skarroki

Bit shocked out of all our academy players I could see playing in the lower leagues, a lad I'd never heard of gets a move to a good league 2 side - @useless has he flown under the radar due to others shining brighter? Or injuries? Or am I just being ignorant and he's a real prospect.

Injury is the only thing that will stop this lad becoming a regular in top flights of Europe imo. Has the talent, the physical attributes, the work ethic. Think the more I see of him in the under 21s and then last night, the more I think he is a part of the reason Archer was sold. If Emery and co rate Kellyman higher than Archer with an extra 3 years of development ahead of him, makes sense to clear the pathway for him. I think he's a few years away from being expected to start a lot but then look at the likes of Ferguson. I think we'll see more of him than I'd have expected in July and that's no bad thing but would still probably like to see him get a season in the championship or league 1 next season just to see how he handles being the main man for 50 games in a year instead of 10-15 of our easier games this season.

I think it's a bit convenient to just wave away the fact that he was poor last season. Conte is a nutter but he's also a good manager and can organise a solid team. Lenglet might have looked good a couple years ago but the evidence of his abilities to handle the Prem are not promising and now he looks like he's happy to be a bit-part rotation option for a Conference League club. Lenglet started 24 games in the Prem last season and kept 4 clean sheets. In the 12 games he didn't play in, they kept 6 clean sheets, including against Man City, Brighton and Fulham. I will be nervous for his debut and hope he puts in a decent performance, which is a shame as I was buzzing to see all our other signings and I'm still excited to see Duran start and Moreno come back from injury.

This wreaks of me getting itchy feet on deadline day on FM and just signing whoever is still available, in a position I'm not completely stacked in, before realising a week later my main striker is out for 6 weeks and his only replacement is a 20 year old who's never started a game in Europe.

Felix on around £250k per week means we just need to get a straight swap for Digne and we'll be saving money.

I don't think he's bad, I just don't think he's particularly exciting or future-thinking or anything. If we're paying a loan fee plus wages for a guy that would not get into most fans starting XI, then essentially he's a very expensive safety blanket in case of injuries or suspension. If we've won our first 4 group games and he gets 90 minutes ahead of an academy prospect is that good? I'd be happy rotating Mings and Torres but frankly I'd rather Torres played a lot more minutes now and if he's in any danger of getting knackered by January re-assess. This is basically just an upgraded version of what we did last year with Bednarek, and that ended with him being sent back to Southampton early. We'll play more games but only 6/7 more than last September to January and we currently have Torres, Carlos and Hause that we didn't have at the time.

Big fat no from me. Rather keep Hause than keep funneling money into that corruption laden club. Konsa Chambers Torres & Carlos is a better group of CBs than most in the league Dendonker available to cover as well as youngsters to step up. If we're in a mess in January then re-assess

The academy costs millions to run every single year. If you follow youth football or even play FM you'll know there is a cold hard cash aspect to academy football. We want to bring through many young lads, give them a good grounding and a foundation to continue playing professional football for their whole career. Most the time that won't happen, sometimes they will make the lower leagues, we've been lucky to have so many in the last decade or so leave our ranks and make a good career in the top 4 divisions. Then there's the special few that get into the team. But we still need to balance the books and provide a path. If you're a lad in the academy now who's 14, you can look at Grealish as the absolute pinnacle of what is acheivable. But rather than pointing at players loaned out and doing well, you can now say look, you could be like Jacob and find a path here, or you could be like Aaron or Cameron and still play the Prem for another side, or you can move into the Championship and prove yourself like Jaden. And even if you get released, you could end up like Ruben and just head down the road to West Brom and prove yourself there. As long as we're assessing the best options for these players, whilst still producing massive profits from the academy players, it shows the academy is not only sustainable but a bit source of income and that can only improve. The more links we get to foreign clubs as well, the more talent we can bring over to really help push on and also for registration reasons, help qualify as home-grown / make moves into Europe smoother. Take the Egyptian lad we got in a few weeks back. I really hope Kellyman makes it but if not I'll look out for him and how his career goes every season regardless. It's fascinating seeing the web of players that we've had on our books and how it spreads right across English, Scottish and Irish football.

Good luck on Sunday Olsen. Play a blinder, calm the nerves about you deputising, prove people wrong.

Traore for player of the season.

The Lucas Digne in the last two games reminded me of why I was so excited to sign him. Looks like the guy who played for Everton under Ancelloti. The Digne that was a mainstay in fantasy prem teams for his clean sheets and assists. If we can get the end product he has out of him against the lesser sides, all the better. We struggle to break through these teams a lot of the time, if the key to resolving that is sticking a pinpoint cross from the left onto any one of a number of players attacking the box, we'll turn draws into wins.

The interview on BBC Scotland said it all. The lads think they can win this competition and they're not messing about. Bit of silverware and guaranteed Europa League. He said we're one of two or three favourites and we've got the biggest budget in the competition, we'll go tough places but essentially we can beat anyone and win this thing.

Good player and good extension. Great to see.

Was that your first match watching Villa? Bailey and Buendia have had worse cameos than his today, and in situations where we're chasing a game or need a spark, not one where we're 3 up and absolutely cruising. The problem for Coutinho is he was once an extremely expensive player and was one of the best players in the Prem, has won leagues in Spain and Germany since and has come in on reportedly big wages. The expectation due to his name was huge when we were really bringing someone in to try revive their career and get them back on track. I remember people on here saying we'd replaced Grealish, or that it might be one of the biggest signings in our history when he came in. If you're an injury prone player with confidence on the floor you're only going to disappoint those fans.

Looking really up for it today, like Digne. Absolutely no problem with him staying if he can perform like this more often than not. We all know there's a class player in there.

Great interviewer too, if he's doing post match all season hopefully we'll get more and more info about how he's doing and how he feels the loan is going instead of the snapshots and stats we can easily access. Think Stockport is a good place for him, hopefully he can prove myself and others wrong and start to look like someone who has no business in league 2

Slept on it and deadly serious. Might not pan out with the benefit of hindsight but this guy was truly believed to be the upgraded version of Totti not long ago. YouTube clips and a few matches is all I've actually watched over the years but I've never not been impressed. Some of the things he's done in clips I'm not sure anyone in our squad could replicate. L Coutinho was better once but it'll take a good lump of fortune to get that player back. We are a very organised and structured and well oiled machine and you need to stick a maverick in those kind of teams to really throw the opposition off kilter and force mistakes. He's the first signing I can remember where our social media feeds are flooded with fans saying "don't buy him we want to keep him" - this is about a guy they've had 6 months and he's spent some of that injured. I'm probably getting ahead of myself yes but I'm having a great time as a Villa fan right now. For every day I get to continue loving the direction our club is going in, I'll leave cynicism and doubt and all that out of it and greet this with the optimism and excitement I think it deserves.

Up there with the best signings for the club in my lifetime. Cannot wait to get him on that pitch with this squad. Got a feeling he'll make his debut Vs Hibs and you have to really feel for their poor old defence.

Remember when transfers were confirmed by holding a kit on the pitch? What a time to be alive

This is how I read your post.

Whenever I think of failed medicals I think of Fekir. Has had an amazing career from a stats perspective and looked the real deal but whenever he gets close to his one big move there's a very public failure of the medical. Always wondered what they're uncovering after checking his pulse that wasn't known from watching him play most matches for his club over 10 years.

The premier league Italian curse was broken as soon as tonali skydived into our box to score the opener on Saturday. Zaniolo will win player of the season for us. Definitely the signing that excites me the most this window. Maybe our best window since the Young / Carew January window? Probably should wait till it closes to give that kind of endorsement....

Not sure if you're serious?

Sorry yeah that's what I was getting at but couldn't bring myself to say it haha. I think we had a very very poor season of scouting, I don't think Buendia, Ings or Bailey suited Smith's style of play, I'd say Watkins was still ahead of Ings and we had 2 RW insfead of one, so we were going into the season with a chasm on the LW and too many options in the other positions. Since then two permanent managers who play in a way none of those 3 suit. I would imagine we had bigger aspirations for a LW signing which didn't work out, potentially Smith Rowe, and so we went for backup options. But yeah, in hindsight this was poor recruitment in terms of building a coherent squad. However, I don't think any team has ever successfully replaced an irreplaceable player with a group of new players. I find Brighton's current approach of replacing Caicedo and Mac Allister with two free agents fascinating, as if they're aware of the unquantifiable curse that clubs face and so are holding onto the profits instead of taking risks with them.

I think Bailey has suffered from coming into a team and immediately getting injured, and subsequently having to try and recover from injury and get back up to speed with a league he's never played in, in positions and formations and tactics he's never played in before. It feels like an awful lot is expected of him in terms of changes to his game and a lot of understanding. Add to that his birthday he seemed to only celebrate with Traore and Konsa in our squad after over 2 years in the country, seems as though he's not got close to anyone in the squad which might mean he's never felt settled or "home" It's an odd one as he looked a quality player in Germany. I wish we could see the best of him but similar to Sancho, if you take these bundesliga wingers out of their team and tactic that makes them flourish, then stick them in a similar position on the grass but with everything else around them different, you're relying on luck more than anything to get a good outcome. The Bailey, Buendia, Ings transfer was clearly a mistake. Since day 1 there's been people saying where does Ings fit, Buendia and Bailey play in the same position, what tactic do we play with these players, can they make the step up etc. I think the most realistically positive outcome is that Bailey has a good season with us as a bit-part player and we sell him on without too much of a loss at the end of the season. I definitely think we should give him another season though.