Wes

A sceptical person may think that Brighton's name is being banded about just to drive the price up a bit more...

Great news about his injury recovery. Remember that Wesley played more of an unorthodox-10 at Brugge. He liked to drop deeper. There is plenty of space for both him and Watkins in the team, especially given Watkins versatility too. Above all it gives us options, not only in who plays, but how we play and the ability to change things up in the middle of the game should we need to. We didn't have this last season.

BBC Sport Africa have published a short video article about our fellow fans in Ghana. The Ghanaian village of Juaben is home to a huge number of fans of Aston Villa FC - and, after Villa secured safety on the last day of the season, they cannot wait for the Premier League to begin again. The man whose grandfather made Villa a big deal in this small part of West Africa explains to BBC Sport Africa how and why the village came to be obsessed with the Birmingham club. It's a great watch!

Clement Grenier's contract expires next year so would probably be a reasonably priced option. I remember we were linked with him when he was at Lyon around 2014/15. Potentially - depending on how you interpreted the comments made on the podcast regarding the stature of player we were after. He would be a fine addition to the squad in my opinion.

Discussions with Villa regarding 29 year old Centre Midfielder Clement Grenier at Stade Rennais. Porto and Galatasaray have also talked with the club regarding their interest.

It's unlikely in all honesty. He has stated he's happy at the club and sees himself there this season. I don't think Schalke would want to lose him. That is the right profile of player I think we should be (and likely are) going for though. Mikel Merino at Real Sociedad would be another, although likely way too expensive.

Interesting, although I think his Wages would be too high. I can't see the club paying anyone higher than we are paying Grealish right now. The more fascinating bit to me was the emphasis on searching the continent and someone who has been there/done that as @Awol described above. This is really in-keeping with last year's strategy in a way - for the most part, players we signed from abroad last year fitted one of the follow criteria: Champions League Experience (Wesley, Samatta, Reina, Nakamba) Senior Internationals (Trezeguet, Samatta, Nakamba) Breakout U-21 Internationals (Douglas Luiz) Everyone knows adjusting to the Premier League is tricky. There's a quote from Alex Ferguson (I can't remember exactly) that basically says "...don't judge a player from abroad in the Premier League until their second season." I think Villa's recruitment policy knows that buying from abroad is risky, but there is value to be had there too, and so they try to mitigate their chances of buying a player as much as possible by targeting those players who either play for their country and/or have played for their national team and understand those kind of high-stakes/pressure environments. Cash and Watkins scream as signings driven by Smith for me - and I think they're both really good transfers for us. I doubt Lange had to do too much work there. The next bit is a bit of conjecture by me but I can see Purslow having said to Lange when he joined that we've got some domestic targets lined up that the manager really likes that we are pursuing. For this window, focus more on these areas - a Winger and a Central Midfielder that meets some of those three bulleted criteria stated above. It's more likely Lange would have experience of talents there from his time in Denmark Now were that to be the case, there are some really exciting names out there to be had. Like Suat Serdar at Schalke. 23y. 4 caps for Germany. Played in the Champions League the season before last. The addition of a new central midfielder would add another needed dimension (and thus more depth) to the team.

If they're told something and it gets out in the middle of delicate negotiations, you can better believe they wont get told things again. Relationships between club and journalists are important, it has to be mutually beneficial.

Welcome Ollie, hope you have a successful time at the club. Got to believe that this is a Smith-choice signing.

Mostly stuff we already knew. I'm just wondering if Ollie Watkins isn't our club record transfer for too long... The current links appear to be GK: Martinez / Romero / Joronen? M: Swift W: He who shall not be named? F: King Fully expect there to be players we've not even been linked with so far that arrive before the window shuts.

Read: Nantes in for Fred. I really don't want him to leave.

Eliasson shares the same agent as Mohamed Daramy - The exciting winger prospect at FC Copenhagen.

Well Dean Henderson's new contract is £100k a week. De Gea is on £350k. One of them is not going to be playing. With Romero, Manchester United are spending 550k a week on goalkeepers.

Double confirmation. Good times!

14 million rising to 16 with bonuses says Daniel Taylor, also from The Athletic.

Well deserved.

A quote from Werder Bremen's Sporting Director.

And the actual article is here on KOHA.net.

A socially distant table.

An error on my part - I think I perhaps highlighted Purslow too much in my post to give the impression he is at the helm of this grand plan. Something better perhaps would have been "Smith and Purslow sound to be of a similar mind of the type of player they want in to the club. They're on the same page, for the most part." I would agree with your points that the Manager should chose the profile of player he wants. From my untrained eye, this is the case at Villa. Going forward I expect the model to be: Smith tells Lange the profile of player he wants for which positions Purslow tells Lange the financial availability for the coming window Lange returns to Smith, given financial capability given by Purslow, a list of possible players. Smith chooses from there which to pursue. It requires all three of them being on the same page and being able to execute the plan - which Suso couldn't do effectively. That all said, I'm not sure that whole setup will entirely be put in place this summer due to when Lange arrived and the scouting that would have gone ahead up until now anyway.

These are the First Team players we've bought in on permanent deals since Purslow has been in charge. I've only kept in those loans which became permanent deals. I've probably missed someone but I'm only human. The number is their age at their time of signing. Heaton - Gk - 33 Kalinic - Gk - 28 Nyland - Gk - 27 Guilbert - D - 24 Mings - D - 26 (loan initially) Hause - D - 23 (loan initially) Targett - D - 23 Engels - D - 24 Douglas Luiz - M - 21 El Ghazi - M - 23 (loan initially) Nakamba - M - 25 Trezeguet - M - 24 Jota - M - 28 Wesley - F - 22 Samatta - F - 27 *McGinn was 23 when he signed, but that was before Purslow arrived. If you take out the Goalkeepers, which has been a problem for us for years, 8 out of all 12 (67%) of our outfield signings were 24 or under when they joined. If you remember Purslow's Interview with Smith after the Play-Off final, he stated: Didn't want to loan and develop other teams players for them, Wanted to sign players who were only going to improve and increase in value, Wanted players that showed hunger to improve and demonstrated quality already, Had a great character and personality. They used John McGinn as a text book example - although please note, I don't think they meant they meant "bargains", they were talking about all his positive traits which we as fans all know John has in abundance. If the talk about Matty Cash is true, then he again would fit this profile to a tee. He's 23. Been one of the better young players in the Championship over the past season. You only need to go online to see how fondly he is spoken of by the Nottingham Forest supporters. I think they want a group of similarly aged players who will grow, and develop together, with a few younger players with high possible potential (like Douglas Luiz and even Wesley) in and around them and some experienced heads alongside to boot (i.e. Heaton, Mings and the likes of Elmohamedy and Taylor too). I'm not saying we're not going to never going to buy another player born before 1995, but it's clear the club strategy has a preferred profile of player in mind for the majority of their targets. It's for this reason I'm not panicked at all by our lack of business thus far. This is the best evidence of a "plan" in place for many, many years.

Only took 679 pages!

VG.No reports that 28 year old Norwegian international Omar Elabdellaoui, who plays for Galatasaray at right back, turned down an offer from us. The same report says he also turned down offers from Fiorentina, Augsburg and Schalke,. Edit: This news appears to be a week old, but I hadn't seen it mentioned before. Apologies.