david-avfc

For the reasons I mentioned in the post you quoted. He is down the pecking order and unlikely to pay, unless we can arrange a quick sale his wages are just a cost to the club. We don’t know what fee we will get for him - if anything at all as there’s rumours of him leaving on loan to the championship which at best will cover his wages (if it even goes that far). Gerrard has complained about a “bloated” squad which tells us he sees the number of first team players as a hindrance. We can’t just stockpile players in the hope someday someone bids on them. If we shift him on this summer then great but so far that hasn’t happened and now it looks like we’re going to be trying to push a player out just after we paid them money to stay which doesn’t make sense unless something is lined up

He’s been linked to Watford before so hopefully there’s some truth in this rumour rather than it being a pointless rehash of old rumours I don’t get why we didn’t just release him to be honest, maybe the club can make some profit off him but it just seems small fry in the grand scheme of things and would have been cleaner for all parties to shake hands and walk away,. He’s never going to play after Chambers and Carlos signed and we’re potentially stuck paying his wages which doesn’t suit either side

IMO it’s simple, the club just have to accept that the Ings / Watkins partnership isn’t what we need and instead we need to prioritise playing one over the other and maximising the potential of either Watkins or Ings rather than compromising on both. Neither may be “perfect” but focusing on getting the best out of one will result in a step up in returns pretty quickly

If he scored 14 goals would you consider that a good return? That’s how many league goals he scored in his first season, so to me he should be able to replicate that providing we don’t waste him in a crap set up which doesn’t suit him (i.e. 2 up front). Personally if he hit around that figure I would see that as a good return.

Didn’t watch the game today but seems like the overwhelming view is that we significantly improved in the second half when we switched to a 4-3-3. It’s only a friendly of course but trying shoehorn Ings and Watkins together cost us last season and if we still believe it’s our best option I fear it will continue to cost us. We have very decent attacking options but we need to get the best out of them

You’ve forgotten the mighty Mile

At what point does deliberately not saying “yes” start to mean “no” I think that point was probably several months ago If he does sign, then great, but it seems like if that happens it’s because he’s changed his mind, not because it was always his first choice

There’s no doubt he’s considered to be up there as the best in the current youth categories but it’s not like he’s bursting down the doors of the senior set up. Not saying that there’s a huge number of English players ahead of him but the genuine best of the best over the years are often way ahead of the curve at that age. Bellingham for example is already a regular in the main England squad and has been a first choice at club level for a few seasons now - that’s what a generational talent looks like. He could still become a great player, or he could be a total dud but it’s not like he’s out there doing it right now, he’s still only a youth player

The window still runs until the end of August right? So still 6 weeks away. I’m sure we would have liked to get it sorted earlier but hopefully there’s still chance to get some movement before the end of the window. I just cannot see why JPB and Davis wouldn’t be able to find loans into the championship for example. They’d find a new club the day Villa put them up for loan. I guess with Davis maybe we’re hoping for a sale but were we getting greedy with the price? One I don’t really get though is why we renewed Hause’s deal as now he’s 5th choice in his position and is now part of the “bloat” Gerrard is complaining about, he could have been released this summer

Although £15m for Targett which I think also included the loan fee, seemed a bit on the low side considering he’s a reasonable PL player joining another PL team to presumably be a first choice starter

Great to have him back. With the new signing Carlos we don’t really need to rush him back from this point either so can make sure he is 100% right before starting. 4 good quality centre backs competing for game time now, it’s gone from a position of weakness to possibly a position of strength

He can sign a pre contract agreement but would still be a villa player until his contract expires in July 2023

Kaden Young looked lively today and then scored a cracking goal at the end. With the heat and it being a preseason friendly it’s hard to judge but was definitely one who caught the eye in a slightly underwhelming overall team performance

No one ever has criticised him for not being a world beater Everyone knows youngsters need game time to develop and are simply not going to be the finished article at 17 or 18 years old. But, if Chukweumeka was always planning on leaving, which based on this contract saga it looks like this is the case, then there was never any point playing him because we were never going to benefit from his development and quite simply we have better senior players in the squad who could have played instead. This is why his contribution on the pitch has rightly been criticised, because if there’s no development gain for the club he has to be better than Sanson, Luiz, Nakamba, McGinn, Ramsey etc to deserve game time and frankly he hasn’t demonstrated it on the pitch (although Sanson hasn’t done much either)

I don't mind if he wants to move on, other players have moved clubs at young ages and have been successful in doing so, particularly those moving to Germany in recent years. After all we signed Carney from Northampton Town anyway so we can't complain too much at him wanting to do the same thing again! But what does irk me is that it seems like the lad has been given preferential treatment to entice him to stay - all our other youngsters have been loaned out first, and none of them were given reasonable PL game time at the age of 17 - and it looks like we've wasted our time when we could have prioritised giving other youngsters game time, or just playing senior players and maybe picking up more points during the season in games like Leeds, Burnley or even Liverpool and Man City. It's not his fault as he's just playing the cards he's been dealt to the best he see's them, but for the club it seems like poor planning as this could have been foreseen well in advance as transfer rumours go as far back as 2 years with this lad. I would love us to continue to develop youngsters, hopefully Ramsey will be our next home grown superstar and will then hopefully be followed by the likes of Archer, Kesler-Hayden among others. However, the players we chose to bring through at the very basic level have to be committed to Villa, if we are committed to developing them. The point of the youth system is to improve the club in the long run, either through selling them for significant transfer fees or bringing them into the senior squad. If we prioritise developing youngsters who don't want to stay around for the long haul it is hard to see what the benefit is.

Crazy how some fans have such a vendetta against him for some reason

Yeah most of them I swear are managed by kids, well if they aren't I'd be pretty worried to be honest. The lad PGL is a reasonable follow as he looks at the data side of things so a bit different to the generic nonsense fan account. Villa Academy is also good for u23's / /u18's coverage. The rest can be binned off.

But according to the VillaTV interview when he gets announced he’s a lifelong Aston Villa fan and has always dreamed of living in Birmingham

I was going to post that I thought he died, but before posting I did a quick check and he’s still alive but retired after having some kind of cardiac arrest on the pitch in one game

We all know the impact John Terry had on the likes of Grealish (and by extension the impact of not having those types around beforehand). I think Young will be a great influence on the rest of the squad, and he can also slot in to a few positions if required, he's a useful utility player and I don't believe he's totally useless on the pitch - not like Micah Richards who was a busted flush for years before we finally got rid

Not going to get too bogged down on individual performances in our first pre season match, but saw Ashley Preece raving about him today, not so sure from me - he’s a very tidy player but didn’t show much cutting edge and either lacked the pace or the confidence to bust forwards on a few occasions when space opened up

A promising youngster isn’t going to improve on the bench, so this gives him the opportunity to go out to league 1 or 2 and play 30 or 40 real games not just kids games so he should come back twice the player. As for Young, he’s a versatile back up not sure we’d want to rely on him though. Think he’s probably only a year or 2 away from retirement but seems like a good senior pro to have around the dressing room for the youngsters and to set standards for the rest. This one just makes a lot of sense to me. A relatively inexpensive signing, will do a role in the squad, and as it’s a loan it leaves our options open if he impresses, or not

Makes a difference with a proper sports reporter doing the interviews, Michelle Owen who’s usually on sky sports. Better questions for a start and then able to ask good follow on questions to keep the conversation flowing rather than just following a list of inane questions like they usually do

Also because of the fact we got battered and it was the worst midfield performance of the season by a mile He wasn’t that bad individually in that game, but it was a shocking performance as a midfield unit and he was 1/3 of it, so rightfully that experiment wasn’t repeated. I don’t know what the issue with Sanson is, but two managers now haven’t fancied him and although he’s looked OK in cameos here and there he hasn’t really done anything to stand out. It’s up to him to win the shirt and he simply hasn’t done enough in the eyes of the manager, and I have to say I haven’t seen anything from him either, perhaps harsh given his lack of game time but I’m not clamouring to see more of him

I don’t know anything other than what’s on the official website, but it suggests the number of tickets were ringfenced separately for each tranche - otherwise they’d have stated more clearly that the second and third tranches were subject to availability only, and nowhere does it say it’s first come first served for the first tranche only. The point about the volume of tickets matching the number of invited fans is that if your name gets called up you’re guaranteed a seat if you take up the offer, not that all the tickets are being offered immediately to the first tranche. I assume each tranche initially was set out at a fixed number, and then any unsold tickets from the first tranche were rolled into the second tranche, and then into the third, and any residual ones from that rolled into an extra 4th sales window. On the AVFC Support Twitter it says tickets in this 4th group are subject to availability only which suggests they’re expecting to sell them all and they’ve slightly oversubscribed the numbers.