Gillz

I dont know why but i was viewed Hegazi as a weak link in the Baggies team and a penalty waiting to happen - so my initial is a big no thank you.

Upon reflection my view is probably based on the fact hes a Baggies player so i don't want him to be any good and i want him to give away lots of penalties

I dont really care about the fee.

Absolutely delighted with Mings. Was pivotal last year and will be going forward.

im still relatively calm. A good number of incoming already, and sufficient press speculation that we are actively trying to bring in a few more (in the positions that we all seem to align on too). There's time still. Trust the system and set-up.

That said....it would be nice to actually have a CB for the USA tour.

Essentially they were all pretty rubbish.

I wouldn't worry too much about ranking them all - i just group them all together and call it the 'dark years'

8 minutes ago, useless said:

but its not Wednesday?

Whilst i know i shouldn't look back hypothetically, but could you imagine if these guys had come in when Doug first sold us to Lerner.

When the Top 4 weren't as unassailable as they are now and 10m got you a good quality player. Just imagine if our first push and investment had been overseen by people as capable as NSWE rather than Randy and MON

I think its a good signing, there is real upside to Targett. The price might seem high but again we are paying for potential

Delphinio is a smokescreen.

Employed by Deano to throw us off the press conference today which is scheduled with 3 chairs

2 hours ago, Villaphan04 said:

seems to be the case... hopefully it's a repeat of the McGinn signing from last year for us!

BBC Reporting Norwich have had a bid accepted: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48685494

"Motherwell have accepted a fee to the value of £3.25m for midfielder David Turnbull from Norwich City.

The newly promoted Premier League club submitted a successful bid to the Fir Park outfit after monitoring Turnbull's situation with Celtic.

They matched an offer of £3m plus £250,000 in add-ons from Celtic that Motherwell accepted last week.

But the 19-year-old and the Scottish champions could not reach an agreement over personal terms.

Celtic released a statement on Friday to say the "magnificent" offer made to Turnbull had not been accepted.

And it now looks less likely the Scotland Under-21 player, who scored 15 goals for his boyhood club last season, will join Neil Lennon's side."

Daily Mail reporting that we are after Axel on a perm.

Mods, is there a way to move this back from 'Other Football' instead of having to create a new speculation thread? Would seem a shame to lose 80+ pages of comments etc!

17 Sixes.....Fair play Morgan!

41 minutes ago, Rob182 said:

I too think Guilbert will surprise us. Hopefully in an Idrissa 'Oh god, this guy is great' Gueye way, and not a Nicholas 'Oh no, he's useless and now he's dropped his pants' Helenius way.

To this day it still baffles me how that wasnt a penalty.

There's got to be something in the rules about destroying a mans dignity.

1 hour ago, Adam2003 said:

In the highlights video posted he doesn’t seem to hold much - everything is a punch or a save that rebounds off (admittedly to the side) - but i am guessing that’s because it’s highlights and those who watch him would say he does hold on to his fair share? Nothing nicer than when a keeper can claim the ball and relieve pressure, rather than tipping it over for a corner or whatever.

I was thinking the same - there seemed to be a lot of punches, albeit to the side and away from danger.

We need a CB x2, LB, DCM, WInger and then a number of squad options. Increasingly it also seems we are getting a new keeper too.

I see it as:

                     GK ?

Guilbert,  CB1?      CB2?    LB?

                   DCM?

           Jack           John

El Ghazi                           Winger?

                     Wesley

Now if rumours are to be true

• GK = Butland
• CB1 = Mings
• CB2 = ???
• LB = Targett/???
• DCM = Philips/???
• Winger = ???

That is a lot of unknowns, especially when you consider we probably need another 2/3 squad options in there as well like Hause and Jota!

14 hours ago, Jimmyg said:

Ah man so many....most of which people have mentioned already, in particular Hadgi, Kachloul and Baros different times but I was exited to see them sign. 

Steve Sidwell, Steve Warnock, Nicky Shorey and I’m gonna throw it out there Stiliyan Petrov, he did a job for us in the end but he didn’t turn out to be the player we were expecting from Celtic let’s be honest. 

Oh and djemba djemba... although aside from that charity shield game never shown promise at utd, but at the time I thought Alex seen something in him he is gonna be mint for us... how I was wrong. 

The thing with Petrov is that we got an exceptional player, just not in the role many of us expected him to play in.

Having said that, i remember his debut for Villa was against West Ham away. He got through on a 1-1 and deftly chipped the keeper, rolling away to celebrate only to see a defender heroically clear it off the line. I've always thought that if that had gone in, he'd of got his confidence and we would have had a completely different player on our hands. Small margins and all that.

So doing some reading into the lad, it seems he only properly started playing football at the age of 16. Give him some of that magic Deano coaching and i'd expect him to continue improving.  

£22m might seem a lot, but we are paying for potential as well as ability.

2 years ago i would have been delighted if we got Butland. Right now i think £20m is a little overpriced.

It does feel harsh on Steer to be actively looking for a keeper considering how pivotal he was in the promotion, but in the PL a keeper can save you 10-15 points so you need to be sure they are up for it

Realistically, if he scores 12+ league goals next season he'll be worth it. Whether its £20m or £28m.

Good luck Wes

So i think like everyone im pretty shocked by this signing - caught completely out of the blue.

Probably like the rest of us I've spent the last few minutes reading up on him and watching the obligatory highlights video. My initial thoughts are that hes got all the great traits to success - Big, Strong, Eye for Goal and a little bit of swagger you want your striker to have. His stats show promise albeit not quite as prolific as you'd hope, and he seems to of had interest from around Europe big leagues.

Despite all the above, i was quite shocked by the price tag. Our club record fee being broken on a striker from Belgian not many people have heard of before. I was expecting our record to be broken this summer, but i guess i was expecting that big marquee name and admit i actually felt a little disappointed. However, the more i think about it the more that disappointment has changed to optimism. Once you ignore the Sky mantra of 'PL experience' being a must have and the horrific transfer record Villa have had over the last years you can start buying into the forward direction we seem to be moving in and the incredible signal of intent this signing signifies.

We're Aston Villa and we're back in the big time.