Silent_Bob

I would think those deals would be loan deals with a promise to buy (at an inflated price) if promoted. So wouldn't expect any today, but later this month. I see those deals as quite dangerous. They could get us out of this league, but also make sure that we go straight back to the Championship again. That could easily happen if we need to spend our money on sub-standard players instead of what we actuallly need to stay in the division.

The young winger we got from Watford a few years ago was at least a success.

TheTrees used to tell about Lerner’s plane and not transfers IIRC.

Or Gazza

Nyland would be a good choice I think. But might be slightly biased.

As opposed to now?

Not sure about b). I don't think we would have to submit plans for how we will avoid breaking rules in the future.

I think they ended up having to pay a fine of around £17m and the rest going towards reducing debts. It's ironic that the penalty for spending money you don't have is a huge fine to be paid with money you then obviously don't have. How that will prevent clubs from bankrupcy is beyond me. But £45m into thin air would be more or less how we have spent our transfer funds.

The thing is that we've lost on average €22 million per season the last two years. This year we will get even less parachute payments, meaning we need to imrpove our financial results by £30 millions this season, with lower income. So we don't need to raise just £6 millions. That's what we need as profit.. But we need to improve by much, much more.

I don’t think we have to sell him either. But if we don’t, I don’t think there is much else we can do. So I don’t think the team, as it looks now, is capable of promotion. So keeping Jack and not getting in the other players that we need is just a waste of time. We are waistiing a season, we are waisting a year of Jack’s career and we take a gamble on the long term future of the club. One horrible tackle and he might be worrth zero. Of course this logic is on the assumption that there is no other way around FFP and that new owners won’t be pumping in money like there’s no tomorrow. As for discussing the sale of the best player, I don’t see it as anything other than discussing what’s best for the club. That FFP is rubbish I fully agree on. But we can’t ignore it just because we don’t like it.

But FFP exists regardless if we keep Jack or.not. If we don’t get money in for him, it has to come from someplace else. So we might not be able to reinvest everything, but by selling Jack we improve our FFP status by what we get for Jack.

I realize that he was that last year. I also realize that that was last year. And I realize we can't spend money due to FFP. We need players in many positions. Ideally we should get them in and keep Jack as well, but if I have to choose between a poor squad plus Jack and a much better squad without him, I think I would choose the better squad. Where we are now I think keeping Jack is a luxury we really can't afford. If he had come out and said that he wanted to stay that's one thing. But that hasn't happened. All that I'm saying right now is that no player is bigger than the club, players leaving is part of football, and if Jack leaving increases the chance of us getting promotion then I'm for it. This has gone on now for the whole summer and have probably unsettled him quite a lot. There are just days left of the transfer window and we have plenty of work that needs to be done when it comes to strengthening the squad.

I actually do hope that he goes for 35 mill or thereabout. If his mind isn't into it, we would do better without him, provided that we reinvest in new players. It's much more important that we go up this year than keeping Jack.

Really exciting to read all the names being put forward here. But when will we actually sign any them?

Undecided For me it’s about what our new overlords want to achieve this season. If it’s a new shot at automatic promotion, regardless of style, players and whatever, just get promoted, I still think Bruce is our best option. If it’s more long term, build a young side and get promotion in 2-3 years time, Henry would be my choice. Bruce is stronger in getting results, Henry would be a beacon to attract young ambitious players, but not necessarily players that would secure promotion already next season. But Henry would also offer a fresh start for some of our expensive strikers. That’s also worth something. The disadvantage of building a young side is that it’s a waste of time. Not many of them would be able to make it at the next level. So we need three teams. One to get us out of the Championship. There I rate Bruce higher if it’s to happen next season, Henry if it’s going to take longer time. One that would survive after promotion, there I rate Bruce over Henry, and finally one that would challenge for a place in Europe. For that team I rate Henry over Bruce.

Could this be just a smokescreen for something much bigger? Maybe we're after Anthony Martian from Man U?

I think we need to close this one and move on. We need the money, but just as much we need to plan for next season. And closing a deal early will make it easier. He's not going to stay, we can't afford him to stay either. The only question still open is how much cash we will get. It's sad, but there will be other players in the future. It's not the end of the world.

I pretty much agree with this. Last year we arguably had the best squad in the Championship for some time. On paper. Wolves went with a decent squad and a couple of exeptional players at this level, and that was enough. The good thing with our squad was that we weren't really depending on a single player. At least in theory, but even without Grealish we should have enough quality to win most of the games. We didn't. If we next season are able to find a couple of key players as well, it could easily be enough. That's a more risky approach for a big club, as it leaves promotion not to the collective quality of the squad, but rather than on the form of a few individual players. The relegated teams will need to rebuild from expensive teams put together to remain in the league into cheaper teams that are capable of controlling games. That's no easy fix over a summer, especially not a World Cup summer when a lot of the transfers will happen after that. Over the last ten years only five teams have been able to secure automatic promption back to Premier League the following season, and four more teams have done so at Wembley. So statistically only one of the three teams relegated would be expected to go straight up again. That leaves two more spots, and I'm not giving up hope that we could be one of those two teams next season. In fact I think we should, if we're able to avoid fire sales for financial reasons. But instead of getting benchwarmers in Premier League, I would rather we looked elsewhere to find more up and coming players. Premier League clubs more or less only buy players that are Premier League quality, they don't go looking for bargains. But I think we can get quality players at Championship level from abroad. We should be looking at players that could potentally be Premier League players, but would need performing in the Championship as a stepping stone to achieve that. Much cheaper, more risk, but our only option in my opinion.

It is weaker, but is it that much weaker? We don't know yet what the squad will look like in August. And as long as what we're getting rid of is either deadwood or players that we can replace, I'm not ready to give up just yet. Last season we had a team more than capable of promotion, but underachieved. If we next season have a weaker squad, but overachieve, it can still be done. Either through automatic or playoff. The three teams above us all got promoted. If Swansea, WBA and Stoke all make strong challenges for promotion, we will struggle. But if they don't, anything can happen. Remember that the relegated teams will need a complete rebuild during the summer.

If he is the right man or not depends on the task for next season and beyond that. Should we still go for promotion with what's left of last years squad, plus some bargains we can pick up during the summer, I still think Bruce would be the best choice. Not necessarily best in the world, but best of what's available. He knows the squad and is good at getting the right players. His shortcomings is more on the tactics. With him in charge we won't be playing like Brazil, but might be able to grind out the results. And that's what matters in the end. Promotion is about consistency, and that's where we failed last year. After the Wolves game we only took 14 out of 30 points. 21 would have secured automatic promotion. So you don't win a promotion by beating mid table teams 1-0, but you can certainly loose a promotion by not winning that sort of games. Should we take another step back and try to build a new team with promotion being more of a long term goal, he is probably not be the right choice. Even with a somewhat reduced squad, I still think we should give promotion a real go next year. At the moment I still think we should be able to field a team which on paper is not so good as last year's team, but could still be good enough to get promoted. We only need to be better that the competition, and I don't necessarily think Stoke, WBA and Swansea will do as Newcastle and go straight up again. They might need some time, and last year proved that we were the best team that didn't get promoted. Next season our team will, on paper, not be as good. But it might still be good enough, depending on who leaves and who comes in during the summer. I don't want to give up hope just yet.

I wish Villa would look to Scandinavia. Plenty of good players who would be successfull at Championship level available for small amounts of money. The next Mellberg, Carew and Laursen are all playing there now and would probably consider the Championship to be a good career move. Twenty years ago the Premier League was littered with Scandinavian players, but in those days top English clubs were selling their best players to Italy and Spain. With all the money that has been pumped into the league since then top clubs don't go there looking for bargains anymore. But that doesn't mean that talent doesn't exist there.

It's a mentality thing as well. Now our confidence should be sky high, the team knows that all they need to do is to perform to their abilities and we will be fine. Cardiff seem to be grinding out narrow wins, but it's different trying to get into a position rather than defending it. For the next couple of months they have everything to loose every game they play, and they don't have enough quality to stay in the race in my opinion. Fulham similar. I doubt we will finish above Wolves, but I think both Fulham and Cardiff fear us, much more than we fear them. A few weeks ago we were talking about Derby. Where are they now? I think the same will happen to Cardiff and Fulham eventually. Yesterday's win will no doubt scare them. But we haven't achieved anything by murdering Wolves if we don't win our easy fixtures. Every game is massive from now on and in. And I think we are much better suited to live with that than Cardiff or Fulham. Now is where the experience of SB and JT and others really starts to play a role.

That's £500 for the service and £4,500 in the interviewers pocket. Then you get the visa on that day guaranteed.

And Paul McGrath a third? In our situation we need experienced players on short term contracts. I can't really think of anyone that is better, available and likely to accept to come here on a short term contract. Yes, we can sign Vidic and still fail. But why is that much worse than signing someone else and fail?

As I have said, I think any leaks on this will come from the buying side, not the selling side. Lerner does not have to keep the Villa staff (except maybe some very key people on a need to know basis) in the loop on what's going in. He will probably be discussing a sale with people who's job it is to look after Lerner's business, not people who's job it is to look after the club's business. So the usual ITK-people on normal club matters, might not be ITK on this one. As their sources are not kept informed. The sale of the club would in the initial stages be done through intermediates. Like BOA/ML handles this on behalf of Lerner, it's logical that also a buyer gets someone who can represent him. That could be people he use when buying other companies, or it could be someone independent, just hired on this occasion. They might be foreign and might not have any real interest in football or this club. What I'm thinking is that maybe, just maybe, Abdul's sources are such intermediates, doing the job on behalf of some arabs. They are doing the negotiations on behalf of someone else, can negotiate a deal and then present it to the people they are acting on behalf of. They have no real knowledge of how this proposed deal would be received by the people they are acting on behalf of, and are of course not if the deal that have been negotiated with BOA/ML will be accepted by Lerner eventually. These intermediates, especially if they are foreign, would not be feeding the normal ITK's with information. But people in their own country, like Abdul, could get some information. So assuming you live in Saudi and have a friend that is a business lawyer, currently involved in a process where one of his clients are considering buying a PL club, you might get some stories. You don't get the whole picture, you have no real knowledge about the chances of the deal coming through and things like that. But you might get told things like: "Sheik this or that is considering buying AVFC, we are done on the price discussion and are now looking into something else". Which is then posted here,