Wes

What seems to be a pretty small/local "journalist" who focuses on River Plate is suggesting he's heard that Villa are expecting to make a bid for Alvarez in the coming days. Wouldn't consider it anything concrete at all, but one to monitor over the rest of the week.

Bryan Gil going to Spurs in a Lamela + money deal. Someone I like, really promising creative player. If we hadn't got Buendia, I could see Gil having been on the list for that kind of role for Villa. Transfers slowly ramping up across the league...

Ashley Preece in the Birmingham Mail. The very last line. "...Villa are expected to keep hold of every one of their first-team roster, including Frederic Guilbert." Personally think this is a good move. No point spending an outlay on a position where we have a fine backup to Cash already in house. Fopcus our resources elsewhere.

Apologies - think my wording wasn't particularly great here. You are absolutely right - of course they're going to let him train ! What I was trying to imply was that I don't believe another Striker in is on the horizon at the moment. They seem to be happy with Wesley and monitoring his progress in training - for this window at least.

As it's quiet today lets summarise the rumours shall we: Another goalkeeper as backup/competition for Steer. A decision to be made about Guilbert as RB (personally, I hope he stays) Another Centre Back following Engels departure to bring us up to 4, and provide competition for Konsa and Mings A Centre Midfielder capable of Defensive/Staying Deep responsibilities A flexible Left Wing/Behind the Striker attacker Giving Wesley a chance in training so no immediate need for another Forward I think we will likely spend our largest outlay on that Left Wing/Attack Mid position. If we were willing to offer £35m for ESR, that would signal as such. This might be Alvarez, who despite reports, can play anywhere across the three behind the striker positions, but will just need time to get used to what's required of him in whichever position in our structure. Personally I think Alvarez is not so much a "this summer needs" target, but more a youth target to eventually take over from Trezeguet who I think will be sold next summer. Buying Alvarez early gives him a year to fully aclimatise. This is what good teams too - buy early, let them settle, integrate in team naturally. We could end up buying two to cover this slot - someone for the starting eleven, plus Alvarez. I think we will also spend considerably on that Centre Back option. Over £10m easy. We currently only have 3 senior Centre Backs. Should either Konsa or Mings get injured, we would curently be in a sticky sitution. The Defensive Midfielder is probably more of a "nice to have" option. We have players who can play there, although Luiz will be at the Olympics at the start. It's evident Smith would like more options here. If the talk of us not meeting Pepe Sarr's asking price is true (and I'm still thinking this is negotating talk at this stage) it would suggest we would only get someone here for the right price - no need to push it. I think for Goalkeeper we will pick up a free agent with Premier League experience. Someone like Paulo Gazzaniga. So anywhere between 3 to 6 further new signings would be my guess. Everyone who played in the latter stages Copa America or Euros is likely going to have three weeks off. Bare that in mind when thinking about when announcements might be made - they would either be this week, before holidays, or towards the start of August.

Not trusting an account created in March 2020, tweeted first in January 2021 to a Sheffield United fan account, then nothing again until suddenly yesterday has incredible transfer insight? Plus has just a couple hundred of followers. Until they have some kind of track record, ignore.

Just seen him celebrating with the rest of the team on the pitch after Argentina won the Copa America final (although he wasn't part of the match day squad).

Barcelona 18 year old central midfielder Ilaix Moriba has one year left on his contract and won't sign a new one with them because he wants a higher salary than what they're offering at the moment. He's not taking part in their pre-season as a result. We know Barcelona need money so he is likely to be sold. Every Premier League club forum will now likely have a post like this one - we should try and get him.

I think Brighton fans may argue that White was their 3rd best Centre Back last year behind Dunk and Webster, although White is obviously very highly rated. I was trying to say that given their situation, that they are not backed by multiple-billionaires (I think Tony Bloom is around about that valuation?) and have the fifth smallest stadium in the league, the best way to continually improve their Club is to sell players who have two years left on their contract (In Bissoumas case, three for White) at large profits and then put those profits back in to the first team and youth setup. It's a clever approach and, in my opinion, the right approach for them. I did not compare them to Villa. We are in an entirely different situation. Simply liked what they were doing.

Just re-reporting the same news from a few weeks ago that we were already aware of. Schira is known to do this and is generally considered to be very low on the "tier-lists" of Football Journalists when it comes to transfers.

Agree. Brighton are probably going to make £80m+ from the sales of White and Bissouma. Clever operation they have running down there.

Yup. He said negotiations not completely closed and that we had offered less than 20m Euros (but no specifics). I think this is just haggling (French TV revenue drop this season means clubs are trying their hardest to get the best up front value they can) and will eventually happen, sometime after the COSAFA Cup has ended, so perhaps here more concrete news towards the end of July. Remember the summer transfer window doesn't close until the end of August, like in the old days. They scrapped the "closing before season begins" variation as many clubs complained.

Like I say, I think this is just a negotiating tactic. Club or Agent putting it out in the media to try to get Villa to "speed things up". French clubs need money due to the drop in TV revenue so it could be Metz haggling for more, or needing the money earlier so they can do their own deals - can't really blame for that. I think the fact the player liked all our stuff on Social Media and so on was very telling. Nothing's going to happen over the next week whilst Senegal are in this South African tournament anyway - much like with all the players currently at the Euros.

As posted in the Summe Speculation thread: Translates to "negotiations with Villa have been suspended as we did not offer enough." Pape Sarr is still with the Senegalese National Team at the moment I believe.

"Concerning Pape Matar Sarr, negotiations suspended with Aston Villa who did not offer enough. Newcastle and Watford are also interested in the player" Think this might be a simple negotiating tactic - I think Pape Sarr is still with the Senegal National Team for the SOAFA Cup.

Loic Bade has gone to Rennes for £14m. Shame as I liked him a lot. Rennes, much like Atalanta, have a smart recruitment team.

If you go way, way back to the initial report in Calciomercato it stated clearly that his Agent would arrive in Europe to begin talks with Ajax and Villa today (Thursday). All the other reports we've read so far is news aggregators, local papers, twitter posts and lost-in-translation views from Argentina all bouncing off of one another in one big echo chamber of no actual new news! Nothing concrete could possibly have had happened yet in any direction so I've not been stressing about any of the "new" information appearing yet. That might change over the coming days, now that his Agent is here, but we will simply have to wait and see.

Just over a month ago L'Equipe in France posted an article that said we were interested in Bordeaux's Medhi Zerkane, having followed him for 3 months and having made contact with his agents. Well yesterday Zerkane was reported to say on Algerian TV “I don't know anything about Aston Villa's interest in me. What is certain is that I am in Bordeaux, and I have no desire to leave, especially since I play regularly." So I think that link can be scrapped for now.

I posted about this guy three weeks ago in the Summer Transfer Window thread. I got his age wrong when posting that - he's 21. For those asking about Work Permit it wouldn't be an issue with the new points scoring system post-Brexit. It is much easier to buy players from South America now because the Copa Libertadores is considered on the same level as Champions League level now, points-wise. Been busy today but I'll try to write up something later during the England game and I'll post it in here. His agent is speaking to both Ajax and us, so I wouldn't say this is done yet, despite reports on random people's twitter. Here's to hoping though!

I can write up something longer on Alvarez tomorrow if there's interest but thought I'd mention that he is on the bench for Argentina's game against Paraguay tonight in the Copa America (which you can watch on the BBC Sport website).

Another interesting talent. He's heavily linked with a move to Marseille this summer. He's in the Argentinian team for the Olympics so I don't know how that would affect a deal for them, time wise.

Specifically South American players at top tier clubs there. The primary reason being that the Copa Libertadores is now given the same weighting, points-wise, as the Champions League. So if you have a South American target playing regularly at a club in this competition, especially if they're in Brazil or Argentina, they will now almost always automatically qualify for a work-permit.

Here's a post I made in this very thread Three Weeks Ago, on the 3rd of June, where I said to look out for Julian Alvarez and the reasons why: So naturally I would love this to be true. Would be the kind of emerging signing that we should absolutely be after.

Douglas Luiz been named in Brazil's Under 23 side for the Olympics. The Final, should Brazil progress that far, is the 7th of August. That is one week before the Premier League season starts so it will be interesting to see how and when he is integrated back in to the squad (I speculate that he may not be selected until the end of August/September so that he gets enouch rest).