The Other Mat

Is that whats been reported? That's a kick in the teeth if true.

I reckon this could be a real positive for us and In some ways push us on as team quicker than with Jack and the circus that surrounds him presently. We get a few decent players immediately, and we've got Chuk/Bidance coming into the squad now to both. Then next summer we can spend another £80m on a couple of quality players and the young lads like Barry and Kessler will be further along in their development, which supplements the squad further. The big downer for me from this saga is I can't have a decent tug for week, got some serious RSI from refreshing this thread for the past few days.

Hopefully it wasnt this thread.

Apart from Jack talking to Smith on a park bench, nothing's really changed since you were last on shift.

Yeah, I was about to edit my post and say it seems he's not reliable but there's enough stuff going round now to suggest it's not as clear cut as it once was.

Loads of twitter chat saying he's staying now - even those adamant he was going.Not sure my index finger can take another 24 hours of this, it's withering away.

Defo genuine. There's a instagram video a few pages back with Jack and Mings.

What are they going to do? Hire a crack commando unit to kidnap him before he gets to the meeting?

Had a £50 bet with my mate months ago on whether Jack is staying/leaving... He's just told me he's going to spend his winnings on these leggings "when" (if) he does...

Hudson-Odoi won't joining us, he's on either £120,000 or £180,000 a week depending on which reports you read around the time he signed his new contract.

Pure clickbait. Loads of irate villa fans commenting and clicking through to the site. Shameless rag.

Could have had the decency to wait till everything was sorted.

If it was like ChampMan2, I'd add city as an extra manager, sell them Davis for £200m and take DeBruyne, Rhodri and Diaz for £100,000 all in, let half the squad go on a free and then resign.

So the same place we were 6/5/4/3/2/1 weeks ago? Haha

I doubt it. He'll have a price and we'll stick to it. World Cup year coming up, he'll want to play regularly, with us or at City and make the squad and anywsy I can't imagine Jack sulking if they don't match the price.

Everyone's losing the plot and no one can even keep track of anything they've said at this point haha

This whole thing is maddening, especially the ITKs. Sam Lee said the contract and fee are agreed, he was adamant. Today Romano tweats saying City have approached us for Grealish but no fee etc agreed. Sam Lee then retweets Romano's info which actually discredits his own information that's he's been adamant about all week (even arguing with Villa fans about it). So the only real 'ITK' is that no one knows WTF is going on at this point.

I'm not disputing that players agree terms first and then agree a fee with the parent club ... A team has to provide permission for a player to talk to another club with a view to a move. That's not saying agents don't find out if a player is sweet on a move behind the scenes etc but they wouldn't/shouldnt be doing full contract negotiations without the parent club knowing that's a fact. So, in terms of Jack unless we've given permission/agreed on a transfer, then Man City cant have offered Jack a contract/agreed a transfer deal. If we haven't given permission then thats 'tapping up' and I don't see why we would have if we're planning on offering a new deal.

Quick email Purslow and tell him how much City are offering him.

I get that... But we wouldnt be letting our star player agree personal terms with another club, especially the likes of City, before we've offered him an improved deal and discussed where his future lies face to face. City's agreed offer will undoubtedly be bigger and worth £Xm's more than ours. It would undermine Villa's position and the improved terms we offer him. The only way it happens is if we've agreed to sell him (which I doubt is likely at this point) otherwise why bother offering him a new contract? If his agent has already got assurances from City about the terms they would offer, without our permission, then that would be considered tapping up would it not? The way Sam Lee is reporting sounds totally illogical from a business perspective.

Some of their fans believe Jeremy Parnaby ITK is Tixi Begiristain

This bloke is basically saying we've let Jack agree terms etc before our owners/manager have had a chance to sit down with him and discuss his future face to face, which, let's be real is a ridiculous fantasy. There's no way we've let him do that before we've put our contract in front of him? That's not how successful business men work, especially those intent on competing at the highest level and when dealing with a team with the financial clout if City. Pie in the sky bollocks from Sam Lee.

Pretty much.

Just looked at that ITK's past posts and picked out a few of his predictions and looked at the corresponding speculation around the dates (I'm bored OK). I can't see anything he's said that wasn't already being touted around in the rags etc before he posted. Also, looking at the actual posts he's got a lot of other things wrong outside of transfers. I'm not saying he's completely full of crap and he's probably got things right but he's defo not an oracle.