skarroki

5 hours ago, KMitch said:

Tyler Adams headed to Chelsea's bench...  lol.  Can't see him playing much ahead of Caiciedo and Ugochukwu

Neither currently at the club. Gallagher potentially on the move too. Adams isn't good enough for where they want to be but I'm sure Chelsea have weighed up the financial impact of losing Pulisic on the American market and bringing in the USMNT captain as an option in midfield probably helps mitigate some of the loss of earnings 

15 hours ago, Exeter Fan Too said:

Sinisalo keeps a clean sheet in an opening day 3-0 away win. He has the number 1 shirt and is currently obviously first choice (with a 30 something experienced pro as back up/challenge)

(In reply to Skarroki the swapping of Sinsalo and Blackman as Exeter/Burton keepers is down to money. Exeter were desperate for a quality keeper last season and paid big bucks (in Exeter's terms) for a season of Blackman. The new manager has explicitly said that he wants to spend that money elsewhere in the squad. Exeter sees itself as an 'opportunity' club where players can build (or re-build) their careers. This is Sinisalo's opportunity and everyone hopes he takes it with both hands. 

Also I expect Sinisalo to be busy in a battle against relegation for precisely the reasons Skarroki mentions. Half the team gone including the best players. Replacements made up of inexperienced Premier loanees,  signings from non league and a couple of midfielders who haven't played for 18 months because of injury. Will depend on how well this recruitment works out. Six debutants starting yesterday and a 7th on after 15 minutes. Though I'd settle for the table as it now stands...)

 

 

Tom Carroll is a great pick up, hopefully he'll do well. Didn't work out for him at all at Villa but should be one of the best in the league at that level if he keeps fit (big if I know)

Thanks for answering all of that following the YouTube account and watching with keen interest now. Huge win especially considering it would have been 4-0 if not for a saved pen. 

Clips from the end of the game Sinisalo looked like he was loving the love from the crowd. Opening game results like that can define a season but a paper thin squad might take its toll. Who knows. Exeter seem a great club though so fingers crossed they do well and Sinisalo smashes it to help you up the league. 

3 minutes ago, cheltenham_villa said:

He hadn't signed a contract yet because the terms aren't favourable enough for him. No other reason

The club is trying to get him to sign a new contract. If they do sign a replacement/strong competitor it may make their negotiation harder. 

Don't think that's how Premier League players think. If you've got to this level of the game you back yourself all the way.

That's why players like Scott Sinclair and more recently Kalvin Phillips join Man City, they think they'll actually be able to prove in training they deserve to be part of the team. 

Don't think it'll be easy to come across a player that's said "I ran down my contract and left because the club I was at signed someone better than me and I wasn't playing anymore" or "I signed for this team even though I had interest from bigger clubs because I wanted to play games"

2 hours ago, paul514 said:

My Step Dad was a wealthy man, growing up he told me money doesn’t buy happiness it buys choices.

Some choices you take can make you content, happiness doesn’t exist.

Was your step-dad called Anakin by any chance?

Only the sith deal in absolutes 

On 31/07/2023 at 21:33, thabucks said:

Pending further confirmation this will swIng  back to he’s for sale by the end of the week… they really are a poorly run club. 

That's not a statement from the club its just lazy journalism. 

There's lots of reasons Barca is run terribly, but the way journalists are translating reports from other journalists that might not be true or accurate, is not one of them

Found it funny that Exeter have signed Sinisalo that Burton deemed not good enough for them, and Burton have signed Blackman from Exeter. They're replacing each other but had very different seasons last time out. 

Be interested in @Exeter Fan Too and @Exeter Fan opinions on their chances this season. I've been paying attention to them since Sinisalo went on loan to them and I personally think they've had a pretty horrendous transfer window. Unless the few youth players they promoted are league 1 quality, they've got a paper thin squad and lost almost every player that impressed last year. 

Only 10 points above relegation roughly and worried they've lost the players that earned them that cushion. Sinisalo could be busy early on unless they make a lot of transfers in the next couple days. Either that or he'll be sat on the bench again behind Wood

38 minutes ago, nick76 said:

What is this about?

 

Decent edit but a lot of red flags plus it's from an account that's busy giving opinions on lizzo a couple hours ago, not exactly a serious leak account. 

1 hour ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

Martinez, Moreno, Torres, Carlos, Kamara, Luiz, McGinn, Ramsey, Diaby & possibly Archer if he can do in the PL what he did for Boro in the Ch.

The ones I highlighted are the ones I was thinking of, plus Watkins. 

I think McGinn could get there, and a few others like the ones you mentioned and then there's players like Digne, Coutinho, Bailey, Buendia and Tielemans that were all sought after by champions league clubs in the past and have that ability within themselves.  I'm not sure we can ever get that potential back for a variety of reasons but I'm sure Emery will try. 

17 minutes ago, TRO said:

All salient points....but not addressing the one I was making.

appraise Aaron Ramsey now, and then appraise him again in a couple of seasons when he has broken in to the first team like his brother.......the difference is likely to be significant, thats the point I am making, but we have to wait and see.

when I said we don't know what we are selling, I was refering to the developed player....not his past character.

Right sorry, I just had a lot of thoughts on it and laid them all out in a response to you. 

Overall I agree that we should keep him, I agree with you too. 

My only concern is the player he turns into with us and the player he turns into if we sell now could be worlds apart in terms of ability. There's a scenario we could live to regret both decisions if he never kicks on for us, but would kick on when sold. 

8 minutes ago, Marka Ragnos said:

Yes, and did you look at Pool? I don’t see how they can keep in top four. 

I based my "should be worried" on "should fear relegation" because I cannot switch that part of my brain off in the era I've grown up supporting Villa. Feels like a relegation scrap is inevitable any minute now haha. I think there's 10 teams looking good for relegation this year which means good news for the promoted sides, who I think could all potentially surprise and keep themselves above the line. 

Leicester and Southampton must be screaming themselves to sleep, I think their current squads are good enough to stay up in this new season if they hadn't got it so wrong last year. 

I think the Liverpool side looks very good in an attacking sense personally, I like Szbolsosjfuiskxj and Mac Allister and their forward players are potent when on form. 

Van Dijk looked not himself last year, they need to hope giving him the armband brings back some form, I do not rate their centre backs and the full backs are offering nothing defensively either. My two cents anyway. 

4 hours ago, TRO said:

its a fair comment, but we don't really know what we are selling at the moment....they are mere pups.

they could turn out to be world beaters.....look what happened when Blues sold Bellingham, £ 25 mill was a snip for him.....sure they are not all going to turn out like that.....but we simply don't know.

We should only sell, when we are reasonably sure of what we are selling.

Nothing is certain in football, but this is a kid that has been with us 10 years and his whole family are fully embedded into the Villa. 

I'm not being funny, but I don't understand how any club could ever be more sure of what they are keeping hold of, or selling on. 

I imagine Emery and his staff have read all the reports of the youth team, watched their clips, had them in training, spoken to the youth staff about them, got a gauge of their personality and their drive and how susceptible they are to injury etc etc etc. 

I'm not pointing the finger at you TRO, but I think in the modern age of video game football and stats overload everywhere, people are quick to announce the career decision of a player as definitively good or bad or indifferent based on the levels they think everyone involved in the move is at. 

If Wesley didn't get that freak, career-defining injury that transfer might not have looked bad value. Likewise, if his career suddenly takes off at Stoke were we wrong to cut our losses? 

I was equally gutted when we sold Young, Milner and Downing. One of those sales ended up looking a steal whereas the other two sales, if we had those players in their prime at the club now, I'd expect us to ask for Grealish money to sell them on. 

This is a long and winding way of essentially saying, I don't think you can ever be sure you've made the right choice, and you have to hope hindsight proves you right in the long run. 

I'm sure the club have their reasons if they sell any academy player and I hope they make a good call and every lad from the academy has a good career. 

50 minutes ago, villan95 said:

I'd say we've done pretty well so far compared to most

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. 

2 hours ago, wishywashy said:

 

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 

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

2 hours ago, nick76 said:

Only if he’s got the attributes to be of benefit.  I don’t want it to be a job for the boys type thing just because he an old ex player and has experience.

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. 

2 hours ago, useless said:

We don't need old timers taking up a space that a youngster could use for development time, was bad enough last season Guilbert playing for the U21s, would rather just give the game time to an actual academy player. I wouldn't be surprised if the FA put a stop to the practice.

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. 

25 minutes ago, John said:

I've been thinking about EFL GK's, that could do a job with us again. Does anyone think we could consider Freddie Woodman from Preston? 

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.