Shaun Teales Moustache

The Haraldsson guy looked decent, but hardly a game changer for us and plays in a position we have a lot of options. Our budget is going to be seriously limited unless we sell off crucial players and selling any of them and replacing them with guys like Haraldsson (or Jonathan David for that matter) is almost certainly taking an immediate step backwards. Outside of RB and DM, it's sell to buy, so any big money suggestions really need to be better than the guys in those positions already imo.

It must have been Diop I was remembering.

I thought Ollie absolutely destroyed him in our game against them. Drag him out of position and he'll follow and then turn him and he doesn't have the agility or pace to get back. Maybe he's playing tactics that he's not capable of, or maybe he's another James Collins and doing it to try to look more useful than he actually is. Either way, he absolutely can't play the RB position that Konsa has been doing (which is our biggest need along with DM), either on the ball or defensively. I don't think he's better than Konsa or Carlos in the actual RCB position either, and if Mings comes back to the level he was, he'll still be the best option there, even on his weak side. I also don't think any team is coming in with a big enough offer for Carlos that it'll be financially beneficial to sign Tosin instead. I don't see it.

Selling a core first team player to improve the team and/or squad is a massive risk and far more likely to harm the team than help it. Diaby was the biggest money signing last year, and he's not even in our strongest eleven. Diego Carlos the year before and he's not even in our strongest eleven. Buendia the year before and he's not even in our strongest eleven. Watkins was the year before that, and tbf he is amazing. But we had a much different squad back then and an example of why we needed to spend big was that he only had to be better than Samatta and a broken Wesley and a never fit Keinan Davis to be the best at his position. The team needs to maintain it's key personnel now more than it needs that kind of investment.

Tim did nothing to change my opinion again today. Way off the pace. Looks like he needs a loan before he's ready for first team consideration. The CM roles are very demanding, hence even experienced guys like Dendonker and Tielemans struggling there.

Talk of selling Kamara is absolute madness. When everyone is fit, he's about the fourth name on the team sheet behind Martinez, Watkins and Luiz. You don't get better by selling your best players. We don't even have cover for him in the squad as it stands, because the highly experienced Premier League and international player that we signed to rotate in that position was woefully inadequate at the role. Tim has been given a great opportunity to step up, but was poor in the one game that he got time to impress, and obviously hasn't done enough to deserve a bigger chance. We have had to move McGinn out of his best position to plug the gap, and even that will be problematic in games where we're not going to dominate. He's a genuine top class defensive midfielder - one of the best young players in the world at the position, who is just entering his prime years. DMs are going for over 100m for now, because of the lack of top class options available. A guy who is not only great defensively, but also athletic and brilliant on the ball is gold dust. We watched our midfield get dominated for about a decade because we had a string of players who were not great, but could "take up an effective place in our system". If we were so screwed by FFP that we needed to sell a key player, we wouldn't be spending significant sums of money on guys like Nedeljkovic and Rogers for the future. And if we did have to sell someone, guys like Cash, Ramsey, Digne, Tielemans that are valuable, but not necessarily in our best eleven would be far more sensible than selling a guaranteed starter when fit. And in practical terms, no team is paying big money for a player coming off an ACL without seeing how they have recovered from it first. Kamara wouldn't even be fit enough to pass a medical this summer. No-one is coming in with bids for Mings or Buendia either.

Anyone know the actual details about signing youth players and FFP? I tried briefly to look it up, but the details were a bit nebulous. Seemed like if you sign an u-21 player and they go into your academy rather than straight into the first team, they don't impact FFP, but there were some caveats to that as well. Basically though, whatever we spent on the young Serb mighn't count against FFP, which might explain a big outlay if we are tight for FFP. Anyone actually know though? If not, someone get Chris Purslow on the case! Other thing I read was that wages were a bigger issue for FFP than transfer fees for us right now, as the wage bill has ballooned relative to a fairly moderate net spend. Dendonker, Chambers, Olsen, Traore, are all on big money without contributing equivocally. We couldn't have signed Pau, Tielemans or Diaby without offering them a massive pay increase. Lenglet and Zaniolo were not planned, but are on big money, replacing injured players already on big money. Emery wants 2 elevens, and doesn't want deadwood, but we currently have deadwood on big money and can't afford to replace them all with big money signing due to FFP, so a couple of signings like the ones suggested might be necessary. The Middlesbrough guy seems a wierd target, but Finn Azaz was also a weird signing that went entirely against the grain of everything the club was doing at the time. He was older than most of the guys they were cutting from the academy, and they immediately sent him out on loan, so they didn't seem to want to train him up. I don't know if they ever thought he'd be good enough for the PL, but someone (probably from his West Brom days) obviously thought he was worth more than what he was at the time. So with the West Brom connection, I can only assume it's a similar deal with this guy.

Excluding penalties, he has 10 goals and 8 Goal Creating Actions (better stat than assists imo) in the equivalent minutes of 24.8 games in the Bundesliga. 2 goals and 3 GCA in the equivalent of 6.2 Champions League games. 5 goals and 2 assists (GCA isn't tracked) in the equivalent of 5.6 cup games. 8 goals and 2 assists (GCA isn't tracked) in 12.5 games at international level in 2022 + 2023. Still very solid production. Played out wide for a decent chunk of those games too.

Werner is an interesting suggestion actually. He looked like he couldn't hit a barn door with a banjo at Chelsea, but the same guy scored 28 in 34 in the Bundesliga the year before, and he has averaged just under a goal every other game in the CL and at international level, so the talent is clearly there. There are a lot of similarities to Watkins, whose finishing was also heavily criticised before Emery came in. They both have a similar physical profile - size, stamina, pace, strength. Their work rate has never been in question. They both drop deep to get involved but also threaten with runs in behind. If Emery could get the best out of him, like he has with Watkins, McGinn, Luiz, etc. he could be a phenomenal signing. He would be ideal backup if anything happened to Ollie or we need to rest him, and he could also play in the other role up front, as his work rate and build up play are excellent, and his directness would be a different option to Diaby. Hasn't played much this season and it looks like he was dropped to the bench before the injuries, so could be available for a bargain fee. It's worth more consideration than just laughing at his time at Chelsea. If teams did the same with Lukaku, Salah, de Bruyne they'd have missed out big.

If we sign Frimpong, he'll basically only play when we play Torres, Carlos and Konsa at the back. Bailey has excelled in that position this season, and Cash has done a different job when more defensive effort has been needed. Frimpong would likely only be replacing the Bailey part of that. We still need a guy who can play a more orthodox RB role. If Konsa is the designated RB, then we'd also need to sign another right sided CB anyway. It might have been different if Mings could have been the left sided version of Konsa, and we didn't have 2 attacking LBs, but it's unlikely Mings will be able to do that when he comes back, and Torres isn't fast enough to do it, so unless we sign someone like Hincapié in place of Digne, we primarily need a RB that is comfortable in basically a back 3. I don't have a problem with signing an attacking RB in theory, but I don't see any sense in spending a huge chunk of the budget on one. Cash is a weaker link than Bailey, McGinn and Ramsey, but Frimpong would eat into their roles more than Cash's. It just doesn't seem like the most sensible use of a limited budget.

I'm the same. It's great looking back at those times now that we're out of that mess, but the club was close to a winding up order, our squad had an average age of about 37 and we had a wage bill higher than half of the PL, but we were still bottom half of the Championship under Bruce. Until Smith came in (and the new owners), we were heading down a path of total destruction. We had a £100m player in the Championship along with a cherry picked squad of highly paid, experienced and mostly accomplished players, but never threatened automatically promotion. Those were very dark days for the most part.

It is a weird thing. I would be horrified if we ever tried to sign Mason Greenwood, but I still love 60s, 70s, 80s music even though a disgusting percentage of those artists were as bad or worse than Greenwood. Morals are flexible, but beliefs are even easier to bypass because I reckon 99% of pro footballers reckon Marxism is a comedy act and haven't a notion where Palestine is. But Emery places huge emphasis on the collective part of the team, which I reckon is a big reason he was so big on McGinn from the start, so I don't think he'd sign someone that would upset the collective as it currently is, if that was a factor. But I just don't think it's a big problem among most footballers. Being born in a country doesn't automatically mean that you're the stereotype of that country also.

I don't know where is the best place to put this, but I have to vent somewhere and I outright refuse to get drawn into an argument on twitter... If you hear an Arsenal fan moan about the Havertz goal, point them to this: https://www.sportingnews.com/ca/soccer/news/handball-football-rules-changes-fifa-uefa-hand-ball-soccer/tdnqkct6nzocrbfvscrxvtzl It quotes the full handball rule. The important part being: There were at least 3 handballs leading up to the ball ending up in the net. It hit Cash's shoulder/upper arm first, but it didn't meet any of the criteria that made it a handball. It clearly wasn't intentional and he wasn't in an unnatural position trying to block the ball. He was just in a physical sandwich between Havertz and Martinez. The ball then hit Havertz on the arm shown here which changed the direction of the ball. Still clearly accidental, so not an offence to that point. It then hit his hand again, which was the one VAR focused in on, and showed definitively that it did hit his hand. Again it was totally unintentional, but it was immediately before he scored (the first handball was probably also immediate enough also fwiw), so it met the criteria quoted above. It's so frustrating that there doesn't seem to be any interest in the media in clarifying what decisions are right and wrong. Some can be ambiguous, but this was not even slightly.

We'll never be a top team if we sell our best players, so I think these guys are untouchable: Martinez Watkins Luiz Kamara These guys are probably not on the market (either due to injuries or recently signed, and all top players): Moreno Torres Carlos Mings Tielemans Buendia Diaby Duran These guys, everyone would be happy to sell, but if there was any market, they'd probably be gone already: Olsen Chambers Dendonker Traore So, if we were to sell a player/players to balance the books, I think it would probably be one or two of these - Cash (~30m) - Valuable, international but homegrown, modern fullback that loads of teams would appreciate that he will run all day and give his all in attack and defence, but he's not a great fit for the systems we play. We need a new RB anyway, could target both an attacking and defensive RB instead of a tweener like Cash, and still probably turn a profit. Digne (~15m) - Wages seem to be a bit of an issue for FFP, and it's not great having both LBs over 30 and having had injury issues. It would require an Ings like business decision to move on though. He's a valuable member of the squad, but there might be better uses for his 3.5m p/w. Konsa (~35m) - If he gets a look in with England (which he does deserve despite my reservations about him as a player), his value will skyrocket. If Harry Maguire is a 75m player, I'd easily take 90m for Konsa. He's good but flawed and if Mings recovers, Konsa is an OK defensive RB or else on the bench because Mings and Torres are both better by a distance, and Carlos is also infinitely better on the ball, if he can ever get back to staying fit and being a solid defender imo. Ramsey (~60m) - young, English, scores goals, so probably worth at least 70m. Yet up to the time he got injured, I was still expecting Aaron to be the better player. Aaron has better technique, Jacob has better physicality. Aaron just never seemed to make the physical jump that Jacob did. Jacob is a quality player, but he's not a Grealish yet and I don't think he has another jump like that in him. Hopefully he'll kick into another gear, but the money he would bring in would probably fund a whole transfer window, and we haven't really missed him being out, even with Buendia also out. Bailey (~35m) - seems crazy to contemplate selling him now that he looks just like the player we thought we were signing. He was out of position up front and is now statistically the most productive player in the league iirc, playing exactly where he wants. If we sell him now, another team gets a bargain. He's currently better than Nico Williams may ever be, which illustrates how hard it will be to actually improve that position if we sell him. McGinn (~50m) - the one I'd least like to let go, but his return to magnificence means he's valuable. His age and the squad depth at his position mean he's vulnerable, so with Tielemans and Ramsey in the squad, he's also ultimately somewhat replaceable. 50m would probably be too hard to turn down, but it would still hurt if he went for that. Ramsey is worth more on the market, but McGinn is more important to the team right now, so if we want to target Champions League Ramsey would be the smarter sell imo.

Emery has always said he wants 2 XIs, so this is how I see it (some players can obviously cover multiple positions, but this is how I see it in terms of improving the team and squad): GK: Martinez - Olsen RB: Cash - Chambers LB: Moreno - Digne CB (2): Torres - Konsa - Carlos - Mings/Lenglet DM: Kamara - Dendonker CM: Luiz - Tielemans Wide CM: McGinn - Ramsey Winger: Zaniolo/Buendia - Bailey 2nd Striker: Diaby - Traore CF: Watkins - Duran From that 22, I think based on the reluctance to play them Olsen, Chambers, Dendonker and Traore are done. Chambers is not really a RB, and RB is probably the easiest position to upgrade the first team anyway, so I think that's the most obvious signing. Cash is a good player, but he's a square peg in systems that have round and triangular holes, so I wouldn't be opposed to selling him (at a proper market rate for an international and PL standard RB) and signing both an attacking and defensive RB. Realistically, we're not going to be able to easily improve on Martinez by replacing Olsen or Kamara/Luiz/Tielemans/McGinn, by replacing Dendonker, or Diaby/Bailey/Zaniolo-Buendia/Tielemans by replacing Traore, so I think it comes down to depth after that - if players get injured, who will **** is most? Imo, it's a tough call between Watkins and Martinez. If either go down, we're goosed. Duran is very raw, but he's shown enough potential, and there are just not enough strikers with his potential in the world, so I think he needs to be in the 22, but I think he's not ready at all to start. If we sign a 2nd striker thay can play up front alone, I think that's the 2nd best addition we could make to the squad. Chances of getting someone like that in January are tiny, so I could see that being the big money Diaby-esque signing of the summer. Next is a backup keeper that can deal with the ball at his feet (and be a decent keeper). I don't think it's easy to find that, but until we sign another keeper, we're an Emi injury away from being a mid table team again. After that is Dendonker, and at that point, I think Digne (and Cash again) are not far behind, where their wages mean that you can't necessarily improve on them on a budget, but it might make business sense to move on and try a cheaper option.

Konsa was not good at RB under either Smith or Gerrard. When he plays at CB, he tends to pass off defending to the guy in front or behind him, and at RB, he regularly got exposed by not having a guy behind him at the back post. The role is different under Emery, but the first time he tried Konsa there was a 3-1 defeat to Bristol in a friendly, so hardly a ringing endorsement. He did improve defensively under Emery this season, but it was only at the very end of the season that he made any progress playing it out from the back, which is also key to that RB position, and also one of the reasons we need to upgrade on Cash. I'm very happy for Konsa to be a squad player, and would be fine with him as 2nd choice RB as well as 4th choice CB, as long as we get a better starting RB, but I don't think he should be in consideration to start at RB.

Saudi football won't take over for the same reason it's not a foregone conclusion that Coutinho will join Stevie G over there. A lot of rich and famous people won't want to live there and subject their families to living there for 10 months of the year with the restrictions that it brings, even if they live in compounds. There will be some who will take the money for a while, but there's no chance it comes close to challenging the monopoly that the top European clubs have built for themselves in the last 30 years in particular. Golf is different because they don't have to live there between tournaments and train and play there every week. Anzhi tried the whole remote training thing and it was a disaster, and that was in a league with basically continent wide travel. Football is too big and globally popular.

Bailey is better as a winger than the half forward position he's been playing under Emery. He's much better when he has more space to run and cut into. We couldn't really play him there though because we didn't have a viable other winger, but if we sign Williams, I could see us play both of them in a 4-3-3 in certain games. I think that's when we'll see the best of him and he'll be worth every penny. Fwiw, I don't think Williams would be any better than Bailey in the role Bailey is currently playing either. I think we need a Felix or Goncalves type for that position... More technical and a more clinical finisher. Ferran Torres and Asensio as well were that type of player and were linked. It's just a different position with different skills needed. Buendia has also been perfectly fine for what he cost. I wouldn't sell him for less than what we paid, when you see the cost of every other player with PL experience. If Brennan Johnson is being valued at 50m, Buendia was a massive bargain at ~30m. If we had had him instead of El Ghazi or Trezeguet or Barkley or Jota or anyone else we played with Grealish, we'd have been a far better team. He's worth far more than any of them, and most of them cost significant amounts too. It's just very hard and expensive to find much better players at that level. It's only easy to pick examples of other cheaper players that we could have signed when you have the benefit of hindsight. The odds of the lesser known players people want us to sign now, or any of the hyped academy players ever getting to the level Buendia is at are very small. Some might work out, but most won't. I think Buendia is not necessarily a great fit for Emery's systems though. He's not physical enough for that advanced role against most teams and not quick enough on the wing. He's still a quality player though and unless a team is coming in with an offer above what we paid, he'll be a very useful squad player who will get plenty of game time.

Lisandro would get sent off 17 times a season if he played for one of the non-top 6. He absolutely kicked the shit out of Leon Bailey in the league game earlier in the season. Bailey should have been sent off in the cup game in return tbf because he had a revenge kick at him then, but the fact Lisandro wasn't sent off in the league game was a complete joke. He's also terrified of tall players. He'll chicken out of headers and will run into a position where he's not going to be blamed for losing a header to a taller player rather than compete and lose, but at least maybe put them off. Noticed it first in the World Cup, but he does it regularly. Especially evident when he plays with a passive CB like Varane who's used to playing with a more pro-active guy like Ramos (It's a pet hate for me, and I think Konsa is guilty of it semi regularly too). I'll take error prone CBs who make the effort every time over CBs who dodge accountability.

Vlahovic (and Kolo Muani) are in the tier right below Mbappe and Haaland as ideal signings imo, which is probably still outside of our grasp without Champions League football. If we're making offers for players of that level though, it really shows our ambition is sky high. It's funny to say about Barcelona players, but I wouldn't be all that excited about Torres or Raphinha. Both good players, but I don't know if they would really elevate us to another level, or just offer a bit of an improvement. Torres has ability and gets into great positions, but he misses tonnes of chances. Someone mentioned El Ghazi, and he's not unlike a much better version of him. He'll get goals, but he'll also frustrate massively.

West Ham fans talked about Adrian the way Villa fans talk about Olsen. They dreaded him playing.

I've seen a couple of people mention Homegrown as a consideration for transfers, so I looked into the details. The rules for the PL and Europa League appear to differ slightly in that the Europa League requires 4 of your HG players to have actually been trained by the club. Since I think we only really need to do much work on the squad if we make Europe, I'm going to go with those regulations. I'm also assuming Steer (Out of Contract) and all the senior guys out on loan will be sold\loaned again. We have max 17 spots for non-UK trained players (currently 5 free spots) We have max 21 max spots for non-Villa trained players (currently 3 free spots) (Euro squad only) Ramsey and Sinisalo (and Archer if not loaned again) will be over-21 next year, so will occupy 2 (or 3) of the over 21 club trained spots, but all of the other youth players who would reasonably be in contention (except maybe Finn Azaz at a massive push) will still be U-21, as will Duran, so won't count against the squad. Since we're probably not going to sign Grealish\Chukwuemeka\Siegrist\Sarkic, if we sign any additional players beyond the 3 open squad positions, we would only be able to use them in domestic competition. SUMMARY Basically the Homegrown thing isn't a big concern as long as we're not tearing the whole squad down. We shouldn't sign more than 3 net new non-HG players (i.e. Over-21 Non-HG signings minus Over-21 Non-HG outgoings). If we sign more than 5 non-HG players, we definitely need to sell some non-HG players (like Olsen and Traore, arguably Bailey who are among the most likely to leave anyway). We should sign some talented 18 year olds if possible, as they would eventually qualify to fill the club trained spots in future. Duran was born a month too early .

He only attempted one pass as well. That's the 4th time in 6 games that he's had single digit passes (counting 0 as a single digit). He has been averaging less than 10 passes per game over those 6 games. Ashley Westwood would have been embarrassed with that. I'm not writing him off by any means, because by all accounts, their manager doesn't want the midfielders passing the ball, but the level he's playing at and his impact on games at that level is light years away from improving our first team right now. Josh Cullen and Josh Brownhill are absolutely dominating in midfield at that level, and are not players that we would even remotely consider adding to improve our midfield. Emery will get a chance to evaluate them all in pre-season, but if he keeps any of them around next year, I expect it will be behind an entrenched starter, with experienced cover as well, in the hope that they can play their way into contention in training, and take advantage of any injury\cup opportunities. Any idea that he'll come back, and slot in ahead of someone like Dendonker is just crazy fan-talk (that's pretty common about our youth players on here). If we sign another CM, it will almost certainly be in his best interest to go out on loan again. Raikhy got opportunities with the first team during the World Cup break and is now being released. Emery knows how to evaluate players in pre-season\training without having to throw them in at the deep end to find out if they're up to it yet. He's a very exciting prospect, but people need to get a grip and realize the gulf in class between the bottom of the Championship and the top of the PL. Plus, he's still only 19. He'll still be very young to be playing CM in the PL in 2 years time.

I could see Dumfries working out well. Pretty sure he started out at CB, or at least played there a bit, and he definitely has the size, athleticism, quality on the ball and aerial ability that would be perfect for that position. There's a fair question about whether he's good enough defensively, but it's way easier to defend when you're already back in position, than when you're always trying to recover from being high up the pitch. He basically plays all of the right wing for Inter and the Netherlands. RB in our current system would be a much easier role for him, and with his athleticism, size and experience, I think he'd be well fit for it. Most of the suggestions are that we need a RB\CB to play there, but Ashley Young has shown how relatively easy it is to pick up the defensive aspects, when you already have the skills for the more difficult parts of the job. Most CBs aren't good enough on the ball, or agile\flexible enough, to play out there. Look how we targetted Dan Burn in possession in the Newcastle game for example. Also, if Emery sees a weakness that can be exploited by an attacking RB, like he did against Palace, he can change the approach without having to change the team. There's a bit of risk as to how he'd adapt to the position, but if Emery is happy with him, I'd be very excited to see what he can bring. He's always looked very good for the Netherlands any time I've seen him.

I think it's cowardice more than corruption though. If they give a decision against one of the top teams, and it ends up being wrong, it'll be replayed on TV for months. If it ends up costing them the league or whatever, they'll be dragging that footage out again, and highlighting their mistake. If they give a wrong decision against a smaller team, or a team that's in mid-table, it mightn't even make the highlights that day, because there's no "story" for the media to sell there. So, if they're not sure on something, they'll often err on the side of the big teams. I'm certain that a fairly high profile ref retired early, and said almost exactly that in an interview when he quit, but I can't find the interview.