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31 minutes ago, sne said:

And pretty much every other League in the world is weaker than the PL and somehow they manage to be OK at football despite not being English 

Exactly, other than la liga which is a decent second no league comes remotely close to the strength in depth of the PL.

7 minutes ago, Aston_Villan4 said:

Apologies for the heavy dose of sarcasm but, what else would our scouting department be doing?

No need at all to apologise, remind me how many teenagers we have signed in the last say 5 years are consitantly playing first team football? (for us)

17 hours ago, sne said:

Considering he only just turned 18 I imagine he can and will improve every aspect of his game including heading and timing.

Not every 18 yr old improves, we've had plenty that haven't. I'd like to think someone has seen potential here though, still a lot to pay for someone of that age from a weak league.

3 hours ago, Jareth said:

Konsa's contract has what about 3/4 more years on it no? What situation is there to monitor?

He's on a pretty crap salary, so there is something tom monitor!

This thread is so funny, you are all so  full of shit just speculating 

If Arsenal don't sign a quality striker we will finish above them!

We need some 150th anniversary Adidas originals, Gazelles or Spezial I really don't mind.............but please!!

3 hours ago, burchy said:

Wondering if we’re getting Philogene back as Hull are looking at loaning Carvalho from Liverpool and he plays predominantly on the RW, cutting in like Philogene.

Makes sense for the homegrown quota. 

Why would we buy a player back 6 months after selling him, makes no sense whatsoever!

12 hours ago, WHY said:

There is no £18m if they don’t stay up. They will have effectively paid £2 million for him for a season. We will easily get £15m for him if he does come back. 

Can a player be sold twice in one window? Genuine question.

Damn I was hoping they would 'back the manager'!

3 hours ago, GlobalVillan said:

Duran being our back up striker is one of the main reasons I think we will finish 5th instead of 4th or even 3rd.

I wouldnt want him as a Championship side, never mind a PL club. Not at this stage anyway. He has shown nothing at all that makes me want to keep him as understudy to Ollie.

Nothing.

Not terrible as an inpact sub but if we ever have to start him, we sre in trouble.

EDIT: Said the same about Davis and Delfouneso and got laughed at so expect to again. Until he gets replaced and ends up back in the US or in the Championship or a midtable La Liga side and then people will conveniently forget they mocked someone for being right.

Is it hard work carrying that chip around?

18 hours ago, PaulC said:

I think we were a bit too predictable.  Moving it slowly. Yes I agree about Mcginn. Its hard for the best sides to break down such an organised low block and we are still learning. 

I don’t think it’s so much that we are predictable we have a style of play like most teams do to some extent but we just really struggle against teams that defend deep. If Emery is the top top manager we believe he is he needs to work out how to break those teams down.

Just watched a YouTube villa podcast thingy and it shows Villa fans walking out after Archer scored! Give your season tickets up kids plenty of real fans waiting in line, fckin pathetic!

Perfect delivery, I might have scored that!

We need to keep hold of him he is a top notch squad player!

I hope we beat them with a last kick of the ball very dubious penalty that see’s rat boy sent off.

They might well be one of the biggest clubs in the world but we are a better team right now by a long way!

1 hour ago, duke313 said:

Apparently, UEFA are set to abandon the new Champions League format next season, will remain in current format.  No 5th place lads, we'll have to secure top 4 

Regardless of whether this is true or not, we'll finish top 4 no problem.

We need to give him a new long term contract!

On 13/12/2023 at 23:30, MotoMkali said:

Dendoncker doesn't really fit with what we want to do as a team. We are probably selling him in Jan. But he's not good enough for where we want to be regardless (he is overall but his quality on ball is lacking). We need someone that we can use to rotate Luiz and Kamara in Cup Games and who can come on for the last 30 minutes when one of them is flagging. 

I only think we are selling Donk in January if he asks to leave he’s been doing fine when called upon, no he’s not a perfect fit for the way we want to play but as third fiddle to Kamara and Luiz I think he’s more than capable of being that rotation in domestic and European cup games, even the league for the rest of this season. The summer window is the most change will happen.
 

I really don’t see us buying squad players in a January window unless we sell squad players, if we buy I think it will be a marquee player that goes straight into the team, what position is anyone’s guess though. 

20 hours ago, MotoMkali said:

Conversely a quality backup CDM is by the far most important thing for us imo. 

With RB cash and Konsa are serviceable there even if it isn't ideal. But as we get more fixtures from the conference league and a potential FA Cup run we desperately need to be able to rotate Dougie and Kamara out of some games and sub them off when they are flagging in others. We saw vs the arsenal game how much we struggled because those 2 were flagging and how the game changed when Dendoncker came on for Kamara. Having a better player in that situation would open so many doors for us imo. 

Totally diagree with Kamara, Luiz  and Donk we are pretty stacked in that area, how many teams have three top tier internationals to cover a position?

Current form tells us we will finish 2nd! Which is a shame!

1 minute ago, Rodders said:

Yeah RB and letting Donk go and getting an upgrade are the obvious weak links in the side. That aside, not much else.  The young fella Kellyman (? ) might be more involved or go for a loan.  Sometimes you think it'd be handy having Archer, Ramsay or JPB around as squad options but they are getting more out of their loans I guess. Would still find it hard to say they'd get substantial minutes over anyone else on the bencvh at the mo. 

We do have Buendia coming back of course, maybe not until March or so, but he'll be great to have back.

Hate to be the bringer of bad news but they aren’t on loan!

26 minutes ago, DakotaVilla said:

David Ornstein on the Athletic pod specifically said our focus in Jan will be on RB and on upgrading Donks. 

Can’t see it myself, Donks will only be replaced if he moves on and we have Cash and Konsa who are performing admirably when called upon. I’m actually struggling to see us doing much business in January unless we sell.

53 minutes ago, DaveAV1 said:

With our recent schedule of games could you seriously see him being physically capable of contributing anything to us at anything like tge standard required   He’d have been a total passenger in the last two PL games and we couldn’t afford passengers in either of those two games. A very expensive luxury player I’m afraid. 

Yeah we seem to be doing fine without him, amazing player in his prime but we should have never made his move permanent very poor recruitment and putting that one 100% on slippy!

They are very good but so are we and we are at home which for us is massive, I’m dreaming of 15 straight home wins!!