Sam-AVFC

1 hour ago, kurtsimonw said:

Weird one from Juve, their management seemed to rate him very highly, apparently not.

There are huge tax incentives for buying overseas players in Italy right now so it's a good year to freshen up the squad.

Seems odd to sell Kean at that age and potential though.

Edit: https://www.marca.com/en/football/international-football/2019/05/28/5cec325722601db20d8b45a2.html

Quote

" Italy will decrease tax rates for foreign players from 47 percent to 30 percent in the north and from 44 percent to 15 percent in the south."

17 minutes ago, Mazrim said:

Is probably what is said every year before selling their best players.

And if they sell them all again this summer I’ll be proved wrong!

16 minutes ago, abdulaziz1 said:

Don’t know how much would be the stupid money you’ve mentioned though.

Neither do I really - I guess the £30m that’s been quoted although no reason to believe this is actually what they want.

6 minutes ago, abdulaziz1 said:

I still see us getting Benrahma. Actually I doubt we’ll get another winger if it wasn’t him or someone in his caliber. This could go to the deadline day.

I do agree with this. It's because of Brentford I don't think it will get done, not us.

I just think Brentford are a bit more ambitious than a lot of you give them credit for.

Sure, they have been selling huge amounts of players every year, but they are now at a place they have easily the most talented, competitive team in their history.

With 3 years left on his contract and with far fewer key players leaving this summer (as well as completely breaking their transfer policy by getting Jansson) I think they'll be gambling that they can get up this year and if not they can sell him next summer. They have good cash reserves and a pretty much paid for stadium on the way.

If we offer stupid money no doubt they would accept, but I can't see us doing it. I'm sure we're interested, but think we'll be happy to keep an eye on him then revisit in January or next summer if the deal looks more doable then.

2 minutes ago, Mazrim said:

Why?

Just now, KenjiOgiwara said:

Hazard guess, but it means he doesn't think we're signing Benrahma

Yup. Just opinions and a feeling.

I don't think it's likely we reach a deal with Brentford (who rate him more than Maupay) when they don't need the cash and probably have their best chance in their history of promotion next season with a new ground coming in 2020.

If we were desperate for wingers I could see us splashing the cash late in the window, but with 3 already signed I doubt the club are anywhere near as worried about signing a fourth winger as some of us are. We managed most of last season after Christmas rotating 3 so even without another Green might not be anywhere near playing.

You never know what discussions have gone on between a player and club or where his head is though. I'm definitely not saying I'll be amazed if we sign him this summer, just don't see it as being likely.

6 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

Oh my sweet summer child :)......

Has it ever happened?

I hadn't realised that the points system is actually for the FA to then sponsor your work permit, as opposed to actual work permit conditions. I always thought it weird the law had such detailed provisions for footballers!

With this being the case, I'd be astonished if they haven't already sent their sponsorship letter as he has been added to Fantasy Football. I know it sounds silly, but you'd think the PL and FA would be in close contact about this and it's an official site. Also seem to remember a player appearing on the site before being announced earlier in the summer. Might be wrong though.

I think anyone expecting Benrahma to come in is going to be disappointed. I'd be much less surprised if we got Maupay to cover up top and out wide.

1 minute ago, Dave-R said:

So where did that 100 mill that got spent by bruce come from then, I doubt Xia just spent the parachute payments. I think he did spend some of his own money, what money he could get over here anyway.

What did the Owners pay Xia for Villa again, he spent his own money buying the club so I think he did have some. I just think those who say he didn't have no money are wrong. I still believe it was because he couldn't move his money out of China why the tax bills were not getting paid. China are so funny about there people spending outside of there country unless it's actually going to be a full proof money maker and Villa wasn't at the time, it was a big gamble what Xia was doing.

Wasn't it widely reported we'd borrowed against every bit of future income (PPs & transfer fees still due) we could by last summer?

It's a bit different buying the club as he still owned an asset. Also, did he really? Pretty sure it was all owned under the Recon umbrella and this is a very, very different thing to spending his money.

Anyone mentioned the Matty Phillips rumour yet? There doesn't seem to be anything to it at all and only reported by sites with no credibility so I expect it's nonsense.

If he was available on the cheap would people take him as a 4th choice winger so we could loan Green out?

To be fair neither of his Oxbridge degrees was in geography

But he said that in the context of them helping new players settle.

I really can’t see him starting a huge amount of games, but hope for at least one last minute free kick winner off the bench.

I’m starting to suspect sites like HITC aren’t too worried about editorial standards...

Quote

“Villa have been splashing the cash in the transfer market so far this summer, strengthening Steve Bruce's squad with 10 signings”

I’d be going mad if we hadn’t made any signings and we just had click bait articles and twitter to sustain us!

14 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

I think you are referring to NHS doctors.....NHS doctors being paid privately happily work weekends I'm sure

I think he was joking as NHS doctors certainly do work weekends!

I'd take most stuff you hear with a pinch of salt, but Kristof Terreur has proven himself reliable and to have a connection with Brugge so I wouldn't see any reason to doubt info he provides.

7 minutes ago, screwdriver said:

The biggest issue is where are the 20 goals going to come from?

The same place they did for 17 PL teams last year. Nowhere.

7 minutes ago, screwdriver said:

I would be ringing fat frank.   every day asking to speak to Kevin... Lampard is a rookie manager, he won't even know who we're trying to buy....... get him tapped up. surely smith can get hold of him do a number on him and get the deal over the line. where's jesus when you want a miracle

Who is Kevin?

Engels has been quote saying that Grealish & Hourihane, "the leaders in the team" have been doing a great job helping everyone settle.

I don't think he'll end up as an accomplished starter in the PL, but with his ability on set pieces and timed runs into the box, as well as a positive influence on the squad he's a no brainer to have on the bench for me. Hopefully not as a DM option though!

I'm sure we're all hoping in a few years we wont need players with his limitations, but for now I think he can play an important (albeit bit-part) role for us.

So far I have learnt about Walter Benítez:

Twitter - #FreeBenitez has been started because he doesn’t play enough.

Whoscored - he played in 35 league games last year.

Wikipedia - he hasn’t played since 2017.

This thread - he had the most saves in Europe last year.

Someone please help...

2 minutes ago, AVTuco said:

Yep.

Because you think he’s better or Smith will go with experience?

1 minute ago, Danishlad said:

Well he had better put in an improved performance second half. Or we will buy a new winger.

This is satire, right?

1 minute ago, KHV said:

He has been here less than a week 

...and has been on holiday for a few weeks after AFCON so possibly slightly behind in match fitness.

11 minutes ago, Sulberto21 said:

There is the commonwealth games and I know a-lot of land has been purchased for the ‘village’ it isn't too far from the outlined area.

I hadn’t actually realised that, if a lot of money is going into the area anyway it would certainly help the case.

Councils have pretty wide ranging of compulsory purchase powers so if they were on board in the future there’s no reason it couldn’t happen.

Agree with Kenji that he is awful at crossing.

In terms of good things he did the other day, there was obviously the skip past and hitting the crossbar, but he also came deep, cut inside and put a really good ball through into the box at one point. Can't remember who to unfortunately.

I'm completely undecided whether or not I think he'll make it. Whenever I think it's too late, I see his age and remember how young he actually is. He's only turned 21 today.

I think he has more than enough attributes to make it, but he doesn't play with any swagger at all. I agree with others that it seems to be a confidence thing. Whether or not playing a full season on loan would help this or not, only time will tell, but I do think it's too early to write him off completely even if we don't think he's ready for us now.

An additional thought - although he clearly has never had the output (or consistent minutes tbf) of someone like Harry Wilson, Wilson only had 7 league 2 games for Crewe at around Green's age with no goals. His next season and a half of football came in the championship from just before he turned 21 and he improved immensely in this time frame.

It is also a massive long shot for us to completely rebuild the Trinity, but I'd love to know if it would be possible (and the cost) to reclad it sympathetically to match the old brick frontage. I doubt there would be the space to recreate the stairs etc, but this wouldn't bother me.

I'm pretty sad and a bit of an architecture enthusiast! Personally I love the idea of a stadium mixing the old and new, but tbh I don't see how we do that best at Villa Park. If the Holte and North were both older brick facades I think you could merge it well with 2 ultra-modern stands running along the length of the pitch, but it comes back to the issue of limited space.

I'm actually sad enough that a while back I made a 3d model of Villa park and was playing around to see how you could redevelop the site to merge the old and new. Pretty sure I couldn't come up with anything good, although my creative abilities are limited.

On 24/07/2019 at 20:08, Sulberto21 said:

I think if we can get the area outlined then we can expand our great club. It could be like a fan park vibe before the game. Villa Park would be fantastic. The ground itself can then undergo a proper and correct expansion. 

Hotels , conferencing can be a part of the long term project.

Obviously  it would be extremely difficult and expensive. 

I'd love us to do this, but the only way I could see it happening is if the council decided to CPO all of the houses, built a new station and used us to fund a joint leisure development.

It looks like those houses currently sell for about £120k in a relatively tired condition so to buy the 300 or so in that area through private treaty and in any sort of workable time frame you'd probably need to agree to pay the best part of £200k each to convince everyone to move. Total of about £60m - I suppose compared to London land values and total costs of these type of projects this doesn't actually sound so bad.

You'd also still need a council commitment that they would allow demolition and rerouting of roads, but I suppose this could be done by applying for planning permission before trying to assemble the site. You can technically apply for planning permission on anything you want without owning it, so the club would be able to do this here. The only reason you wouldn't do it normally is if you're bidding on land to develop and then get planning permission for it the seller is just going to put the price up. This would be less of a concern with a site requiring this many small acquisitions.

If they can consider EU nationals foreign, I'm guessing the workaround is that the actual requirement is to have at least 8 home-grown players (which can be any nationality if they joined early enough) as opposed to having a limit on foreign players.

^^ what he said.

Current estimated value or purchase price?