Indigo

Can people please stop clogging up and starting threads with talk of days of the week? Despite this being a public forum I'd only like people to discuss things I'd like to read.

Matteo Moretto, who has proved to be pretty credible, has said Villa are interested in Lo Celso and that Betis aren't able to make a sufficient offer for him.

At the same time reasons to the contrary have also been said plenty. Ultimately none of us know until the season gets underway, but it's not unfounded to think this signing puts Mings' place in a bit of jeopardy.

Tielemans.

What do you consider as "realistic speculation" seeing as we've literally signed players that you initially wrote off as being nonsense links. Some of you lads need to lighten up a bit. It's the off-season, there's only so many times where people can debate over the merits of Konsa at RB or Buendia's wastefulness in possession. Give me all the nonsense in the meantime.

I agree with you for what it's worth. I think people are over-simplifying the role by just saying that it doesn't matter if they're a CB because that's ostensibly the role they'll be playing. The below is Foyth's heat map for his last full season under Emery, he's still playing as a right back, albeit a more reserved one but he's not so far tucked in that he's playing as a CB. If it ends up happening and works then fair enough but I'm personally skeptical that Konsa being able to fill the role effectively for a team with Villa's aspirations is a no-brainer.

A winger, striker and another midfielder are all wanted according to Collomosse.

I don't like that Roma kit tbh. It should be great given that it's simple, the crest etc but Adidas managed to make it just look like a run of the mill training top.

We already had a small squad and have let Young go, I know Konsa might have had a couple of training sessions at RB but it'd make sense to sign one.

My post was just off the back of the debate of who got the better of things on balance, wasn't a comment on Gnonto's ability or agreeing with the notion that he got "schooled" by Young as it may have been lumped in with I think both things can be the case that Gnonto showed he's a great prospect and was extremely dangerous that night, and also that despite this Young largely dealt with him fantastically. At least that's how it came across to me at VP that night, was a performance of Young's that stuck with me in terms of showing he still had it despite his age. Saying that I think he was poor for the goal more so than Gnonto skinning him or anything, he kind of lazily tried to win a foul rather than properly challenge the ball and the ref wasn't having it.

Awoniyi is a good player/signing to be fair, and they got him for the reported fee they didn't want to sign Davis for. Without checking I'd guess his PL goals total last season isn't far off what Davis has scored over his entire career.

They weren't all against each other, ya rascal.

Young won three quarters of his duals that night while Gnonto only managed a third of his. You'd imagine a large portion of those were against one another so it's fair to say Young got the better of things.

Yeah I wasn't suggesting that there's enough to indicate he'd theoretically be worth £50 million or anything of the sort, just there's likely more to his numbers on paper or at least enough context to them (like Forest having comfortably the least possession in the league etc) to justify the likes of Brentford and Villa being at the very least curious about him. Just seeing a lot of FBRef screenshots floating around completely writing him off which is probably harsh on him. It's a tough position because it's a place in the squad that needs filling to take Villa to the next level, so there's much more scrutiny on the likes of Johnson who probably would be looked at as good potential signings previously before Emery elevated us to such an extent. I can understand why they'd be interested as he is the right profile of player - has often played on the right of a kind of asymmetrical front two, is quick, decent quality in front of goal etc. His quality relative to the likely price would make it questionable to the point I'd be more than surprised if it happened, but the type of player he is ticks some boxes anyway.

To be fair, not to be the "just buy whoever Brighton and Brentford want" guy but everything Brentford do is based around data and he's been a main target of theirs for a couple of seasons now. So he must be doing something right on that front even though it doesn't seem the case on FBRef and whatever else us common folk use.

Av1 took the Johnson link hard. Hope for his sake that he doesn't end up actually signing.

I'd say it's widely considered to he the 2nd strongest league in Europe right now in terms of top to bottom quality. It's had a resurgence in recent seasons if anything.

Wages are the issue with Nakamba apparently, not the fee.

I think there's a lot of assumptions going on with how Emery is definitely going to set us up going forward based on the ultimately small sample size of his work so far with an unbalanced squad that he inherited from Gerrard, when really we don't know for sure. Barnes is almost exclusively a LW at this point in his career but seeing as Gerrard hated width outside of the full backs we haven't really had one at the club in Emery's time to know if he'd want to use a player in that position or not. It's what makes this transfer window/pre-season so interesting as we'll probably get more of a firm idea of things as it moves along.

Instead of simply not reading things I'm not interested in of my own accord, I prefer to demand people stop speaking about these things full stop.

The whole "in the eyes of the law" or general "not found guilty" shouts with Greenwood do my nut in considering there is literal evidence of what he did. No mental gymnastics would justify signing him.

It's gotten to a point now where I would be delighted if we signed him purely for how funny it would be.

Percy saying that the focus is on adding wingers next which is interesting, mentions Barnes and Johnson as two players being looked at.

Genuinely a real statement signing, speaks to the pull of both the Premier League and Emery that Villa got this done because he's easily a Champions League quality player. The kind of player I wished we were able to sign when watching him down the seasons and now this just it the standard of player we're able to get in. It will be interesting to see how it plays out, I feel like there's too much certainty over what Emery will and won't do considering he was having to work with what he inherited last season with the squad being quite bare at times. The encouraging thing is you know that Tielemans and now Torres are absolutely players that he really wanted, so it's exciting to see how it'll all come together.

Yeah exactly, it's what you want from a reporter really.