Indigo

The word "control" is operative here. The manner in which the elite clubs are able to hoard (young) players and utilise them in every way from squad building, managing homegrown quotas, keeping in line with FFP etc but inserting buy back clauses at the same time has all changed the market. Villa aren't quite at the level of some yet but you can see that the aspiration is there and it's why I think people are off with saying City, Chelsea and so forth are irrelevant comparisons when the prospective sales of Ramsey, Archer etc are being discussed.

It's so typical ffs, it's like a lottery as to which player picks up a serious injury each season. All the best to him, was going well in pre-season and it's an awful injury at the best of times.

Moretto is a reliable source as well as Romano, seems this has legs.

In the system we play he can realistically cover both the second striker and wide/attacking midfielder positions, that's where he's predominantly played in his time. I think it's one of the interesting things about how Emery has us set up that the likes of Zaniolo and Felix that have been linked have obvious positions as opposed to being square pegs in round holes for many other sides.

Zaniolo has been a weird one. Was seen as hugely talented and his career has taken such a swift nosedive.

Shout out to Alan Nixon.

I'm guessing Hause is still crocked with his knee? Hard to move him on if so. Neither himself or Davis have updated pictures in the squad list for this season on the OS, the only ones there that it's the case for.

I get that it's a shame to let go of a talented, local academy player and that he could have gotten some minutes this season between the cups and Europe, but ultimately if the reporting on it is correct it seems like a good deal for everyone involved.

Pacheco is great. Can't profess to have any great knowledge of the women's game but every time I watch Villa she's impressive yet seems to go under the radar a bit.

Even if he maintains fitness and availability I'm just not sure he has the general physicality for the Premier League anymore, or at least not to perform consistently over a season. However he's obviously still a fantastic footballer, probably still the best in the squad in terms of pure ability, hard to argue with him being a great - albeit expensive - option in the squad if he stays. And that's purely on a footballing level, without also factoring in that he's unanimously been called a great person and influence around the squad.

The oracle.

It's just a joke mate. Folk get too easily wound up by it all in every direction.

Matt Maher reporting it now. The journo boo boys are in tatters here.

Alan Nixon 1-0 VT Transfer Speculation Police Force

Tbf we can't roundly criticise Chelsea for their ridiculous business last season and then use the fee they paid for Chuk as the barometer for what does or doesn't constitute a player's value. Everyone was crediting Villa for managing to get such a fee for him given his age, contract situation etc.

Maybe Emery doesn't think he's as good or would have the impact on the first team that a lot of people are saying?

Emery has mentioned identifying certain "profiles" and "characteristics" in players for signings rather than specifically positions, and in that case you can kind of understand the idea of Adams (if the interest is true obviously) as he is a type of player different from most others in the squad in terms of his athleticism and extremely high defensive output coupled with it.

Not to enrage you further, but over 20 posts since you posted this being discussion of the very tweet you were incensed about is hilarious.

Hmmmm.

Can't speak to how reliable or otherwise the link is but I think Kovar would be an interesting one if true. Has gotten good reviews from winning the Czech league on loan with Sparta last season and is the style of goalkeeper in terms of his distribution etc that suits us more than Olsen does. Also counts as homegrown too which is something the club needs to bear in mind, back-up keeper is always a handy position to keep that number topped up.

I know folk think otherwise but I just can't see Mings and Torres starting together as the centre backs, despite it becoming a 3 with one full back pushing on it still requires one of them to play on their wrong side when defending, and at times when building play. I think they're our two best CBs - or at least will prove to be - but think the only way they play together is in a set-up like the Brentford game the other day, which I think could work very well, but it puts more emphasis on Cash to provide quality when attacking and he's previously been inconsistent at best in that area.

Don't really disagree with anything you say here, was essentially just saying that I think a lot of the abuse he gets is undeserved* and despite that even I was scratching my head watching the first few minutes of 1874 last night. He's saying how meaningless friendlies are and that he "didn't really" watch any of them but is then trying to blag about how Diaby and Torres are bedding in, how well McGinn is playing etc as if it doesn't totally contradict what he just said. Big fan of Dan Bardell and think he's as good a representative as Villa can have in this space, but I wonder what he thought of having to try to force a review show of the US tour out with someone who in the opening moments of it admitted he didn't care about or even watch most of it. Considering he's going about trying to rebrand the channel and make it all more professional it's not exactly the greatest of starts with that. * by which I just mean the frequency in which I see pretty hefty personal insults etc directed at him for just not being that good at his job. Not to say I think he's great at it by any stretch, or that it offends me or anything of the sort but I do find myself rolling my eyes at a lot of the stick he gets because rather than any critique of him it's just calling him a "prick" and so forth, which ultimately says more about the person saying it than Evans himself.

I often think Gregg Evans gets a ridiculously hard time of it and the needless personal insults only reflect badly on the people making them, but it's more than a bit mad that he's admitted to not watching games when it's still part of his job to cover Villa. In that case it'd probably behove him to actually watch them play to get an idea of how the team will be setting up, where new signings fit in etc.

I think it's pretty good going at this level to have a striker that has shown they can consistently get 10-15 a season, our issue has more so been not having enough goals coming from elsewhere in the squad. Most of the sides we were and hope to continue to compete with either have numerous players in double figures, or at least not far off whereas Villa's next highest scorers were Ramsey and Luiz on 6. If Ollie is able to get 14-15 again and the likes of Diaby, Ramsey etc can get in the general area of 10 things should be pretty healthy.