Adam2003

For me he’s not good enough now to play for Man City BUT in a couple of years I think he probably will be. So if the buyback actually is expiring then that’s great news.

What’s this based on? I’m seeing it cited regularly as today but have never seen anything official to that effect. Edit: just said someone says it’s from a Gregg Evans Athletic article. Pinch of salt but hope he’s right as I like DL a lot.

He really does score all types of goal doesn’t he. Tap ins, headers, either foot. Nothing from outside the box I suppose is the only kind missing. I love him. His second goal against Liverpool was in my opinion goal of the season by a mile - he orchestrated it from our own half and finished with a solo run and belting it into the top corner. I mean we all know it was a great goal but I’m not sure it gets quite enough credit!

One of the most underrated players of the Premier League era.

Well and I’d approach this from a slightly different angle which is I can’t imagine we offer him higher wages than Arsenal will. If FFP is still a thing we still have a Championship season dragging our spending limit down. Roll on next summer!

I absolutely love Jack and I love that he does stuff like that but I don’t think it changes the fact he likes to party. Really agree with your points though that he’s someone kids are looking at as magical.

You know what, if I ever make 3 billion it’d be just like my brother to make 9 billion to show me up.

He’d be a great signing and actually I think would allow real on-field rotation between the three behind Watkins. And as you guys say we are desperate for a good set piece taker. I voted for Pereira over Buendia in BOF’s poll partly for that reason.

He’s spent half of it in lockdown and he lives with a little entourage of his Brazilian mates, so outside of training he’s probably talking 99% in Portuguese. Doesn’t seem the type to sit and do extra language lessons on Zoom when he could be playing FIFA or whatever with his mates.

Kiwi you don’t need to dismiss something as ‘nonsense’ just because you disagree with it. Manners cost nothing. Clearly I do think he would suit our system, and be a great part of our midfield or I wouldn’t have suggested it. He’s a lovely player. ‘He only scored a goal and an assist more than Traore’ - well firstly Traore had a pretty good return, so that’s not nothing, and secondly he would have scored more for us than he did for Southampton because we win a ton more free kicks than they do, which we almost exclusively shank off into the stands. Even Jack said yesterday we have no good set piece takers at Villa and so it means him getting fouled isn’t that helpful. I think a specialist set piece taker would really help that and that adding ~10 more goals into our team from midfield would probably have us crack top six. You can disagree with all of that but no point really as it was just a throwaway comment - we aren’t in the mix to sign him. But you don’t need to be rude about it even if you don’t rate a player as highly as someone else.

This is exactly why if we were dropping £40m on any bottom half PL player I’d take JWP. Not the best midfielder we could sign but the one who would win us most points alongside Jack.

He has said specifically (and again tonight) that it’s not shin splints - of course you may still be right it needs more rest.

Agreed and I think it’s also Smith growing into his role as a PL manager who can tell even the iconic club captain that he needs to rest. It’s an evolution and I think it’s happening. Actually I think the fact Smith can now point to this long-term injury will help him convince Jack it’s in his best interests.

I think who ‘spots’ a player is an overdone thing... every player has been seen and scouts recommend players constantly (I’ve known a few Villa scouts over the years). It’s who goes back to the owners/manager with a recommendation that this is the player to sign that matters. (No idea if that was Mackenzie or not, just saying the ‘who spots them’ isn’t often the key thing unless it’s a Dwight Yorke on a Caribbean beach story!). Still I’m not trying to tell you about Leicester’s transfer business which has been absolutely incredible for quite a while now so fair play.

You might well be right but this could also be the same with Buendia. All just a guessing game with this ownership (which is good).

Agreed but I think that nursing could be as simple as subbing him off after 70 mins when we have a game tied up and leaving him out of the cups. I really rate Smith but my one gripe is he overused Jack from Aug-Feb... but I do think that can be addressed while still having him start 90% of PL games.

I was thinking of him the other day as actually a brilliant impact sub for us. I think the issue is Burnley would point to his goalscoring record as a reason he’s worth £30-40m to them (they get relegated without him) and we won’t be paying even half that for a 29-year-old intended as a sub. But actually he’d be a great squad option.

I don’t think we will be in the mix for relegation but anyone outside the top 6-8 MIGHT be. For example, if Everton appoint the wrong manager they might be. So I think Norwich are underestimating us but the comparison is probably if Wolves had tried to sign Grealish from us when we came up - we wouldn’t have seen it the same as Arsenal or Spurs going for him.

This x100. Many thought we might have been ripped off at £28-33m. Now we have an England striker (albeit not going to the Euros barring injury) at that price it looks cheap. Credit to him.

Weirdly he has a better shot of breaking into the first team at United than here. Even if he had another year he would have been looking for a move with Martinez firmly established. Does seem silly to buy someone unless they are a young challenger though - surely some veteran we can pick up who’s happy to sit on the bench? Keep seeing people say Gazzanigga but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him play. Has Reina retired...? Edit: I also agree with you, I’d be fine with Steer as our sub keeper.

You spelt your username wrong

Yeah I wasn’t saying anything you were saying was unfair. I think Downing is the best comparison I have seen for him fwiw.

Well sure but this is the same thing fans of other teams would have been saying about Grealish up until 18 months ago. They would have said we were nuts for saying that was cheap/amazing value for him. Same as we would say Burnley fans are nuts for saying DM is worth that... doesn’t mean they are wrong however much we think we know. We can all think we are well informed but there aren’t enough hours in the day for us to watch every team’s games in close detail, and if there were then Burnley would be well down the list of teams most would prioritise... Likewise I had literally never heard of Matty Cash a year ago!

Not sure Smith had anything to do with it.

Right, Man United were linked with dropping £50m on him a few months back. It’s not crazy to think someone would pay big money for him and as you say if you offered every club one of the three of them for free they would take McNeil. Of course that’s not to say that’s always right because a year ago if you’d offered every club Ezri Konsa or Ben Mee I would say they would all take Mee and I wouldn’t swap them now.