OxfordVillan

It’s just not correct to say Callum Wilson is shite, he’s proven to be a decent premier league CF. Look, it’s disappointing to lose out to other clubs when you go after a player, and the club clearly wanted Wilson. So it’s not a sign that we’re looking to do bigger things, it’s simply a sign that we lost out on a player this time. We might move on to bigger things, but this is a punch we have to roll with. As it happens I’ve always maintained that Josh King is the better forward at Bournemouth, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him at Villa. What this transfer window might end up showing us is that the common denominator in our transfer struggles is Purslow.

Somewhat disagree that we’re obsessed with the offensive side. Post lockdown it was obvious that as a team we were much tighter, defensively. Douglas Luiz was the standout performer in the CDM role, and the team gave up far fewer chances per match than they had done pre-lockdown. The case can be made that with better finishers in the team we could/should have turned draws against Sheffield Utd, Everton, and Newcastle into wins. Even the first 25mins against Man Utd we could/should have scored twice.

Newcastle meeting Bournemouth’s terms for Callum Wilson will be a good test for our owners that will reveal their ambition. Lose out to Newcastle for a player that is obviously wanted at Villa, questions will rightly be asked. This is a transfer battle that must be won, one or the other club is going to be left either empty handed or chasing 2nd and 3rd choices.

I’m warming to the possibility of Wilson becoming a Villa player. £17m wouldn’t be too shabby, I still wouldn’t want to see a salary much higher than £60kpw though. We need a forward in asap, this one would seem achievable over the next couple of days.

I’m surprised nobody has yet snapped up Ismailia Sarr from Watford.

We’re not in the same market as Chelsea, City, and Arsenal, you understand that don’t you? That’s three clubs, we’re hardly in a minority.

In fairness no other Premier League club has exactly set the transfer window alight yet, have they? One or two worrying themselves over Leeds, but who here had mooted Koch and Rodrigo as desirable targets? Everton being linked/buying former big name players on astronomical wages. Yes it might be nice for a quick adrenaline hit and shirt sales, but will it translate to performance on the field in the next couple of seasons? Maybe, maybe not. Everton in particular have thrown an awful lot of money down the drain in recent seasons and haven’t exactly challenged the upper echelons of the Premier League. So whilst I’d love to see some very good players through the Villa Park entrance door, we do have to get it right. At this moment I’d settle for two or three £40m+ quality players on the final day if it means they aren’t the type of player approaching their final contract in the land of milk and honey.

Rodrigo De Paul has been mooted on twatter. €45m. Leeds and Villa in for him apparently. I must stress, this was on Twatter. @Total_Villa

I think we’re seeing that Aston Villa FC simply aren’t viewed as one of the better top flight clubs these days, much as we might disagree. The pull of the club has been watered down immensely over the last decade or so, to a point where prospective signings would sooner hold out for any London or North West based Premier League club, probably even South Coast. It doesn’t appear that we want to out spend anyone to secure players, and so we would have to hope we land a couple of lesser known names that turn out to be diamonds. Still plenty of time left in this transfer window, of course, but with the noises that were made after staying up it seemed we were going to go quite big and quite quickly so that we wouldn’t be caught up in a relegation scrap again. We still have to wait and see, but I’m not exactly encouraged by having made no signing at all 5 weeks since the season finished.

When you listen to Southgate giving his reasons for not selecting Grealish it becomes clear Grealish isn’t going to have an England international career whilst Southgate is England manager. And that means no European Championship next summer. Southgate says that he sees Grealishs position as a wide forward, and lists Sterling, Sancho, Rashford, & Foden as players ahead of him for that position. Southgate also said he doesn’t see Grealish as an 8 or a 10. Then you have to remember the comments Southgate made after watching Grealish dominate Brighton, basically saying it’s easy to play well against 10 men. He doesn’t like Grealish and he’s never going to play him, not now. Southgate cannot now afford to play Grealish because of the fear that Grealish would make him look stupid. I’ve never before wanted England to lose games, but I’m now in the position where I want Southgate to fall face first onto that ridiculous nose and lose as many games as possible. If I were Grealish I’d be seriously contemplating declaring for Ireland. He’d be appreciated there, rather than the Masonic lodge called the English FA.

I wouldn’t be massively surprised if Grealish wasn’t selected for England today. It’d be a farce, of course, but I honestly wouldn’t put it beyond Southgate to overlook him. The England set up can (and has been) be used to unsettle players, convincing some that they need to move to further their international ambitions. I think there’s plenty of ppl in the game that would like Jack Grealish away from Aston Villa FC.

Let’s put this to bed right now, nobody will be obtaining Tammy Abraham for a “reasonable” price. It’ll be £40m+, and I personally wouldn’t pay it, I honestly don’t think Tammy will go any levels higher than he has just done. He misses a lot of chances and can go quite a few games without scoring. The majority of his goals tend to arrive earlier in the season and in clusters of a few games. I think that’s why Chelsea finished last season with Giroud as their No.1 CF, and he scored a good few in that Chelsea team, and ppl generally view giroud as a non scoring hold up CF.

There isn’t much that Alan Nixon writes that I can chime with, but he’s right to say that we need to land a big one. It’s been said by one or two of us in the last few weeks, the need to lay down a marker, and the requirement to pay over the odds if necessary to blow the opposition away. I’m a little surprised that we haven’t done/offered enough to land whoever our primary target might be, as that would surely open the door for other targets to arrive having seen the intent and ambition. To progress up the Premier League food chain we will have to pay big for two or three signings, we have to nail down our “Robinho”. I’d be slightly concerned if nothing is completed in the next week, as to me this would signal that we’re not putting the serious £s on the table to get the 1st choice players through the door. If you’re serious about getting what you want then you put the money up early to make sure nobody else muscles in.

Gerrard stayed at Liverpool due to threats.

Harry Wilson is a show pony. Handful of spectacular goals but little else. Leave well alone.

Agreed. I would have thought most clubs would be all over Sarr for £30m. I think the figure will go higher.

The club need to work with Targett to improve his physical conditioning, I think there’s plenty of room for improvement with his physique.

I’m looking forward to seeing a fully fit Wesley next season. I, like many, was a big critic of him pre-Christmas 2019. The injury was a big blow. He deserves the chance to return to the team, to see if he can make the same sort of improvement as his compatriot Douglas Luiz achieved.

If I’m not trending by the morning I’ll be so sad

Corentin Tolisso. You heard it here first.

No thank you to Origi. A player who hasn’t really been close to being a first choice CF in 6 seasons on Merseyside. Has started less than 20% of games over the last season. Reputation purely enhanced on the back of 3 goals over a Champions League semifinal and final. Scores around once every seven games. NO NO NO. This is not what we need. Divock Origi is not the next Dean Saunders. Please forget about this guy and move on.

Brentford are very good at what they do, but they’re a smaller club in London that ply their trade in the championship. It’s not a model that Villa should want to replicate. And let’s be straight here, there aren’t many top flight successes from the players they’ve made good money on these last few years. Good luck to them in what they do, but any Premier League club should be wary of paying top dollar for players that Brentford mould to look good in the championship. We should have learnt by now. If they are quoting £50m for Watkins and Benrahma then let someone else give them the money. We’d be better served stumping up £50m for just Sarr.

If Watkins is the 2nd of two CF purchases this summer then fair enough. I’d be worried though if there wasn’t a much better CF lined up.

A quite amusing read. https://www.football365.com/news/mediawatch-man-united-underdogs-aston-villa-bullies-grealish

Agree. If we were able to obtain a new front 3 (eg, Sarr, Iheanacho, Benrahma) then imagine the options that Grealish would have picking one of those 3 out, compared with this season when he had to try and pick out one of Wesley/Davis/Samatta, Trezeguet, or ElGhazi. Imagine the extra space Grealish will get with those 3 (in brackets) ahead of him. As we saw after lockdown, our defenders aren’t actually too bad when we don’t expose them time after time. Change our front 3 and I think you change the entire dynamic and effectiveness of the team. Whatever money we might have, the lions share of it should go on the front 3. If we have to, spend the lot of it on the front 3!