Teale's 'tache

Knowing our luck...

Speaks English, Prem experience or 'plug-in and play' as Smith likes to say. Seems a very sensible move all in all, I'd just be surprised if we have the squad space now we have Drinkwater.

I'd be fine with this, the guy likes a scrap and he's good on the ball, exactly what we need. I'd be surprised if we got another midfielder in though.

It's going to be a loooooong afternoon if all we are going to do is debate Benteke...

So where are all of these forwards we so desperately need then?!

I've never been his biggest fan. I wouldn't expect anything too eye catching, because that is not his game, but what he does have is experience and we are desperate for some of that in the middle of the pitch, we've been so naive in that area so far this season, position wise we are all over the place at times, he has good awareness, keeps it simple, and most importantly knows how and when to keep the ball. Whether this works out is really down to him, but there's an opportunity there for him to make a big difference for us. From our point of view it's relatively low risk, and in truth beggars can't be choosers in the January market. Are there better players out there with less baggage? Of course. Are we realistically going to sign them for big money this window when are in such desperate need in other areas? Nope. We'll see how he goes, expectations seem pretty low which might work in his favour.

Milan are in plenty of financial bother and I would think Piatek is on very decent wages that they'd happily shift if they aren't going to be playing him. At the same time they wouldn't want to strengthen their rivals, so a loan abroad may well make some sense to them... Not saying I believe it's going to happen, just that it's not beyond the realms of possibility.

This is The Athletics reporter for Villa, unfortunately seems to throw a tiny bit more weight behind the rumours

Piatek would be incredible, I'd even welcome the silly goal celebration!

Everyone has their price, but Hourihane's is not £6m. Certainly not in the situation we are in, and certainly not to a relegation rival.

Everyone has their price, but Hourihane's is not £6m. Certainly not in the situation we are in, and certainly not to a relegation rival.

Habib Beye was pretty bad, he was on crazy money at the time from what I can remember...

And Freddy Bouma!

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/jan/03/aston-villa-double-injury-blow-wesley-tom-heaton-ruled-out-season-football By Smith's quotes in the Guardian it safe to say we were looking at some players anyway, the injuries have just speeded things up, I can't imagine we were looking at keepers before the Heaton injury though so maybe we are going to keep faith with Nyland?

I would imagine they have had plenty of meetings in the lead up to January, and will have identified targets, but losing two first team players for the season (confirmed this morning) will have thrown a spanner in the works, and so the meeting tonight will be to discuss how our plan needs to be adjusted to accommodate that.

It's going to be an interesting window, we have obvious needs but I would imagine not a whole lot of hard cash we can throw at it due to FFP. In the summer it felt like we'd managed to do the work of three transfer windows in one, and probably weren't expecting to be so busy in January, but 3 key injuries later and here we are. Striker has to be the priority, we don't have enough options as is and the options we do have aren't good enough to keep us up, I think that's pretty clear to everyone. A Batshuayi loan seems to suit all parties, but it will be interesting to see if we can convince them to put an option to buy clause in there and if so at a sensible price, it's the kind of thing that could hold up the transfer and we really don't have the time to mess around with this one. Keeper is a curious one, I wouldn't be too surprised if we put our faith in Nyland, at least until Steer is back, it feels like a bit of risk but it will be difficult to bring in another Keeper of Heatons level and influence during this window, especially on loan which would be our preference. Buying a keeper in the middle of the season is rarely ideal as it takes a while for them to build up the chemistry with the defence in front of them so we may be better off sticking with what we have, but much will depend on who is available, just please not Joe Hart... Midfield is an area of the squad where we are strong and as the new formation only requires 2 central midfielders I can't see us bringing anyone in here, unless the perfect deal drops in our lap, you never know, but I don't think Drinkwater is a good idea, hopefully that's just paper talk. I think we will be in the market for a winger/second striker type player, gives us a bit more flexibility and takes some of the pressure off El Ghazi and Trezegeut. I'd love Benrhama, but it's not a deal I can see happening in this window, Bowen again would be nice, but won't come cheap. I'm not sure what the other options are but we definitely need something here. Thought Smith, Purslow and Pitarch did a great job in the summer, they have their work cut out again now so let's see what they come up with!

The Daily Fail article is pure conjecture, there's nothing new in there other than their complete misunderstanding of finance in football and FFP. We've had a massive increase in income from TV money, then 'spent' a lot in the transfer market, but that is to be paid over the next 3-5 years, we pay something like the third lowest in the League in terms of wages, have increased sponsorship deals .etc The sale of the stadium put us in the black for last seasons accounts from my understanding, so there's only the season before where we reportedly lost ~£30m that will count in this FFP cycle, the limit in the Premier League is ~£60m over the three season cycle, so in theory we'd still have ~£30m of wiggle room for this season. That's just my very basic understanding, in truth nobody is going to have any idea until the books are fully released for last season. I for one trust our owners and CEO to get these things right, not some no name journalist that wants to push Grealish/McGinn transfer rumours over January. Standard of football journalism in this country is toilet.

Must admit, despite being pretty optimistic so far this season, the none performance at Wolves has me a little worried. Desperately need something from this game, especially considering the upcoming fixtures. If we can keep out of the drop-zone until mid-December then the fixtures begin to look much kinder. Newcastle are on a nice little run, and got a bit of confidence going so they won't be easy to beat. We are 12 games in now, about time the lads gave us a full 90 minute error free performance. UTV!

Work with a bunch of Wolves fans, they think they'll most likely play the kids, understandable when you see the games coming up and their injury list. Will be interesting to see how strong a team we put out though. Jack obviously won't play, Smith has said Davis and Hourihane definitely will, McGinn and Mings could do with a rest really, Engeles has been carrying some kind of knock for a while it seems so you'd imagine he'll be rested, the rest really depends on how strong a team we want to put out. I find Wolves under Nuno are usually well organised and difficult to break down and then spring quickly on the counter, I'd expect the same tonight, even with much changed personnel they will be difficult to beat and pose a threat. We should be expecting plenty of the ball against a team sitting deep, so it could be a good audition for whoever wants to try filling Jacks boots for the foreseeable future if his injury is worst case.

I think we'll play a bit of a mix to be honest, there will be some counter attacking, there will be some long balls, and if we are allowed at any point, a bit of possession football would be nice to take the pressure off, it's important as a team we manage the game correctly and choose the correct style of play to suit the situation. The reason I think there's a chance the fullbacks could be changed is mainly due to positional discipline, Taylor stays as close to Mings as he can and avoids going over the half way line if at all possible, Elmo gets forward a little more from full back but also tries to tuck in next to his center half, Guilbert and Targett are both better footballers but leave a lot of space in behind them. If Smith wants to shut down the space down the sides of his center halves and on the wings in general, he may go for the more experienced duo, he may may go the other way and maybe use an extra defensive midfielder to give the attacking full backs more cover. Depends how he wants to play it. As for team/formation, something like this... I'd love to of kept Hourihane in for his set pieces, I just feel Luiz is a better with the ball at his feet under pressure, and we'll need to be keeping hold of the ball as much as we can.

I don't think we can really use Wolves result at City as a blueprint. Their game is built around a solid defence with minimal mistakes, and they made great use of the freakishly quick player they had available, our defence is not as miserly and we don't have a player with the raw pace of Traore. We don't have enough genuine pace on the counter to really bother them, I wouldn't advise a high press against them either, having a high press means you have to have a high defensive line or you will be leaving too much space between the lines, so we are going to have to play this a bit smarter. Pick our moments when to go forward and when it's best to sit in and ride out a storm, there will be opportunities to counter but we'll need to pick which ones to take and how many bodies to commit forward and should they breakdown get back in to position quickly, the whole team will need to move up and down the pitch together to negate space between the lines. Serious organisation is needed. We need to be smart in possession, and work hard off the ball for each other, they are going to press us like crazy but if you can get it through that press then you can really get some joy, so expect a lot of squeaky bum playing it out from the back shenanigans... Wouldn't be too surprised to see both full backs changed, positional awareness and discipline will be vital especially on the wings, although the current incumbents have done nothing wrong so it would feel a bit harsh. It's not impossible, there are many ways to win a game of football, kind of feel like we are going to have to score at least a couple to get anything from this though.

Tempted to create a new Villa crest with the lion standing over the corpses of multiple Premier League animals... but I really don't have the time!

I think iconic is a bit strong, we've only had this specific lion for a little over a decade, and I think it was tweaked in that time as well, maybe if we'd always kept the lion the same colour throughout time it'd be more 'iconic', but the truth is we've chopped and changed and a number of other clubs and brands use a lion as their main device, so I'm not sure we'd get away with just a lion, but that's just my opinion of course, and design is very much a matter of opinion!

I would say yes, playing a defensive midfielder doesn't just cover anyone breaking through the midfield, they should also drop in to the back line when we attack, this allows the full backs to bomb on safe in the knowledge we are leaving three players at the back that can shuffle across to cover their flank. Not having that cover restricts you to having either only one or neither of your fullbacks being able to push on. If you want to play Guilbert and Targett in the same team I would argue you need to have a defensive midfielder. This is especially true against Burnley who play with two strikers, if we had no defensive midfielder and both full backs pushing on it would only take one Burnley player to break the midfield line and we would be outnumbered.