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?

8 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

I can actually see that being the truth. I haven't paid much attention to the man, but he comes across as a company man, a yes man. Someone with a spotless CV politically. 

Someone so boring and dry I bet he's never ventured past missionary. 

I bet anyone with a tattoo or too much hair gel makes him feel akward. 

I bet he hates the fact that Jack is as good as he is. With socks down low and everything.

Pillock. 

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:

15 hours ago, Mjvilla said:

Has Richard O'Kelly taken over Smith's role as the man that sets up the cones?

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..)

34 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

 

So the international and Premier League window are closed and there are 10 days left for EFL deals, it has been an eventful few weeks.

It is incredible to think how different things could and perhaps should have been, we could very easily be in the Championship now wondering which of the players we had left were going to get picked off by the PL clubs. Had we gone down I'm certain PL clubs would have circled for the obvious targets but would have waited until this point hoping to bag a bargain.

Instead we sit in a lofty position in the PL, with the best squad we've had in 10 years and we can pick over the EFL if we so wish. It is proper Sliding Doors/parallel worlds stuff.

There is no point recapping who we've signed, we all know and pretty much all have the same view so far on those players. The team has improved significantly.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping for a forward to arrive yesterday but when I stop and think about it, I actually think not adding one makes a lot of sense. Perhaps more sense than spending it now and finding we are short in another position in January and having to go down the loan route.

Last summer mainly through necessity we went all in in the summer, chips on the table and balls out. Then injuries hit and we needed a keeper, midfielder and striker. In came Reina, Drinkwater and Samatta. Do we want to be in that position again come January?

As wealthy as the owners are there are limits both imposed and self-imposed on what we can spend. 

This is all hypothetical, obviously we don't know what budget remains or the thinking at the club but I guess its just an attempt to give a possible and I think logical theory as to way we look a little light up front.

We will probably go and buy a Championship forward now I've said this but I rather suspect we won't.

Either way its a gamble but if they are holding some money back then I think that would be the right move and more evidence of having learned from the mistakes of last season.

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.

47 minutes ago, messi11 said:

Him and watkins have a great connection. The assist to him against Man United pre season. Assist against Bristol, Assist against Liverpool and should of had more. 

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.

10 hours ago, TrentVilla said:

I’m not taking anything away from Dean Smith but it’s very hard not to see parallels between how Leicester played under Ranieri with Shakespeare and how we played this evening.

10 hours ago, PieFacE said:

Came to post similar. Even how Watford thrashed Liverpool last season was very similar.

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?

Just now, Wes said:

Incredible! What a ride this thread has been so far this summer. It's not over yet, but this would be a truly amazing signing.

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.

41 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

Has a reporter ever asking Smith about Rashica? I find it odd that a reporter asked about Roca in an interview today (based on a spurious link) and not a player that we've been linked to all Summer. 
Or maybe he has been asked and I've missed it?

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!

11 minutes ago, KenjiOgiwara said:

Traore doesn't really cut it. Hopefully he delivers, but I wanted someone with pace. He looks slow as feck. 

Hause and Taylor terrifies me. I really want better options there. Being stuck with them for enough matches and we're ****. Especially Hause. 

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.

5 minutes ago, sne said:

Maybe we should go back to Belgium and ask Anderlecht for Jeremy Doku?

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.

Just now, It's Your Round said:

Glory hunter! 

Welcome though 

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...

On 29/09/2020 at 14:57, mikeyp102 said:

When was the last time we had a Cm come through the academy? I’m thinking Davis or Barry? Such a hard position to break through in. If he establishes himself in the role he’ll have done well. 

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

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!