Indigo

Yeah I believe so, at least for that first "big" move. I just meant it seemed a no-brainer generally, not a specific criticism of Villa or anything.

He's a lovely player, in the hypothetical world Villa signed him he'd be great in the right of midfield position that Bailey often occupies. Has to add more goals to his game next but otherwise has pretty much everything to his game you'd want of a player in his position. £8 million for him was a steal, seemed such a no-brainer at the time too but has only looked even more the case since.

Assuming he is gettable relatively cheap - which outside of the admittedly large Levy factor seems plausible - I think Lo Celso would be a handy signing. As said above Emery obviously likes him and he's quite a versatile player in this system. He's more of a facilitator and we don't exactly lack for them at the moment, but given what should be a big increase in the number of fixtures next season he'd be a handy addition to the squad along with the one or two more game-changing signings to lift the burden of end product off of Watkins a bit more.

I know you hate speculation but I wasn't baiting anyone lol, it's literally a report that's relevant to the thread and I made a light-hearted remark re: the general negativity around signing him. Chill out. In any case that's several credible people now that have said we're at least interested in Barnes, as much as folk want to fight the mere idea of it. Nobody has said we're definitely signing him.

Mentions it in his piece about Spurs going for Maddison apparently.

I've been expecting you.

Percy saying Barnes is a target. VillaTalk in ruins.

Of the three signings made thus far under Emery you've got 1) Duran who by all accounts was more of a Lange/scouting department choice 2) a left back in Moreno that many were surprised to see us linked to in the first place given Villa already having two senior players in that position and had supposed more pressing needs elsewhere in the squad to address, and 3) Tielemans, who so many were writing off as a "lazy link" that was apparently never going to happen. I don't really get why folk are so confident about exactly what Emery and Monchi are going to want and not want in this window when there's such a limited sample size of track record at the club to work with.

Tayls normally expects us to be relegated to be fair, he's incredibly positive so far this summer by his usual standards.

I thought he'd played at right back way more than he actually has according to Transfermarkt. 4 times in the Bundesliga and then about 10-15 more times across MLS and international friendlies.

A part of me really enjoys the thought of us just signing players that people are initially writing off as "lazy links" because it's funny. Evans mugging off VT one transfer at a time.

I think the shirt is fine, nothing to be too up in arms over in either direction really. Just dislike the sponsor quite a lot for varying reasons. The whole situation with the badge seems daft though, to make such a song and dance about changing it only for this to happen.

I think Postecoglou is a good appointment but it's a tough job for anyone to take on in the short term. Their squad was assembled specifically for Conte and now looks terribly unbalanced for more or less any other coach out there, especially one like Postecoglou who is almost the opposite to him in terms of playing style. They have specialist wing backs with not much history at all of playing in a back four, a load of naturally holding midfielders with minimal creativity about them, a mess at centre back and then the Kane and goalkeeper situations to address. It's a lot to manage in one summer.

My natural instinct is to think that he would be, teams in the Champions League were interested in him and getting priced out previously so it seems a stretch for Villa to rock up and manage it. Agree that he's the right profile of player though, I've always liked the look of Simakan too but again he's probably in a similar boat to Timber. Who knows though, if we're as ambitious as is being reported than some of them may end up materialising. Through law of averages if nothing else

I don't think we'll sign him personally, was just saying it as some folk are immediately dismissive of any talk of players that they don't personally want/are from within the league and talk about what Emery/Monchi will want as if any of us know and there hasn't at least been mentions of these players by quite credible sources.

Percy did say we were at least interested in Johnson.

I'm not 100% certain but as far as I remember both Daka and Iheanacho actually have quite good minutes to goals ratios, but have largely been playing understudy to a rapidly-aging Vardy. Obviously he's still ultimately been a let down but it'll be interesting to see how he'd get on with being the main man be it at Leicester or elsewhere.

Saw that earlier, was a well-researched piece as well and gives some actual tangible context to some worrying aspects of Spanish culture as opposed to thinking "it's a parade based on positive vibes so it's fine". Essentially makes the sane point that Monchi shouldn't be dog-piled on and the worst assumed of him because of this single act, and equally nobody should be slated as a "woke moralist" or whatever the buzz word is for thinking that regardless of the history of a festival, you shouldn't really be doing that kind of thing in this day and age.

Have enjoyed your posts on the matter mate. I think it's helpful to have someone that actually has an living awareness of the culture there and specifically the parade itself rather than folk just saying "educate yourself on the parade" as if 1) that wholly justifies the act and 2) they weren't only made aware of it by this incident themselves. Think it's fair to say good people can do bad things, and this was an example of the latter despite most else of what we've seen from Monchi being the former. That can happen and is probably OK to acknowledge.

There's probably at least a hint of irony in such up in arms offence over the course of 4-5 pages over a solitary example of someone being offended. Both things can be true that culturally this isn't as brazen an act as it would be in other countries, and that regardless it's still a mad thing to be doing in this day and age for obvious reasons. Football left its morality at the door a long time ago though. We've got more nation states coming into the game, LaLiga itself being complicit in - and arguably contributing to - outright racism against Vini Jr etc. This is a drop in the ocean at this point, and ultimately it'll pass without any drama despite how much the narrative in here seems to be that this in another example of wokeism(?) ruining society.

Are we seriously suggesting that there has been wider controversy about a Sporting Director in Spain doing it than two massive Hollywood films? There's been huge amounts of discourse on them over the years.

As centre backs go Medina is so fun to watch. He's super aggressive as well as ambitious on the ball, he dribbles as much as attackers do and has a lovely range of passing. Believe he's pretty much exclusively played on the left of a back three for Lens though and it's the kind of position he's tailor-made for, I'm not sure playing as part of a four would suit him that much unless you played him as a kind of reserved/inverted left back as all the cool managers do now. Think he'd be a great signing for a lot of teams in any case.

We really need to address how unambitious our Under-8s are.

Collomosse said it too, also reliable on Villa. As did Miguel Delaney who while he hasn't got much of a track record on Villa transfers it almost gives credence to the report because he's not the sort to indulge in speculation. Not to say it'll happen but there's reason to believe there's something in it, I think people just equate not wanting the signing themselves to the person reporting it being a nefarious clickbait merchant.