,  whatever happens. 

Nixon saying we have a few options - but that Bailey is 'more possible than others'

I got excited, and then realised that 'more possible than others' is twitter talk for 'I have no idea'

8 hours ago, TheMelvillan said:

that a real name or did you just lean on your keyboard too hard?

Oh my friend - this doesn't even register on the scale for weird names in American Sports.

Some of my fav from the NFL include:

Captain Munnerlyn, Dick Butkus, Earthwind Moreland, Craphonso Thorpe,  D’Brickashaw Ferguson, Barkevious Mingo, Ha Ha Clinton-Dix and good old Happy Feller 

Everyone (and rightly so) making the Giannis comparison of developing him, keeping him with big money and building around him. Don't ignore the signing of Jrue Holiday at the start of the season too.

They knew they needed something extra to get them to the finals and they promised Giannis some extra support - so they went out and absolutely got the right guy.

Just great team management all-round

The cup and the league are completely different competitions with different rules and precedent.

The PL has already postponed games this season so i think  games will get rescheduled..

With the cup, we've already seen teams have to play weaker teams or forfeit where teams have been hit by Covid.

As mentioned above, we are just going to have to 'play the kids'/forfeit in the cup and accept it in these strange and uncertain times. For the league, i'd be gearing up for something similar to Project Restart 2.0 com March/April

I fully agree that looking at our team on paper that Targett is the weakest link.  However i don't think it's a glaring weakness - hes not bad, he just isnt that good either.

If we stick with the current line up we have i will be more than happy. It gets to the point that whilst a new LB would be great, we need to consider FFP and squad chemistry dynamics. Too much changes is not ideal and we have already significantly improved this year

Rome wasn't built in a day and all that.

Big year for Ross.

With the Euros next summer he will have wanted to get guaranteed first team football - absolutely delighted he's chosen to do it at Villa.

I hope we do have a option to buy - because if he has a good season and does well at the Euros - will be a big price tag!

It's not just the turn....it's the fact he did it to Joe Byram.

Championship calling.

I really like how vocal he is - even though he's relatively new to the team.

Several times tonight you could hear him shouting at the defence, commanding the line and also giving the fullbacks some stick for not closing down crosses.