Adam2003

18 hours ago, est1874 said:

Among others, when we've got the likes of Keown, Townsend, Merson, Barry, Dunne - most of them former captains of the club - working in the media without displaying a shred of affinity for the club, we need more Agbonlahors

Quickly on this - Townsend and Merson love the Villa. But also, is Barry doing media stuff? I thought he’d taken the (sensible!) route of disappearing from public life entirely. What’s he on?

10 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

If we can offer them duran then ill do that

Monchi?!

3 hours ago, avfc1982am said:

I'm not McGinn's biggest fan at the best of times

Why should we take your views on another midfielder seriously then?

(Just joking!)

1 minute ago, DakotaVilla said:

Watch the Paul McGrath Podcast and you’ll see exactly why we want him. He’s basically a rotation option in the double pivot for Luiz……with significantly better numbers than any of our midfielders. In a significantly worse team. 

Yeah, simple one this for me - if we are bringing Dougie off for a rest after 65-70 mins, I’d rather Barkley was coming on than Chambers.

Sure I get the “sign players who get in your first team and make your first team players backups” but I am not sure who we could credibly go after to do that with Dougie, so using the money elsewhere but still improving the cover makes obvious sense to me.

2 hours ago, Daulmakan said:

He should practice pens and be on them, a goal calls another goal for strikers.

I’d be willing to bet he has practiced penalties every day for the last decade. For whatever reason, he still misses too many on the field…

On 16/05/2024 at 12:09, MapleVilla said:

The same 777 trying to buy Everton?

Think that ship has sailed, caught fire and sunk. 

2 hours ago, spiezels said:

Would have been great as back up CB. But thats about it

To be fair that would have been his role this season all year without all the injuries.

2 hours ago, VillaChris said:

As Barkley is.

Luton gave him very little defensive responsibility from what I saw. We won't be doing much next season signing him and playing him deep.

With respect I think you’ve missed a fairly big talking point of the season with this take. Whether you think he’s good or bad, Barkley definitely played most of the year in a much more defensive role for Luton, and did it well enough a lot of people called for him to get back in the England squad. Here’s an extensive BBC interview with him from a few weeks ago about how it came about, how he had been scared to tackle after his injuries (interesting to read given the criticism he got here) but got over it during his time in France, and was now loving playing deep again:

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/68499477.amp

“Now aged 30 and with more than 250 Premier League games under his belt, Barkley has found recent success as a deeper-lying midfielder than he once was. This role is similar to one he played in youth football before breaking his leg on England Under-19 duty which led to him becoming an attacking midfielder.”

44 minutes ago, Alakagom said:

We chose Diaby over Brennan Johnson, possibly a mistake looking now

I am a big Brennan Johnson fan and was supportive of us signing him even for a lot of money - sometimes it’s ok to “overpay” slightly for someone playing in this country. Same way I would happily pay a lot for Gibbs-White (who I think is way better than him) even though many on here would say there’s better value in the Bundesliga or wherever. However, contrary to this, I think if you look back five years from now Diaby will be playing at levels way above Johnson. Sorry, distraction from your main point!

28 minutes ago, Xela said:

Trust in Unai, he knows what he is doing.

He’s an absolutely classic Emery signing.

We said this when he came in, he’s going to sign people that make everyone go “…huh? That’s underwhelming” (like Moreno, for example). And then throughout his career he’s made those people part of really, really good teams.

Think I’m possibly just too accepting because the lion is the right way around. This season I felt like I was watching an illegal stream or playing a computer game without the IP rights every time I saw the badge.

24 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

£8-£10m maybe?

 

I think more than that just based on the fact he’d comfortably score 20 in a Championship season and we can assume 7-10 in a decent PL side (given that he got 4 in one of the worst sides ever). He’s still just 22 - I want to be clear I am not saying here that he will ever be as good as Watkins, but Watkins was scoring 8 goals in a League Two season at Archer’s age.

14 minutes ago, StewieGriffin said:

Turns out Richard Masters is a Villa fan - I think we might be alright...

So funny seeing him described as “secret Aston Villa fan” in the Times like it’s a big revelation and they are uncovering a scandal. This has been public knowledge for years, the Birmingham Mail did a big profile of him like 5 years ago and I think he’s even been in a club programme at one point - not like he’s ashamed of it

12 hours ago, GlobalVillan said:

Emi is definitely going to the Olympics.

Has that been confirmed somewhere? Last I saw was him saying he hopes to get picked but knows a lot of senior players also do.

1 minute ago, useless said:

The article that this thread is predicated on says that a swap involving Duran is highly unlikely because the FFP benefit Chelsea would get from selling Gallagher as an academy player would be lost if they swapped him rather than a straight sale

Right, you’d have to pay cash for each rather than swap. Not that I think this will happen, but if we each pay each other £50m then it’s not a swap. But the end result is still that we would swap players.

4 minutes ago, Xela said:

Covers Digne's wages

AMIRITE?!

 

I know you’ve said it for funnies but you’re not that far wrong…!

22 hours ago, Daulmakan said:

Another thing I liked is how unfazed he would seem in entering a losing match, sometimes against big six opposition, and instantly make a difference.

100% agree - he seemed to really relish it, and that’s a huge asset

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I don't understand what you mean by 'it's not in the spirit of the rules'. 

I do - the rules were intended (leaving aside the whole “keep the established clubs in place” angle) to keep spending sensible, make clubs more sustainable, etc - and you would expect that to naturally include prioritising homegrown players (hence spending on youth teams not counting). However, the rules have ended up meaning it makes sense to sell homegrown players. That was an unintended consequence.

That’s not Villa’s fault - the authorities need to fix the rules - but I definitely get the point on the ‘spirit’ of the rules - or the ‘intention of the rules’ perhaps. We now have a weird situation where every PL club would be better off in the short-term selling a homegrown player who’ll never make the team to another PL club for £100m and buying one of their castoffs for the same amount in return. That can’t be sensible.

4 hours ago, AshVilla said:

We really need a decent number 2 for next season with Emi going to Olympics and Copa America.

 

Solid chance he doesn’t go to the Olympics. Messi, Romero, Otamendi and others all want to go, and they can only take three senior players - I think they might use it to try some younger keepers. I’d pick him if I were them, don’t get me wrong!

4 minutes ago, Villaphan04 said:

 

This is definitely true. Wes and Todd Boehly (who owns Chelsea) are co-owners of various businesses in the US (via Fortress and Clearlake respectively).

1 hour ago, villa4europe said:

Something tells me man utd won't need to sell to buy this summer 

They’ll need to sell to not have loads and loads of terrible players though!

20 minutes ago, VillaAlex said:

He always plays well against us, so a bit surprising that some don't rate him

Stan Lazaridis used to turn into Ronaldinho whenever he played us but I saw enough of the rest of his games to make me think we shouldn’t sign him

53 minutes ago, STO said:

With plenty of extra games next season

Not to jump on this one opening to a sentence but we played 14 games in the UCL - that would get us to the final of the CL in the new format I think? I get they will be harder games but I think we will likely play fewer in 2024/25 than 23/24.

15 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

He's not just 'good' in the press, he's very probably the best player in the whole division at leading a press and winning the ball back in the opposition's defensive third. 

I don't think I've ever seen a sillier comparison than another poster comparing him to Dendoncker. 

Interesting when you think we are (or were when I last looked) the lowest-pressing team in the league (which I assume is intentional from Emery, but maybe he’d approach that differently with different players etc)