Teale's 'tache

In 2015, market has moved a bit in 5 years...

Personally I think we should (and will) be looking at all markets, trying to get the best value and quality possible. Just because we've been 'linked' with a few championship players doesn't mean we'll be doing all our shopping there. With regards to picking players from further up the league #1 issue is they are difficult to scout because they hardly play, unless it's at u23 level which is no good, you've no idea if they are match fit or general fitness levels, they will be on a decent whack, more than most of our squad which could create issues. It's a high risk policy and so rarely works. At least shopping below, the player will be playing regularly, be expecting less in wages and likely hungrier to succeed than those who feel they've just taken a step down. I'm not saying it's impossible, just a very difficult/risky market to be shopping in. We've been stung by it many times so I'm not surprised we are especially wary of it.

To be fair Luiz was completely out of the blue, nobody had even heard of him until some kid posted a list on Twitter and his name was included, up to that point the media had no idea at all, the transfer took a while to go through because of work permits etc. but it wasn't leaked until pretty much done. Same for Engels, that was a total shock, nobody had heard of him then a day or so later he was signed. The odd journalist (usually from abroad) might give you something a day or two in advance but the press in this country get nothing until the deal is done. Nakamba is a different story, I'd imagine his agent leaked the interest to put pressure on Brugge to sell him, as he was desperate to get out, but that situation is fairly rare. With Trezeguet he was linked, but then so was half of the Turkish League judging by their media, even when Smith went to watch an AFCON game we weren't 100% sure it was Trezeguet we were looking at. We don't let much out unless we know the deal is done nowadays, and I think that is the correct way to do business, there will likely be a couple this window we won't hear a peep about until a contract is being signed. Last summer the UK press linked us with a whole load of people we didn't buy and were likely never interested in, and there will be plenty of that again this window.

Yeah the only way that happens is if the bidding team is unaware of the release clause, which never seems to happen funnily enough...

No, that's not how it works, you could accept a bid below £18m if you wanted to, you could accept an offer of no money at all if it suited, the clause is quite simply if somebody bids this amount (or over) then you must accept that bid and allow the player to talk to the bidders. Nobody will bid over that amount, because it make no logical sense to.

I love Fred, seems a good character

Not sure if this has been posted here before, but a piece from The Athletic on Dean is free for everyone to read today because it's their one year anniversary or some shizzle... it was written just before the restart https://theathletic.com/1839092/ Was an interesting read I thought

Hmm... well Bayern do have an issue at right back at the moment, bought Pavard last summer but he's out for an unknown amount of time with a ligament injury, they have Odriozola on loan from Madrid but that ends soon, so there's certainly a space opening up there for another right back.

Ooh where did you get that from, he'd be a decent buy at the right price

I don't think any delays are necessarily by choice, it's an unsure market at the moment, some teams are still in competitions i.e. championship, europe etc. players/managers/agents are on holiday while they can before pre-season. It's not like there's been loads of other transfers in the Premier League thus far, add in that we don't leak genuine information about transfers anymore and I expect it to stay quiet for maybe another week yet, I'm sure we are working on plenty behind the scenes but there's only so much we can do until the market starts moving. There will be paper talk, but 99% of that is nonsense.

Ah Jack, lovely player, had a nasty knee injury a season or so back which could be a factor, also never too sure how Italian players will settle in this country, but it's a good shout, out of contract by the looks so could be worth the risk...

Piers Morgan... am I doing it right?!

Brought me a shed load of internet points too!

1. At what date do we sign our first player this summer? 18th August 2. How many players have signed for Villa within Oct.5? 5 Players 3 When the transfer window slams shut Monday, Oct. 5, what is Villa's gross expenditure on incoming players? £96.25m

Fitness was definitely an issue last season and Smith alluded as much in fairly recent interviews, he said it was because a lot of the players joined late and we didn't have time to get them up to speed. I think it was a combination of that and also maybe we were a bit naive in terms of the levels of fitness required, seemed to have sorted it out by the end of the season though, so in theory we should have a better handle on it this season coming. Also you have to take in to account the amount of possession we had throughout the season was very low, chasing around for an hour will catch up with pretty much any team, again hopefully a bit more possession next season should help us out in that regard. Smith is big on stats and you see the players wearing the GPS vests all the time in training, some wear them in game too I think so we should have the data. Hopefully fitness wont be an issue next season, if it is we definitely need to start questioning why.

There's still the Europa and Champions Leagues to be settled. Transfers often end up being in chains and with a large portion of the European big hitters not really involved until they are over, it could well slow the market down a bit.

Quite like the home shirt, wasn't sure about the pin stripes at first but the close up really sells it for me, love the little details. Such a shame about the badge etc being so high... from the outside looking in I'd say the designer had that stuff lower to begin with and someone has insisted it be much higher so it is seen more during interviews etc. At that point the designer only really has a couple of options, do as they are told and get paid, or re-design it without the blue going across the shoulder to accommodate the move, how much time they had left may also have dictated the decision. I don't think a good designer would ever intentionally put the badge that close to the shoulder. So frustrating, so close to a really nice shirt, but that's the life of a designer, design decisions made by people who don't understand the design I haven't bought a shirt in many a year, but a few years back I bought my older Brother a Villa shirt for his 40th, it's my 40th coming up and I'm expecting he might get me the same, so I was really hoping this seasons would be a belter! The away shirt I'm less convinced by, it's harder not to design a nice shirt in black but somehow it's just a bit meh. As others have mentioned a monochrome crest would have helped, again may not have been the designers decision, the club might insist home and away kits keep the full crest to 'protect' their brand or whatever. Was the same for last seasons kits. Third kit, not a fan of either of the designs particularly. Never been one for Camouflage patterns on football shirts and I'm not sold on the colours of the Cream one, the third kit should be an opportunity to do something a bit out there, like the Luke one a few years back, the two designs I've seen so far don't look like there's a whole lot of effort gone in to them, neither is particularly inspiring. I always say it's easier for us armchair kit designers to come up with nice concepts, and that's because we don't have the restrictions that the real designers have to deal with.

Figured I'd do another lot while we are waiting for the real thing to make an appearance...

Yep the Games Workshop one, we used to play those games loads as kids. I'm now a Web/Graphic Designer, Front-end Developer and proud user of not 2 but 3 monitors at a time, that's when you really know you've made it!

I think we did, I remember doing mocks up before the release with the arm sponsor on it.

My design journey began on Deluxe Paint II, creating assets for my brothers 'never to see light of day' Blood Bowl game. Never thought I'd get as far as posting kit mock-ups on a discussion board

MS Paint Deluxe

And you earned this...

I'm especially enjoying the use of Comic Sans, intended ironically or otherwise