Rolta

18 minutes ago, John said:

I look forward to a bidding war, but I would prefer a straight swap for Brooks myself. 

Had a look at the Up the Cherries forum (link below), mixed opinions there, but I loved this one from andyred:

"Surely we can do better than villa's cast offs."

https://bournemouth-forum.vitalfootball.co.uk/threads/scott-hogan.12187/

He's right!

And thinking about it, our cast offs aren't very good.

10 hours ago, BleedClaretAndBlue said:

Wow Bournemouth really are dreadful in the market arent they

I'm finding it easier to believe that the Telegraph is just a dreadful paper.

1 hour ago, MotoMkali said:

He didn't speak English fluently. It was stilted and a preprepared interview done by a villa interviewer. He almost certainly was not fluent at the time. 

Maybe you didn't see the link above. This is from back in September (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYaN7pHrO7w&list=PLJdyosTCLVrL-cKyhbqrS1nhBdURjf5NP&index=17&t=0s.

I think his English is fine.

1 minute ago, Sulberto21 said:

No way should Wesley be sold for £13million. In fact I'm confident that he will become a villa legend. I base this on actually watching the games and seeing what he is about. It was his movement which allows McGinn to score against spurs. He drags defenders around with him. He has had at least 7 good games. Of course he had a few bad ones too.

A lot of our goals he was involved in the build up and he assisted the assist in a fair few instances. Also he started the game at the age of 15!! This means he has missed out on a lot of childhood development. 

It's funny how Wesley isn't afforded the time to settle down and get used to the premier League yet the very same fans wanted Dean Smith to be given time. 

With our recent coaching and recruitment appointments I'd rather not sell anyone who contributed to the team last season except for the likes of Lansbury, Kalinic etc. Otherwise we're back to bringing in 9/10 players again. 

It's next summer we should look at any potential opportunities for offloading. If Wesley struggles to recover from his injury then maybe we could cut our losses. Not until he is given an opportunity to prove his fitness and ability.

Scandalous.

Also worth noting that he was 22 at the start of last season.

52 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Wesley spoke English fluently. Watch his first interview with the club 

EDIT: The first interview was in Portuguese, but there's an interview with him after the Arsenal game in September when he speaks good English. Yeah I don't think the language is a problem for him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYaN7pHrO7w&list=PLJdyosTCLVrL-cKyhbqrS1nhBdURjf5NP&index=17&t=0s

He's our best striker for sure. We missed him—I imagine he might look better with some improvement with the other players in attack.

4 minutes ago, DaveAV1 said:

The problem with picking Davis was/is that he just doesn’t score goals. It’s not that he doesn’t score many goals, he just doesn’t score any goals. His overall play is very good, but a striker needs to find the net. There are probably goal keepers with more PL goals than Davis. I hope we can find a way to get that sorted and of course to keep him fit but time waits for no man, he needs to find some goals soon. 

I'd agree if the alternative also didn't score goals and also gave the ball away more and was much less effective! 

Anyway, yeah as Rob says above—clean slate for all. Hopefully Dean and his many assistants can improve us this year.

8 minutes ago, nnock1984 said:

Judging by the amount of people saying we need a new first choice left back, Targett isn’t rated on here.

Personally I’m happy with him as a starter, good attacking left back! Bigger problems elsewhere! 

I really like him. He's at home at this level. He's played some really nice stuff.

59 minutes ago, Robtaylor200 said:

Very likeable chap, completely agree, I wonder what he will have learnt from last season that he should already have know. When to use the subs, his strongest team, how to get the best out of people and what to do if they dont give their best. He needs to have a nasty streak too. I hope he continues to improve our play. But would not hesitate to move him on we find ourselves bottom 3 by Christmas 

All of these are really speculative bar the subs and perhaps 'his best team'. And with the subs we didn't really have the greatest bench. As for the best team, we have had a lot of injuries to key players (mainly McGinn) and who would ever have imagined that our 'best team' featured one of our worst players. Don't forget the utter mare that two of those attackers had against Everton. It's not as if it's black and white.

You don't really know what goes on behind the scenes, but you seem very confident! Anyway, here's hoping we see a step up next year. And, yes, ultimatley I'm sure there is a learning curve when managing in the Prem for the first time. And you might have been right—I'm not saying the opposite, just that we don't really know.

EDIT: Actually, I don't think he does know his best team still. How Samatta was playing over Davis I'll never know. There must have been a reason (maybe Davis needed to be treated with a bit of care after his injuries). Maybe he just got it wrong, for me, because I just don't see it with Samatta.

5 hours ago, maqroll said:

satire

[ˈsaˌtī(ə)r]

NOUN

the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

Ha yes!

That was very message board meta.

5 minutes ago, Villa94 said:

what the hell is going on........somebody tell the board the transfer window is open ffs!

I can't tell what's satire any more.

9 minutes ago, Mister_a said:

They only been here about 3 days lol

We have a new satirist.

27 minutes ago, nick76 said:

I’d swop Watkins for Davis + cash in a heartbeat.  Even as a winger Watkins scored more goals than Davis did as a striker.

I thought you were going to let up on Davis. Accepting he needs to sort out his scoring, I really don't think he deserves such negativity. I'd say his coming back from injury in the lockdown contributed to us staying up. It wasn't everything, but it was definitely something. He was involved in some of the goals, and his general play made a difference.

Having said that, he may benefit from a loan at a club where he'll play more and have a chance to get his confidence up. You'll disagree, because you have been relentless, but that would obviously involve extending his contract too.

You don't, but I genuinely rate him. Others seem to rate him too. He can be a Prem player for sure, imo.

We'd need to bring in another striker though if he went out on loan.

On 05/08/2020 at 21:25, useless said:

Express and Star sayng we're going to turn down any bids for him, but will listen to offers for El Ghazi.

10 hours ago, kidlewis said:

the British public lap up the deflection which is so obviously bull it’s almost impressive. Still got morons backing Jenrick on social, o haven’t read or seen such brainwashing since reading about China’s “educational camps”.

 

I do feel at some point the stack of cards will fall and when they do I’ll be sure to say I told you so to everyone who voted for it and voted for these muppets.

its looking likely we will leave on WTO terms at the height of Covid economic impact. And no it won’t be the EU’ fault whatsoever. 

This. It's doing my head in. An enormous group of people have put their faith in Brexit without understanding pretty much anything on the topic—not what the EU is, not what free trade brought to our economy, not any positive that came with being a huge and powerful part of the EU. They don't have to like the EU, but if you're against it, get the facts straight and make a proper decision, not one based on utter crap.

Anyway, what you said—the Tory party and their like keep telling them everything they want to hear and it's so obvious. I am shocked at the wilful naivety. It's like watching children getting manipulated, and these people are adults. And with barely any appreciation of the alternative their minds have been bought. Now they lap up all the rest of the crap that goes with it because they have been lost to a culture war (phoney as always). They aligned themselves in a way so they don't have to admit to themselves that they were wrong. It's ego first, society second. It's pathetic and they're all so **** convinced of themselves. Brexit has been enormously revealing.

In this present moment, ignorance and ego are the defining characteristics of the UK, along with a nice dose of self-justifying entitlement. This is not what makes a good country.

29 minutes ago, Knutserov13 said:

My take on Benrahma.

Hes a really fine player. A good creative one. Probably one thats gonna be MoM one week and not to be seen the other. Problem for me is that he plays the same position as Jack. There is no way hes better than Jack in that position. Ok, you say - Easy, we'll move Jack to the middle. I'll be totally against that, why move your best player from the position where he creates chances and scoring goals? To play Jack in the middle there is no balance in the team with McGinn and Luiz. McGinn would in that case have to convert into a DCM, is he any good at that role? If Jack plays through the middle I guess we´ll have to bench McGinn and sign a new midfielder?

But, IF Jack goes I'm all for signing Benrahma.

There was an interview with Jack last year where he described himself as a midfielder. I believe he wants to play in midfield and that we're only playing him where we are because our wingers are the weakest area (lately, equal weakest) in the team.

13 minutes ago, Genie said:

You can copy and paste those questions into every football transfer thread on every clubs message board in the country. 

And I doubt many clubs could get Abraham because he won't want to go to them and they won't want to spend the massive amount of money he'd cost.

11 minutes ago, Genie said:

Albrighton and Tammy, £50-£55m combined. 20-30 goals combined. 
I’d much rather those personally.

Is Albrighton on a free or something? And does Tammy want to leave + do Chelsea want to sell him?

And do Leicester want to sell Albrighton?

And do these players want to come to us?

We need to improve the team. That's the main thing. These players would definitely improve us. Bowen is a similar level of signing, and a recent one, and he looks at home. 

With these two players no more Trezeguet and no more Samatta. There will be more signings too (if they happen).

Some signings are going to be easier to make than others. 

25 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Genuinely don't think I've ever seen a government in which corruption is so blatant and out of control. I guess I'm too young to fully remember the Major years, though I know it was bad then.

And like all the examples of the Tories being self-serving, incompetent, corrupt, it'll disappear into the air as if nothing happened, and the consciences of their supporters will register only a flicker of guilt before they work that cognitive dissonance with some kind of self-justifying pap. 'It would be worse under Labour' etc. etc. There's always an excuse to take no responsibility for who they voted for and for falling for so many BS lines. The cost of their pride is pretty shocking. 

10 minutes ago, TRO said:

but he went from Palermo to Juventus for 32 million Euros'...... we are in that market according to reports now.

We need to be intrepid moving forward.

We might be able to afford the fees but we can't compete with the draw of other teams (and as Vive said the wages if that's the case).

7 minutes ago, hippo said:

What don't you understand - from the above you appear to have understood perfectly.

Apart from the last bit - its not a given that we will end up with 2020/21 versions of Nkamba, Guilbert, Trez  etc - 

signing poor players is easy - good ones a bit more challenging.

 

I guess I don't understand what's positive about any of it for us. The good players are always more expensive because of bidding wars, and they always have more choice. So why would they choose us? Presumably this more or less happens every year—and why would people choose us? Inevitably then, we end up with players lower on our wish list, like all those you mentioned.

Slightly moving on, I think we're still in a tough position at the moment. Getting who we want is going to be difficult. We're not an established prem team yet, so we're still going to be somewhat of a risk to potential signings. It'll put people off to a degree. Logically, we pretty much have to sign either castoffs from teams above us, players from riskier leagues, or players from the Championship (and below). Having said that, here's hoping they pull a rabbit out of the hat.

10 minutes ago, Nicho said:

Grealish is not winning the league and champions league with us.

Yeah I'm not sure Delph will look back at winning everything in England with regret, and playing in the Champions League.

I can't deny I'd like to see Jack play at the very highest level. He deserves it. But I don't want us to suffer for it either, and I'd worry if he left now that we're not yet in a stable place to invest properly and to build on what we have. We have too many weaknesses in the squad. I mean in the past, we lost too many good players and we ended up relegated.

10 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

What would you do if you were PM for a day?

Anything, anything at all, what would be your go to thing to fix on your one day as PM?

This is this week’s leader of the tories in Scotland:

 

 

It's not even satire. And it's not surprising.

That's what he daydreams about. That's the difference he wants to make in the world. He has no soul.

12 minutes ago, hippo said:

I m actually taking it as a good sign.

When you paying £11m for the likes of Nakamba - there isn't likely to be much competition and the player must think all his birthdays have come at once.  Better players are likley to have multiple offers and the club multiple bids to consider.

I don't understand. So it's the same as ever—good players are more expensive because there's a bidding war and we have less chance of getting them because there is more competition (possibly from clubs that weren't almost relegated, which are therefore possibly more attractive)? So we still end up with signings like last year because that's the only way we can get them.

6 minutes ago, TRO said:

my unsubstantiated opinion of scattergun/scatter shot what ever.....is journalists breed off other snippets of rumour and just splurge it.....if they put enough out, they are likely to get a few right.....but hey ho, I am not expert on th sporting press.

This is what happens. Two scenarios. They know nothing so they make things up. Then the news breaks by someone who actually knows something (in our case last year, a Belgian journalist, or even more random—Luiz came from some weird tweet I think), then the journalist starts reporting that news. They don't know any better than you or I in this scenario, but they can easily construct a narrative to fit and make it seem that they know what's going on (oh the transfer hasn't gone through yet—yes there is a problem with another club coming in, or there are no agreements on the money) It's all a lie, and they made everything up, especially for that whole first period, and then they made up their own narrative to fit the few facts everyone knows for the second part of the rumour.

Or, the journalist makes things up for ages before one of his contacts finally gives him an actual true snippet, and then they report that. But that also doesn't mean that they were doing anything other than making things up for that whole first period.

The 'no smoke without fire' thing is not true in football news (and other news, but let's not get into that).

Football pages are about 8 or so pages long every day and they have to be filled one way or another.