MrBlack

For me he is definitely a good character to have around the dressing room, but not at the cost of someone who can perform a role on the pitch. He needs to be moved on, I would be very worried about our one dimensional offence if he had to play a part in the league this season.

His assist was all down to Jack, and even then he nearly managed to mess it up.. if only Burton had any defenders left that hadn't got sucked into Grealish's mesmerising skill.

Aside from the assist he was his usual poor self,  destroying attacks before they got going. He did do one decent covering job, but that was against Burton! Against a PL side I feel he's a risk too far, offering nothing going forwards and inviting more attacks against us. 

Wish him well, and agree with those who day he has been a great servant, but he should absolutely be sold, and makes me wonder why they haven't looked for a new LB (assuming of course that one doesn't arrive in the next few weeks).

Don't agree we should play Guilbert at left back over him though, unless he has a history of playing there i don't know about. 

2 hours ago, Jas10 said:

Turning right.. go for it

Going straight on? Give way to those turning right

Turning left? Ha, good luck

I like it.  Not sure how we translate that to our front 3. Maybe you have to do 270 degree right turns before you're allowed to cut inside from the right wing?

18 minutes ago, ciggiesnbeer said:

Delighted for him. Terry and Smith were beaming about it as well

I wonder if he is an absolutely lethal finisher in training and they were just bemused that he finally did something in a real game.  He definitely has 90% of the attributes he needs.  I pray he gets some composure and kicks on from here. 

Important things achieved, that's all that matters in this game:

- got through to the next round

- no injuries

- gave the fringe players a chance to prove themselves/prove they aren't worth keeping

- Davis scored

-Watkins scored on his debut (and looked very very good)

Overall, not an enjoyable watch but with the above achieved, alongside the obvious, today is a very good day. 

Lovely Jack. Just lovely

Oh Keinan 

Time to find out if keinan can score...

How have they not got a booking. Ref hoping we'll get an injury before he has to get a card out?

Glad Hause, Lansbury, Taylor (even with his lucky assist) and to a lesser extent Elmo won't be in our team regularly this season.  Playing themselves out of contention nicely. 

Not sure he had much time to react and it bobbles up as he went to hit it.  Unlucky. 

Decent probing but lacking a quality ball in the box.

 Elmo seems to have forgotten how to do the only thing he is good at. Taylor continuing to be awful. Guilbert and Targett better have the league spots.

Promising signs but need a decent chance for Watkins

2 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

How so?

He stayed for the entire Bruce spell despite the dire football.

Jack loves the club and by the way he was talking in that interview it was the ambition from the owners that convinced him.

Not saying Smith wasn't a factor in his decision, but i don't think it was a major one.

Here comes the haters.

Not hating but don't think you're giving Dean's Villa blood the credit it deserves. Even if not for what he achieved (getting us promoted, getting us to a cup final, keeping us in the league), the fact that he is a Villa fan, when Jack loves the club as much as he clearly does, will be a big factor. 

They'll talk to each other like fans talk to each other (not like they do in here, but like they do down the pub). They'll be best mates at the club. Look at Jacks post where he was hugging Dean after the season ended. There is a lot of mutual love and respect there.

That isn't to say another manager wouldn't have had the same impact on Jack, but they would have had to go an extra mile to do so, and i'm not convinced that there was many extra miles in the squad last year from the managers we would have had available to us.

On Dean, my main criticism of him is his delay in making changes when we're on the back foot. I give him grace for this given the sparcity of quality on our bench. Looks like he'll have no excuses on that front this season.

Try a little positivity,  it wont kill you.

Just now, bannedfromHandV said:

Yeah maybe, I’m still scarred from the Delph situation perhaps.

I think we'd be foolish to think there isn't one (even Messi has one!), but there's no way Jack doesn't have Villa's best interests at heart. He is 1000% not Delph.

35 minutes ago, Keener window-cleaner said:

Some here repeat that Lyon fans don't rate him, and others pick that up as a fact. Scouring through some French articles and comments it seems much more nuanced.

When he came to Lyon it was with huge expectations, he was even touted in one article as the next no 1 player in Africa. What is clear is that opinion is divided. One article for example saying that he has been partly brilliant, partly frustrating. In comments to African articles they seem very supportive, at the official site of OL on Facebook his page gets a lot of love. Comments on recent articles linking him with a move away are predominatly negative towards him, many are glad to see the back of him and many think they get a good price for him. There are however also comments where people are sad to see him leave, who says he doesn't fit into the system, and ppl saying it's best for all parties that he gets a new start at a new club. What I've seen not many question his ability, it's more a frustration over the fact that he hasn't performed as expected, also questioning his attitude.

One worrying thing is that he in one interview gave as reason to why he has struggled this season is that he prefers playing in the middle than on a wing, he though said that many other factors play in as well, like the tactical set up, the way the manager wants to play, but if we see him as a right winger it could cause some concerns. At the same time I'm sure they have talked with him about what position we see for him, perhaps the thought is that our front three shall swap places during the match more than last season and that he fits into that.

This potential signing is 50/50 to me, as said before I prefer Benrahma for example, but I also see logic behind getting Traoré. We shouldn't forget that we are a team who were in the Championship a year ago and just avoided relegation. Traoré is a Champions League player playing in a team who made it to the semi finals of the Champions League and who a couple of years ago was touted as the next no1 player in Africa. It's a bit of a gamble given his recent season, but there is no way we would get a player of that caliber if he had top performed the last season.

On the whole, to me it is obvious that he has great talent and a very high ceiling, also that he has been very up and down and fallen out with some managers and some supporters. It's a gamble. I wouldn't prefer that gamble, but I understand the reasoning behind it. It goes without saying that I will support him 100% if he signs. Only focusing on the negative aspects and questioning our management team because of Traore is one sided and immature imo.

 

Didnt know about the bit in bold,  useful information, but as you say, they will know this and will know how our system will work with this desire. 

Other than that, a big thanks for this as it is almost exactly what my long winded post that got lost to the archives of VillaTalk was saying. Agree entirely.

9 minutes ago, PussEKatt said:

I cant see it happening.He has said,he wants to play Champions league football,that leaves us out.Unless I read it wrong and he means Championship football ?!

He was rumoured to have said that...and is since rumoured to have said that he just wants out to anyone in the premier league. Both rumours may or may not be true, but latest opinion is he might be interested in us. Having seen us pay Jack 140k a week, he may be sold the vision. 

10 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

So do we think there’s a minimum fee release clause included and if so, I wonder how high it is. I’d like to think it’s nothing less than £80M.

Be amazed if an outright release clause is less than 150m. A relegation release clause might be around 80m mark, although I doubt our owners are even that negatively minded to go there.

Great news. Never in doubt

Feel sorry for anyone negatively minded that misses the news and thinks we've sold him after seeing the post count sky rocket. 

8 minutes ago, El-Reacho said:

Is he not currently the highest paid?

I guess some of our signings this season may be due to push him down the ranking. This would ensure he stays top is my reading.

Would start him tonight, wouldn't start him against Sheffield United.

He can learn a great deal from Elmo, and expect he'll be our right back for many years to come once he's settled and got up to speed with the league.

For now, for me, Guilbert would keep the starting place in the league, but looks like Smith has other ideas.

Just typed a massive speech on this, editor lost. In short:

- concerns over his attitude and the fact other teams haven't got the best out of him, we've never been exceptional at this ourselves. 

- lots of top flight experience in Europe and England

- ability is there if we can offer the right environment for him

If he signs, we'll have a potential bargain,  or a saleable asset in a couple of years where we'll recoup most of what we spent. 

As well as being true of Elmo (they know exactly what both Elmo and Guilbert are capable of), it just doesn't make sense why they wouldn't give Guilbert a run out over Elmo, even if only for his fitness.

Unless Guilbert has a knock, is awaiting a covid test result, or he's kept himself in top shape and smashed the bleep test through the roof, I'm confused why he didn't get any minutes. 

bizarre he doesn't play today unless carrying a knock. That really makes no sense

1 hour ago, GENTLEMAN said:

Portuguese mate. Banheiros. He travelling back from Brazil. ‘leaving for England‘, just dropped the para as it’s implied. Think this is commonplace because I thought saindo or deixando is more ‘leaving England’. 

Awesome thanks. I only know VERY basic Portuguese and assumed that this may be something like how native speakers drop certain words. In this case, that suggests some promising developments for his recovery.  Fingers crossed