Indigo

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.

The Dembele news has only just broke in the last couple of days to be fair. Speaking of genius moves by Barca, his release clause is 50 million with half of that figure going to him and his agent(s) because they couldn't afford to pay him a signing on fee when he signed a new contract.

Game went a bit dead in the second half, as you'd expect with substitutions, the heat etc, but up until then it was an enjoyable one. Thought we played some great stuff at times, could really see both individual quality being up a level as well as the balance of the team starting to take shape. Konsa's goal obviously takes all the attention but the build-up for the other two were great and showed the comfortability in possession that has grown and grown.

Definitely had a bit of a slow start to pre-season but I thought he played some lovely stuff yesterday.

For me, this kind of line-up is the only way I really see Mings and Torres playing together. Just don't think he'll use either on the right side of a defence. Just think Cash's end product is too inconsistent compared to Moreno and Digne for it to be much of a goer for the season though.

As much as he's had his share of clangers, he's also had some games where he's looked fine and relatively dependable. I think the main problem isn't that he's not an alright back-up in the grand scheme of things, just that he's an outdated style of goalkeeper at this level and we almost have to change how we play when he's on the pitch. If he was just asked to marshal his six yard box and keep things simple then fine, but unfortunately he's required to be able to scan much further than that, be able to use his feet etc which doesn't come naturally to him. Just figured Emery would want a keeper more in that mould.

Stuff like the Hojlund deal just shows why these clubs go about using these kind of multi-club models, as unsavoury as it may be. They could have gotten him for relatively cheap last year but weren't sure of him, suddenly a year later he's £50 million or so more expensive and there's huge pressure on him coming good as a result. Think we're going to see more and more like this Ugochukwu deal.

Whether he was or wasn't ultimately going to be good enough or not, there's no doubt that the ability to reach whatever his peak would have been was robbed by that injury. He seems a good guy and already had a great back story, so I hope he makes a big of a success of the rest of his career as he can. Will definitely be keeping an eye on him and wish him all the best going forward. Go on Wes

Per Percy, Forest have rejected a £35 million bid from Brentford. Not surprising but puts in further perspective that he'd be prohibitively expensive relative to his track record.

OK.

Good fun isn't it.