david-avfc

How much can we realistically demand for a striker who got just 7 goals in the championship last season and has such a terrible injury record? A few mil at best

FFS I was gripped then, what happens next??

We’ve been linked with Diaby, Williams and Barnes, similar players in terms of being quick and direct, but we’ve also been linked to Goncalves and Asensio who are clearly more creative playmaker style of players. I don’t think Emery is the type of manager who would attempt to sign players without really understanding how they’d fit into his system so the fact we’ve been linked with players with such differing profiles kind of suggests we’re maybe in the market for both types and two wide players will be coming in, either to play together or to provide different tactical options.

Now it’s finally been confirmed we’ll have to find something else to complain about - any suggestions?

The problem is the squad sizes are limited, in the PL it’s 25 players which is fine and what we’re used to, but in Europe it’s effectively 21 standard players + 4 club homegrown players. So in practice we’ll end up with more games, but a smaller squad! There has to be some tough decisions who stays and who is sold, I think Traore is firmly in the latter category as he’s currently 3rd choice in his preferred position of right wing and we’re presumably looking to improve that area further

To be fair he probably would have looked like a donkey if we’d signed him to play for Steven Gerrard

I’ve seen that image from Google search before but is it actually correct though? The “1970’s” one (before my time!) I thought was from the 90’s, unless it was used by the club much earlier and then resurrected later on? Surely someone on here would know that for sure? A Google search for Aston Villa kit 1970 shows we had a completely different badge on the kits at that time (the blue lion in isolation with AV), so if that one’s wrong then I don’t think this picture can be trusted with the two really early ones

It was so obvious what they were aiming for with the survey to be honest. Yes it was deliberately biased and designed in a leading way, that was poor from the club, but it’s pretty naive to not have realised all the questions implying new premium areas in the holte end were going to lead to expensive corporate / private style areas in the holte

Almost as if his highlights have been carefully selected to show him doing good things

Not sure if 3 games means much at all, but he does have some PL experience and was apparently very good for Luton so surely he’ll be a saleable asset to one of the lower or newly promoted PL teams, or at worst one of the decent championship clubs. Surprised his future hasn’t already been sorted to be honest

My concern on Kessie is he’ll probably be on a huge wage coming from a club with arguably the least financial sense in Europe, plus decent sized transfer fee too (ok €20m not mega money, but it quickly adds up) just for a player to presumably be back up to Kamara? I don’t have a problem with big wages for clear upgrades to the starting 11 but for squad players things could get very bloated very quickly if we go too far down that route

So how did Hudson Odoi start for England before he’d even started a league game for Chelsea

Think Emery only wants to bring in players who are really going to push us on, we could easily go for standard “mid table” signings but Emery wants better than that. Let’s hope we eventually hit gold with one of these targets, top class attacking players are a rarity as it is before you consider cost and willingness to join.

Just seems like the perfect opportunity for him right now; we need more homegrown players, we are light on centre forwards, we are going to have fixture congestion (hopefully) all season and we’re going to face plenty of teams slightly below PL standard opposition which offers an easier route into the first team for him than jumping straight into the PL.

Shows how ridiculous transfer rumours and the associated hysteria are nowadays

Chiesa has been good for Fiorentina and Juventus, Damsgaard was only ever a squad player at Sampdoria so not really an equal comparison. Whether Chiesa can adapt to the more aggressive higher intensity PL especially after a serious injury is another question entirely.

Someone like Danny Ings you mean? Either a past-it player picking up their last pay day, or a £40m+ player to sit on the bench… neither of those prospects fill me with much confidence at all! I get the arguments about not wanting to rely solely on Archer, but at some point he’s got to take the step up, he has to be given a chance and buying someone to play ahead of him but not even being first choice himself will just block his progress. Yes Watkins could break him leg and miss the season, but that could happen to literally any player at any club, at any time, you have to take the risk somewhere down the line - and there are a lot of worse back up strikers in the Prem than a 21 year old who’s averaged a goal or assist every 91 minutes in the championship, and even better for the England U21s.

Can understand the mixed views on F Torres, Man City were quick to cash in on him as soon as the opportunity arose, Barca seem to want to get rid already. Only 23 years old, but already made 2 underwhelming big money transfers already. If there’s genuine interest from our side, hopefully it’s because Emery knows exactly what is needed and has identified Torres as a player to fill that need. Not convinced Barca have the remotest clue what they’re doing when it comes to buying players so this lad not quite fitting there is not necessarily an indication of anything as long as his confidence isn’t knocked from 2 big moves not working out.

I think he played some games in the project restart period if I recall correctly, but might be getting muddled up with Hause who played at left back for us a few times I’m not hugely convinced on Konsa being our main RB next season but then I understand people are saying that’s what Emery did at Villareal. A right back and right winger would be my priority positions to strengthen now in this window

20 year old left back for Valencia. According to Whoscored has started 11 times in his senior career over two seasons… would be a strange signing tbh

Already Tuesday and it’s not been confirmed yet. Monchi out!!

Maybe he’s smart but just has really ginormous feet

Everyone wants him to rediscover his form, he was a great player in his prime and seems like a down to earth and nice guy too. But realistically at this point he’s looking like a busted flush. The old cliche “class is permanent, form is temporary” starts to run thin when a player has been poor for 5 years. If we can clear a place in the squad and get all of his wages off the books I think we’ll be better for it.

Do we actually want all these players or are we just trolling West Brom at this point?

Agree the old lion since it got “refurbished” in the championship looks really good, especially when you just see it in isolation. The problem with the “Lerner” badge was the colours were off, too much blue and yellow and no claret, and no one liked “AVFC”. Those things could have been easily fixed to create a better overall badge without a drastic rebranding, but the nostalgia for the round badge muddied the water as to what was really needed.