KangarooVillan

I haven’t actually found anything reputable or official to say that he has officially been given the #10 shirt. Happy to be shown where it does - just couldn’t find it. Arteta saying what he did could be either a conclusive nail in the coffin or just posturing for more money - ‘we don’t want to lose him and don’t have to’ sort of thing. This one seems more unlikely than it did a couple of weeks ago, but there’s nothing yet to actually confirm or deny that.

If ESR falls through, should we just sign Aouar?

Take a seat

are you from aus?

Not for sale but I think it’s interesting from the point of view of the number of players that come to Villa and get better/increase in value. Probably one of the things that fills me with pride the most, moreso than paying top dollar and a player’s value stagnating or declining. I think it’s a great indicator of a well run club, e.g.: Atalanta.

Tipping SJM to have a huge season this year

If we finished the transfer period with: Buendia Young ESR Pape Sarr Alvarez A cheap young CB Whats the optimism gauge?

I have a good feeling about this

If we were linked to a 23 year old Brazilian international starter who was originally handpicked by Man City and Pep people would be losing their minds.

Yeah I think most teams would share that nightmare if X player in their squad went down with injury. But that’s exactly what it is, a nightmare, worst case scenario. I know how much you value the striker position - but when you measure risk it’s impact * probability. You then weigh up the costs of the various types of remediation and how much they reduce the risk (cheaper striker or more expensive striker) vs how much it will cost to remediate other risks (players in other positions) or generally improve the team. I agree it would be bad, but Watkins going down isn’t even the biggest risk - Jack going down is worse, and arguably Emi as well. Buendia may end up in that category too. If we lost Konsa and Mings that would also be a disaster. But we can’t afford to strengthen all of those positions with 1st team quality instead of other positions we are comparatively weak in. In regards to Tammy, I don’t think it’s good risk management strategy to break our transfer record on a player who can’t play with the player we already have who is one of the best English strikers in football. It’s the same reason spending £40M on a backup keeper to Martinez is bad business. It would potentially be a different story if Tammy could play multiple positions, but he can’t, and even then it’s a subjective debate on whether that’s the best approach when considering other areas of weakness.

You can’t just look at one position in isolation and say well that’s not progression. If we spent £200M on 6 players in 6 positions but we only bought a £10M striker - have we still not progressed?? Not every signing has to be better than whoever we have right now to be a very good signing. There’s a whole range of factors; money, team structure, tactics, attitude, role, salary, length of contract, age, potential that you seem intent on ignoring.

If you could pick Tammy, ESR, or a £40M DM who would you pick?

Que??? If Traore and AEG aren’t forwards what are they?

If we get ESR I’d imagine it will be project Saka in 2-3 years.

The Mirror? For real? Statistically it’s probably less likely to happen now that they’ve said it will.

Of course, striker first and foremost - more just curious as to how he would considering he seems to have the right attributes and often plays from that kind of position running forward anyway.

100% - striker first and foremost, but as you mention, if it’s a fluid dynamic up top I’d be curious to see what he could do a touch deeper.

Before people crucify me, I think Ollie should be our number 1 striker next season. I wouldn’t mind seeing him play in a second striker/CF and maybe even CAM role next year. He seems to have all the right attributes to play there then really aggressively push forward into space. Would be even harder to track too as he would be coming from deeper. Reminds me of Totti at time with less tricks and a lower range of passing ability.

Jack is NOT going anywhere this summer. Everyone here seems to acknowledge The Sun and Daily Mail are garbage Murdoch tabloid publications, yet when they say Jack’s going to City with NO evidence we end up talking about it for days. Those publications have never broken a transfer story, and they’re certainly not starting by breaking the biggest one in English PL history. Sick of the discussion, let’s all stop buying into their bull**** and they’ll stop.

It’s not empathy, it’s mix of patience, analysis and understanding of what made the teams we want to be like successful, and economic pragmatism. Atalanta, Lille, Leicester, Sevilla all did not get to where they are by breaking the bank for ‘top 4 quality’. Go look at the trajectory of players like Gosens - would you have replaced him season 1? How about season 2? And financially, it’s unaffordable and unsustainable. We’re in the process of building a squad, emphasising youth and spending money only in targeted areas that will have the biggest impact in terms of improvement. Mings, Watkins, Konsa, Cash, McGinn and Targett are going to be more or less in those starting positions for at least the next 2 seasons.

Sacrilege

Good post - appreciate your perspective. As someone who can also get a little bit aggressive on here at times I thought I would round out the alternative view as best I can, since we’re all sharing. I often feel on here that people don’t give players a chance. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a brutal league and only fractions of percentages separate teams poles apart on the table at times. Often though, some players are not given the chance to show that they can go to the next level despite being new to the team, showing glimpses, or even showing rather good form. I feel as though there can be a tendency to want to upgrade without proper consideration for how the player has performed and how they could improve as they spend more time around the club. Financial investments in players are also overlooked. If you spend £20M one year and £40M the next on two players who play the same position, that’s a poor investment. Especially if the £20M player can improve and grow in value with a little time and some coaching. Lastly, there is so much more to building a squad than replacing existing players with more expensive ‘better’ players. Each of Arsenal, Tottenham, Everton and even ManU until recently have spent god knows how much on players for very little return. We are following the model similar to clubs like Leicester and Atalanta who had a nucleus of players that they added to over time who were all give time to develop. I am not saying we don’t need to bring players in to improve, and I think our recruitment this year and last has been excellent. I just feel like which parts of the team are the weakest links and therefore who and how many players we need to spend big on is under-considered and under-researched at times.