Tony

Interested to see how we fit him into the team. Don’t feel he’s coming to sit on the bench. 

Wilder has spent 120 million last 3 windows but still seen as plucky...

My take on who / what we are looking for this window based on the rumours we know:

CF - a striker who is adaptable to play on the wing: Watkins (clear no.1 target), Edouard, iheanacho, Origi (reservations as I don’t know what his motivation would be). 20-30m

CF - short term option while Wesley gets back up to speed. Read on article from MoM’s which made the case for Brewster till January which made sense. Loan

Winger - fast, direct with good output: Rashica, Benrahma, Cervi 20-30m

CM - Box to box midfielder, good aerial ability, adaptable to be more defensive if needs be: McKennie, Grujic, Billing 20m

GK - compete for number one spot. Haven’t seen any credible links, but read they want prem experience, potential targets: Martinez, Gazzaniga (joe hart no.2 now?), Romero, Etheridge, Butland (bad season last, but with euros, and at right price genuinely think could be a decent buy). 10-15m

RB or LB - Links suggest we’re looking more at right backs. While Guilbert has shown glimpses, he has a tendency to come out of position to attempt a tackle opening up our right side. Having said that Targetts inability to stop any crosses also scares me. 10-20m

We add those type of players it gives us depth, and the ability to use a number of different players in different formations. My ideal window from the above would therefore be Watkins, Brewster, Rashica, McKennie, Gazzaniga with a RB added if funds are available.

Tammy 

grealish ... odegaard.... sarr 

is my dream 

3 minutes ago, imavillan said:

I think you are right that 38 points will be enough to survive however i'm struggling to see where the 3 wins are coming from in the remaining fixtures.

Chelsea H 

Newcastle A 

Wolves H 

Liverpool A 

Man Utd H 

Crystal Palace H 

Everton A 

Arsenal H

West Ham A

 

Maybe, Newcastle, Palace and West Ham??

In my opinion we just do not have enough quality in the team and the squad is lightweight.

With the exception of Newcastle and West Ham every team we have to play has more quality and strength in depth than we have.

If we do not get anything from the next 2 games confidence will be knocked back to where it was prior to the halt.

I'm afraid to say i think we have had it and it's back to the Championship next season. I hope i'm wrong but i just can't see where the wins are coming from.

 

I’f palace is a winnable game then why aren’t Arsenal and Everton ? Giving more respect to the name rather than their current states. Everton are sat in 12th place. 
 

Either way I think it’s doable rather being something which is a certainty. We would obviously have to improve. 

3 wins, 3 draws, 3 loss puts us on 38 points which I think will be enough and is doable from the games remaining. Only game I don’t expect we have a chance of getting anything from is Liverpool. 

Does anyone know if Engels is even available. Can’t seem to remember seeing him in any of the training videos / photos 

Don’t think it’s a coincidence that an upturn in his goal / assists output this season has coincided with a move out to LW. 
 

Worried if he is moved back to a central role we’ll loose a lot of that goal threat. 

Will be interesting to see how others teams owners react to this. 
 

in the same way that you could argue the Man City takeover lead to some disinterest from Lerner, I wonder if Abramovich is going to be happy to keep ploughing money in, or the Everton owners. 

11 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Not today or tomorrow now. Next 5 years though will just mean another one we'll have to try to finish over in the top half once we start signing some good players.

Think we've finished above Newcastle once in last 8-9 seasons which is pretty dismal considering how bad they've been last decade.

Personally think it will even out. If you have Newcastle consistently making top four at the expense of spurs, then their top players likely won’t want to stick around as long and therefore they become weaker and easier to compete with in the long run. 
 

We don’t have the money at the moment to even compete with Man City’s, Chelsea’s, United and Liverpool’s. So I don’t think this effects our “plan” which effectively looks like a poor version of Dortmund’s at the moment, but to invest in youth and develop rather than buy ready made stars. 
 

Think the likes of spurs Everton etc. Will be pi**ed about this though. Specially Everton. 

Let’s be honest it doesn’t really change anything for us. 

The articles by Neil Moxley so you’d like to think it has a little more weight to it than an unknown reporter. 

Interestingly it puts our owners wealth at a combined £12bn which would put Eden’s own net worth at +5bn based on Sawiris per Forbes. A lot more than previous estimates, which suggests it could be bull. 
 

Either way he’s got this from somewhere and you’d like to hope it’s Villa’s side. 

In Percy’s recent article on constructive talks being had at villa r.e wage reductions, he mentions that we are one of the clubs in favour of the season ending. You would hope if true that that would mean the most popular option being discussed does not include relegation. 
 

He also says we have a salary cap of £45k barring Grealish which I thought was interesting.

Latest news saying lockdown to remain till the end of May, and from that point they will start opening stuff up in reverse order, schools first etc. 
 

It also says that potential poverty impact from the economy being in lockdown could end up creating more deaths than were currently saving. 
 

It seems given most information that it is very likely the season will be finished behind closed doors, starting some time in June. Unless this lasted till start of August, a voiding of the season is looking highly unlikely. 

via the athletic, Matt Slater:
 

Several leading sports lawyers have raised serious doubts about the implications of extending the season beyond June 30, with one lawyer saying it is simply “not realistic”, while another said the situation would be an “absolute nightmare”.

The crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic is, of course, bigger than football or any other sport, but that does not mean the professional game is not dealing with significant and unprecedented challenges.

One of the most complicated issues is how to finish the current season in Europe, where many players’ contracts expire on June 30, a hard deadline to end one season and start another that nobody expected would be forced to move.

But that is the predicament facing administrators, clubs, leagues and players as they try to work out how to preserve the integrity of their competitions, as well as satisfy their various broadcast and commercial contracts, assuming their respective governments let them do so.

“If the season is to be extended beyond June 30, clubs are going to want to extend some of their expiring contracts, but they are unlikely to want to hand out new three-year deals, so they are very likely to be short-term deals,” says Nick De Marco QC, a barrister with Blackstone Chambers.

“But this presents a perennial problem for players: if you get injured while playing on a short-term contract, you could find yourself without a job. Now, it makes sense for all parties to negotiate and find a way through this, but it is not required for players to agree to these short-term extensions under English law.”

Dan Lowen, a sports contract specialist at London-based law firm Level, agrees with De Marco.

“Some with expiring contracts may be delighted to be paid by their clubs for a few more weeks or months, but others will refuse to accept any extension as they won’t want to jeopardise a long-term or better contract with a new club,” says Lowen.

A working group set up by world football’s governing body FIFA to look at the regulatory issues posed by the pandemic has recently sent a report to the game’s stakeholders.

In this report, which The Athletic has seen, FIFA says the “three core matters” that must be addressed are expiring contracts, the “appropriate timing” for the next transfer window (currently scheduled to open on July 1) and “frustrated” agreements that can no longer be fulfilled because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The concept of frustration exists in common law systems, like England’s, and civil law systems, such as Switzerland’s, where FIFA is based. In simple terms, it says contracts can be set aside if an unforeseen event makes it impossible for the contract to be fulfilled.

This is particularly significant now that clubs are unable to provide their coaches, players and non-playing staff with work, and may be struggling to pay them. As a result, clubs have been persuading their employees to take pay cuts or defer wages until life returns to normal, with players at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Juventus among those who have accepted cuts.

So far, only a handful of teams in England and Scotland have agree to do likewise, although Newcastle United, Norwich City, Bournemouth and Tottenham Hotspur have become the first Premier League clubs to take advantage of a government-backed scheme to furlough their non-playing staff. This means these employees will be paid 80 per cent of their usual salaries, up to a maximum of £2,500 a month, out of the public purse — a controversial move for companies who employ millionaires.

FIFA can only provide general guidance on these matters and its proposal is that “clubs and employees (players and coaches) be encouraged to work together to agree on deferral and/or reduction of salary by a reasonable amount for any period of the stoppage”.

The English Football League, Premier League and Professional Footballers’ Association met on Wednesday in attempt to reach a united position and it is expected that English-based players will agree to defer a proportion of their wages.

That is certainly the hope of global players’ union FIFPro, whose secretary general Jonas Baer-Hoffmann told reporters on Tuesday he hoped the various contractual issues could be resolved “collectively, with the right will on both sides”.

But, presumably as an example of the wrong will, he also highlighted the example of seven-time Slovakian champions MSK Zilina, who became the first European club to start liquidation proceedings after the start of the coronavirus crisis on Monday when 17 of their first-team players refused to accept an 80 per cent pay cut.

This is clearly an extreme example, but it highlights how difficult it can be to find common ground or a way through the crisis.

As Lowen points out, the situation in the England, particularly at several of the Premier League’s top clubs, is further complicated by the fact many player contracts are now “heavily skewed towards incentives” or bonuses. 

“In normal times, these contingent payments are seen as a win-win because the clubs recognise that they gain if a player meets these targets,” he says. 

“If the season is cancelled, players will not receive these bonuses, some of which they could have reasonably expected to have received. In those circumstances, should they also agree to cut or defer their basic salaries?

“There is often a difficult tension between the regulatory and legal spheres in global sports and this crisis is shining a bright light on that. FIFA is in a tough spot because it has 211 member associations: each one of those may have a slightly different approach to the regulations around contracts and will have different legal frameworks in which those contracts exist.”

A good example of this is how an English court might interpret a contract expiring on June 30 versus a court elsewhere in Europe, and it is based on the concept of “contractual intention”.

“In England, it is based on what an objective bystander would reasonably consider the intention of the contract to be,” explains De Marco. 

“In this case, the fact the contracts say June 30, it would be reasonable to assume that is what was intended. But under civil law, you look more at the subjective interpretation of intention. So, for example, if you had evidence to suggest the parties to the contract actually meant ‘until the end of the season’, you could more easily extend it.”

Some experts have suggested football needs to look again at its player contracts, as they do not contain “force majeure” clauses that guard against unforeseen circumstances.

“They are common in other sports contracts,” says Dan Chapman, head of the sports and employment teams at Leathes Prior, a law firm in East Anglia.

“For example, the last race of the season in Formula One is scheduled for Abu Dhabi but the sport has had to cancel and reschedule races before. This is reflected in the drivers’ contracts, which have more flexibility.

“Football contracts, on the other hand, really aren’t very sophisticated and I wonder if this is something we should look at after the crisis. If you’re (Birmingham City’s) Jude Bellingham, just to pick one example, are you really going to want to play a few more games in the Championship this summer if you already have a move to Borussia Dortmund or Manchester United lined up?

“I don’t think extending the season for months is realistic or possible from a legal point of view. I can’t see players agreeing to short-term extensions if they know they’re going to be cramming games in before facing a quick turnaround for another long season. The risk of injury will only be increased.”

De Marco, however, is not so convinced that football contracts can or will be changed as a result of the crisis.

“Football contracts are not like most employment contracts for good reason,” he says. “First, they are the product of years of collective bargaining between the clubs, players’ unions and the governing bodies, so they cannot be altered without consultation. 

“Second, they are fixed-term contracts, so players cannot just be made redundant or dismissed on notice because there is no work for them. And there are no force majeure clauses in them because of the highly specific nature of the industry. 

“A Liverpool player cannot just hand in his notice and join Arsenal in the same way most of us can move to new companies. This is because of the integrity and team stability issues this would pose for football competitions, but it is a fundamental restraint of trade. Therefore it is only fair that players get something in return. 

“Force majeure clauses might seem reasonable to some but most players only get two or three good contracts in their lifetime: is it fair that those contracts could be ripped up for something that is completely beyond their control?”

Lowen believes one possible way out of the legal minefield is to relax FIFA’s ban on pre-contract agreements between clubs in the same country. Under the current rules, players can sign pre-contracts with clubs abroad, as Aaron Ramsey did when he left Arsenal for Juve.

“One way of potentially allaying players’ concerns would be for national associations to allow players to do this now for moves within national borders,” says Lowen. 

“This could, however, lead to potential issues with the integrity of the competition, as players could face their future employers in the final matches of the season. But signing a pre-contract would in theory give players a degree of protection against the risks and impact of a bad injury.”

Daniel Geey, a sports lawyer at Sheridans, raises another potential headache for clubs and players. “What happens if a player is out of contract on July 1 but cannot be employed or registered by another club until the new season starts because the transfer window has moved? That’s a restraint of trade,” says Geey.

“And then there will be other players who will only sign extended contracts if they are rewarded for the added risk of injury. That is why I can imagine some clubs would simply decide to play on with a smaller squad.

“My gut feeling is the clubs will have enough players to finish the season without dishing out lots of short-term deals, although this will clearly lead to some questions about the integrity of the competition. Watford are a good potential example as Heurelho Gomes and Ben Foster are out of contract. That is a good prisoner’s dilemma for them as they wonder if they should re-sign or not.”

Another lawyer, who wished to remain anonymous, said all these issues amounted to the “absolute nightmare” mentioned above and it is why he believes the game will reach a “tipping point” in the coming weeks and realise the season cannot be completed.

He said he thought the leaders in each league would be awarded the respective titles, the current Premier League table would decide the European places, the top two in the Championship, League One and League Two would be promoted and there would be no relegation. The divisions would then be readjusted over the coming seasons.

“Somebody will try to sue the leagues but I think it will be a case of the path of least resistance and I’m sure a settlement can be reached with the broadcasters,” he said.

With regards to the remaining TV games. No relegation + top two from championship promoted would create 78 additional games next year (correct me if I’m horribly wrong). 
 

surely they could do some sort of deal around Offering those in place of the current year. 

On top of every other issue they have, I wonder if they’ll also void this season out of FFP calculations. 
 

a lot of teams likely to loose a lot of income due to this and would seem unfair to punish because of it. 

Danny rose. 29 in a few weeks. High fee, high wages. Dropping down from champions league club with likely last big contract, motivation therefore questionable. Very unlikely to even be considered. 

If anyone fancies a good laugh today head over to the Bristol city fan forum. 4 or 5 threads going based on villa/ref. Would seem the bitterness and petulance of their manager treacles down to a section of their supporters. 

I wouldn’t want us to be tactical with these yellow cards. Can come back to bite you on the arse. In all fairness though when jack was out I think he went that whole period without getting a yellow being on his 9th of the season already. So if needs be he can rein it in. 

9 hours ago, markavfc40 said:

I don't really get this blaming managers for the club living way beyond its means. They have no control over the purse strings.

I think people get that. But I believe Bruce went on record / indirectly got it into the press that in fact he’d reduced the wage bill and had to work on a tighter budget. So rightly he’ll be judged on his comments in relation to the accounts. Here’s a snipet for you: 

Yet the mistakes of the past mean Bruce has been forced to work within a tight financial framework since replacing Roberto Di Matteo as boss in October 2016.

Villa have spent just £2.5million in transfer fees during the last two windows, while a number of players have been moved off the books.

“I understand the situation. It’s what we have all inherited,” said Bruce.

“Clearing up and putting the house in order is part of my job.

“I don’t get involved as much as I used to

“But certainly it’s part of my job because I manage the club and I would try to manage the club how I would manage myself in terms of finances.

link 

Love how he passed the ball and then moved. Something so simple, that so many lack the ability to do. 

Some right pathetic comments on here. It’s embarrassing. 

2 hours ago, Thug said:

Bolasie, el-ghazi, adomah, green.

surely all 4 can’t be total shit.

we’re just not getting the ball to the wingers in the right places.

And, no - Hause and Hutton hoofs down the line is not my definition of getting it to the wingers.

Think the possible issue is that opposition team are so easily doubling up or some times tripling up on each of our wingers as this is currently our only way of creating anything. The Full backs unable to support in any meaningful way leaving them overrun, and with jack out there’s no outlay in the middle to draw players and create space.