david-avfc

1 hour ago, Mantis said:

RB for me. It's a glaring weak spot.

I’m a bit worried that it’s so obvious we won’t do anything about it, in typical villa fashion 

1 minute ago, sidcow said:

You're not seriously suggesting he couldn't have cancelled Terrace View? 

He was appointed in mid May and I'm guessing construction started pretty quickly after the season finished so yeah there's probably not much he could have done in practice considering the Terrace View plans would have been finalised months in advance. The blame for the Terrace View 100% lies firmly with Purslow, not the guy who turned up a few days before the builders arrived.

4 hours ago, villa4europe said:

Arnau martinez their RB

Half of Europe is after him according to the rags 

 

Release clause of €20m apparently so easily available on that perspective, but perhaps not so easy if every one else is looking at him too

22 minutes ago, lexicon said:

RB is the only position I think is an issue tbh. I want to see Pau and Konsa as our CB pairing with someone more cool, calm and collected than Cash at RB. 

Agreed and even if you like Cash, having to cut up our centre back pairing and move our best centre back out wide in order to cover right back when our first choice isn’t available is far from ideal anyway

1 hour ago, HalfTimePost said:

Tbh the most frustrating thing is it's the first time I don't think he's really seen the issues. There's been calls he's made in the past that I disagreed with - there always will be - but this is the first time I think I've really disagreed with his post match presser as well.

He's saying we lost it in the final 30 mins and it's disappointing after the first 60 minutes. Ok, yeah, the goals came then. But we didn't deserve to win the match based on the first 60 minutes.

The first 30 minutes, yeah, sure, we looked like potential Champions, we were destroying them. Onana was bricking it every time he got the ball to his feet. Players were moaning at each other.

After that? It was like early 2000s United. We were constantly under it. We should've made changes much much sooner. By the time their 2nd went in, it was the wrong time to bring on Diaby and Zaniolo. Should've done it 20 minutes sooner to give them something else to think about.

Based on the 1st 60mins, we didn't deserve to win the game. It was frustrating that he was happy until then, as it was already clear for a good 30 minutes how that game was going to go if we didn't change something

Agreed, really disappointed with Emery last night. It was so obvious what was coming, we took the early lead but the players were obviously done in from the recent matches and once the tide started turning they had nothing left to give. In Emery’s defence we were down to the bare bones in the squad, but there were so many tired performances out there something had to be done even if they’re not his first choice players on the bench 

Right back in January is a top priority so Ezri can move back in the middle, he’s too important to use out wide

Played OK tonight but as others have said, he just isn’t a natural fit for Emery’s system at all.  Not having a player who can receive the ball and turn into midfield when being pressed is a huge miss when he’s asked to step in 

6 hours ago, est1874 said:

 

Second question, if he's not good enough to start for them in the Championship, would he be a good enough backup option for a team in the PL top four?

Don’t you know how transfer rumours work? They new guy is always better, usually the more obscure the better they are. Not sure if a championship striker with 5 goals this season and only 9 goals in his last 2 PL seasons is obscure enough though, maybe someone from the Belgian league would whet the appetite even more, the next Samatta would be ideal. That or Danny Welbeck, as one poster was arguing the other day, his 4 goals a season would go down a treat, , obviously great competition for Watkins

12 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Bournemouth had Justin Kluivert on the bench today, he's better than Duran.

Beto scored a couple for Everton recently and previously hit double figures in Serie A.

Richarlison not been great for Spurs at all but he's on a nice scoring run currently, dosen't make their team when Maddison is fit again.

West Ham had Ings on the bench. Turned out a waste of money for them but ultimately his goals to game ratio was good last season but made sense to cash in to claw back some FFP.

Newcastle don't start Wilson and Isak that often so one of them is usually on the bench.
 

Welbeck is a decent enough sub striker for Brighton, great header the other night.

Kaladzjic has scored a couple for Wolves off the bench, would've started way more for them but for the ACL on his debut.

So yes there are plenty of backup strikers in the league better than Jhon Duran. 

Duran has potential but this debate feels exactly the same as when everyone was bigging up Kienan Davis and why bother signing anyone better to put some pressure on  Ollie or at least give us a decent option off the bench in games we aren't winning.

Just throwing a load of names about there, without proving anything. I mean Wellbeck? You must be having a laugh, he’s 33 and his best goal return in any of the last 10 seasons is 6 goals.

The others aren’t exactly convincing either, apart from Isak/Wilson (who pretty much play equally) and Richarlison (who cost £60m) none of the others have scored more PL goals than Duran this season anyway. 

If anything your post has only confirmed to me that if that’s the apparent “good backups” in the league then Duran is perfectly fine.

Ramsey was poor tonight, but perhaps a bit harsh to expect him to do too much too quickly after returning from such a long time out with injury

17 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Donk struggles with a low block against the Bosnian champions. You really think he would have helped today?

If Dendoncker can’t get a game when the only other player in his specialist position is suspended then you have to ask why we’ve kept him at all for this long. It’s obvious he doesn’t fit Emery’s system at all. We should have pushed him harder out of the door in the summer and brought someone else in who has some use within the squad

He’s a pace player and those types are always going to struggle against very organised ultra defensive teams. A shame he’s been a bit off it recently, I think he’ll come good

Cash is a decent middling PL player, not a standard to be sniffed at but I don’t think he’s an Emery player. It seemed like the plan in the summer was to phase him out with Konsa moved over to the right but the squad injuries put a stop to that, and now Konsa has gone up so many levels you wouldn’t want to move him out of the centre anyway. 

2 hours ago, CVByrne said:

Zaniolo is €5m loan fee and a €22.5m buy option and €15.5m in potential add-ons.

Zaniolo is an Italian international, has played multiple seasons in Europe including the Champions League. 

Philogene is 2 and a half years younger than Zaniolo, has played a total of 8 minutes of Premier League football.

Why do people try compare things that are in no way comparable? 

Having international experience and experience of top competitions is obviously great but a CV alone doesn’t kick the ball on the pitch. The reality is Zaniolo has been poor for villa so far, I’d love for him to improve and there’s obviously some talent there, but it’s an expensive loan and the buy option is eye wateringly high so I’d expect more from him versus what we’ve seen so far. The point about Philogene isn’t to say he’s PL superstar level but if FFP is an issue as it’s so frequently talked about, then developing up a player like Philogene is a smart way to save on transfer costs rather than buying expensive squad players who don’t quite hit the mark.

1 hour ago, lexicon said:

You've also got the benefit of hindsight. JPB hadn't proved himself capable of producing consistently in the final third before this season and there was no way in hell he was getting first team.

Personally I felt like I’d seen enough from him in preseason to think he was worth a chance. Out the 3 sold in the summer he was the only one to make an impression on the team in pre season, Archer and Ramsey showed they were well off the first team level but Philogene whilst still a bit rough around the edges was one of our better players in several games, he looked ready. I am not surprised he’s currently one of the highest rated players in the championship. Had we sold him for twice or three times as much I’d say fair enough, but as per my original post the £5m boost for FFP figures was straight out of the door for a loan fee for Zaniolo, who so far in half a season has not shown he was any more ready for PL football than Bidace. Hopefully Zaniolo can improve, I think he will do, but there’s a hell of a long way he needs to go to justify a €22.5m rising to €38m transfer fee

8 hours ago, CVByrne said:

Well we are running up to the FFP limit. There is the more stringent squad cost rule in Europe which becomes more restrictive each year and we will have Jack's sale rolling off our income at end of next season.

The Diaby deal and the Zaniolo deal. They both have a lot of of add ons which are all easily achievable. What this does is has the initial annual amortisation cost low but pushes more cost to later.

We are getting into tricky situation and we need to move players on. Extend a couple of contracts. Grow revenue especially like qualifying for Champions League 

Crying over spilled milk I know, but selling Philogene for £5m and replacing him with Zaniolo with a €5m loan fee + €38m option (including add ons) which is compulsory under certain conditions doesn’t seem particularly sensible on a FFP perspective considering the underwhelming impact Zaniolo has had so far. It’s hard to argue Philogene couldn’t have matched Zaniolo’s 0 goals and 0 assists in the league so far. I guess they play slightly different positions and maybe that’s why Philogene didn’t fit, but if FFP is an issue as is being implied then we need probably need to be smarter and more pragmatic

38 minutes ago, sidcow said:

In terms of odd takes, that's a pretty odd one. 

Why is it? There’s only 1 example of a recent redevelopment at villa park and the execution has been appalling. If you can’t get a small upgrade right then there’s not much hope of getting a much bigger and far more complex project right either. The original plans have been shitcanned for a reason, someone has looked at it and realised they weren’t good enough either economically, practically or probably both

If the new upper holte is the reference point for what was planned then I think Heck is right to put a block on things - The Terrace View IMO massively missed the mark, it’s absolutely messed up the facilities in upper holte for most fans and I assume hasn’t been as popular as expected. The Villa Live thing also never made any sense, a huge cost which was never going to get the required footfall apart from a short window on match days. I think both raises questions on Purslow’s judgement on these types of development projects, which as far as I’m aware isn’t his area of expertise. You can’t green light a £100m infrastructure project if you’re not sure on the feasibility of it.

8 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

To cause exactly the delay he did and waste more time.

He probably thought Maupay would react and they’d both get booked… which for Maupay would have meant a second yellow. Maupay was clever in that he went down (farcically) and then stayed down, letting the chaos unfold around him. Martinez took the bait and then in the nonsense that followed Kamara got sent off… in that sense Maupay got what  he wanted, a bizarre player really losing at home and he’s more interested in winding up the opposition than actually scoring no wonder his goal record in the PL is abysmal  

3 hours ago, Kiwivillan said:

We can't fit another top class DM in the team and give them enough minutes. Man City have 1 top class DM plus Phillips who they never play. What's your plan with Tim? I don't have an opinion on him really but some seem to want him to come through or do we need to spend +40m plus on back up when there are other areas that are more pressing

I don’t think we need another top class DM, just a decent-ish player that’s able to fit into Emery’s system. Dendoncker isn’t a bad player but it’s clear Emery doesn’t trust him - there has to be a player available on a similar level of quality but can actually pass the ball, which is all we need as back up 

Was at fault for their goal, very poor defending from him but made up with it for his goal. Apart from switching off at the corner for their goal he looked decent in both ends of the pitch 

He got a bit carried away playing the pantomime villain today, unnecessary at the end and causing things to kick off has now cost us for the next 3 matches now. To be fair it's the first time since the corner last season vs Arsenal he's done anything stupid.

1 minute ago, villaglint said:

Is it 3 games? 

Ridiculous that pushing someone has the same punishment as trying to break an opponent’s leg

8 hours ago, TheMightyVillans said:

Maybe it’s just the camera work but seems like emery gets the most pissed off at cash compared to other players. Seems to have happened on a few occasions since emery came in. 

Yeah I sat down by the dugout for one of the European games and Cash seemed to be receiving the most instructions and shouts from the staff compared to anyone else