KangarooVillan

3 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

I think him being given the number 10 shirt has shown this is dead, as well as Arteta saying he is 100% staying. The contract will be sorted now. 

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?

On 10/07/2021 at 19:12, DaveAV1 said:

Don’t stand for that sort of allegation. 

Take a seat

8 hours ago, nick76 said:

Still my favourite bridge is Sydney Harbour bridge, it’s a simple design but magnificent.  I lived next to it for a long while on the harbour and I loved its grandeur as much as I loved looking at the Opera House.

are you from aus?

1 hour ago, Kiwivillan said:

 I'm not trolling. It's my legitimate opinion. I think this is small selling club mentality and some Villa fans need to get over it. We have serious operators running the club now

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

23 hours ago, Jas10 said:

I’m greedy though… I’d like more n better…

 

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

1 hour ago, DakotaVilla said:

It’s amazing how short memories are. Go back to the Pre COVID outbreak and pretty much the main topic of conversation was how were we going to keep him with such a Low buyout clause after he had started so well. 
 

He had a poor end to the season which was undoubtedly linked to the COVID outbreak but is now set to start for Brazil in the Copa America instead of household names that we’d lose our minds if they joined us.

Guy’s a baller. Give he time and he’ll become one of the best midfielders in the league. 

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.

15 hours ago, nick76 said:

I completely agree but I'd also potentially buying that 10m striker may be a waste of money.  I still look at Wolves last season that lost their main striker Jimenez and tried to rely on a back up type striker in Jose and then a young talented kid from abroad in Silva.  My nightmare is Ollie out and then we have a young talented kid from abroad in Alvarez and a back up striker in Wes whose struggling to get back match fit and we arent sure yet is quite right.  that's my nightmare...this is aside from all the benefits a top striker would bring in competition that is my nightmare.  Wolves ended up suffering all season and the manager went, for us we would lose our manager and Jack would leave.

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.

3 hours ago, nick76 said:

So you’d rather spend money on a back up than a player that would challenge Ollie for his starting place.  Not sure how that’s progression.

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. 

11 minutes ago, nick76 said:

I said my piece about Alvarez earlier in the thread...in summary there is so much risk around Alvarez helping in the first year or two.

I think we have to stop thinking of second string and that we have two players fighting for one shirt (this is without the debate about injuries, tactics, suspensions, formations, form, tiredness or whatever).  We need two players fighting for one shirt which Ollie currently has the shirt...top 8 teams have squads, our fans keep thinking about the first XI and back up players.  We need to uplift our thinking if we are going attain a European place.  We cant think we are going to get a European place but dont set ourselves up to give us that chance.

Maybe the older player maybe a way but most will still have a decent transfer fee with no resell value whereas Tammy is 23 so if it doesnt work then we still sell him when he's 25/26 with resell value.  Then quality older signings will be on massive wages and some maybe wont have the desire either and just looking for a last pay day so it's definitely possible but we'd have to be careful.  Plus we seem to want younger players to grow togethers and only Young has been outside that but if a quality player comes up then great.  As I said I am open to options just for me at the moment Tammy is head and shoulders on balance above other players.

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

6 hours ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

You can, because to me they are more forwards than AEG and Traore are.

You don't give out positions based on goal involvements stats. Otherwise Hourihane would be one and also a few goalkeepers.

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.

2 hours ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

Great news and comes as no suprise.

Fans have been crying out for him to be signed for ages now.

And before anyone starts hitting the 'he won't come here to play 2nd fiddle to Ollie' button, all big teams have a great deal of squad depth.

Adding Tammy to our ranks adds to our strength in depth and shows that we really mean business this season.

We tried to approach him last season but he opted to stay at Chelsea and fight for his place, which is fair enough.

I am so pleased to learn now that we are going back in for him again and looks like we might get our man this time round.

A wonderful signing if we get this one over the line and will only add to the transfer window to remember!

The Mirror? For real?

Statistically it’s probably less likely to happen now that they’ve said it will.

7 hours ago, Lord Willard said:

Leave Ollie where he is. He is our spear head. We have better players that can play the CAM or second striker. We don't anyone close to being his level as a striker. 

In my opinion, he is better than DCL

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.

7 hours ago, DaveAV1 said:

I don’t disagree with that. I think what we are trying to build up front is flexibility. I think actual fixed positions aren’t going to be so recognisable next season. Obviously keeping shape is important defensively and in the deeper midfield positions but being fluid in attack, provided our players know what we’re doing, can really hurt the opposition. 

I believe Ollie will most likely be our number one striker next year but I’m not against him having a less traditional CF role depending on situations and who, if anyone, we bring in to play upfront with him. 

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.

On 25/06/2021 at 14:53, DaveAV1 said:

I think he would make the squad at some top six clubs. A big season for him coming up, he’s got talent so if he can add consistently and cut out the wayward passing he’ll become a real asset at our top six club. 

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. 

21 hours ago, RicRic said:

@nick76 i agree with what Nick has said here and yes you can be aggressive as witnessed myself however we are all villians so we have the clubs best interest at heart, certainly the way to go if we are to challenge top 4 which I believe we need to try and break down now, id agree only jack and martinez are top four guaranteed starters so we need to make other positions top four quality , i think konsa is very close to joining them on that list, yes they may be playing well some of these guys however no time for empathy you will be replaced if you are not capable of pushing the side into that elite bracket.

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. 

1 hour ago, paul514 said:

Our ground is in a crap area I would love it if we moved to the city centre one day.

Before any of that though we need to establish ourselves as one of the top teams again.

Sacrilege

40 minutes ago, nick76 said:

I know what you are saying I am aggressive on here sometimes, which has gotten me into trouble.  The reason is that we are a mid table team with potential but we shouldnt overlook that most players in this team are replaceable.  I'd argue that aside from Jack and Martinez, that they all are.  Fans say why bring X player or type of player because they wont sit on the bench.  They automatically assume you dont think our player is any good and have an opinion that is out of whack. 

If you look at our players and then compare to the teams we wont to compete with some are floundering.  We have a great bunch of players, many with great potential but for me if we want to fight for top 4 places in the coming seasons then these guys have to either improve dramatically or be replace/pushed to back up.  Jack and Martinez are the only genuine top 4 talents at the moment.  We have players like Konsa and Watkins that are showing that they could very easily be top 4 talent.  We just keep going and improving those guys and adding real quality to get us to top 4 but we have to stop assuming that our players arent upgradeable because they are.  We have to do slowly and correctly, and keep the ones that are going to step up to the next level.  I believe we have a bunch that could step up to the next level but by the balance of stats some wont, we need to manage that correctly and I think our Management team will do that. 

I am delighted where we are, where we have come from and we have a great core of a team, which has some real potential.  We cannot stop, we have to keep improving and adding better players to keep progressing.  As we saw when Jack was out, we saw a lot of issues with this team so there is still work to do and some favourites will need to be replaced to continue moving forwards but it doesnt mean i dont think highly of those same players.

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.