KMitch

In all seriousness, it's a huge coup to pull this signing off as well. Diaby is a player you'd expect to go to someone like Arsenal, Bayern, or Juve for 50 million and no one would bat an eye. Emery and Monchi quietly making huge moves so far with Pau Torres and hopefully Diaby.

Great... Bailey 2.0 but with the height of Tommy Elphick... Can't wait... /s

"Let me see that PAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUU!!"

Me popping into the transfer thread and seeing there's no news, just more daily infighting:

Emery himself mentioned in the Chelsea prematch press conference that we tried to sign Felix in January but he decided to go to Chelsea instead. See above... It's not unrealistic if Emery himself confirmed we tried to sign him last window... Side note: Are you alright, Kiwi? Every day you're in here losing your mind going off on people for having an opinion you disagree with.

Shocked to see some turn their noses up at Ferran Torres but would love to see Brennan Johnson instead. The gulf in class is huge between the two of them. Johnson will most likely end up being another Everton/West Ham overhyped player they paid big for on a massive contract rotting on their bench, because he's not good enough and they can't get rid. Torres is an actual class player who needs a manager to play him in one position and start him every game (something Pep and Xavi didn't do).

Gnonto? Great... Someone who makes Tommy Elphick look like Paul Bunyan.

Yeah... He's a left sided CB... I've watched him play several times for Roma this season.

I think Ibanez was our alternative to Torres and not our current RB solution. He is a ball playing left sided CB who isn't the finished product yet, but has the potential to be one of the best in the world.

Absolutely. We're going after high quality players now. Asensio and Williams would be players that if any of the Sky 6 signed they would be getting plaudits by the media hype train all day, Asensio for his starting ability and the ceiling of Williams. I'm seeing nothing but overwhelming praise by people who know football about our Torres signing, both for the class of player AND the incredibly discounted fee. We're shopping in a very different market than we've ever been in before and now that Monchi will officially take the reins next week, I'm going to expect so see moves accelerating before our preseason trip to the USA.

I want him nowhere near my club. I don't care if they dropped the charges, I listened to that audio. You don't treat your girlfriend that way. No excuses.

This, 100%. Unfortunately, attacking players of that kind of caliber are incredibly expensive unless you buy them young and develop them for several seasons (like Martinelli).

Brennan Johnson is the definition of a highlight player. More frustrating than Bailey is to watch because of how wasteful his decision making is. I don't rate Harvey Barnes and I would rather have us go for him than Johnson.

Absolutely shocking how much Declan Rice went for... He's the most overrated player in England. If he didn't change national teams and stayed Irish, he'd be a 40 million pound player max.

Just wait... Someone will still complain about how we don't sign/flip players for nothing like Brighton does.

What a signing! A truly class player and our first ever out and out ball playing defender. I don't think we would have had a chance at signing him if Emery didn't have a prior relationship with him.

Listening to this podcast with Dan Bardell today talking about the Villa. Good listen, talks about a lot of different Villa related stuff. One thing I found interesting is that Dan says one of his trusted sources told him that Tammy Abraham was all but signed to come back to Villa this summer before he did his ACL in the last game of the season and we've had to go back to the drawing board for another option.

Am I the only one who doesn't want him to play RB? I keep seeing "We should move Konsa to RB" everywhere. While Emery's system wants us to have our RB stay back most of the time, the role still needs to be able to pick a good forward pass to the RW or through traffic to the RAM or DM. Konsa's passing is the worst in our backline and would be detrimental to our build up on the right side. Cash is actually one of the top defensive RBs in the Prem statistically, and is underrated by a lot on here. He missed a lot of games due to his injuries and the form of Ashley Young last season, but he's still a very good defender with better passing range than Konsa. Here are the defensive stats from 2 seasons ago under Slippy G.

Cash - Mings - Torres - Moreno Has to be one of the best looking back lines in Premier League history, isn't it? Imagine all the modeling sponsorships the club could get...

Never a realistic signing for us... He's one of the top prospects in Europe right now. It's like moaning about us "not going for" Julian Alvarez before Man City when he never was interested in the first place. Need Champions League footy before we can start convincing a lot of these players to come to us.

That kit actually looks amazing without the sponsor on it... I might have to send this guy my Luke kit for some erasing...

Exactly. He's a brilliant player and has been the best defender in a Europa League winning side and a side which went all the way to the Champions League semi finals. I don't think we would have a shot at him if he didn't already have a prior relationship with Emery.

Ah, yes. The tactical genius of Gregg Berhalter... This clown makes Fat Sam tactically look like Prime Barcelona Pep. The worst part of Tyler Adams's game is his passing and distribution. Our RB under Emery might not venture forward a lot, but that position still needs to be able to ping a good pass forward into the channel and through traffic short to McGinn. Very puzzling to try to shoehorn him into the right back spot on paper.

He's not competing with McKinnie in the USA squad... He's competing with Yunus Musah of Valencia. McKinnie is an 8, Adams is a 6, hence the reason they've both started in the midfield together most games these past few years. Team USA played some of the best football I've seen them play in years against Mexico and Canada this month and it was with Musah in the defensive midfield spot instead of Adams. I also don't rate him very highly either, but he has all the defensive qualities of Adams, but better distribution at times. Then again, the ridiculously stupid decision to bring back Gregg Berhalter as the national team manager probably means Adams will go back to being an automatic starter once he's fit again. IDK... Maybe I'm just a self hating American, but the only American players I rate right now are Pulisic and Reyna. American soccer fans and the media over here are so desperate to have a big star to call our own that they over hype everyone who gets a move to Europe. The midfield trio of Adams, McKinnie, and Aaronson got Leeds relegated and goes to show that they're all very limited in what they do. I don't see Adams being more than cover for Kamara at Villa, but if Emery wants him I'll back him to succeed here, same with Tielemans.

I think he's an American Reo Coker based on what I've seen from the American national team. Good at tackling, but his passing/distribution is terrible. On the other hand, he's well known for his great character and is a leader on and off the pitch. His FBREF stats are nearly identical to Kamara's last season.