praisedmambo

1 minute ago, hippo said:

Think we might need to revisit our decision to use loan market. There are just too many holes to plug.  - Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to patch up with the odd loan - we can still build for a time when we don't need loans when we get on an even keel. 

Yeah for sure. I'd take Tuanzebe back on loan no matter the criteria. He'll likely leave United at some point.

He was maybe the best player on the pitch when we played them. He's so rapid and tenacious. I think we may have to pay more and I think he may be worth it!

9 hours ago, Mic09 said:

I saw a few posters suggesting it's trying to be retro, cool, different or 'harking back to former glories'.

I never saw it that way, I just prefer the symmetry, cleanliness and classiness of a round badge. 

I can see the logic of moving on from it. The lion is pretty lost in that old badge. I'm ok with the current badge. It's the best badge we've had in ages—er probably since the round one ironically! The redesign they did a few years ago made a huge difference.

12 hours ago, hippo said:

How many managers take over mid season ...and get promotion that same season....I can only think of Roy Keane at Sunderland.

I wasnt convinced by DS for a long time. But having turned that around...held his nerve with injuries and through the play offs..there no knowing where he could take us.

You could see in those wembley celebrations, when DS wanted to say a few words.. the players instantly switched into professional mode and listened in total silence. 

To me its as much as the team we create rather the individuals that gives me hope.

 

Steve Bruce did it at Birmingham I think!

9 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

The problem was we couldn’t defend. Every game we lost with Sherwood in charge was by 1 goal. Then when Garde took over it got even worse. You keep conceding shit goals the confidence soon drains out the team. Our back four and keeper were a complete shambles. 

For me it was all down to Richards. My memory is of him being out of position for a huge number of goals. Never a CB. What a disaster. Worst signing ever along with the other dozen... 

Replacing Benteke with Gestede didn't help either. What a terrible idea. 

38 minutes ago, nick76 said:

Think the same with Gomez, both us and West Ham have been linked with him....I’m guessing it’s just one of us

I imagine there's usually a clutch of similar size clubs (though we need to stay up and consolidate for a few years before we truly deserve being mentioned in links alongside the mighty West Ham) who get linked to the same players. It could be agents too. I just can't imagine the conversation where people mix up Aston Villa and West Ham in relation to transfers because of the colours. 

'Hey Sergio, have you heard about that Fornals guy—he's going to the red and blue team.'

'Oh, Aston Villa.'

'I don't know. A red and blue team.'

Bit silly but it's never going to happen like that. You'd say the team name a million times before you said the colours.

6 minutes ago, Larscapaldi said:

Baffling. Being foreign I've had a lot of those situations when wearing my shirt, people often think I'm a West Ham fan. They obviously don't know anything about football...

This happened to me a few times in Devon!

10 minutes ago, Wes said:

Marca reporting Fornals set to join West Ham for 27m Euros. As mentioned by others previously, I think the tenuous link to us that appeared yesterday was a shirt-colour/lost-in-translation moment by someone.

You're right West Ham translates to Aston Villa in Spanish. Dumb foreigners. Option 3 newspapers make shit up. 

31 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Just absurd to focus on a goalkeeper when we need basically every other position more. 

Eh. Genuinely absurd to presume we're only focusing on a goalkeeper. If you mean 'absurd to focus so much money on a goalkeeper' I guess they'll have worked out their budget and know what they can afford—that would be a pretty obvious, logical thing for them to do. Also absurd is believing every single transfer rumour is 100% true. Maybe all this is your point though, 'absurd to believe we're focusing that much money on a goalkeeper'?

28 minutes ago, Dave-R said:

He could make it for England easy, he would be a heck of a keeper..

I don't see it at all. I like him but I'm not anywhere near thinking he's good enough to play for England.

16 minutes ago, John said:

Unless Jed qualifies for another country through his parents/grandparents, I wouldn't put any money on it myself.  

He's meant to be eligible for Scotland. Super John says he's trying to get him to convert. I would if I was him. 

17 minutes ago, Xela said:

Seems 95% of the players we are linked with on Twitter and through the MSM are ones already mentioned on this thread. Hardly a coincidence I bet...

 

My impression of this thread is that it's us all talking about the links in the media and on Twitter. 

35 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

happy to see a Benrahma bid actually went in, i was worried it was fake news.

Would love El Ghazi, Mings, Hause, Benrahma, Jota...........all really nice signings if we can get em all.

Hold up...in a sentence where you mention fake news you seem to be blindly trusting someone on twitter. Surely you see the problem there?

1 hour ago, Keener window-cleaner said:

Hope they will be better than Angel Crespo and Antonio Luna...

I've always had the feeling that it's difficult to sign good Spanish players because Barca and Real snap all of them up at an early age. There are some exeptions, like Liverpool buying Xavi Alonso and Torres and Man City buying David Silva, but both of them cost quite a lot of money and went to teams at the top of the league.

Maybe we didn't even try tbh. Gil was playing for Eibar in the second division when we bought him (yes, on loan from Valencia, but I doubt they were sad to see him go) — I know nothing about Crespo though. There are good players in La Liga.

2 minutes ago, Mazrim said:

We can and will do better than Rondon. He isn't any better than Kodjia who we already own.

Do not agree with the second part at all.

1 hour ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Jimenez is costing Wolves £30m. That's the level of striker we need. 

Am i right when I read online they did a year-long cheeky £3million loan first. Not a bad idea.

3 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Pretty common for people to teach languages that aren't their mother tongue. Bigger question is why Nigel's kids don't speak English. 

This happens of course but his English definitely isn't good enough! Having said that in Madrid they have bilingual schools though and a lot of the Spanish teachers teaching science history and so on in English (to improve general levels of English nationwide they don't teach these in Spanish) can have about a good a level as he has. For now anyway. I think the idea is that the teachers have passed the advanced exam but it is definitely not the case in practice. 

Also, yep poor Nigel's kid.

3 hours ago, Nigel said:

What's wrong with Spanish people?

It was your weird comment that made me say it! I live in Madrid and don't expect many of the Spanish people I know expect me to teach kids Spanish. That wouldn't make any sense. Y esta. 

20 minutes ago, Nigel said:

Welcome Jota, glad you are playing for us and not teaching my kids English!

Why would a Spanish guy teach your kid English?

11 minutes ago, hippo said:

Although or season ended at the end of may - the actual championship season ended on may 5.

We have around 8 weeks to sign 10 players. I would have thought both players would keen on the switch - on the face it this would look one of the easier deals to complete. 

I wouldn't be surprised if this was all twitter bollox.

Is another 'Why haven't we signed someone yet' post in disguise then? I am probably being a bit of a dick at heart by responding the way I am, and I apologise in advance, but I just don't get it how every single window people say the same things about transfers. For every Kalinic deal there are 20/30 or more that, even though they are simple, seem to take a while to get announced. And every single time people start doubting it or interpreting different problems with the deals. Dean Smith said himself he was going away on holiday—maybe he is on holiday, maybe Jota is on holiday, maybe Gardner is on holiday. Maybe the clubs need to negotiate. I bet £10 it happens.

10 hours ago, hippo said:

Starting to think this link is a load of bollox....

Bit cynical. It's not as if these things don't always take time.

25 minutes ago, rodders0223 said:

I imagine he plays a lot like Carles Gil, although hopefully not shite.

Is that just because he's Spanish? Having watched them both they don't seem that alike at all. 

4 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

So you would pay 20 mill for a 10 goal striker?

I think our mid-table manager would.

1 minute ago, villalad21 said:

We won't beat the top 6 sides by playing the way we do.

When the opponent got better players in all areas of the pitch you have to tweak you're tactics

You're interpreting all that yourself. He has changed his tactics plenty of times throughout the season. I imagine 'trying to win' from a manager's point of view entails a lot of tweaking tactics.

You are hilarious. Smith Out.

16 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

It's not moaning, i disagree with the approach.

You have to change up your tactics against the top 6 sides in order to get a result

You are and have been on the lamest windup for months. Go have a rest.