skarroki

Some teams are really phoning it in this window. It must be much harder than other seasons to get deals done in the Prem, some interesting moves across the continent and over to Saudi Arabia, meanwhile 6/7 Prem teams getting weaker. Based on rumours I'd be very worried if I supported Brentford (no Toney or Raya) Bournemouth (barely survived and signing unknowns or flops) Palace (Zaha gone, noone in) Everton (still a mess) Fulham (bad form, could lose Mitrovic) West Ham (sitting on a goldmine with nobody wanting to sign) and Wolves (spent the Neves money on end of loan flop obligations). Those lot along with some of the old big 6, and the promoted sides, means really that anything below the top 10 currently is a real real failure this season. We've done so well in the market after doing so well to get into Europe. I'm so hopeful we can continue the momentum

Dream end to this window for me would be good loan moves for a few youngsters, Saudi club bids silly money for a squad player of ours and then signing Wan-Bissaka and De Ketelaere (or players similar to)

Emery definitely has got people taking us seriously. Without a summer tournament in the men's game it's given people enough time to look back on the season and see how well we did under Emery, his pedigree in Europe and all whilst we sign 3 top players and have half our squad linked to top 4 candidates. I think there's 7 players in our squad now that could be considered good enough for the champions league and several others that are young and hungry enough to reach that kind of level. I'd not have thought that before Emery arrived.

Philogene-Bidace?

The Athletic just released a podcast about the fact you cannot have 2 first choice keepers. The only club in English football right now that's decided we need someone worse than Martinez but better than Olsen to sit on our bench

Look at Arsenal bringing in Raya, there's questions of who will be the number 1 once he's signed. That never ends well. You only ever have 2 good goalkeepers if one is leaving. De Gea and Henderson, Henderson goes on loan Mendy brought in to replace Kepa, then Kepa regains his place and Mendy goes. Areola and Fabianski, shared number 1 spot. Both are good but one is approaching 39 and there's no doubt which will be number 1 long term. We got Martinez because Arteta couldn't guarantee he would be number one ahead of Leno. Then eventually Leno leaves too when he's not promised number one ahead of Ramsdale. Is Kelleher or Adrian better than Olsen? I'd say the best genuine number 2s currently in the league are Strakosha and Ortega, one is at one of the best clubs in the world and the other is at a club that feared their number 1 would leave and he is now leaving. Both are unproven in English football never mind the Prem. The fascination with signing someone to replace a keeper that only played last year because Martinez went on a 3 week bender in Buenos Aires, instead of returning to train, baffles me. Martinez doesn't have dips in form where he needs games out and rarely gets injured. We've won games with a clean sheet against top 10 Prem teams, you think Olsen can't handle playing against the team that came 2nd in Serbia?

I'm happy to do it and actually have an active interest in it too this time. I won it a few years back and gone from that to being lower half of the 2nd Division I like the suggestion of having a league of people showing an active interest. I have a few mates who enjoy the draft and we were planning on doing the draft Saturday afternoon, if it's VT people only that's fine but if there's people who are interested in just joining an active league, we could try to get a few people with interested friends too?

Dan admitted he goes on VillaTalk sometimes, or his old man does, and reads through the comments to see what people are saying and thinking. Dan or someone close to him, if you're reading, please let me know what the dynamic is with Gregg and Dan. I would love a "spill the tea" kind of video on this to get his thoughts. Oh to be a fly on the wall before or after recording those podcasts.

List of players Emery has publicly said he's happy with and people need to get over the fact they're not leaving: Olsen Dendonker Coutinho

I agree, I just think if it's someone to essentially employ as a player but only use when needed in PL2 and effectively have as a mentor / extra coach around the place, who has experience of coming through the academy and into the team and also of moving on to a different side, that must have value otherwise a bunch of other top clubs wouldn't be doing it. Jay Spearing is 10 months older than Clark so would have been younger when brought in as an Under 21 player. He's employed also as a coach for the under 18s. Last season he managed a staggering 32 minutes of football for the youth teams after coming off the bench in 2 games. So means to say, he didn't block anyone's path to minutes in youth games. If a player is losing their head or the team is taking a pelting, sending on a 34 year old experienced pro to coach them live in a match is better than throwing on another 17 year old in front of the freight train to damage their confidence.

Woodman left to be first choice keeper after being a perennial loaned GK for Newcastle. Can't see him giving up guaranteed game time at PNE to sit on our bench ahead of Olsen. Also FWIW I think he's a top GK for the championship but I wouldn't want him as our cup GK or in net for a while. My Dad is a PNE season ticket holder so I go to a lot of the games and he's relatively consistent, but does have a poor choice of distribution in him. He's not as commanding of the box as Martinez, he'd rather pin himself to the line and hope the CBs deal with it on a corner than try to get a fist on an in-swinger. Now you could say that's due to instructions but I've watched pre-match training sessions where they're taking corners and the GKs take it in turns to run out and grab the ball, so it's an odd thing to drill pre-match if you don't want them doing it during the match. If he's directly ignoring instructions then it won't wash with Emery.

With clubs signing old academy players to re-join their under 21s as mentors towards the end of their career (Spearing at Liverpool, McShane / Evans at Man Utd) - what would people say to someone like Clark signing for us? He's 34 in September, could do a job lower down the league ladder but if he's thinking about coaching or staying in football it could be a tempting offer.

Although I agree Wilson is good, he's also made of glass and I feel like there is a ticking timebomb on his current abilities, any injury could be the one that he never comes back from. Watkins on the other hand is made of something different, he's immune from injury and illness. Watkins I think struggles the most psychologically out of all the strikers I've watched at Villa. It looks like the air weighs a metric tonne around him whenever he's not scored in 3 or 4 games. He would hang his head low and be shaking his head at himself. The first season he must have had 5 goals disallowed by VAR and every time you could see, he was blaming himself for the VAR decision and had a look of "well that was my only chance of scoring". On that goalscoring run last season, he looked like a different man. That miss against Chelsea was a classic example, in other seasons I'd point to that and think "he won't be scoring for 5 games now". But in that match, when he went through on goal minutes later and tried that audacious chip, you could tell - this is a guy that knows how good he is and knows if he misses, he just needs to go again and something will happen. I'm excited to see what he produces next season.

Posted in the Barry thread but he was one of a few to get a full 90, I was thoroughly whelmed by him. Slight flashes, nothing great. Nothing that made you think "this guy is too good for league 2" It's only one game though and a friendly at that though

A front 3 of Bertie, Philogene-Bidace and A.Ramsey would be fun. None of them would know what the other two were gonna do or what they are gonna do themselves. Good luck to the defender trying to set themselves

Had a decent game today but nothing special, he had a habit of running down a couple cul de sacs, I think it looked like he was keen to impress the new team. Stockport ended up winning 2-0 and they missed a pen so was a good result for them, their squad looks very strong. I'm worried about where he'll play as he seemed to drift all over, it looks like they tend to play 5-3-2 and so he might end up fighting for the 2 striker spots with the current forwards who are good for the level and now Powell who they signed from Stoke, who really has no business being in the 4th tier. He played the full 90 so might be worrying for nothing but I do think if he doesn't hit the ground running there's a few good seniors there that will happily take his place in the team.

I did think he'd benefit from a season out in a Spanish speaking country or something before reading this comment. He's had a lot to deal with for a young guy, best to maybe just let him settle and find himself a bit England first. If he's desperate to play more football and we're out of Europe and the Carabao then maybe in January we can reassess. I just can't work out how he fits in with Watkins and Archer and anyone else we bring in before the window shuts, so that's what I'm curious to find out as the season goes on. It's jarring to go from Watkins is the only striker and he'll play almost every minute, to fighting on four fronts and who's getting game time where.

Rapid Wien for the banter please and thanks

I think Chrisene had a decent loan in Scotland in their premiership so he might be considered higher up, but Revan wasn't on loan at all and around the first team training. So in those terms, Emery probably sees Revan as higher in the pecking order purely based on how his training has gone and getting used to what he wants.

As luck would have it I'm off to Stockport's pre-season match against Preston tomorrow, so I'll now be hoping for a chance to see him in his new colours for the first time. I do think there's a chance he'll still make it but I also think he'll definitely be a professional footballer with value so if he won't make it, we've helped develop one of our own and make money out of it too, no shame in that. I would imagine Stockport will go up this season so my hope would be that they get Promotion and he plays a decent role in that, then goes back there for a fee next year. Either that or he absolutely tears it up for a season and then someone like Coventry comes calling 12 months later

Think Emery likes him. Hope he gets a lot of game time, exciting player to have on the pitch. I'm sure he'll get the crowd off their feet at Villa Park and then that'll give him confidence back.

And to add to that, if he was a Villa fan and this was a dream it would be like going from the CEO of your own company to working to someone else with less responsibility. For some people, like Carl Anka, he's gone from Southampton reporter to a Man Utd reporter and it's understandable if he is a Man Utd fan that they'd move him to that club.

Gregg Evans gets on my wick like no other person in journalism. He has the energy of a sloth on pain medication and the warmth of liquid nitrogen. I'm so annoyed that he's still doing the 1874 podcast and I don't know why he's not been booted. "Promoted" to a position to talk about Liverpool? You kidding me. Some people dream about getting his opportunity and the closet WBA can't wipe a rare smile from his face when discussing the fact that he doesn't have to talk about Villa anymore.

Dad joke answer: it's pronounced "Tim" Pedantic answer: I don't pronounce bath and trap in the same way FWIW I found the video of Gerrard's post-match interview where he is asked how to pronounce it and he says it's taken a few months to learn it. However I still can't get over my irrational hatred of the man so I would say that I don't trust his pronunciation of it either. https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/12602892/steven-gerrard-theres-a-pathway-for-youth-players-at-villa Judging by that I think it's pronounced ee-rhoo-byoo-num ee as in tree, rhoo as in Kanga, byoo as in blue without the "l" and num as in the popular linkin park song. The "G" is silent.

KKH was third choice RB within a month behind an injured old midfielder and a lad from the Hudds academy who was both younger than KKH and also not a RB. Aaron Ramsey was disliked by the majority of the Norwich fanbase. I think QPR fans were fairly glowing in their assessment of Iroegbunam on the whole. Is there a reason you think his season at QPR was a huge failure?