Daweii

All I have read from the likes of Birmingham Mail is Di Matteo can start assessing the squad now and anyone he's not happy with that likely won't sell for their "valuation" can be sold at a majorly cut down price. I have seen some sources taking that and insinuating that does also mean releasing some of them once Xia has taken over if no one has taken the bait, but for now all it seems we can do is list people for transfer that Di Matteo doesn't want. That said all we are missing out on are those pre-transfer deals that a few clubs are making, but it seems that work is happening now and the takeover will likely be ratified by the time the transfer window is open.

To be fair it's hard not to be a selling club these days especially in our position. I mean Leicester are struggling to keep their best players and they won the league and have Champions League ahead of them. Lowly Aston Villa with nothing but the potential of promotion ahead of us haven't got a leg to stand on keeping players like Amavi if clubs like Liverpool with their £100k a week wages come knocking. The only way to not be a selling club is to stay successful long enough that your current players believe that there is no where better to go, as Leicester are finding out though one season of greatness is not enough to convince their stars that they will manage it again and again and again.

There are teams out there likely concerned about us. We have appointed a manager that wins things and has gotten a team promoted before. We are also seemingly backed by a lot of money which doesn't guarantee success but it helps, there are lots of teams in the Championship wondering how they will make a move in the transfer market this Summer without selling prized assets to do it. We on the other hand appear to have £50+ million regardless of if any of our players are sold, we are in a decent position once all the fit and proper is sorted out compared to many in this league.

That said seeing his name added to Recon Sports as of yesterday seems to suggest that he's passed his part of the fit and proper, so unless there is someone else super dodgy that we don't know about it seems to be going smoothly. Definitely a filing to keep an eye on as more names may be added as they pass the checks.

I get that he's unproven and a work in progress but it does seem awfully like Villa these days to sign a player from Barcelona and then rarely play him. I mean yeah he played a lot for our U21's (good for them) but not for the Senior team. Adama seemed like he would be useful even on a bad day as he would have likely created something in a match. That was our issue last season, we had no shortage of players that could score goals I mean Ayew banged them in with ease when he finally made a chance for himself we just lacked creative players. It annoyed me that we had arguably one of the most promising creative players in Europe in our team and he rarely featured, more annoying was when he did he made things happen.

Depends how much we're planning to pay him. We need at least one transfer to happen on our side to know just how much a change in owner has changed our buying policies. If we are that confident of getting promoted we could be signing players to Premier League wages even in the Championship, it's down to the player then if their pride will allow them to play in the small leagues. The fact we are going for El Ghazi if reports are true shows that we aren't letting a change of league inhibit who we are after.

I dunno if it happened today or when he got in yesterday but he's already told Tony Parks to pack his bags, he was of course our goalkeeping coach.. I wonder what he was doing for the last year cause he certainly wasn't making Guzan a better keeper that's for sure.

Like Sharky said in grand total of 20 minutes he played last season he made defenders in the Premier League look like they lacked any ability whatsoever. He doesn't need to pass if that keeps happening.

@cyrusr He's a kid waiting for Christmas Day basically and he's growing impatient, he wants to play with his new toy.

I think we should be more morally ambiguous though not lacking morals 100%. Right now we play it straight 100% we won't do a single thing that is even close to breaking the rules, yet we should in some instances. Now I'm not saying go 100% off the deep end and start breaching every rule left, right and center because what is the worst that will happen? A fine? That's not what I'm saying, all I am saying is stay competitive and if that means bending the rules from time to time like all the other clubs are then so be it.

29 years since we started the 1987 season in Division 2. I was 1 month old when we were promoted back to Division 1. It's been a long ass time, but thanks to alphabetical order when they do update the tables we'll be starting in 1st place so only 21st in English Football. We'll be back in our rightful place soon enough.

Which is how some other clubs in China have been run. For instance Guangzhou Evergrande I believe it was them anyway, the owner on behalf of Evergrande Real Estate pumped £2-3 billion into the club knowing that success would put his main company on the map in China. I think his company was worth like £2 billion when he bought Guangzhou Evergrande and is now worth over £10 billion. I am likely getting a few things wrong here as all the research and stuff was done like 3-4 weeks ago when it was rumoured our owner was Chinese, but it could very well be that we will be treated similarly.

Well our last proper manager Remi Garde only won 3 in 23 so both are an upgrade on him. While Eric Black won 0 in 7 so is one of the few managers in history with a 0.00% win percentage.. RDM and Clarke are colossal upgrades compared those two lol.

All I'm saying is I give zero **** about the rules provided we never get caught bending them. These days playing it proper gets you nowhere and it's getting to the point where the only place being legit will get you if Championship or lower. I mean look into how many clubs in the Premier League have sister/feeder clubs even though the FA doesn't allow it, for instance Man City have like 13 other teams assisting them in all sorts of ways. The future is in being slightly dodgy and personally I'm for that cause I don't really want to see us in League Two as a complete nothing team no one gives two shits about but us.

It's Watch Dogs but uses Watch_Dogs predominately in all marketing.

Welcome to Villa Buddha handsome..

He looks expensive, is Xia already flashing the cash to get a coaching team far out of our league. I mean coming from Inter is one thing but he seems to carry enough of a pedigree to flesh out an entire website..

The game that suffered from crazy Assassins Creed 1 syndrome and will likely be vastly better on its second time out? Yeah I remember Watch_Dogs. The game itself wasn't that bad it just felt largely unfinished likely because UbiSoft underestimated the extra time current-gen would require. It's the exact same thing that happened to Assassins Creed 1 and we all know how much love that series gained in the end.

He's only been in the job 25 minutes and we're already signing exotic names. Granted it's a fitness coach but more of this please, more raiding of Inter Milan as well.

I think this appointment largely means fit and proper is done it's just ironing out formalities. We likely wouldn't be appointing RDM if everything was set to fail.

So with RDM now appointed it would appear Xia getting ratified is mere days away. Time to stabilise this ship and get ready for next season!

Aha! I completely glossed over that. Oh how much typing that would have saved, I've been mis-reading stuff all day I apologise lol.

WWE need to use the money advantage and give NJPW an offer they cannot refuse to licence the 'Bullet Club' name. Calling them 'The Club' is growing on me a little but only through necessity as they are likely going to go on to be the next 'Shield', if it irks me now it's going to be unbearable in 6 months if I don't get used to it.

Only the "on the road" segments have been pre-filmed which doesn't bother me as Evans screaming over the sound of a wailing engine makes a bit more sense than when he does it in the studio. The studio segments at least back in the Clarkson era were filmed mid-week ahead of the Sunday airing so they could keep up to date with the car world. That said the Clarkson-era also had a news segment every week mainly to reuse the "Dacia Sandero" joke over and over again which meant they had to stay current, unless it's coming in future episodes it doesn't appear that the Evans-era has a news segment so maybe it is all pre-recorded.

Yeah these days the Tabloids and Twitter are one and the same they just deal in different currencies. The Tabloid style of journalism will do whatever they can to make top dollar for the least amount of work. Twitter is similar just instead of cash in many instances it is viewer reach, retweets and follows that you are after. The issue these days is Twitter feeds Tabloids which feeds Twitter again, it is bullshit manufacturing at its finest.