SeanVilla

2 minutes ago, SirSteveUK said:

Dear God!!!  671 pages to try to prove that 2 + 2 =  20  million.

There must be people who literally live in this thread.

 

After drifting from 1/3 to 4/6, we are now back out to 1/3 for Watkins.  Health warning attached.

Sky bet is driven by what people are betting on. Not by what is actually going on. It would be strange is Sky bet know more than the journalists. Probably due to that fake ITK on twitter saying we'd had a bid accepted last night.

2 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

Can't see it personally as I'm unsure of what would be holding up a deal if he's already agreed a move somewhere. Though, there could be hundreds of factors i'm not aware of. 

My take on it all based on the clues, press talk etc. is that we've agreed a deal over a week ago but he's waiting for an offer from a better club. It's fair enough but there's got to come a point where we're like, "Mate, you're taking the piss a bit here" and move on.

I'm not going to pretend I've watched this lad week in week out, but he looks like a similar player to Grealish. We have had many a debate that we got overrun with Grealish in the midfield. So I see no reason why  having Swift there is going to be any different. We are in a period of transition and trying to stabilise as a top half team, so why would it be smart to spend even a 10th of the budget on a squad player. We should absolutely be buying high quality players to replace the players in the starting line up currently, and moving the likes of Hourihane, Trez, Samagoal to the bench. It may be complete BS but I'll be very worried if true.

5 minutes ago, omariqy said:

I’m getting quite worried tbh. Anyone else?

Yeah, if we are looking at players like John Swift, that's just depressing. 

53 minutes ago, Lord Willard said:

Reading into things too much but that's the VillaTalk way. 

He seems quite content staying at Bremen by the looks of it. I'd be surprised if this deal ever happens. 

Agreed, he wouldn't post that if he was on the move, clearly doesn't fancy moving to us. Massive shame  Him and Edouard were my top targets I'd hope we would get. We'll settle for Watkins and Benrahma 

1 minute ago, omariqy said:

 

 

this guy is reliable on Reading news 

Although I like him, I wouldn't be buying more championship quality players. Especially as he's more of a number 10 which we've been arguing about whether we could play Grealish there.

Just now, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

So sell our experienced fullback, and replace him with Rico Henry, leaving us with Taylor as back up?

Will we really have improved overall?

I don't disagree with signing Henry but to compete with Targett.

It's debatable but sell Targett for £25mill, buy Henry for £10mill and spend the extra £15mill somewhere else. Thing with Taylor is although he's awful, hasn't been that bad when he's come on this season. We don't have the luxury to have stud replacements at every position. I like Targett, although he's very very slow, is a solid left back for this league. Problem I have is he's a walking sick note. How many times this season did he come off with and injury? Remember when he was even sick on the pitch?   If anyone is offering upwards of £20mill I'd accept. 

If we can get anywhere near £20-25mill for him, sell and get Rico Henry 

2 minutes ago, jonjon said:

I think I read somewhere that they relaxing the rules and were lumping 2 seasons worth of FFP together due to Covid,  That's a sensible move under this present climate, but it would mean if clubs spent a majority of it this season it would leave them thin on the ground next season, hopefully someone can correct me if I've got hold of the wrong end of the stick.

That makes perfect sense. Although it was always a 3 year rolling rule anyway. So my guess would be they'll continue after this year back to rolling 3 years. But surely some leeway because teams will just fail it year after next? The positive for Prem Clubs most money generated is the TV, so are not as affected. Matchday revenue is a small percentage.

5 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

There are a couple of worrying things for me in the survey:

• If this has gone out to everyone registered in the ticket system, non-season ticket holder will be in the majority - if they vote for a completely random ballot of everyone, member or not, then as a 20 year season ticket holder, I could end up getting tickets to more than a couple of games over the course of the season - there will be 60,000 people in that ballot and 10,000 tickets.
• There's an option where you pay to be in the ballot - essentially turning attendance at Villa Park into a money spinning lottery - that one is taking the piss I think.

 

I'm only a member as I couldn't get a season ticket this year, now on that possibly never ending waiting list . I voted for season ticket holders, it's the only fair way to do it. Would be a farce if I got a ticket over a season ticket holder, let a lone one who'd had one for years!

1 hour ago, MotoMkali said:

It isn't about the defending it is about whether a better keeper would save those shots and most of them look pretty unstoppable to me. He would score for whoever he signs for. Hopefully us. 

This for me is why i'd rather have him than Watkins. For the people who doubt him, he scored 2G 2A in 4 games in the Europa League against Copenhagen (Knocked out by Man Utd in extra time) and Lazio. He's scored goals at every level he's played at, without fail.

2 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Correct me if I’m wrong but with FFP isn’t it possible to work our how much we have to spend based on company accounts?  The owners wealth is irrelevant.

Not sure it's that simple. Didn't they say they were relaxing FFP this year due to Covid? So it's anyone's guess!

6 minutes ago, AshVilla said:

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11748/12057827/ollie-watkins-aston-villa-frustrated-over-talks-brentford-agree-ivan-toney-deal

"As things stand, the likely asking price of £25m for Watkins could be too high for the Blades, but is affordable for Villa - if they're prepared to rein in their expectations for new recruits in other positions"

Maybe we don't have as much money as people think?

I wouldn't listen to this. Sky Sports, whilst they must have contacts seem to know very little about the goings on of our club. Whilst I cannot remember, would they have been reporting we'd send £130mill last year, I doubt it! 

Looking forward to "I see Jack as a CB as there's so much competition in those areas"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2020/08/27/marcus-rashford-doubt-england-squad-ankle-problem/

2 minutes ago, Made In Aston said:

They are not exactly the same type of player as ihenacho is more like vardy, while watkins can hold the ball up, run the channels or play central. 

They are completely different players agreed. What I want most though is a goal scorer, and I just don't think Watkins will do that in the Prem. Hoping to be proved wrong, though. 

1 minute ago, Mat Kendrick's Dentist said:

We were actually on a very poor run before his injury IIRC, with terrible performances against Sheff Utd, Watford, and Southampton. I really think we need better than Wes. He tries hard, but had far more poor games than good last season, and showed no signs of improving (no goals in 12 pre-Burnley). I'm not writing him off, and I'd love for him to come good, but I don't see it. I would love Edouard, and hopefully with Celtic out of the CL we can nab him

Agreed, we need better but he's much better than what we have right now. And I think if he'd have got 10 goals in a full season for us as projected, would have been a great return from a 22/23 year old coming from the Belgium league. I also think Edouard should be our number one target. Personally, I'd like to see us overpay to get these players that realistically we're not good enough to get right now (Rashica, Edouard both want European football). It's all well and good being sensible and on paying what a player is worth, but maybe at £30mill, Edouard goes to Leicester. At £40mill, maybe he comes here. Just an example 

4 minutes ago, Mat Kendrick's Dentist said:

We were terrible going forward and at the back immediately before lockdown. We had gone more defensive with 5 at the back after getting battered by Watford. Anyway, we've both given our views so no need to keep going around in circles

Last point I promise. Perhaps the big dip in xG post Jan shows the impact Wesley has? I rate him. Could easily sign better if we throw some money at it (i.e. Edouard), but I do think he's underrated 

1 minute ago, sparrow1988 said:

Defence is more of a structural issue although better individauls obviously help. Improvements in defence are a lot easier to achieve with a change in system as we saw post lockdown. We conceded the most shots on target per game before the break (5.64) and the third fewest on target per game (2.60) after lockdown. Same individuals - better defence through a system change.

Improvements in attack are more difficult to achieve through systematic changes as higher quality players are required to break down defences. I think that is the reason that some people think our attack needs improving before our defence.

Well put. I'd also like to add the fact that 1 of our fit Strikers has scored 1 goal since arriving in Jan, the other hasn't scored since 2017. In addition, although I love Trez for the important goals he scored, Him and El Ghazi are not close to being good enough to be starting a Premier League game. Vital we improve those positions   

4 minutes ago, Mat Kendrick's Dentist said:

You can pick out anecdotal misses for any part of the season. In our last 10 games our expected goals = 1. In our first 10 games our expected goals = 1.72

Fair enough, I'm never gonna convince you and you won't convince me. I'd rather play the way we had the 4th best defence in the league and improve our attack (in the transfer window) than play the way we did at the start and improve our defence to try combat the ridiculous amount of shots we were conceding per game. If you are keen to strengthen a decent amount at the back, I think you may be disappointed come the start of the season. 

1 minute ago, Mat Kendrick's Dentist said:

This proves my point. Our scoring dropped from 1.22 per game to 0.7 per game post lockdown. In other words, we played more defensively, meaning we conceded fewer, but also scored significantly fewer. If we had better defenders we wouldn't need to play as defensively, and we'd score more while conceding fewer. 

Again, we obviously need a good striker/winger, but to push on and keep players like Jack, we also need some better defenders

Problem is you're looking at scoring stat and not attacking stats. El Ghazi missed 2 absolute sitters against Everton and someone else. Davis missed an easy chance 1-on-1 against Arsenal. and there was more as well. They go in and that's your difference.

Werder WIP thinks an unknown London club now interested. West Ham would make sense, although Fulham have a recent history for copying our targets. We shall see. 

https://worum.org/threads/16568-7-Milot-Rashica/page669

2 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

Most of those goals were probably against us.  If we sign him, he's not going to get to play against us, thus removing his goal scoring threat 

That would be the reservation I'd have with Iheanacho. His best games are always against us 

18 minutes ago, Djemba_Villan said:

The Celtic fans on their forums seem pretty adamant that he's off to us. Not happy about it either, but generally saying that £30m is hard to turn down. I have a decent feeling about this one.

Got a link? The forum I tagged has no mention