Beastmix

£50m is far too much for JWP. I'm sure you could get better for less nearer deadline day. I wouldn't even mind us taking a punt in Ndombele, since he's out of favour at Spurs. Fits the bill for what we need (strong DM with a decent shot) and Smith would sort out his apparent 'attitude issues', no doubt. To be fair, I'd have attitude issues too if I had to deal with Mourinho (and the rest of the boring Spurs players) for however long.

I got slated for saying this on here last week, but it's true. Being able to bring one off the bench gives us an alternative in games because they both have their respective skillsets. It's a small-time mentality to think we can't bring expensive players off the bench for the tactical benefit of the team. Or, to put it another way, it would be better to have Ings or Watkins coming off the bench to make an impact than present-day Big Wes.

Jeff Lynne supporting Birmingham...

Let's say Southampton don't play ball and sell us JWP (which I wouldn't if I were them). Who would be your next three realistic alternatives at the position, in order of preference?

I get the feeling the club believe Carney is the future midfield heart of our club, but they also know he's not quite there yet, physically, for the rigors of week in/week out Prem football. As such, I don't think they see buying a central midfielder as a priority this season and may look toward high profile loans, similar to Barkley (but good) for the next season or two until Carney is ready and we can move the less capable senior players on. If we do sign a central midfielder, I can see Carney getting a loan. We have such a strong youth system now it's going to need a measured strategy to reap the rewards of it. We're operating responsibly/professionally and, taking the last decade into account, that's more than good enough for me.

Not many funnier word combinations. I'm sold. Tavern it is!

Nice one. By 'Villa vibe', I meant the one most Villa fans would go to. Like, the consensus pick. I'm just getting into Birmingham in time for the early kick off, so wanted to watch it in a pub close enough to nip over to VP before kick off.

Slightly off topic, but what's the best pre-match pub for matches these days? I had a pint in the Witton last week, but wondering if there's anywhere else with a particular Villa vibe.

Sunday Sep 5th at 8pm (BST) which is roughly when it was previously. It's not too late for the European peeps and not too early for any North American folks. It's a good balance.

I've adjusted this and the draft time. Nobody wants to spend half a Sunday drafting their team (especially when the autodraft needlessly takes the full time allowance instead of just making the pick) Yeah, if you want to have a look to see if anything has been overlooked, have at it. I want to avoid us starting the season unhappy with the settings.

Is that ESPN FC? We get that here too and, yeah, it's entirely focused on giant CL clubs (and Spurs). Funny, but extremely biased.

Working from home has allowed me to have Sky Sports News on in the background all morning, every morning. The channel has become a parody of itself. All the presenters sound/appear more moronic than usual. It almost feels like I'm watching a training class for presenters. As for the more seasoned people on the channel, Kaveh Solhekol boils my piss. Also, they do this 'possible XI' thing now (only for the 'Big 6' and European giant clubs, of course) which is fairly self-explanatory, but they seem to also include players, based on what I can only imagine, are their own transfer desires (possibly to de-stabilise clubs/players), not that Sky should have a stake in these matters. For example, they just included Declan Rice in Chelsea's possible XI. The whole channel is a mess.

One of the jobber teams will do nicely. Barrow, Morecambe, Newcastle, Accrington...

Working from home is okay, but not so much when you have to teach 20+ half-awake university students at 9am in the morning. Three of which bother putting their camera on (meaning the rest are likely not actively in the lesson), and two (if I'm lucky) will actually engage In-person lecturing can't return soon enough.

Yeah, for sure. What I'm saying is though, when you take Watkins' goal tally from last season and add an extra player into his position, he's gonna have to share some of those goals with Ings. It won't just be him in the box anymore. Nonetheless, as long as one of them is sticking the ball in the onion bag, it's all gravy!

There seems to be a misunderstanding where people seem to believe token holders will decide how the club is run, haha. It just says they will have opportunities to participate in 'fan polls' run by the club itself (and the more tokens you have, the more weight your votes have). As if the club are going to let fans vote on anything drastic or project-altering. It'll be trivial stuff like 'what flavour crisps should we have at VP next season?' and stuff.

It's fascinating to see how many people on Social Media are up in arms about it, mainly because they don't understand (or have a warped perception of) what it is

It's not likely they'll BOTH get those numbers, playing at the same time. It's not really how it works, is it? ...and to address the 'both players need to start' comments, I'm just of the belief you can't be shoe-horning players into a starting XI just because they're new. If we play 4-4-2, then fine, but if we play the same system as last year, rotation would be better IMO. On the other hand, it would allow us to take one off mid-game to change up the formation, which I do see the positives of too.

Wouldn't harm Villa to start getting into such a mentality though. Can only be good for us.

I don't understand why so many people are trying to cram Watkins and Ings into the same starting line up. If we go our usual 'one up top' formation, we simply rotate them as starters (or select, based on opposition weaknesses), keeping them fresh and providing us with a plan b when games aren't going too well. Just because you sign a player, doesn't mean they need to go straight into the starting XI every week, irrespective of how much they cost to buy. Top clubs have benches where every single player on it is worth £20m~30m minimum.

Trauma, more than anything.

Just so he can put the ol' noggin' on Mee.

Ditto. It's a shame you can't delete posts on here. Nonetheless, back to the transfer talk...

Oof. Glitch-tastic triple post.

He'll be fine, providing he stays away from 'Grandmaster Sh*thouse' Ben Mee...