Rolta

14 minutes ago, TRO said:

I remember seeing their names listed on Aston Villa news now, well before a couple of days.....sure its click bait.....and sure there is a scatter gun approach to rumours.....and sure many are wrong.

but amongst all the rubble is life, in many cases.....There are instances, where one is out of the blue, but information being the craved force it is usually, gets leaked by someone.

No offence, but I'm not sure there's not a lot in what you just said. Cliches are cliches and football news is 90% made up.

When actual news breaks (Luiz, Nakamba etc.) it's real—of course. It's not clickbait. It never breaks in the moment of signing, but when things are far along and nearing completion—and things far along still appear to take time, what with massive contracts and massive fees. Sometimes it's agents releasing things too, sure. That's definitely one category of news. Real news.

But in the meantime the journalists make things up. That's the way it works. Their job is to write things in newspapers to fill up gossip columns, and if they don't know anything they make stuff up. Reporting the truth isn't scattershot—how does that work? That's the definition of making things up. I know people who work in football news and the stories they told me were hilarious.

That's a crazily long window.

People are going to get restless because things are definitely not going to happen quickly (on the most part). Evidence being the transfer windows are usually slow to get moving.

19 minutes ago, TRO said:

True....but many of the players rumoured last summer.....arrived.

Luiz -Nakamba-Engels- Trez.....were all well speculated.

there is no smoke without fire.....but you make a fair point.

There were far more fires that were nonsense though. I think most of those people were announced from actual journalists in the respective countries, not from the shitty British tabloids. The random tweet from a random Beligian journalist usually came very late in the process. It's inevitable that eventually, when the story finally breaks there'll be a lot of journalists jumping on the bandwagon, but that doesn't mean the day-to-day rumours are any better than fiction.

Do you really use that 'no smoke without fire' principle with the tabloids? I mean the rumours are mostly, demonstrably bullshit. That's quite a perplexing statement.

1 minute ago, Follyfoot said:

No problem but if you read many articles they all include the same terminology, the preparation of the bid, The finishing touches to the bid and the subsequent launch of the said bid, Which is obviously supported by the warchest. All of which usually follows on from an ‘enquiry’ It’s like they are playing that game where you have to say certain words in the conversation to gain points

Ha yes. And then, when things don't happen very quickly, there's always a dramatic problem that might ruin the deal. But usually doesn't (if the deal is real).

3 minutes ago, Follyfoot said:

Just for the record I was being pedantic using all the cliches possible that are used in the transfer market by the press et cetera

Ha well it was clearly too subtle for me!

I think I've got a little too into all this, the righteous pursuit of truth in transfer rumours

I'm going to give it a rest.

17 minutes ago, Follyfoot said:

There has been no confirmation of bids launched or even in the preparation stage, Let alone  the finishing touches being put on Even though the war chest has been confirmed

The war chest hasn't been confirmed. Nothing has been confirmed. Every year football news in newspapers is shown up to be fiction.

Case in point: every single year, 99% of our signings come out of nowhere.

There is no evidence here! No evidence in the Sunday Mirror article, and not in all those tweets unless it is one of the very very rare journalists who seem to have a link with the club, which definitely happens from time to time. I think it's interesting to talk about the rumours and so on, but I think we're all mostly old enough to put them in perspective, surely?

The only definite fact we have is from history, and it's that the club does a lot of things we and the journalists don't have a clue about.

58 minutes ago, Lomaski said:

That YouTube video is very unimpressive. Predominantly tap-ins and 6 yard line headers. Not one goal (in the first half of the video, got bored after that) was self created and we just aren't going to give him that level of service and chances on a plate. If we sign two great wingers then he might be an option off the bench, but not for 20+ million for me.

Double post.

54 minutes ago, Lomaski said:

That YouTube video is very unimpressive. Predominantly tap-ins and 6 yard line headers. Not one goal (in the first half of the video, got bored after that) was self created and we just aren't going to give him that level of service and chances on a plate. If we sign two great wingers then he might be an option off the bench, but not for 20+ million for me.

I was thinking, if only our strikers could score those six yard headers. On that alone he's definitely a massive improvement on what we have!

12 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Exactly. And i reckon he would be consistently better on the left than trez is

Or right. And is there any doubt.

How useful would it be to have a player who can actually play those front three positions.

There should be a both option.

10 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Lazy comparison because Hogan was also at Brentford?  Watkins seems to be getting better every season.

I don't get these lazy comparisons. Recent ones to memory: Salifu and Nakamba, the Exeter kid we're meant to be signing and Bedeau. There are more. The brain tries to catagorise things in short cut ways, but surely giving an extra second to these thoughts reveals how pointless that is. A 2 second comparison between Watkins and Hogan might likely reveal there is more to differentiate them beyond 'they both played up front for Brentford', or they're both African midfielders, or they're both young.

1 hour ago, villalad21 said:

DL animation outdated.

Been a long time since he rocked that hair

You're making me think of a lost kid when all the other kids have disappeared and all the old things he used to do he can't do any more. So he starts trying to throw stones at an inanimate tree trying to get a reaction. 

I'm joking by the way. I know we all have the same aims overall. But it's not an animation I believe...it's a still from a podcast. You're right though, that's not good Luiz's haircut. The lesson I learnt was that the Samson story is not true in 100% of cases. 

2 minutes ago, tomav84 said:

i like watkins too. he held the ball up once or twice, showing a lot of strength for someone that looks quite slight. wesley and samatta have never done that for us

He can play wide too I believe. We're crying out for that kind of versatility.

He's pretty strong I'd say. I thought he looked the opposite of slight. 

24 minutes ago, villan-scott said:

Pretty sure Wesley spoke quite fluently in English when he signed didn’t he? From memory! 

I had this memory too, but I just watched his welcome interview and (at least the one I watched) is all in Portuguese.

6 hours ago, GarethRDR said:

“One would have to look into the family register, of course, to see whether the ancestors came from Wales or Scotland. My mother is English. But my advisor is dealing with this topic. I just concentrate on training hard and getting forward,” Kersken told RevierSport in November 2019.

I'm interested why he thinks this would make a difference—unless he's from the future

3 hours ago, Adam2003 said:

I’m wary of signing a guy for being top scorer in the SPL when Jermain Defoe came in second... but everyone on here seems to rate this guy. And we do know some good players come from Scotland...

I'd be worried too. In his YouTube he didn't look particularly quick, but maybe I'm underestimating the pace of the defenders. It wasn't a mindblowing highight reel.

23 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

But we (apparently) have earmarked £100m to spend whether we sell him or not.

There is absolutely no benefit to club in selling the man that almost single handedly kept us up.  The player may desire it but we’ll wait until that is clearly indicated.  The consolation prize for him is captaining the club he has been at since the age of 6 that he and his entire family also happen to avidly support.

Maybe best not to quote things from the Sunday Mirror as if they're facts! 

46 minutes ago, joey55 said:

That means you will have an advantage in the market you've not had in the past. It seems as if you are suggesting there will be little activity because of Covid, so how does that help you, as the status quo means another struggle for Villa? In the past when you've sold you best players the conditions haven't been as advantageous to you as they will be this window, when the clubs that usually would be competing with you for transfers are going to struggling. 

 

It's not really an advantage if the market has stifled because of the...global pandemic. We'll just get taken advantage of because everyone will know we have a lot of money. But the main problem is we need 3/4/5 top players to avoid another relegation battle even if we keep Jack. Getting those numbers in at the necessary quality is not going to be easy in the...global pandemic. If we lose Jack too we need even more, which is even harder in the...global pandemic.

You say you thought about it all, but as far as I can tell, you really haven't thought about much at all. You seem to have just decided we're all wrong and you're self-justifying. You also ignored what I mentioned about the weakness of our team in comparison to the Spurs teams in your example. We also have something like the 3rd/4th richest owners in the UK—we have money to spend without selling Jack. Considering there's a...global pandemic, we desperately need to guarantee some quality to add to the bare amount of quality we currently have. We don't need to sell Jack to do that. As Wainy says above, we have money to spend on players. The last thing we need is a massive turnover.

Sure, Spurs, with better players in their squad and a more balanced squad sold Bale and built a little bit. But it also didn't work out that way for about two seasons. If we take a step back next year, we get relegated. Also, I imagine Spurs when they sold Bale didn't make 12 signings the season before having had to replace 3/4 of a squad having got promoted. The comparisons you make are plain bad.

But anyway why are you even here again?

Gah my edits added some repetition there, but you get the point.

Fosu losing the ball in every promising attack is reminding me of someone. 

16 minutes ago, joey55 said:

I get why you all want him to stay, but I think your hearts are ruling your heads here. The conditions for spending the money will never be as favourable to you as they are now. 

In a global pandemic with a massively truncated close season?

Why are you here?

We've sold our best player before and it got us relegated. Grealish carried us at times just like Benteke did. We're in a very delicate position. We don't have the squad you had when you sold all the players you listed and nobody knows how the pandemic is going to affect the transfer market. Plus, surviving by the skin of your teeth and selling your best player isn't really a great sell to prospective players, particularly in...a global pandemic. 

Did you think about any of that?

I remember something I came up with back in January. I'm going to save everyone's time. Get Twitter and (jokes aside now) follow villareport. I'm not a fan of Twitter but if you're like me it's still useful like this. Turn off all notifications and push notifications except for villareport. They retweet, I'm sure, any article from anywhere in the world mentioning a Villa transfer rumour pretty quickly. If there's a (probably bullshit) newspaper article about us you'll know without refreshing Villatalk. 

And yet I am still here . 

9 hours ago, NurembergVillan said:

 

If you said that was a deepfake comedy sketch I'd believe you more than it being real. What the actual ****.

1 minute ago, 7392craig said:

Says he plays for villa on his Wikipedia...

Do you need the Wikipedia chat?

1 minute ago, Wainy316 said:

Another Jacob Bedeau?

You could compare him to anyone. He's 16.

Another Gareth Barry?