Monsieur Hazdazler

I am right in thinking you can only sign 2 players from the same club during a transfer window? I'm not sure if I am imagining that, but as we have Konsa already, if true it would mean either Benrahma or Maupay?

11 hours ago, Wezbid said:

It's what you do with it that counts, not the size. 

Oh, you said knock.. 

I can neither confirm or deny have intricate details of his small knock.

1 hour ago, Keener window-cleaner said:

I'm also looking forward to seeing him play. I wonder why he didn't get any minutes today. As the season is only threee weeks away and Engels is new to the league I guess he wont be first choice together with Mings. If so it's about time he gets some minutes on the pitch. If Chester is fit enough I would pair him with Mings as the first choice CB:s. I'd have Konsa as third choice and then Engels and House depending on how good Engels is.

I heard he had a small knock

Is there anyone else who thinks this Marvelous Nakamba link is a red herring/non-starter? 

Seen so much about it on twitter with people expecting him to join, it just feels like him and his agent getting his name out there at this stage, especially after we’ve signed Douglas

edit- changed Luiz for ‘Douglas’ to please @dont_do_it_doug.

3 hours ago, KentVillan said:

I generally agree, but £11m isn't much in today's market, and my mate who's a Saints fan reckons Targett isn't a guaranteed improvement on Taylor, at least in the short term. Make of that what you will.

I don’t think he’s seen much of Taylor 

I think he was being diplomatic with the Targett/Taylor bit. I don’t think you spend 11mil on him if you don’t intend on him taking the spot, but Taylor should know he has a chance if he performs well 

26 minutes ago, thunderball said:

I did wonder this myself, our signings have a different formation suggestion

Does Smith have a history of that? I thought he was more of a 4-1-4-1/4-3-3 kinda guy, but I’ll happily admit to not being familiar with his approach at Walsall. I don’t remember Brentford playing 3 CB’s

11 hours ago, John said:

Flemish maybe?

With a name like Björn Engels from a town called Kaprijke, I’d say that’s a definite. Probably speaks French too though given Belgian schooling and time at Reims. 

Just now, BOF said:

The one glaring loophohle that I hate in these situations is market value versus buyback fee.  If, at any point during his time at Villa, his value on the open market exceeds his buyback fee, then City have reason to trigger the clause regardless of whether they want him in their team or not.  Because they could take him back solely to sell him straight away for a guaranteed profit.

It's why I think there should be a condition attached to buyback clauses that once the player is bought back, he cannot move to another club for a calendar year so as to prevent the 'flipping' of players for profit.

Yeah absolutely that’s a bit concern, I think I noted in my original post that the success of the deal for me will come down to this very point, and whether the fee received will be suitable for any market inflation and limit city’s ability to buy back strictly for profit. 

Hell if we want to be smart about it we agree to a fair buy back clause, but there’s a stipulation if it’s activated that city can’t sell him on for a set time period after or something. Not sure if that’s possible though 

2 minutes ago, BOF said:

Yep, good post.  It does seem a little ... fraught for me.  In that a resounding success means you will lose the player.  On the basis that the board have explicitly said they don't want to be developing players for other teams, this does seem a little like doing exactly that, only with the illusion of ownership in the meantime, and you get to keep him if he doesn't make the grade.  I dunno.  Maybe I'm being a little negative.  Once he contributes towards a successful campaign this time around, we can look at the rest when we get there.

A fair view for sure, I think a financial profit is always attractive though. Loans suck as you do the development but often for a chunk of the bill (with some at least). On this one, we come out of it well either way.

3 minutes ago, AJ said:

Say, for some reason, he falls in love with us, and doesn't want to go back?

Buy back clauses don’t work like that. If city activate it he would have to go back, no choice for him

12 minutes ago, thabucks said:

Won player of the tournament at the Toulon .... let that sink in and has cost us 15million ... who cares if citeh have a buyback clause let’s just enjoy him whilst he is here ! 

Although you want to know you have certainly over the ownership of your players, there’s a strong business case here. Man City are likely selling him at a very reasonable price because this transfer will enable him to get a work permit...all City can do with him is loan him again to Girona or similar as he can’t get a work permit for them. This transfer should give him enough points for that. The result is city get to see him in the premier league, make a profit on him overall if he never goes back. However if he excels they can buy him back for the first team with no permit issues. For us, if they do that we get a couple years of service (most likely) and make a profit on the deal. 

For me the success of the transfer comes down to whether or not the buy back clause is high enough to allow us to adequately source a replacement down the line if the market continues to inflate, and avoid a situation where he is just being bought for resale.

I saw this list yesterday as well and this name seemed so out of the blue I pretty much discarded it, sounds like I wasn’t the only one. What was this guys twitter handle?! Gotta drop that man a follow 

I’m a little tentative about Heaton, sole reason being that I’m always tentative about pulling a player from a successful system and planting them in a different one. Both Heaton and Pope kinda came out of nowhere and cemented themselves as quality keepers, but they did it behind the same resolute, organised Burnley defence that restricted oppositions to a lot of low percentage chances. I can’t help but think that’s made them look better

4 hours ago, SirSteveUK said:

Apologies all round if this has been posted - but to illustrate the point on squad turnover that many are making, this shows the %age of last seasons minutes played by players STILL at each club. Obv this may change through the window.

 

I do feel there’s a bit of sub text to this graph, being that a big chunk of our % lost are the rotation options we’ve let go, who quite simply were not up to the standard and needed moving on. The big chunks are either loan players or older ones, slight guess but I think:

Abraham - will be a loss but not irreplaceable

Whelan - older player, great servant but not someone I’d want for a prem squad

Adomah - no longer good enough 

Hutton - was he ever good enough?

The rest are minor bit part players or loan players Tuanzabe and Mings. Squad depth is obviously a concern, but right now my only major concern is centre backs, once that is rectified I’ll feel way more comfortable, and we can look at perhaps a couple of improvement additions like a top DM and another winger.

yeah we have work to do but I think this graph isn’t necessarily as bad as it looks 

1 hour ago, KentVillan said:

That's why I find all this panic (not necessarily from you, but certainly from some on this thread) a bit hysterical. It reminds me of all the #SmithOut stuff last season. It's shortsighted and paranoid.

 

This kinda thing concerns me for the window but the season ahead, Smith has plenty of support, but I’ve seen a lot of people saying they expect us to finish mid table or some have said even top half. I think there needs to be something of a realistic removal of the rose tinted specs...

1) we came up through the playoffs so statistically are the most likely side to go back down

2) we went up with a lot of loan players, many aren’t still with the club 

3) we are having a significant squad turnover this summer 

We are clearly doing some well thought out work in the market, not scatter gun, focused around a preferred playing style which is a huge plus. However given where we finished and squad turnover we have a long way to go to survive in the league this season. We could do really well, but there’s an awful lot of variables at the moment.

My biggest concern is opinion turns against Smith if we start poorly, I hope we are better than that, but judging on people’s expectations I am somewhat concerned some fans will end up making things really tough it it starts badly. Even if we went down I’d want to seen Smith continue, no question, I think people are underestimating how challenging it is going to be this year given the situation we are in.

2 hours ago, MaVilla said:

Yeah the home grown in our squad could be:

Butland, Steer, hause, Grealish, targett,  Mings, Webster.

Still would need 1 more for English quota, but that could be green, Ramsey, Revan etc?

Pretty sure players can count as both homegrown at club and homegrown within country...so Grealish, Davis, Steer, Hause, Chester, Green, Lansbury, Taylor plus say Ramsey would fill our criteria (included one extra in case one is wrong!). Ramsey, Green, Grealish And Davis fulfil the youth academy ones. 

In other words it shouldn’t affect our recruitment 

My favourite transfer expression so far...James Nursey said yesterday we ‘slapped in a bid’ for Targett. I love the idea of CP rocking down to Southampton and slapping their chairman while loudly exclaiming the details of the transfer 

Everyone’s favourite journalists Nursey and Nixon saying it’s 11.5, rising to 17 with add ones which seems more reasonable 

3 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

You say this as if Leicester haven't recently won the Premier League and aren't already established in it.

Sometimes we need to remove the specs.

Yes we are Aston Villa, but some other clubs, are also other clubs with something to show.

What do you mean, they're signing Justin so they've got a replacement for Chilwell as he's gonna sign for the Villa, champions of Europe, greatest club in the world, loved by all. After all, we're going to be fighting for top 6 next season, despite statistically being by far the most likely club in the league to go down. 

17 minutes ago, jacketspuds said:

So we've been priced out of moves for Butland, Etheridge, Mings and Phillips.

If only they played football in other countries, then we wouldn't have to go about chucking twice as much money as we should at other English clubs for their players.

This, and I think it’s why all journo talk linking us to high fee English/British based players needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. They’re making obvious links. We may be enquiring about these players but it doesn’t mean they are our first choices. I would imagine the club would make a lot of enquiries to see what might stick based on their long list of targets, then remove the expensive ones and whittle the list down

1 hour ago, Made In Aston said:

More like backtracking to try and hold on to some perceived credibility. He has absolutely no clue who we are going to sign but is probably told by his bosses that he needs to print some rumours. So he says we have lots of money and puts  bogus targets out there, then says we are broke so can't sign the players he made up

I don’t disagree with this in many ways, but I think he was probably more saying that teams are just asking for silly money. Fits with his story about Leeds wanting 30 for Kalvin Phillips. 

I always thought Nixon does know some stuff, and for a journo does a lot of interacting/sharing on twitter which is cool. I just don’t think any of them know what we are doing

31 minutes ago, A'Villan said:

Just to iterate how out of touch I am with potential and ideal targets..

Would there be scope for us to sign any of the up and coming players from the Ajax side that should've made the CL final last season?

I mean they were playing Tadic up front, who had a spell with Southampton. So surely they wouldn't be beyond reach, as long as a better offer doesn't come in.

Probably not much going there, either going to bigger clubs for big money, or certainly would be valued beyond our budgets (e.g. De Ligt, De Jong, Van de Beek, Onana, Tagliafico, Ziyech), Neres looks likely destined for Everton, Schone, Tadic and Blind don't fit the profile. That only leaves Veltman (stand in RB I think), Sinkgraven (back up left back I think), Mazraoui (no idea on him) who i don't know enough about,  Bruno Varela was on loan from Benfica (back up keeper). That leaves Kaspar Dolberg, who they won't want to sell yet (and will likely go for big money in a year or so). After that you're going into their squad/youth players, many of which will be promoted to replace the mass of big money outgoings.

58 minutes ago, jacketspuds said:

Heard someone on the radio this morning raving about Jules Kounde, a 20-year old CB who is think is at Bordeaux. Was saying Arsenal should sign him he's that good. Hopefully we are also identifying some unknown gems as well.

My suggestion of Tonali was swiftly scuppered last night when the commentators said he was "the next Pirlo" and that he would cost something ridiculous like €50m.

Kounde was mentioned on the recent Tifo podcast in regards to Arsenal...if you weren't referring to that one, that's probably where they got that from.

58 minutes ago, Mooley22 said:

Chiesa is brilliant but i dont think 50million would buy him at the moment,Mere could be willing to make the move from Koln,Tousart being linked with moves to Spurs and Inter so id guess he is out of our league for now,Brekalo been capped at full level a few times so proabably would take huge money too.Some great players on show but a good tournament will triple their price,These are the players we should be scouting and signing before they become out of reach.

Apparently Brekalo wants out, 20million euros touted. Absolutely no clue if this site is remotely reputable, it got posted on AVFC reddit so just sharing http://www.fussballtransfers.com/nachricht/wolfsburg-kommt-skov-fur-brekalo_105485

43 minutes ago, Mooley22 said:

Any player in the u21 Euros catching anybodys eye?Players that could be a good fit for Villa and that we could realistically get?

Thought Richter from Augsburg has looked good so far,can play anywhere across the front line and is a good finisher

Tonali from Bresica looked class last night when he came on.Some of the forward passes were fantastic,

Andreas Skov is the one id really go for.Plays for Nordsjaelland,Scored 19 goals in 26 in the league from right wing last season and is only 19.

Maximilian Mittelstädt the german left back looks like he has a quality future aheads of him too.

Some quality players on show...did you see the Italian lad Chiesa against Spain? Looked awesome. Tonali is a super hot prospect, linked to PSG so he is destined for bigger things I think. Hard to know who would be 'gettable' I guess.

I like the look of Jorge Mere, Spanish centre back, really good on the ball. Tousart from France, he's at Lyon and could be a top DM in the future, that's from my knowledge rather than this tournament so far though, probably unlikely for us though. Mere is at Koln, maybe more realistic? Brekalo from Croatia is someone I've seen play before as well, at Wolfsburg I think. He looks very tidy.

16 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

Nothing yet 

I should have specified how much later