El-Reacho

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

People said the same about Veretout

Just noticed he's a central midfielder for Marseille. Only a matter of time before he's back at Villa Park.

When Ashley Westwood made his debut against Sunderland for Lambert a lot of the talk on here was about how long we'd be able to keep him for before United and Arsenal came calling.

36 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

I think the way he has operated at Villareal is RB was defensive and there was an attacking RM in front of him who would make runs centrally from RM. 

At LB he would have an attacking player with natural CM in front of him. So that player would be able to cover the space behind the attacking full back. 

So I doubt he will go with two attacking full backs in same team

If we're playing against an opposition with a weak left hand side you'd think he'd want the option to flip things over and have a very attack minded RB and more defensive LB. Maybe Digne and Cash are the options for this strategy.

Not suggesting all the players should get a free pass for their performances under Gerrard, but surely we need to give him more than 4/5 games under Emery? I think he'd be better off in Bailey's position playing off either Ings or Watkins, if the new LW comes in and takes his current position.

Wonder will he bring in a similar style of RB too or does Cash fit the bill? Would be great to bring in someone as good as Ashley Young but 10 years younger.

57 minutes ago, duke313 said:

Here you go:

Wolves - Goncalo Quedes - €32.60m
Leeds - Daniel James - €29.10m
Everton - Alex Iwobi - €30.40m
West Ham - Pablo Fornals - €28.00m

Benrahma, Rodrigo, Willock, Morgan Gibbs-White all similar money too.

Sinisterra, Dwight McNeil, and Bowen a bit cheaper at £20-25m 

Bailey is there or there abouts with all of them with the exception of Bowen who I'd definitely rather have. 

19 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

I don't think I overrated them it's more that I agree that they're not top 6 players but at the same time we're not a top 6 team... So I think it's more that fans have too much expectation which is often unfair,often driven by bullshit media links during silly season

Leon Bailey is a £30m mid table level winger but the expectation is that he's a CL level winger who should have cost us £60-70m, there is a reason he came to us and not man utd despite being linked to them, that is our reality

And I also think that from here on in you cherry pick top 6 players one by one, the chances of us making sweeping changes and buying several top 6 quality players in one transfer window is really low imo, we should be slowing down and building from the safety of mid table, 2 or 3 proper class players like a pau torres and pino for £120m rather than 7 players for £120m, if we can pick up another kamara along the way then brilliant

The turnover has to stop

This is absolutely correct. Most of our squad perform as per what we paid for them. It'd be great if we signed a few more players that performed well above what we paid for them like Brighton or Brentford are able to do. But other teams are probably looking at us signing McGinn, Emi, Luiz, Kamara etc., and wondering why they can't make signings like that.

1 hour ago, PaulC said:

and its a good time to sell to them. If they came in with a 25/30 mil offer I would snap their hands off. Although we will need to sign another striker. 

They'll probably get rid of Lampard - just depends who takes over. Given they've zero strategy in terms of how the club and football matters are run anyone could be in the running to replace him. Allardyce again maybe?

8 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

I think people are being deliberately obtuse over Digne. Dunno why.

It was indeed a moronic signing.

Lots of revisionism over Targett as well. I don't think Digne has put in a single defensive display as good as about 20 of Targett's in the season he got POTS.

Not sure if you've done this on purpose??

16 minutes ago, Villa87 said:

I’m leaning this way as well. Assuming no McGinn but Luiz fit to play:

Emi

Young Konsa Mings Digne 

Luiz Kamara

Cash Buendia 

Ings Watkins

There is also a case for Coutinho instead of Cash or Ings. 

I've always just considered Cash to be a RB as he has been first name on the team-sheet there for both Smith and SG. He obviously offers much more than that given how versatile he was for Forest. He could be a much better option for the wide midfield role than McGinn is.

I think Ings in for Bailey is a good call. This will be a reverse of the game on Sunday where Wolves will sit deep and be well organised and we'll have to break them down. Bailey won't be able to use his pace to beat a high line. Ings as a clinical finisher in the box will be more valuable to us. Ings was outstanding against Brighton - still think he has a big part to play for us.

If Ings was available half the league would be in for him: West Ham, Brighton, Southampton, Wolves, Leeds, Everton, Forest would all have him walk into their sides. Even Newcastle and ManUre would have a look. £12-15m is pretty small change these days for a proven goal scorer.

It'd be a shame if he left to go to one of our rivals because the chances are he'll score goals.

Next 4 games will be a totally different proposition to the last 4. We haven’t faced a team with a well coached low block with Emery, so he’ll be changing his approach to something similar to the Liverpool game where we came unstuck.

Martin O’Neill’s villa sides came unstuck against ‘inferior’ teams who sat deep so we couldn’t use our pace down the wings. O’Neill had no plan B other than set pieces which was never enough.

I reckon Countinho/Buendia/Luiz and maybe Ings will be vital over next few games as they can unlock defences rather than beating them by pace. Really looking forward to these fixtures - hopefully Emery can work his tactical magic.

4 hours ago, TheMightyVillans said:

Many games under both smith and Gerrard we saw Luiz isolated and having to do so much work by himself and as a result made him look poor. There was always a good player there. Now we have kamara to help him out he looks amazing.

Gerrard actually played them together once and they looked good and then decided to drop Luiz the following game for his Ramsey McGinn combo.

He might have snuck into Brazil squad if Emery was manager from start of the season

 

He definitely would with a few more performances like that. The Gerrard debacle potentially cost Mings, Buendia, Watkins, Kamara and Digne WC places too.

As bad as Olsen was in the main, the pass to start off the attack for the Dalot OG was superb.

19 minutes ago, stewiek2 said:

We'll soon know if Franks walks into our dugout

That would be WWF levels of theatricality. Tyler and Neville absolutely losing it on commentary…

I remember following the Liverpool game when we were 1-0 up with Trez’s goal until we lost in injury time on twitter (which was a mistake). The abuse the Liverpool fans were giving their own players during was horrific. Milner and Henderson in particular were targeted with  ‘just get cancer and die’ sort of stuff from accounts covered in red YNWA branding etc. I know it’s kids hiding behind user names,  but that was far more toxic than anything I ever seen from Villa fans. 

15 minutes ago, smg said:

Been following this all day. My fear now is that once again we will appoint someone who does not have unanimous fan support. Anything other than a perfect start and the knives will once again be out and we will be back to square one. (Again) I think it’s important to accept that we are no longer seen as a big club in terms of our on field performances and therefore expectations need to be more realistic in the short term. The new manager has to have the time to develop a group of players not just a pre season and a couple of transfer windows. We know ( if we are old enough) Ferguson needed time, Arteta was a mess to begin with and Potter took time to get Brighton organised and performing in the premier league. Are we as a fan base capable of showing that patience ? Which of the prospective managers are capable of achieving what we need I have no idea but we cannot continue to expect greatness just because of our increasingly distant past success.

I think the fan base will be much more patient with any of the names being mentioned than they were with Gerrard. A huge proportion of fans (and VT posters) could see and warned that SG would end up just like Sherwood before he was confirmed. It was clear there was no interview process and that Purslow had just gone and got his old mate.

The fans have been far more patient with every other manager I can remember including McLeish, so I would hope that patience will return again for this guy.

2 hours ago, May-Z said:

Could be quite a good way to reintroduce players into the said again. 

If Sanson and Guilbert make the bench, for example, it means they could be back onside very quickly. Even moreso if they get a bit of time in the game. 

I'd be tempted to make sure it happened, especially with Sanson. We've got to be able to use our assets instead of them rotting away.

I think that Lange should insist that all of the club’s players are brought back into the fold - the bombsquad is Gerrard’s doing. These players are assets of the club so they should be maximising their value.

51 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

I'd find us paying off Leicester to take the manager from the team in bottom place almost as uninspiring as Dyche.

Suspect there’ll be some sort of deal done that waives any compensation. If we want him then it’s potentially in everyone’s interest to just let it happen. There’s still a very good chance that Leicester will want rid of him this season or next so us asking for him saves them having to pay him off.

It says on Amorim’s wiki bio that when he became a coach he did a course in psychomotor education, which is (according to wiki):

Psychomotor therapy is a pedagogic and therapeuticapproach, the aim of which is to support and aid an individual’s personal development. It is based on a holisticview of human beings that considers each individual as a unity of physical, emotional and cognitive actualities, which interact with each other and the surrounding social environment.

It suggests his communication skills and player development skills are slightly more advanced than Stevie’s ‘everyone must look me in the eye’ approach.

Communication and unlocking players’ potential is such a key part of being a modern manager I thought this was quite an interesting side note on him.

Just now, Zatman said:

in fairness only one has a Premier League winners medal as a player

Fair comment - but he wasn’t exactly jostling with Petit and Vieira at the front of the queue to pick up his medal was he??