Daweii

A lot of failures on that list at least for Villa. Seems he can work with money as Liverpool's list obviously reads rather well aside from some duds which all teams will sign. Seems Riley's issue is more finding players on an incredibly tight budget than anything. Could he be an asset under Xia? Maybe, but I think his failings at this club have meant any chance to try and make a mends is gone.

He already said when he proved his worth somewhat with that bank statement of £400+ million ready to be used that much of it was for Villa. I doubt this is a Randy style "let's spend big to get them on side and then be tight for several years" kind of thing. Xia has plans for world domination with us and you don't achieve that with just £35 million normally.

It's likely expensive. Sony won't want that derailing what is set to be a good show. They have already said the Neo is more than $350 and given the spec I would assume it's possibly pushing $450/$500. For me personally it's something you save for a throwaway show like Paris Game Week or something. I mean the news will still get out, but it also won't overshadow things like The Last Guardian finally getting a release date which is likely happening at E3.

I'd be telling Grealish like "I know the Championship isn't where you want to be. You know you are a lot better than where we find ourselves. You've seen the press reports that other clubs also think you're too good for Villa's current predicament, but stick around and after next season we will be back where we belong. If not then we will talk about your future here" I think just talking to players and giving them a time frame can help. Let them know that they are wanted and needed but that they aren't trapped here. Grealish right now likely thanks to his agent will be hearing that chatter in his ear to bail out, but he may find that a season in the Championship especially if it's a promotion winning season could benefit him even more long term. Players need to realise that yes their careers are short but they aren't that short. Just look at Vardy he likely considered where he was in football to be as good as it was going to get. He was like 26 when he made his move to Leicester which was likely as high as he thought he would ever go, now he's won the Premier League at 29 and is now fending off Arsenal for his signature. Grealish is 20 he can take one season in the Championship out of the next 14+ years of what could be a very successful footballing career.

I doubt he does. He has a hard time handling those dishing out the truth on his Instagram and Twitter. I don't see why he'd go out of his way to track down the Villa forums out there. This is where you go to find the most vocal and opinionated and passionate fans of the club, if you want to keep you happiness as a Villa player right now don't delve much deeper than Instagram it'll hurt.

Money. While Di Matteo may not be on world elite levels of money based on some news headlines a week or so back, we are likely paying the going rate for coaches of this quality. Battara and Marchesi won't have come cheap, but they will be worth it if in their short pre-season can turn players into a well trained unit. Discipline at the back and fitness were our core issues so RDM has brought in two of the worlds finest coaches to tackle both, it's almost as if RDM knows what he's doing.

Wrong thread...

He may keep one or two as a personal pet project, but he also knows that it's not sensible to keep all off them even if the club is now one of the richest in the world. Who he keeps on will depend on how well releasing players on a free goes, I mean he can make a player free but that doesn't meant they will leave as many clubs outside the Premier League cannot afford Richards, or Lescott or Gabby from a wage perspective. So if Gabby stays it's because RDM still thinks there is a player there, but I don't think much of the bomb squad will remain.

@ferguson1 If reports last week are to be believed sites like Birmingham Mail were reporting that Xia had given RDM permission to offload any players he didn't like at an insanely cut price, so chances are Xia doesn't actually care about the sell on value of this lot.

Hype is addicting.. Hype hype hype!

It's likely more work to remove VP than to leave it in. Though they did just announce that FIFA 17 is on a new graphics engine for the first time in like 10 years, so maybe they will have to re-do everything like stadiums.

Last I heard from Gregg Evans of the Birmingham Mail is that the paper work has all be filed and that the final stage is merely Tony Xia flying in to the UK to meet with officials from the FA and Football League. That said it's unknown if Xia is in the country or if he is summoned when they are done looking through the paper work. That said this deal isn't dragging on all that much most takeovers take about this amount of time, it'll be done soon I think.

Bethesda are gaining a lot of hype this year despite it clearly being apparent that Elder Scrolls 6 isn't happening. They stated last year that conferences wouldn't be yearly unless they had something huge to show. This of course sent the internet into a bit of a frenzy when they finally announced another conference, but despite Elder Scrolls 6 clearly not being there it's still generating insane levels of hype. Evil Within 2 is gonna be great for fans of action-horror. Evil Within was a great throw back to classic Shinji Mikami gameplay from Resident Evil 4, maybe not on the same level as that but good classic horror is hard to find. There are so many run and hide horror games now like Amnesia, Outlast, Outlast 2 and the hundreds of smaller indie games that hopped on the bandwagon, but not many good horror games with guns and puzzles recently. Evil Within wasn't brilliant but it was refreshing to play after years of Resident Evil going further and further downhill with 5 and 6. So I look forward to Evil Within 2, I am most curious whether Mikami is coming back as he did say that the first game was his last as director so who knows. Wolfenstein 2 is gonna be hype. Machine Games for such a new studio have had such a great start. The New Order was hype as **** one of the best throw-back retro style shooters released in over a decade. The Old Blood was a great standalone expansion to that which also showed they weren't a one trick pony even if The Old Blood was only 3-4 hours long. I have heard rumblings that they are also in charge of a Quake reboot, but I personally think that either Bethesda has expanded their studio with very little fanfare or someone else is doing that one. Either way Wolfenstein 2, is gonna be insane. Prey 2... I remember the teaser trailer around the time Elder Scrolls: Skyrim was unveiled, but I'm just not convinced it will live up to the hype that it's cancellation and subsequent revival will create. Prey was a fun if not janky game some 10+ years ago and it introduced some new concepts like portals to FPS, but whether this will be the game worthy of the hype it will no doubt get is yet to be seen. I do think Bethesda have one hell of a track record publishing incredible games at this point though, so I am sure this wouldn't be getting revived if it didn't live up to their standards. Should be a good show overall. I don't think there will be many surprises. Dishonored 2 will likely open the show and Prey 2 will likely close it with a hype gameplay trailer with a possible release window. Aside from that Evil Within 2 and Wolfenstein 2 can duke it out for who gets the most attention at the mid-point of the show.

Why is it always one solitary person to blame for everything? Kevin Bond was always that assistant manager to someone else or on the rare occasion the manager, who by all accounts seemed to do pretty well at managing. Yet now he has even less of a say than ever before as he has to get his opinion through Steve Clarke and then Di Matteo before it gets carried out. He is the first team coach his role is to assist and lead training sessions while providing Clarke with the info to give to Di Matteo about who is performing well and who isn't. We have a hierarchy for once with Di Matteo's opinion as the most important and Battara's as the least, Bond kinda fits in the middle of all of that like a very well stacked sandwich. Long story short whether Bond was the weak link in the past or not he doesn't have the same amount of power that he's had in the past either.

Not sure it's happening for a while. Ready At Dawn have already announced their next game and it's not The Order 2. They are working on a cute arena brawler called Deformers which is coming to PS4, Xbox One and PC likely next year.

The same thing most managers do in pre-season which is plan for the future cause there is very little to really do now. What RDM will be using this time for is to look at players to sign in July while also likely watching a ton of our performances last season. Most managers at this time of year can almost chill a bit like the players do, but they also have the luxury of seeing their team play last season. So while it may seem some teams are getting ahead by signing pre-deals now, we're not that far behind if at all. Now if the takeover takes until July or later to get ratified then we have an issue, but right now this pre-season is no different really to any other club that just got a new manager.

@Richard To me optimism isn't as scientific. I am optimistic because I will be in a shit mood for the next 2 months waiting for the season to start if I am anything but optimistic about it. So I choose to be optimistic regardless of what facts there are against my current mindset.

Depends what kind of remaster it winds up being. Dead Island just had a remaster which saw the game remade on their newest engine and it looks so good in certain areas, yeah still a bit dated looking but the game is like 8 years old. Remasters are getting a lot better now that they have noticed gamers are more likely to buy it if the upgrade is sizeable.

Yeah as more of the board pass they get added to the list. As they fail they seemingly "resign" could that be why Hitchins resigned after only 15 days as he was ruled out almost immediately. If so at least it means the FA aren't failing us for one part of the board failing the test, of course if that is why he resigned..

Nifty little player isn't he.. Still question marks over the quality of the opposition but some of the things he was doing like the crosses and making space are pretty universal skills, so provided he finds it as easy in the Championship to run past players as he did in League Two then he'd be a quality signing.

I think a lot of players here already will be transformed with Max Marchesi over seeing fitness training this coming season. We're likely compensating Inter Milan a pretty penny to get his services so players like Veretout will have no excuse come the start of the season if their engine isn't there.

Good to see us seemingly making moves early especially for freebies. We would wind up kicking ourselves if we passed up players we could get now even without the takeover completed if they wound up at a rival. I understand being potentially limited financially prior to the takeover being ratified, but bosmans we can do..

Not to mention the only cast-offs we are looking at are those that have proven they can get promoted in the past. I wouldn't say that it's sad just that it's common sense to look at players that can do a job in the Championship that have also worked for RDM before to great success.

In the 09/10 season he played for West Brom under RDM's management he scored 13 goals in 45 appearances. 18 goals overall counting the cup competition. In the 7 seasons since that season he has only scored a grand total of 12 times. I always heard that RDM gets the best out of creative attacking players and it seems that is the case at least with Dorrans.

It could very well be a mental block. It's the same thing that gets people with lower back pain, you expect it therefore you avoid bending and when you have to bend you expect the pain so there is pain. It may just be that light exercise will get you past it eventually but of course if the pain gets worse cease whatever it is you are doing and go see your physio again.