VillaFaninLondon

There weren't many viable options no (most CFs if any good are only available at a premium) and I agree he's certainly improved our team overall. But I did feel at the time it was a lot to pay for a player with no PL experience and many people agreed with me. FWIW I like Watkins and he's impressed me. My only criticism of him is that he needs to be more clinical as he should have several more goals this season if we're being honest (he's been unlucky with VAR too). I still stand by the fact that €18m for Sanson is a very reasonable price whether it's in a position where we're well covered or not. That's the sort of price you pay for quality squad players these days if you want to compete at the top end of the table.

That's just a link to what his release clause was. Nothing about what we offered or didn't offer. And as it says that release clause expired in June while the season was still playing, I'm pretty sure he renegotiated a new clause which was lower because he wanted to go to Leipzig. Most sources had his release clause at around £20m at the end of the season. Now whether wages really were an issue or not, I'm pretty sure we had agreed some fee with Bremen as we were in advanced discussions with the player at some point. I know as Nick says that he had his heart set on Leipzig and didn't want to come here in case we were in a relegation battle again, so that was probably one factor and the other was he wanted to double his wages. I'm only going on what I read and am not an insider so I can't say I know if this is truth or not. But what you're saying happened is not what was widely reported at the time.

If you say so.

Yes it was a key position to fill but I was quite shocked when I realised what we’d paid to Brentford. I’m still hopeful we can get this one over the line, but it does sound like Marseille are insulted by the offer which is a concern.

Rashica apparently wanted £75K per week and we thought it was too high, but had put Ollie on a similar financial package. IIRC we met Rashica’s release clause so it was all about negotiating personal terms. Again no one knows exactly what went on but I did hear this from Ashley Preece (Birmingham Mail) who also said Barkley was available for yesterday’s game so I’d imagine it’s not far from the truth.

We're an odd one on transfers. We spent quite a bit over the odds on Watkins in my opinion (£20m max was what we should have paid) but on a player with CL experience who's played in the French top flight since the age of 18/19 regularly we won't pay €18m which to me is a perfectly reasonable price. We did the same with Rashica in the summer over wages, though he would have been on the same wages as Watkins which I think is perfectly fair given how good he'd been for 2 seasons in the Bundesliga. I understand how negotiations work but that is a really derisory offer. Maybe if we went in at say €12-15m first I could maybe understand, but what we offered is far too low and I agree with AVB that it is pathetic. Go back and offer more than twice that and get him in, we need more depth.

Any win will do and I'm not expecting a thrashing as some on here are as they're generally solid defensively, but really need to be winning this after back to back defeats. Need to start picking up points to get ourselves back up the table. For me, Watkins lack of goals is a concern and he could do with scoring here. McGinn out is annoying but hopefully Targett is available as Taylor is gash.

Eff that, we've got to be beating these.

Jeez, that is pathetic if it really was €7m + €2m in add ons. And a lot of our fans went on about Spurs for their derisory offer for Grealish in summer 2018. Just offer them the full amount FFS, it's a good deal. We could really do with signing him ASAP now McGinn is suspended for Saturday. In my opinion that offer is just wasting their time and suggests we're just playing games. The longer we put in shite offers the more chance of some other team coming in and nabbing him.

Very odd to let Hourihane go and then to read our offer was not good enough. Hopefully this is just smoke and mirrors.

Both goals dubious refereeing. Not a bad performance, felt we could have got more especially if we’d take one of our chances. Have to beat the Barcodes on Saturday, they’re shite.

Mings **** around too much. Why is he doing that there the muppet.

Mings fault.

We need to get hold of the ball, look too defensive at the mo.

If Traoré could finish that would be goal of the season!!!

Not started this half well at all.

McGinn and Barkley been poor.

Got to sort out the right side. Not defending well there as usual.

Strong team and love that Barkley is back. I heard he was available but wasn't sure he'd start. Traore over AEG I'm not sure but strong team nonetheless.

Hopefully we line up like this (they've all trained this week): Martinez Cash Konsa Mings Targett Luiz SJM AEG Barkley Jack Watkins I'm really not a fan of our opposition tonight, their fans are quite possibly worse than Man Ure fans nowadays for self-entitlement and they've dicked us so many times over the years. Last win I remember against them was 2013 at VP (and before that 2011 with Bent scoring on his debut) but both games we were fortunate to win. The last time we beat them away was God knows how long ago. They don't like us very much either, which is ironic considering they nabbed several of our players after they got rich. We've always been pretty bad in Manchester, whether against their neighbours or them. I remember we finished 4th back in 1996 and they finished 18th and went down, they still beat us twice that season the jammy feckers! I'd love to beat them for a change but tonight I just hope we give a good account of ourselves, if we get anything from the game great, just don't get slapped by this lot again. That's all I ask for.

And Cit£h won comfortably at Chelsea just a couple of days after their training ground was closed and with a number of players missing. Of course they have a stronger squad than us, but the simple fact is no one knows what effect this virus has had on the squad. I would like to think the majority of the first team have come back fine and are ready to play otherwise we wouldn't have agreed to play this game (admittedly, we're not the ones who decide, but it seems like we haven't thrown up much of a fuss to play it). Personally I'm ok if we lose this game but I always want to see us compete, we haven't played for a little while so sharpness might be an issue but the players will be very well rested after a hectic Christmas period. We just need to make sure we beat the likes of Newcastle and Burnley as those are games we shouldn't be dropping points in given the strength of our team this season.

Cit£h - lose Barcodes - win Burnley - win Southampton - draw Spam - win 10 points. Of course COVID could affect us but these are fit men and our squad is young, Fulham had to call off their game with Spurs because of COVID and they don't look like they've been massively affected given their performance against Spurs and yesterday where they still only narrowly lost despite being down to 10 for over half the match. The first game is of course the toughest and the oil barons always seem to batter us, it would be nice to take something or even just a narrow defeat, hopefully we give them a decent game. But Newcastle and Burnley are both games we should be winning, Southampton I think are a tad overrated but do have a good manager and press well, we are certainly capable of drawing there, and we should beat W'Ham at home despite where they are in the table as quite frankly they are not very good and were ultra fortunate to beat us at their place. I'd be happy with 10+, be ok with 7-9 but anything less is disappointing really.

Of course this is so true. Our first team is obviously strong now and can compete with most teams in this league, but we definitely need more quality off the bench. We didn't manage this under O'Neill when he squandered lots of money of money on at best average players, but I think with the management team we have in place now and the lessons we should have learnt from that time we will ensure we invest in the right quality squad players. Sanson looks a decent player, he certainly looks an upgrade on Hourihane and Nakamba and gives us the option to rotate especially when we have a congested fixture list. I think if this gets done I am very happy with our CM options in Luiz, Ramsey, McGinn, Barkley and Sanson (if Hourihane and Nakamba go out on loan). Out wide I wouldn't say no to Brooks, but maybe buying Sanson means we will not press on with Brooks. We already have Trez, Jack, AEG and Traore which is probably enough for now, though in the summer I'd like us to look at a right winger. I still think we desperately need to sort out another striker though - with Wesley still some way off, we need another. Patson Daka, Piatek, Edouard, Morelos - any of these would give us decent options and the option to rest Watkins. Then we can send Davis out on loan to the Championship where he hopefully does well enough for us to sell him in the summer.

Ridiculous that this game is still going ahead, Villa seemed to want to do it that way, presumably to avoid fixture congestion when we already are playing catchup in the league. But it's basically just a bye to the next round for Plop. There is NO way Spurs game can go ahead, we can't compete with our youth team, it would be a difficult game even with our strongest 11 players but it's grossly unfair to play that game with an under 18 and under 23 side. Given how easily the Barcodes got our game cancelled I'm fairly confident Spurs and possibly Everton will be postponed (they wouyld have to agree but they'd want other teams to be understanding if they had an outbreak). It will just mean playing ridiculous catchup but given we're going out of the FA Cup tonight then at least we won't have any cups to focus on.

This is exactly my thinking. No point buying players to be backup, otherwise we'd be buying more Taylors and Elmos and we need better. Targett has certainly improved and is probably playing above his natural ability at the moment, and it's always harsh to displace someone who is performing so well, but to grow as a team that's what we have to do. Targett will find bringing in someone better than him will help him grow too, and he will still get plenty of game time as FB is a position which (in my opinion) should be rotated in the modern game. Zinchenko has been linked with a few teams around our level and is probably obtainable for us, but he like Targett seems a bit slow (but I think he's a better player than Targett). I think we need to be looking for a really athletic LB who can get up and down and has the stamina to do it. This may be a job in the summer though as I don't see us splashing big money on a LB in this window.