skarroki

I have an irrational hatred of Archer now and it would be good to get him back and scoring in a Villa shirt. Pinned all my hopes on signing him for Dulwich Hamlet on FM after I got to the championship but he picked Grimsby over us and now has an insane scoring record with them.

Think if we have a bad run and Europe is completely out the question, chuck him in at that point to get him up to speed. If we're top 10 in April, introducing him might risk us shifting a consistent side that are picking up points. In that scenario I'd keep him sat out. Time will tell how ready he is and how ready the side are to have him incorporated

Please don't be another Green. Looked destined to be a good championship player at least and now can't get a game in Slovakia. Feels like an absolute lottery whether these players will make it most the time but he seems a nice lad so fingers crossed for him. I've just lost my best academy player at Dulwich Hamlet to a cruciate ligament injury, he was on loan carrying Halifax to the conference title on my FM23 save so I'm a little more sensitive than normal to young pros not reaching the heights of their potential

"Pretty happy" with signing a 21 year old prem regular when you were in the championship relegation places before the WC? I thought our fans were hard to please

Happy with the incomings and outgoings. Happy we didn't panic buy. Happy with our coaching staff and the squad balance for the first time in 4/5 years. Real chance to finish top 10 for the first time in what feels like forever. Good time to be a Villa fan.

I'd love to have him back and competing for a starting spot if he still had both his knees currently. Thought he had a serious injury and that's why he returned?

Definitely share that concern with you, I agree with all your points I was more just putting across the other side of the argument. I'm really on the fence but am probably falling the way of the "quiet deadline day". I was loving a good moan about how bloated and unbalanced our squad was in the summer after deadline day, with the likes of Bednarek and Dendoncker showing up, so I don't think it would wash with anyone I talk football to if I now decide to say we don't have enough numbers! I see it as Ings the only real miss. Sanson, Nakamba, Guilbert, Bednarek et al (probably forgotten someone but that kind of adds to my point) - these weren't getting minutes and Ings was unlikely to get many minutes. We've brought in a promising striker for a lot of money so I'd rather test him off the bench instead of giving Ings bit-part playing time for maybe £100k a week more. Augustinson has been replaced with a better player (hopefully) and anyone coming in on loan now is just going to take minutes off someone or fill in a gap in the XI. I don't really see an obvious gap in the XI barring injury, so again I don't want another loan option brought in who will sit on the bench and leave in 4 months. Having said that, whoever comes in will get 110% support from me and I do have faith still that the club know what they're doing and are going in the right direction.

For the sake of playing devil's advocate, the best business sometimes can be holding onto your best players, and/or trimming the squad and getting good value weighed against the amortisation of a players contract and value, and/or bringing in good competition for places / players for the future / first team players. From Emery's comments and body language when making those comments, I would suggest he is comfortable with the idea of letting go of players he sees as having no future in his squad now and re-building to a certain degree in the summer. It doesn't fit the narrative if we're happy to let go of Ings and then happy to bring in a replacement that's equally ill-fitting and short term. Secondly, as I see it, standing still would have been keeping Gerrard in charge. If we leave January window holding onto Luiz, Kamara, Martinez and having got another month of Emery in charge and getting his ideas across to a trimmed and focused squad, we're in a good place. We're not going down and we'll need a lot more than a couple of great last-minute deals to get into Europe next season. Time for us to fold our hand and get the agents of some top talent on the line about a summer move.

has anyone discussed Antonio? Think he'd fit our style well, good striker that's also good at drifting wide. Injury problems of course but we have the indestructible Watkins and Duran ready to feature occasionally.

I don't think Gregg is a bad writer, I just think he's a very negative writer, which is hard to keep reading after a certain amount of time because it feels less like reporting and more like moaning. I found him difficult to connect with on the old Villa podcast on the Athletic too so wasn't surprised when that was closed. I find it more of a shame because Holly Percival was a really good writer and interested in the women's team too but seemed to be given very little opportunity to write about the club, even when Gregg was away and obviously Dan Bardell does have genuine insight into the club and goings on but other than hosting some episodes of the betting shows they never get him on. ANYWAY - ZIYECH I argued about not really wanting this in the transfer thread a few days ago and I stick by that now. I think we're in with a shot of the European places but that's a long shot and I would rather we keep playing the guys that are in the squad so that they demand more value in the summer or get used to the tactics rather than bring in a short-term fix. If it was a loan to buy and Coutinho had a transfer lined up to go elsewhere I would be fully on board, but I doubt that is the case.

Everton won the transfer window 3 years in a row, people were discussing top 4 under Ancelotti. They look bad now with the benefit of hindsight. I just think it's all relative and I really don't think that window we brought in Samatta, Baston, Reina and Drinkwater is looked on as the window that kept us up. I wasn't referring specifically to Ziyech just to the idea of signing someone on loan to plug a gap for a few months. I don't care how good they are if they don't fit the system and they're not staying long term

No loans this window I would say. From recent comments to the media, this season is a bust. He wants to win a trophy and get into Europe, one of them is impossible, the other is very difficult from our current position and it's not worth throwing money at signings and short-term loans this window if it messes up our squad building. For me, I'd be recalling Traore from loan and settling in till the summer. We've got a great chance of having a special season if we put the finishing touches on the squad together properly. Another "player that was available" coming in on high wages and a 3 year deal that looks useless by May is how you transform into Everton.

cannot believe he's only 23. Feels like he was at Arsenal 10 years ago. I always remember being impressed by him and in all honesty, I've vaguely followed his career since simply through promotional cards on Ultimate Team being released and thinking "oh he's at that club now". He's played a hell of a lot of top flight football for someone of his age. He also has a touch of the Maupay's or Klich's, the kind of player that you absolutely hate every time you are against their team because they rattle your best players and get under the skin of the crowd. Which isn't a bad quality to have, especially off the bench when you're holding onto a lead. We can't rely solely on a 54 year old Ashley Young to be that man for us 3 times a week.

Ramsey coming back from injury and still young and one of our own, nobody else in the squad currently I'd rather have in that role. Also it's a new role and a third manager and playstyle shift, formation shift, he's having to learn so much. Konsa again, nobody better in our squad, I don't think he's been too bad today? Diego Carlos will take his place eventually, I don't want a 6th CB on the books just so we can drop a decent option.

This has been so so painful, could have gone horribly wrong on a different day but I definitely like this side. Until Diego is back from injury think this is our best XI. Hopefully Watkins is back from injury soon and Bailey takes confidence from this and is more consistent against Southampton. He's shown fantastic ability in patches, really like him.

Gary Neville having an absolute meltdown about the fact Young is older than he was when he retired and playing better than Neville did in his prime.

Hard disagree

I understand the decision and why it was made, I was just stating what I'd have preferred to have seen. In response to the previous post about who makes it and who doesn't, again I understand how that works but that doesn't stop us from giving these guys a go. If we didn't try Archer in the cup last season he'd have still been seen as a non-league player, if he was even still contracted to the club. Instead we were batting away interest from the championship all summer so he could get maybe 30 minutes of game time. It's by the by anyway, the club isn't run quite the way I'd like and Emery made a decision I didn't like but overall I still have faith that we're going in the right direction. Nobody will ever agree with every decision. @JAMAICAN-VILLAN just to say I know you're not singling me out particularly or anything but I don't think I said anything on here to suggest I went overboard in my reaction to yesterday's result. It is what it is with the loss, there are lessons to be learned. I have faith Emery will get things right and I hope for a good cup run next season.

That's how I felt. Seeing Sanson, Dendoncker, Bednarek, Chambers, Young, Ings, Coutinho was weird against a league 2 side. A lot of out-of-form talent all shoved into an XI. I think just sticking Archer up top and someone like Kaden in midfield would have made all the difference, a couple of hungry players desperate to make an impression rather than players desperate to discover some form.

Just to move this over to Kesler's thread. I don't think hes the finished article, anywhere close really, but I do think he has the potential to be a great squad player for us. I think we need to be sensible and send him to a club that plays a back 5 and is more likely to keep him in the squad every week. I don't think this season will have been a complete waste if he's grown up and learnt stuff behind the scenes but he's simply not getting enough minutes on the pitch for me. RWB will suit his development better to I feel, will give him more to do. I'm disappointed we didn't send him to Preston as they had no RWBs in the squad and he could have played himself into form. I don't think they want to touch him now and risk it

It's just a shame. If you'd asked me under Dean last summer who would be in our squad in 18 months from the academy, I could probably have named a 7 man bench of academy talents. Now our bench is full of players we've paid too much for, on high wages. It feels like the route has been blocked. Not saying that we should risk it all with unproven youth, I guess it's more a reflection on this talented crop of players all struggling to reach the heights expected so far Barry, Kesler, Philogene, Archer, Sinisalo, Iroegbunam, Ramsey jr etc etc probably forgetting some.

He's not playing first team football really though. Stuck in a rubbish team and barely making the starting XI ahead of out of position CBs

I just really want wingers and every time I have a think about it or check gossip, I'm left feeling like the obvious first step is just to bring Philogene back from Cardiff and get him minutes off the bench at least. Get Archer out on loan before he turns into Davis mk2

What the hell is wrong with you.

If he was a horse there would have been a tent put round him by now