nepal_villan

Really relaxed about Grealish now that we have signed Buendia.  I am confident he will stay, but if he moves on we have a good replacement in place and I trust our management to properly invest the proceeds from any sale. 

Doesn't make sense to pay that much unless we are getting a sure thing. Unless they will go straight into the first 11, we need to develop our own youngster and find value in the market. 

All a ploy to get WBA to quickly agree to the sale of  Pereira

1 hour ago, Spoony said:

Wow Arsenal fans are tiresome aren’t they. Maybe we aren’t so bad after all. 

There are a lot of casual Arsenal fans who know very little about football. My office manager is one of them. Struts around in his Arsenal kit as though he is a hardcore football fan but his football sphere is limited to Arsenal, Messi, Ronaldo, Beckham and the World Cup.

There is a fantastic player in Douglas Luiz as we saw during Project Restart.  To use an American sports analogy he kind of had a "sophomore slump" this season. Hopefully a proper preseason and he will be back to his best in the upcoming season.

Did not see him in the Brazil squad today against Ecuador.

1 hour ago, est1874 said:

We should be so lucky/bold. Whoever takes Fernandinho on a bosman, he'll be pocketing £2-3m in a signing-on fee and wages of £150,000+. That's not a deal we're about to sanction for a 36-year-old. 

Yes - we have a philosophy to sign younger players, but we cannot be rigid and ignore pieces that could compliment our squad and help us get into Europe.  For example, if you look at Lille, they complimented a young side with a couple of  30+ players who were key to them winning the French League over PSG.

My guess is that there were some thresholds, like maybe appearances or goals, in the agreement with Fenerbahce where they could opt-out of purchasing him.

2 hours ago, Pez1974 said:

Check out the story on Ian Wright's twitter (4th June at 9:46am) about Jack.
Wright met a young lad in London wearing a Villa top (a London lad by all accounts) because he loved Jack. Wright messaged Jack, and he replied with a message to the kid within 5 minutes. Top bloke, not an isolated case and totally outside the image of a pisshead who some seem to have.

I really think that in Jack, we have the most marketable player that the club has ever had - and can't help but feel that we aren't making the most of it.
I actually think we have one of the most marketable players in the world today, and a bit of magic this summer could sent it into the stratosphere. 
I'm not saying we're doing badly, but all I ever seem to see is Leeds fans moaning that he dives too much, and dumb-as-**** Arsenal and Man Utd fans saying they should sign him and how he's really a fan of their club. There's something outside of this whereby a lot of young kids think Jack is the dogs danglies, and I really hope the club know how to leverage this for both our and Jack's benefit.

I get where you are coming from, but to the wider football audience this really has been Jack's breakout season.  He only made the England team September 2020.  His launch into superstardom really begins with the EUROS.

If he plays for England like he does for Villa, the kid is going to be a global superstar. Has all the other necessary attributes. As a result could single handedly transform the Villa brand globally as well. 

More than the playing gap, I keep wondering how we will bridge the revenue gap with the six highest revenue producing team. Until that happens we will always need to punch above our weight to compete for Europe and trophies. 

Anyone know if the boxes and suites were also sold out last go around? That's where the big revenues for clubs usually are.

Could go either way. New manager could get their talented side to click or the loss of Carlo will create upheaval.

23 minutes ago, It's Your Round said:

At least Ash Preece does tend to get some info from the club, a hell of a lot more than Gregg Evans. I’m inclined to believe the statement from him, there’s no way on earth we’d be looking to sell Grealish now. 

But if you read the article he hedges a bit by saying it's in Grealish's hands and whether he demands European football...

3 minutes ago, striker said:

Toney looks some player. Could Villa go there again instead of Tammy?

We should sign the player that Brentford plan to recruit for when Toney leaves them.

Been listening to a lot of the Alice Cooper hits (Eighteen, Schools Out, Nice Guy, Poison) with my 9 year old who totally digs it. 

A very dependable player.

I thought there was an outside chance he would be given a 1 year extension to essentially be an emergency back-up for the RB/CB positions in case we had an injury crisis. Guess Smith sees enough alternative options.

6 hours ago, LondonLax said:

We need him so McGinn doesn’t have to play every minute.

But Smith seems to want to play McGinn every single minute.

Not sure how Smith will manage the #8 position with  McGinn, Luiz, Sanson and Ramsey all pretty much fighting for that one spot

4 minutes ago, useless said:

Jack Grealish is a far far bigger miss to us than any of Leicesters players are to them.

If you compare 1 v 1 yes. But Leicester had multiple top quality players out at the same time. They probably would have accumulated another 6-10 points if they were injury free.

47 minutes ago, useless said:

We finished eleven points behind them this season, I don't think it's a statement that represents the case as better than it really is to say that if Grealish had have stayed fit then there wouldn't have been much between the two sides points wise after 38 games. Certainly I feel that Greaiish is that good that we would have been close to ten or so points better off.

Leicester had far more injury issues than us. Need to look at this both ways.

The problem with the transfer market is that there are only around 15 or so clubs globally that can spend really big, so you'll get massive transfer fees for elite talent, but for that next group of players (high level talent, but not quite elite) there is a market cap right now of around £35-40M.  Thus there really wont be much of an appreciation of Buendia's market value unless he becomes a truly elite player. So essentially when you buy a player like Buendia at the quoted rate - you are buying him for the here and now.        

3 hours ago, sharkyvilla said:

He must be the closest we have come to producing a player of British-Asian descent for the first team.  He looke quality to me but I think that about 8 players from the youth team and have to temper my enthusiasm a bit.  If 2 or 3 make it we will have done well.

Generally agree, but normally with youth teams there are 1 or 2 standouts, while this squad has like 5-6 of them. Maybe, just maybe, we are looking at a golden generation scenario. 

55 minutes ago, punkiller1981 said:

How long has Wes Eden’s been involved at the bucks? I feel he is fully aware of how much money might be needed to see this through but I think there is a whole sustainability plan in the background but I think these guys know that it’s a fair way off right now. 

NBA is a totally different financial model.