weedman

Just now, WHY said:

What’s PL tax out of interest?

PL teams have to pay more for players because every man and their agent knows how much money is in the PL and if you don't pay it, another PL team will because they're also loaded

A bit like the English player tax in that you have to pay English players more because they're more in demand due to squad quotas 

2 hours ago, Delphinho123 said:

No chance? Why? If he was on 11k at Betis, why would Villa have to give him anywhere near 80-100k a week? 

We’ve tripled his wages and given him the chance to play in the best league in the world. He’s also approaching 30, so no need to go mental on the wages.

Honestly, this was just a deal that made sense for everybody. We needed a more dynamic left back, Betis got a very good fee for a player who won’t command one at all in a couple of years and Moreno more than tripled his wages. 

Just because the PL players demand more, not a slight on anyone, but a player willing to play for 35k would get 50k just due to the PL tax. I doubt there are many starting players across the entire league on £35k a week with the possible exception of players that have come through the youth setup recently and not been awarded a new contract yet 

2 minutes ago, burchy said:

Isn’t Moreno only on about £35k whereas I Digne is our top earner on about 160k!

I think we’re desperately trying to get shot as the wages he’s on are ridiculous. 

Not a chance Moreno is on £35k. It's the PL in 2023, if he's on 35k he needs to sack his agent, I'd get him more than that

3 hours ago, stewiek2 said:

I'm in Malta. Had a fantastic week. Watched the game in a bar packed by foreign Chelsea supporters. Have a flight at 6am so need to be at the airport 4am. Am f**ked. If I miss my flight then it'll cost me but Unai I bloody love you.

As someone who has missed 2 flights home due to being a drunk idiot, look on the bright side, you'll always have a funny story to tell people!

6 hours ago, FLVillan said:

Six years of picking up a massive contract while contributing absolutely nothing for our club.  When the chips were down and our club needed a leader he was partying in Dubai, piling on the pounds, perennially "injured", creating division in the dressing room, undermining managers/coaches and was generally a negative distraction.  And his goals-per-game record, even when at his best was decidedly below average.  Miraculously got "fit" enough to be available when we were playing Small Heath. This club captain was literally sent to "Fat Camp" as we battled for premier league survival...

 

 

The thing with his fitness always bugged me, I mean, we know he liked a drink and party etc so was never really gonna have the career longevity of some players, but he'd been dropped and given literally years of abuse when he bulked himself up so he could play more like Carew, iirc he was dropped for taking it upon himself to do that as well, then never missed training in that relegation season...what exactly were the coaches doing during that time?! 

Surely the signs that he's getting a bit unfit should have been clear pretty early on, and given that he had clearly decided not to do any extras in his own time after the drilling down he got before, shouldn't he have been doing more fitness training or given more attention long before he needed to be sent away to get fitter?

The decision to bulk up ultimately ended his career imo, he lost that explosive pace and never really got it back again, and he just wasn't good enough to compensate for that. He picked up lots of niggly injuries and was allowed to get unfit enough that he couldn't play in that last PL season by a merry go round of incompetent coaches and a lack of interest from the top down. He is clearly a big villa fan and was an integral part of probably our most successful period in 25 years so I cannot hate him despite how it ended.

Ollie is not as good as MON Gabby imo, he gave us a dimension we haven't had since just with his blistering pace, but he is getting better and better and he clearly has an incredible work ethic which should mean he continues to improve as he moves into his "peak" over the next couple of years, which is where Gabby fell apart

7 hours ago, Kiwivillan said:

He's scored as many goals in last 3 games as Gabby did his last 3 seasons including 2 seasons in Championship. 1822 minutes 

Add Watkins last season for 17 total is more than Gabby 13 in last 5 seasons. 6964 minutes. 

Tbf Gabby was a good player before his bulking up. I think they are similar players but obviously Watkins has a much better attitude to training etc so I'd imagine will have a far longer career and won't completely implode in his last few seasons 

41 minutes ago, The_Steve said:

He basically said “why’s he crying? Not like he cost Villa the FA Cup’ difficult chance etc”. 

Yes Gabby, some players take football very seriously. Maybe he should be more like him and shrug it off and go do laughing gas and party afterwards. 

I mean, that's hardly the worst thing to say is it? Pretty sure I said the same thing, it's not exactly talking crap about him it's saying there's no need to be so upset about a missed chance in a regular league game mid season and it was a difficult chance 

2 hours ago, mikeyp102 said:

Clearly he’s distraught about that effort. 
 

He should have done better with it, he had time to take another touch and then slot it in. 
 

Frustrating game overall, rarely beat his man. And yet at one stage went past about 6 players and unlucky not to get a shot away

I said to my mate as it happened that it was a 94th minute effort. If he gets that chance after 20 minutes he touches it onto his left and casually passes it in past the defender on the line. 94th minute he rushed it first time, off balance while worrying that the keeper is about to get back and a defender covering on the line with his weak foot, if it had sat up a bit nicer he wouldn't have taken the touch round the keeper he would have just gone for the first time shot as well. 

I don't think people appreciate how much fatigue and fitness dictate games these days. It's why the most prolific strikers do virtually nothing in terms of pressing and build up play, so they are then "fresh" when the ball drops to them in the last minute to casually tap it in. It's hard to keep your head and make the right choice in a high pressure environment when you're knackered having spent 95 minutes running yourself into the ground. 

I didn't catch all of the game but from what I saw nothing really came off for him all night. The likes of Bailey and Watkins are good players for counter attacking football but are not the answer against low blocks. I'd add Buendia to that list as well I think as he has to do everything at 100mph which suits a counter attacking team but not so much against a wall of defenders 

1 hour ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

He won’t be back mate.  Hopefully back for Spurs. The partying is going to be ridiculous though. Imagine if Grealish was still around and England won it. We wouldn’t have seem him for weeks! 

See I think that's crazy, essentially forfeiting a game just so a player can spend an extra few days on the piss 

It's not been discussed much, but is it just me that would be really disappointed if he wasn't available on boxing day? I know he's just won a world Cup and wants to celebrate, but I'm sorry its not the summer holidays, surely it's not too big an ask to only party for a week and still get back in time for Christmas and the boxing day game at the club that pays your wages? Especially as without that club he probably wouldn't be anywhere near the Argentina team

Obviously he'll want to be celebrating properly, but that's down to fifa for scheduling it in the middle of a season. If he's back and Emery doesn't play him as he's not 100% on it then fair enough, but if he's not back I'll be pretty disappointed in him I think, and I love Emi and really don't want to be annoyed at him! 

Is the villa stream buffering like crazy for anyone else? It amazes me how poor Villa are at offering online content. I literally get better quality from illegal streams most of the time

1 minute ago, briny_ear said:

Emery joins a now lengthening line of coaches persevering with Watkins answer trying to get a performance out of him.

Although on recent experience, he knows a bit better when to bring on Ings to score the goals.

It's almost like he offers much more than fans give him credit for.

No no, it's every manager he's ever played under that's wrong

What exactly does Mount offer? Every time I see him he's absolutely hopeless with the occasional wonder strike. He's an English El Ghazi

2 hours ago, Laughable Chimp said:

That still makes no sense. If he was that highly rated, surely another club would’ve gone  in for him too and raised his price. You expect me to believe that their owners decided to just sell him to the first bidder at a massive cut price? That other clubs who apparently highly rated him too never considered putting in a higher bid for him? 
 

I know of this argument but it just doesn’t pass the smell test if you took 2 seconds to think about it.

As much as I agree, you can't dismiss what happens when teams are desperate for cash, we probably would have sold Jack for £10m or less had NSWE not taken over, for example 

1 hour ago, rodders0223 said:

He's let himself go.

Being totally serious, has he? I mean obviously he's still an absolute specimen, but he doesn't look as ripped as he has previously or is that just me? 

1 hour ago, est1874 said:

I think I'm looking for the same sense of balance but from the other side of this?

Check out the McGinn, Chambers, Konsa and obviously Olsen threads after the game yesterday. Plenty of very loud criticism. You'll struggle to find too many posts defending the players with much spirit. Cut to the Mings thread and it's a desperate firefight as usual, with his loyalists desperately pouring cold water over any criticism as per usual.

I'll say this, you've stepped out and admitted he wasn't good last night. All I'm asking is for a bit of balance. He was immense last weekend and I said as much here. Same v Brentford. I try to always call it as I see it. And then in here sometimes I see people actively avoiding doing that, which grates.

1. As previously pointed out there is far far less criticism in the Konsa thread

2. Maybe, and hear me out here, it has something to do with the other players receiving criticism when they play poorly, which has most people in agreement, whereas the Mings thread has people desperate to blame him for absolutely everything even when he's played well with clearly OTT and unfair criticism which leads more people coming out to defend him? 

You know that pen that Konsa "gave away" when fernandes jumped into him a couple season ago? Most people are (rightly) still annoyed at the ref for giving the penalty. I can guarantee had that been Mings it would have been included in a "Mings is shit" compilation and sparked 5 pages of debate in here about it. Those blaming the ref would be called Mings apologists and those calling Mings a donkey wouldn't even acknowledge the fact it was a terrible decision 

5 minutes ago, est1874 said:

They were all terribly poor. Konsa was shocking too. But the clamour to defend Mings at all costs no matter what actually happens during the match is becoming nauseating. Please, for the love of god, drop the 'whataboutery' and just admit he had a poor game.

I think he was pretty poor when he came on, nowhere near as bad as made out on here/twitter but that's par for the course these days. 

My point still stands, the reason people defend him is because the cririsism is over the top and he is judged to an insanely high standard compared to every other defender. 

Today he was poor, but he was still our 2nd best defender behind Young 

Surely refs aren't routinely out by 2 or 3 yards on a wall?! These aren't Sunday league guys doing it for a bit of fun these are professionals at the top of their field, they can't just guess the distance, it can't be hard to accurately measure 10 yards then practice pacing it out before games 

23 minutes ago, Jas10 said:

 

You nearly miss it with the players waking past but that little smile as the ball is cut back is everything

11 minutes ago, DeadlyDirk said:

8 year olds dude.

What's a pederast? 

On 31/10/2022 at 22:27, Pinebro said:

Keinan is made of glass regardless so it's a pointless debate. 

Even if he had the ability you can't rely on him to stay fit, and at that point it's just a waste in wages. 

Injuries have destroyed him I think. Technically he's very good, he can beat players and is good on the ball, he's physically a beast, what he needed was regular game time about 4 years ago to develop some instincts and just learn the ugly bit of the game that you don't learn in youth football and he's just never had it. 

Players say it takes them a good 10 games to really get into a season, to get a rhythm going, I don't think he's played or been available for 10 consecutive games his whole career since his breakthrough as a teenager. Even at Forest he picked up a few niggles here and there (nearly missing the playoffs if I recall) and it's the same at Watford now.

Developmentally he's probably where he should have been at 19 or 20 if he'd had a bit of luck here and there, it's a shame as I really like him and hope he can get over his injury issues and forge a decent career for himself