ZL-

Quietly very excited about Barry, it's pleasing to know he simply isn't an ex La Masia flop and instead Barca wanted to keep but we blew them away with the offer for a 16 year old at the time. One aspect of his game that will make or break his emergence is his physicality, I know he has time to develop still but it seems that his technical ability is under no doubt whatsoever but it he could fall into risk of being a little bit too diminutive for the rigours of the prem like Dan Crowley / Barry Bannan.

He's the complete opposite to Trezeguet, which I'm glad as it's one of the few positions we have a different option available to us. He seems so graceful in possession, I always have the feel he could pull off something incredible when he approaches the final 3rd. His tendency to take up CF positions in build up is something I think could work well for us given Watkins comfort in moving out to the wing. Given our run until Xmas I could see a lot of game time for Traore as there may be less of a need for Trez's defensive workrate. Will be nice to see what he looks like after a few 90 minutes with the first XI.

Percy has mentioned in his recent article that we are paying the full £110k wages and there is no option to buy, which echoes the far more unreliable Gregg Evans. Behind a pay wall but for those who would like to read: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2020/10/17/special-agent-jack-grealish-new-aston-villa-recruit-ross-barkley/ @TrentVilla the credit has to go to you for breaking the transfer but I seem to remember your source also told you that Chelsea would be paying a portion of the wages and there would be an option to buy. Do you know if maybe the goal posts move or this is just guesswork by Percy?

Haha yes very true, Jack's flair seems to wind up some of the boring old guard who think they can get away with casting him as 'lazy' (as it's the one thing you could never say about them, even if they were distinctly average...) As for Southgate himself:

I meant ROK instead of Cutler my bad! But yes from what I've read, ROK leads all of our training sessions. Here's excerpt from Birmingham Mail (not best source I know..)

Good analysis, it's easy with the artificial hype of deadline day to think we have to do more, I myself can be guilty of that. Ultimately are first XI is more good enough for top 10, yes a few injuries could see us plummeting to the lower depths but this is true of any team below the top 6 probably. Listening to the Matt Maher analysis, we may well have gotten that last semi luxury player in to cover these positions we are worried about - but we did overpay more than budgeted for Watkins, Cash and Martinez, which probably would have added up to the 15-20m we needed for another. Given the impact of those 3 already I think we are all in agreement we are glad we overpaid to get them over the line. January will present some amazing opportunities, in terms of financing we are in such a relatively strong position and as COVID goes on and matchday revenue is no longer collected, our relative financial strength gets stronger and stronger. We probably wouldn't have even be at the table for Milot Rashica pre-COVID but imagine what high profile players we might be able to sign after a few more months of no matchday revenue. The owners are smartly very weary of FFP and so I believe they never want to be operating at the maximum of our capacity in regards to this and always want to leave a spare £20m or so to take advantages of opportunities such as the Jan window.

This is a really important point, Watkins seemingly likes to drift to LW which puts him in a perfect position for Trez's crosses to the back post. I thought Targett would love having Watkins on the field, as he's our best crosser and had so many chances go begging last year but the addition of Barkley puts lets pressure on him having to progress up field to link up with Grealish and lets Targett focus on defending. Outside of Targett, Trez is probably our most natural crosser of the ball and the relationship with Watkins is blossoming very quickly and may well cement Trez's place in the team.

I am obviously elated with the team and the result last night but also very fearful. We do not win last night without Watkins, our gameplan NEEDS a rapid striker to work. One injury to Watkins and I'm very worried - even if Wes and Davis are in good form, they can't undertake the role Watkins does for our playstyle. Rashica is unlikely to me but a fast striker of some description will really help me sleep better, if they can play across front 3 great, but really ST is the position we are desperate for the cover.

Came here to say both of these and beaten to the punch! The long diagonal with a drifting striker running the channels is certainly a key tactic of the Ranieri/Shakespeare title winning Leicester team. I believe the ball over the top behind the space vacated by the fullback was the exact strategy Watford executed when Shakespeare was number 2 as well. At first I wasn't so sure if it would be a too many cooks situation with 3 number 2's but so far it seems to be working well; Shakespeare for general playstyle/tactics, Cutler for specific training ground drills and Terry for maybe general motivation, 1 on 1 coaching with players? Speaking of Terry did anyone see him at VP last night, no reason to think he wasn't just don't remember the camera panning to him at all?

Should he sign where would we see him fit in; a) RW instead of Traore b) LW with Grealish moving to #10, dropping Barkley (or JMG with Barkley moving to c) #10 with Barkley dropped or moving to 8 at JMG expense Option A does the seem the likeliest but I do feel we are prepping to slowly move Grealish back to 10 and then we will have both wingers inverted (just like Dean said his preference is). Would be harsh on JMG or Barkley but gives us options anyway - if we want to push on there are naturally gonna be some disappointed players!

Does anyone know the agreed fee for Klaassen? I know Ajax's bid was around the €10m mark. It seems that Bauman has really messed up at WB by playing hardball to this extent with Rashica, whether it's us or not, I can see someone swooping in at the last minute with them having to sell below the €25m valuation if it's true that they need to sell him to keep the lights on. They might have even be able to keep hold of Klassen if they had sold Rashica earlier in the window.

It's a very good point, especially if its true that Roca was immediately dismissed yesterday. The coverage on Rashica has been strange, some fairly reputable sources such as Fabrizio Romano have confirmed the deal discussions but in the mainstream media we've yet to see even a passing mention of it. The optimist in me, thinks that Dean has banned journo's from asking due to a very intense negotiating tactic by Villa (rumour has it WB will need to take out a loan to cover operating costs for the year, if he's not sold?) The reality of it is he most likely joins the famed list of Sneijder, Kiyotake, Belhanda et al and the club don't want to even mention his existence because they know fans will be disappointed. King is the most likely option but am I deluded for thinking Malen seems attainable? He's had a bit of buzz around him for a while but 11g in Dutch league doesn't exactly make him Haaland level.

No one covered themselves in glory last night but Nakamaba performed his duties well. I'm not expecting him to go on to become our next Idrissa Gueye but I've seen more good games from him since he joined than I have from most of this back up team. Most of his shockers came in that period from January when we were in absolute freefall and by the time we restarted the league Luiz luckily had absolute skyrocketed in performances If a good offer came I would consider selling but I am interested to see if he can catch up to the speed of the premier league like Konsa and Luiz (of course unlikely to that level). Depth is going to be key this season and he's one of the few players I have faith in as a backup.

This result doesn't bother me too much considering the quality left in the QF and the fixture congestion this year. What it does make me do is absolutely count my blessings that we scraped by and stayed up, as more or less this if what we'd be looking at week in week out if we went down. Maybe not all of them would have left in the summer window but Grealish, Mings, McGinn you could be sure of, only Trez and Targett missing from last nights a game I could see sticking with us in the championship. Silver linings because thankfully the truth couldn't be further from that now!

At risk of being extremely reactionary of only 55 minutes being down 1-0 but regardless it makes me feel that, whilst Traore looks technically very good, we really haven't fulfilled our brief of injecting genuine pace into that team, and as a team that relies so much on the counter this is a disappointment. I agree with the general consensus watching this that we need depth for ST, LB and CB in January / next summer. Taylor and Hause really do look like they will cost us even in very brief cameos and whilst I rate Davis he's a very specific type of striker that I feel might not suit our gameplan should we have to rely upon him for an extended period of time...

Good point, I definitely could see him getting minutes there purely due to rotational reasons however I can't see imagine it being considerable as right now that would mean AEG at LW unless we sign someone new. There is a world in where we as a collective we help Barkley crack into the England team in that 8/10 position that Ward Prowse/Winks/Mount hold and Grealish is left at home due to being stuck behind very serious LW competition!

I'm ecstatic for Jack getting a consecutive call-up, this time in the first draft! Even though he has signed that new deal the worrier in me thinks that keeping him in this England team is going to be integral for us keeping him at Villa. Whilst personally I prefer Jack at LW I thought given his public comments (as recent as a month or so ago when looking at his ratings on the new FIFA) its clear he prefers #10. I had personally speculated that any contract renewal would have had a gentlemanly agreement to push him back to #10 and I thought the pursuit of Rashica was evidence of this. Even though I prefer him at LW I don't blame him for preferring #10 looking at the England squad Jack will have a far easier time displacing Mount, Ward-Prowse, Winks and Foden than he will Sancho, Sterling, Rashford and now Harvey Barnes. Whilst I back Jack I can see the emergence of Harvey Barnes being a perfect excuse for Southgate not to play Jack and I have a feeling that should Dominic Calvert Lewin's form continue we may try 4-4-2 with him playing alongside Kane - Southgate would love to claim Barnes is better suited for that LW role due to industry etc. A lot of the above is my own opinion and baseless speculation but I do feel keeping Jack away from his preferred #10 is going to be a theme that won't go away and could cause us to lose him.

Very good shout, not seen him play but have heard he's very highly rated and can see he's had good success as LW as well as ST. Given this position is mostly cover, we are at luxury to buy someone of his ilk that might not necessarily hit the ground running. Most our of transfers I don't believe Lange has had much to do on apart from checking stats and giving it the thumbs up (most are attributable to Dean/JT connections even though we can never be sure). I'd like to spin the wheel on one of Lange's moneyball signings really, I feel we have had a really good window in terms of signing established performers and this is a position I feel we could risk an unknown on.

Haha not ashamed to say I was sat in a dark corner pretending it would all go away during the depths of the Xia era (and it looks like it worked! ) Back on the topic of our transfers, with our final transfer from Dean's comments it seems we are looking to add cover to LW and ST seemingly in one player. Whilst Sarr/Rashica fits the brief, I don't see them coming to play second fiddle to Grealish/Watkins, the question asked however is what player who is at a level in line with our aspirations this season can play LW/ST whilst being happy to play second fiddle to Grealish/Watkins? King maybe fits the bill, I'm overly not sold on him but as cover it could work, struggling to think of many more candidates...

Barry Bannan? Perhaps the most hyped academy player I can recall other than Grealish (rightly so!)

Hello all, Long time lurker since the end of the MON era, only feeling comfortable joining the site now given what is inextricably Villa back on the rise! This window has surpassed my personal expectations but in line with Purslow's comments of 'one side to stay up, one side for stability, one side to push on' it certainly is in line with what the ambitious owners have in store. For me Barkley was the last piece of the puzzle in terms of our XI as we are essentially adding competition to the 8 position as well as removing the need for Grealish at 10, which personally I'm sceptical of him repeating his championship performance at that position in the prem. Rashica has been my number 1 target all summer, and it sounds like I'm not the only one! However now Barkley has arrived I'm starting question whether it's a good use of funds. Rashica coming in means the following; a) Rashica LW - Grealish moved to #10 and most likely McGinn dropped for Barkley - this is unfair given we are probably only now just seeing fit McGinn back in the team b) Rashica RW - Traore dropped, despite me preferring Rashica stylistically, Dean has gone on record saying he prefers inverted wingers and this would be taking a left footer off for a right footer, on top of this it would be unlikely we have signed to bench Traore without him having played full game in the prem yet. I do fully agree about the comments that one injury to Grealish means we are back to El Ghazi LW which I'm desperately frightened of however I'm not sure we need to spend £20m+ for that cover. Sarr is more or less the same case but I can't see him coming to be on the bench but if we are able to get on loan initially as mooted it does it make it marginally more likely to me. I thought Jack may have demanded more gametime at #10 with his contract renewal in order to give himself a better chance of getting into the euro's squad, as its more likely he beats out Maddison and Mount in that position rather than Sancho/Sterling, so far that's seemingly not the case but it will interesting to see if that develops into a bigger theme this season should he find himself not getting into the England team at LW.

As I'm sure is the case for many, I have followed VT since the end of the MON era and it only feels right to rubberstamp Villa's position back on the up with actually joining the site and contributing some of the 2 pence I've been holding onto this whole time!