weedman

You have absolutely no idea what we got as a loan fee, could just as easily be a £5m loan fee and £15m agreement if they stay up, which would be an excellent deal for a player we didn't want to keep 4 or 5 places in the league with Targett/Young at LB instead of Digne/Young. Come on now, you surely don't really believe that? I'm not anti Targett or anything, I think he's a good player, but the way some people are going on about him here you'd swear it was him pulling all the strings and almost the second coming of Lionel Messi. He was an average PL left back and our form has remained basically unchanged with or without him

Do you honestly think we've just sent him to Newcastle for nothing?

No idea, I'm assuming some combination of rescheduled games and cup competitions but at least it allows us all a stress free bank holiday weekend!

Look at those "possession" numbers, it's no wonder the team always plays better with him in it. I'm sure someone mentioned that was the same with us as well. He might not score many but him being on the pitch sees the team score more and concede less

I thought the same, until Liverpool ruined him by trying to play him like Michael Owen

We have no idea the terms Newcastle offered. If they've come in with a £5m loan fee and a £15m transfer fee if they stay up to make it permanent the board and Gerrard may have figured they wouldn't get half that if he spent the 2nd half of the season on the bench. The gamble then was, "do we get £20m in and rely on Young to continue as backup, or do we keep him to sit on the bench, lose his value and end up possibly not being able to sell him in the summer"? The board obviously decided its better for us to get the money in now and take the risk on Digne not getting injured. Obviously that hasn't worked out, but it's an easy risk to take given we're not really fighting for anything this season

Worth remembering though that we are a richer team than most, so we don't NEED every player to have resale value and to turn a profit. We have players that we COULD make money on in the squad, the likes of McGinn, Konsa, Cash, Martinez. Mings would even command a big fee despite being older. Watkins, Buendia, Bailey, Traore etc were big money signings but we would also probably be able to get back at least what we paid for them. Southampton, for example, need every player to turn a profit and its made them perennial mid table with the occasional relegation battle thrown in. To challenge and improve you need a blend of players that can be sold for profit, and players who are just for the here and now. Coutinho won't make us a profit but we'll have a better chance at cracking the top 6 with him than without him. We also need to be able to sell players at their peak value which is why the notion of "only buy first teamers then your current first teamers move to the bench" is not a sustainable approach, we need to maximise the amount we sell players for and they are worth more as first team players. We'll get more for McGinn this summer than we will if he makes 4 starts and 15 sub appearances next season, and that money can be used to improve the team

I'd have thought the other way round no? Buendia in Ramsey position as he is all energy and aggression then Coutinho off the striker drifting around making the magic happen

This is the issue, also his fitness and form will likely suffer from odd 20 minute cameos rather than full games. Look at Keinan Davis. Arguably needed a loan away 3 years ago but we kept him as he was "close" to the first team and he spent the whole time never getting a real run of games and loads of niggly injuries. We need to manage Archer better and a loan to a top end championship team might be good for him

Honestly where has this kid come from?! I mean he was on loan in the Vanarama, did OK, suddenly got a random start in a cup game because of injuries, scored a few goals, now he's too good for the championship and ready for our squad next season! At his current rate of development Man City will be chucking £150m at us for him next summer!

I'm confused. You're saying Barca would rather keep Coutinho as an option than loan him out and keep paying the majority of his wages? But his contract with them is nothing to do with us. Unless we've agreed to pay 100% of his wages (which I'm sure I read was about 400k a week) - which we're clearly not - then Barca have done exactly what you said they wouldn't do, they've loaned him out and continue paying the majority of his wages. Hell, how many players have we loaned out while still paying most of their wages for years until their contracts expire?! It happens far more frequently than players agreeing a pay cut while under contract when they don't need to

There's a lot of back and forth here, while obviously none of us know for sure what's in the contract, the fact that these pre agreements have clearly been agreed before with loans kind of kill this argument doesn't it? I mean, why would ANY player agree a contract when going on loan? Hell, I'm pretty sure neither us or Scott Sinclair really wanted to turn his deal permanent when it did but as soon as we were safe that pre contract he'd agreed as part of the loan kicked in and he became ours What if Coutinho wanted to come play with us and Gerrard, and during negotiations we made it clear we'd only go ahead if a pre agreement was signed? His choice becomes stay at Barca or sign for Villa Edit - there was also a lot of talk about him agreeing a pay cut to come here, and that doesn't make a lot of sense as part of a loan, and would make a lot more sense in terms of his next contract next season when he signs for us

I'd rather just watch competitive Villa games. Perhaps you're not interested in that and you're only interested in seeing particular players, fine, knock yourself out, but I'm not a Coutinho fan, or a Buendia fan, I'm an Aston Villa fan. Hell, I'd have probably watched the friendly if it had been available to watch, but it was not. I'd rather every player available for every match, but given a choice between missing a few players for a game and missing the game altogether I know what I'd choose. Also also, I really don't think it's that big a deal, I was only really pointing out the hypocrisy of the whole thing, and saying I think it's ridiculous. I don't care about Klopp and Guardiola complaining their players are too tired and they're being forced to play their backup players who only cost £50m a pop. This I agree with. This is the reason for the break. Give it a few years and all the leagues will sync something up so the big boys can get a bit of extra cash. The only losers are the fans, and no-one really cares about them.

I mean, 1) this isn't a Villa complaint, this applies to all the teams, 2) check my post history, I'm 99% positive about just about everything, and 3) I like watching football, specifically Aston Villa playing football. I don't enjoy no football in the summer, I don't enjoy international breaks and I don't enjoy an unnecessary 2 week winter break, sue me

I think it's ridiculous that clubs moaned and moaned and moaned for years about the "need" for a winter break, about how no-one was thinking about the poor players. Now they get one and decide to go play a behind closed doors friendly because the players need matches to stay fresh

Agree, it's easy to dismiss him due to his goal return, but he's only ever really had cameos with us. The only time he was a regular was when he was a teenager in the championship and played really well without the goals, then a few games after lockdown when we looked nailed on for relegation. It's hardly a good sample size. Annoyingly it seems villalad also rates him, which means he must be shit

Oh I just assumed our accounts could just be linked to purchase the tickets then unlinked afterwards, I did this for a cup final once a few years back to get an extra ticket. To be honest I remember years ago when I had a ST someone said they always bought a children's ST as it was cheap, then simply upgraded to an adult ticket for the games they could go to as they couldn't make them all, I wasn't sure if that would be an option with the memberships as well? If I bought a junior membership then an adult ticket on it would that work?

So I have a membership for the club (I think claret membership) just for priority access to tickets (I don't get to go often so it's nice to know I can get a ticket when I'm available). Long story short, I'm planning on taking the wife to the Watford game but I only have 1 membership (usually a mate also does it so we use each others but he hasn't this year). I'd like to get tickets before the season ticket holders take them all, there's about 300 different memberships to choose from, does anyone know the cheapest membership to get early tickets, or does anyone have a membership that they aren't using for the game that I could borrow this once? Appreciate any help guys, thanks all!

Nah they talk rubbish

More like "over to Kammy now with a big moment that will delight all the Liverpool fans watching"

Given the Daily Mails record of reporting anything I'd say he's soon to be a Newcastle player. Having not read it I'll happily assume the article was 10% us signing Coutinho and 90% ranting that English players are being held back by another foreigner joining and surely Brexit means Brexit?

I've often thought that the reason managers seem to be good for a few years then drop off is the opposite of that, I think managers develop favourites naturally based on previous performances and general trust in a player and then they are reluctant to replace them precisely because they don't see them as simple commodities. New manager comes in, spends the next few years (hopefully) replacing some of the weaker players with better ones (in our case thinking of the likes of Watkins, McGinn, Mings, probably Buendia moving forward, who Dean would have really struggled to move on from), we improve, but this new manager develops their own favourites in this time meaning they struggle to improve the squad past a certain point, form dips, they get sacked, new manager comes in and does the same thing. That's why IMO Sir Alex was so special. He was never afraid to sell his favourites and bring in new players, he managed to keep that team fresh and motivated for decades.

For me it's twofold. 1. Emi martinez is my ff keeper and 2. I put a fiver on 2-0 at 16-1 and considered the cash out in the 90th minute but thought nah, it's in the bank

The reason his bang average team gets 70% possession is because thats their defence, they sacrifice attacking play, forward movement, risky passes and "getting bodies in the box" to make sure there's always a simple pass on. It's considered "good football" because people conflate passing with good football and there's this assumption that 70% possesion must mean they're just a slice of luck away from being Man City. It's boring, negative football that you can pretty much get away with only if you stack your forward line with the best players in world football and let them do their thing aka Pep-ball but just doesn't work otherwise, a good striker won't change virtually anything for them

I think you're missing the point a bit, the point is that it doesn't do any harm to start training a little later as games are later anyway, and if the players are likely to stay up late either way it makes sense to allow them to be fully rested prior to training. I guess it depends on your mentality, if its "the players are paid fortunes they can bloody well suck it up and get up early like I have to" then you'll be annoyed, whereas if its "the players are finely tuned athletes and we should do what we can to ensure they are in peak physical and mental condition" then you won't care that they start a bit later