villanmac

With Targett, Grealish and Watkins we have our play on the left tied up imo. Buendia makes far more sense than Benrahma to me. If we have Buendia and Cash we might actually stop playing as if someone's tilted the pitch towards the left hand side and attack down both flanks for a change. Plus, I'd rather we stopped giving Brentford any more money. Listening to more sh*t about the 'Brentford model' from their fanbase of amateur accountants would bore the shite out of me.

Interesting our two signings are both coming off outstanding first seasons in a new position. Its not quite Moneyball but it seems like the idea is there may be hidden value / potential for further progression with both being new to the position. Although at 45 mill the pair, 'd say the upside has already been paid for! I do like the fact that we are adding some all-round footballers in these positions. Bodes well for the style Dean Smith likes to play.

Shocking fee. Although, in the context of 24 million for Wesley I suppose it doesn't seem as bad.

This is a key reason i think. Said it all last season, we were dwarfed by almost every team. You could see it in the tunnel day 1 against Spurs. A lot of the time outside of the two centre halves we had no one else who could defend or attack aerially. It was the real reason we were shit at defending set pieces imo (not poor defending per se - just being outgunned in the air), its also why he starting going Hause, Mings, Konsa more often abd put Elno in front of him when Hause was injured. I think with Cash and Watkins Smith wants to remedy that.

Not surprised Leicester are after him. Hes as good if not better than Chilwell imo. As has been said, he put it on a plate for our forwards numerous times last season and i wouldnt be getting rid of a player who perfectly compliments our talisman (isnt it the idea that we need to get more of these players around Grealish not less?) The left side kept us up at times last season and I wouldnt entertain the idea of selling him.

Looks like the rules are changing: https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2020/08/20/new-fifa-proposal-would-give-some-cap-tied-players-more-flexibility-switch-national A new proposal from FIFA could give players more leeway to change the the national teams they represent if they have fallen out of favor with their current national team, with several caveats.

That's the travesty, You have to declare that you are switching nationality which he had to do to play in the England U21s. You can only switch once. Edit - As if by fait, I have just read that fifa are changing the rules back this week - so he is no longer locked in.

Jesus Christ, what the actual f**k. Its actually weird now. Flogging my Euro 2020 tickets, couldn't support a team managed by that clown

Southgate has always had an issue with Grealish. He was practically forced to pick him in the under 21s Toulan squad after the powers above had got him to agree to declare for England and then left him on the bench. There was another issue in the under 21s when Boothroyd (another w*nker who shouldn't be any where near the position he is in) dropped him from an under 21 squad for not turning up to a meeting and then left him on the bench in the euro championships in favour some absolutely inferior players (Baker, Ioorfa, Will hughes!... it was actually embarrassing on his part). So I think there's always been an issue within the setup about him being jack the lad and a too big for his boots kind of character. On Southgate's part, I think its a combination of being a weak manager who doesn't fancy strong personalities and being **** clueless. He gets this reputation for being open minded coach which is a strength but also quite easy when you haven't anything in your head in the first place...I mean, this is a bloke who goes on exploratory visits to NFL, NBA and bloody handball games to learn shit he can try and apply to football. Fair play, some of it seemed to work as England became a beast at set pieces in the World Cup but from the actual footballing side I don't think he has a clue how to utilise proper creative, technical types at all. He also needs that validation from the big club/big coaches when picking players which is why the likes of Hudson Odoi / Foden get a look in without starting game because they have that top club stamp of approval. I will say though Foden looks like a phenomenal player so no issues with him being picked but i don't think Southgate would see that if he was playing the twice the games as he is but for Crystal Palace as an example. All that being said, i'm sure Grealish will also get called up on Tuesday. He has to.

How hard can it be to chose between playing for a can of Fizzy piss and the mighty Aston Villa? F'kin hell sort yourself out son.

To be fair the club being a sh*tshow ain his early years probably didn't help his progress initially. The club was full of rocket polishers. There certainly wasn't much professionalism about.

Messi is an adidas athlete. With Sawiris being a major shareholder in adidas i'd expect us to be all over him.

Surprised Buendia is only 23. Would love him here.

Mings is top class imo. Up there with the very best in the league. Alongside Grealish he kept us up when in all honesty we should have been cut adrift. Wins headers from nowhere, makes blocks he has no right to and covers up for cb and full back mistakes better than any vila defender in the last 20 years. For me as good as Konsa, Tuanzebe and Engels are they are made to look a lot better playing alongside him. Even Kourtney Hause looks like a prem cb alongside Mings! He reminds me of Laursen in that way. The sample size is there when it comes to some of our most at sea defensive displays..Soton at home (Engels Hause), Watford away (Konsa, Hause)..Spurs (Konsa, Hause, Engels). The Leicester injury when it went to shit after a good start..the instant transformation into a solid team against Burnley on NY day for which credit was given to the move to a back 3 rather than the fact we had Mings back heading everything and marshalling the defence. Like i say.. Konsa is looking good now and Im personally with the few that still like Engels but we arent talking about them as potential Prem CBs without Mings beside them imo. We'd be a norwich without him.

Right...i'm off to the NUFC forums!

Spot on. I've always said it, there is no-one out there like him. We'd get mugged off at 80mill. I kind of get why people undervalue him - It is hard to get your head round how good he is. I think him being English and the historic overvaluing of English players doesn't help as ppl kind of check themselves when talking about him and think, nah he cant be that good. He really is! That graph makes him look ridiculous but he is when it comes to carrying the ball and playing those short intricate passes. I've not seen anyone like him. I can't wait to see him play with top players (with us). Its why the likes of Joe Cole and Redknapp rave about him because they either had/or have an eye for that special talent on the ball and they see it in spades when they watch Grealish. He's a proper player's player.

The whole thing reminds me of Vestergaard at Soton. I have a mate who is Soton fan and two years ago he was saying the same thing people were saying on here, 'He's too slow', in fact he said he was slowest player he'd ever seen and not cut out for the prem. However, the thing was Southampton were absolute shite at the time, getting battered every week and from 1-11 they were just awful defensively so it was keystone cops all-over the place. In that situation the weakness of every player gets exposed. After the 9-0 drubbing Soton sorted themselves out as a unit and he's been one of the best cb's in the prem. We have seen it with our own players this season. In fact its sometimes the 'worse' players who can come out of the shit better because they have the recovery pace to get out of situations they should never have been in. As said above, I think in the post lockdown team we'd have been seeing the best of Engels because he wouldn't be put in the farcical positions that defenders rarely find themselves in when the team is a well drilled unit. Vidic is a great example of a top defender whose lack of pace got exposed at times (Torres, Gabby for example) but in a properly organised unit those occasions are few and far between and his qualities as a top defender shone through.

Love this from the press release: "But we will not be satisfied until we achieve our goal of bringing sustainable success to Aston Villa at the top tier of European football" We are not here to make up the numbers.

People really are forgetting how good he was at the beginning of the season. He was outstanding. Everyone single one of our players bar Grealish has had multiple shocking games this season yet he is getting written off because of a lack of pace. There's many proven examples of top centre halves in this league not being particularly quick. The Soton game gets brought up but the whole team were at sea defensively and it showed again a week later against Watford when he wasn't involved but we were just as hapless. I'd put his best performances match up there with any of our signings and he was on the verge of getting into the Belgium side. As much as Konsa impressed me towards the end of the season I can see Engels getting back in alongside Mings.

FFS..Amavi and Grealish on the bench.

I assumed i'd be beaten to it but couldnt be arsed to cycle back 10 pages to check.

Jesus getting absolutely crucified for our summer business.

If you just backed those result all to happen its is 15/1.

An acca of Bournemouth win, west ham win, arsenal win is 15/1 with 365 so its actually a shite price!

To have a striker who comes off the bench and almost always drastically improves us is a fantastic asset to have. Strikers often talk about how hard it is when your coming off the bench, not getting a run of games etc. Its pretty rare to have a player who can come on and instantly make an impact the way he does - i'm actually surprised when he doesn't instantly improve us.