KMitch

#AnyWingerButBailey #SummerTransfers2023

All the doom and gloom around Kamara being injured... CM is the only position we have depth at... Donk is fine for us away from home and Chambers was Fulham's Player of the Season a few years back playing DM for them (my Fulham supporting mate still raves about how good he was for them that season). I'm still confident we can get wins without Kamara. On the other hand, if we lost Watkins for 5 games... I wouldn't be so confident about scoring very many goals.

We honestly just need to take things one game at a time. The table is going to look very different in a month from now after all these games in hand are played.

Key points: NSWE have been "incredibly generous" to the club. Without them, Villa would not be in the Premier League today. Myth that the Premier League is awash with riches for everyone, the majority of clubs are losing money. Just surviving is an expensive business. Villa spent more the year after selling Grealish because of the additional revenue brought in, but doing this year in and year out is extremely hard to do, especially when you're essentially weakening your team selling your best players Clubs will see you bring in this profit in the news and will ask for more from us because we're seen as having more money now COVID screwed up the accounts for several years for clubs -> Accounts were over inflated the year after COVID when we played 45 Premier League games in 2021 Premier league clubs LOSE money playing in the League Cup & FA Cup, unless they get to Wembley. In fact, if you win a cup, the player bonuses alone are more than the winners prizes... Man United lost money winning the League Cup this year. All clubs pay in installments/on credit now. It's become the common method of doing business for all Premier League clubs. Premier League clubs owe over £2 Billion in transfer fee installments to other clubs - Manchester United alone owes over £300m... Villa are in the Premier League's "Middle Class" -> Going from the "Middle Class" to "Upper Class" is incredibly difficult - We essentially start the season at a minimum of £250m in revenue behind the top 6 Villa have spent over £450m on players since promotion, most still on installments. Kieran's view on Villa's running of the financials - Very sensible. Doing a good job and it's better to continue to follow the rules and not over spend. "Villa are absolutely right to follow FFP and not try to do an Everton" Talked about how Everton tried to spend their way into the top 6 and it's turned into a very scary situation for their club now financially. Talking about how poorly written player contracts can sink a club after relegation, didn't want to speak about figures on air, but used Michael Keane at Everton as someone's contract he's seen as being astronomical. Also talked about Sunderland/Jack Rodwell as an another cautionary tale. Chelsea's recent business -> Buying players on very long installment plans help with yearly amortization accounts, but also nearly all the players are on low wages for Chelsea (not a well known thing, but from speaking to agents/insiders his sense is they're on £100k/year or less). Will balance the books with their conveyor belt of academy talents they're going to sell in the future for pure profit (Conor Gallagher & Mason Mount for instance).

This is what I'm thinking too... If he's the one leading a global network of football operations with a centralized scouting, development/academy, medical, and training infrastructures, it would open up the door to having a dedicated DOF at Villa itself. This would make sense as to why Emery would be involved in the search as well. It's very exciting stuff. Having a ready-made system and blueprint for quickly setting up a successful academy like we reportedly have in Egypt & Senegal in other countries is huge.

I finally got access to Vitoria's fan forum after having my application pending for weeks. Looking around, their fans aren't really happy about this deal because like us, they've had some really dodgy investors in the past. It also sounds like this deal gives 2 of the 3 board seats to NSWE, with only 1 being fan elected via the 50+1 system they have in place. We also reportedly only gave them ~5 million euros for controlling interest in their club. From a business point of view, it's a massive win for NSWE to essentially buy a controlling stake in a club in the Europa League/Europa Conference every season for such a small sum of money.

I look at it like this: There is no way that Emery would come to Villa if there wasn't significant money to spend rebuilding the squad. Villa journalists Preece & Evans (Yeah, I know...) are already writing about a reportedly record breaking transfer spend this summer Honestly, nobody outside of the club knows what these figures mean and how much we can spend this summer... The VT accounting nerds can't even come to a consensus over the past 2 pages... Are we broke or can we spend up to 300 million this summer? I'm just going to sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.

You could even hear him on the broadcast losing his mind at times. He went absolutely ballistic on Buendia in the last 15 minutes or so for doing a backheel in our box and I remember him going off on Moreno for not making a run for JJ in the 1st half, which resulted in a turnover. You can see already after 12 games that the players are improving their decision making, but there is still a lot left to do. Glad Emery is a perfectionist and will continue to push the players to become the best of their ability.

So, not happening then?

Solid performance all around. Palace never looked like they would score, apart from that Zaha offside goal early in the match. We played some very lovely stuff at times and the 1-0 scoreline really didn't paint an accurate picture of the game. MOM - McGinn - Could have scored 2 goals today and was everywhere in the midfield. Very good performance from him today. The ref was awful again today... Palace got away with kicking our players until Kamara went off injured before he remembered he could actually start carding them. Pathetic performance. I hope Kamara is alright and won't miss too many games because of this. Overall, another 3 points and another clean sheet. If McGrath is God, then Emery is starting to become Jesus.

Thought we've been excellent today. Palace hasn't looked threatening all game. Don't know what everyone is going on about... Not every game is going to be a blowout.

Emery furiously yelling at Buendia for playing another backheel in our box... He really has to cut those out.

Excellent from Chambers there! Unlucky for McGinn with that slip. Should have been 2-0.

Great tackle, but unfortunately passed it right back to Palace... Channeling both N'Zogbia and Reo Coker today.

Said it earlier, we've never played this way before as a club. It's going to take time for the fans to get used to it.

Unlucky... Meatball almost got his goal.

He was Fulham's Player of the Season a few years back playing as a DM. He'll be fine

Another bad tackle... This ref...

FFS... Looks like his ankle is fooked. This is 100% on the ref... He's allowed them to kick us all half without giving a card. If Doucoure had been carded for his last bad tackle, this wouldn't have happened...

Great first half! We're finally figuring out how to break down teams at home.

How did that not go in???? What a pass by Buendia...

Meatball is a slur for Italians, not Poles... Popularized by the short chubby Jersey Shore girls calling themselves meatballs...

TBH, we haven't seen modern football played at Villa Park by Villa before... It's going to take a while for the fans to get used to seeing us be patient in possession.

YES!!!! WHAT A PASS BY MEATBALL!!!