Condimentalist

10 minutes ago, KevinRichardsonsMoustache said:

Rewatching his goal against Brentford. I love the way he creates masses of space for himself by turning Jensen inside out. Look at how the gap between him and Jensen increases when he shifts it onto his left foot. Jensen starts off facing him, giving him a little space because he is trying to anticipate what comes next. Within less than a second Diaby has turned him 90 degrees. He's like a basketball player in how he can face up with a defensive player.

 

Meanwhile, as the other defenders move to close him down, our players fill the penalty area, pushing back their defensive line (Mings probably gets a little too close to Diaby and blocks Dougie's chances of receiving the cutback and striking from the D). All of this creates space for Philogene on the other side of the penalty area. 

 

Tbh it's dreadful defending, showing him inside onto his stronger foot to shoot. 

Olsen has looked pretty shaky for us and personally I'm disappointed we're not trying to improve that position. 

Even if Dibu stays fit, we're in four competitions and Emery wants to win them all. Olsen does inhibit that because he can't play out in the way Emery likes, and the defence is visibly nervous, which affects the whole team performance. 

Of course anyone is going to be a step down from the World Number One, but I would have liked us to target a decent understudy who can play with his feet a bit too. 

1 hour ago, Frodo said:

Scored for Barcelona Saturday in a 3-0 win over Real Madrid.........   could he be the rumoured player incoming according to PSK on For the love of Paul Mcgrath Podcast

Wouldn't have thought Barca would risk him/play him if a move was that imminent.

5 minutes ago, Steero113 said:

Looks to me like he gives zero f**ks about his achilles, it's clearly not bothering him or in the back of his mind, he's absolutely going for it. 

From watching him yesterday he doesn't look like someone mentally troubled by the injury (unlike e.g. Bailey who clearly was/is).

He's a bit rusty but looks to me like someone who wants to playcand contribute to his maximum.

36 minutes ago, Herman22 said:

For me a few things have stood out on the US preseason tour. 

Unai is still trying to find his starting back line (4 or 5). I actually think we may start the season with last seasons back 4 with Pau and Carlos coming from the bench. 

Midfield has real options but expect to see SJM, Luiz and Kamara start. Ahead of that I think Ollie, Diaby and JPB are in the spots at the moment. 

Buendia was exceptional vs Newcastle. Am fairly sure he'll be starting rather than JPB - although the latter definitely looks like he has a lot to offer. 

1 minute ago, Demitri_C said:

JPB looks really impressive surely he has to stay?

Agree he's got real technical ability and is a livewire but he also works hard.

Will be an important part of the quadruple bid.

That's one way to do it 

I don't think we'll be making any more major signings until we've seen a few leave. 

Back up keeper yes, and maybe a RB depending on the strength we're aiming for there, but not £20m+ forward players.

I doubt that will happen at all but you never know - some late window trading could be on the cards.

9 hours ago, MaVilla said:

its going to be interesting to see how Emery see's that midfield 4 and shadow striker lining up.

We have Buendia, Bailey, McGinn, Kamara, Luiz, Tielemans, Dendoncker, Diaby, Coutinho & Ramsey, so 10 players there to fit in to 5 positions, its a headache, but i guess a good headache.....

Heck, you could even add Traore to that, if he stays around.

We really need to offload some players.

10 players for 5 positions is about right, two players per position. Could add Philogene there also potentially.

We'll need bodies this year to play 4 competitions. 

Looks pretty nice I think - possibly the best Castore kit so far

4 minutes ago, StanBalaban said:

I don't see anything on his Twitter feed about Bamford but, oddly enough, his last Tweet about us was on the 13th July. Doesn't seem to be very active on Villa stuff.

Maybe Purslow was the sauce.

8 minutes ago, nick76 said:

I’d be very surprised if that’s all we have. It’s a different story about whether we’ll spend it but we have a lot more headroom than that.

I personally don't think we will have. We've spent £70-80m already and added significantly to the wage bill with no sales going the other way.

Next season we're also coming to the end of the period where the Grealish money counts for us so we have to be ready for that.

I'm not saying we can't make any further moves, but I'm not expecting much until at least a few are out of the door. 

As I say, I'd be surprised if we weren't looking at keepers now, but anything else might be later in the window when we have a better idea of the financial position. 

10 minutes ago, Made In Aston said:

A transfer budget of £100 - 120m for a Premier league team isn't unusual. As out net spend hasn't been massive over the last 3 seasons either, I expect we have a good 30-50m available if need be. 

It's not unusual for the teams who play in Europe every year and have bigger revenues. I don't think we'll have that sort of headroom with FFP - and we don't want to push ourselves to the limit with that either otherwise it will give us limited headroom in future and could even force an unwanted sale. 

We definitely need a back up GK but beyond that I don't think we'll be making too many transfers until we've had a few out of the door. Assuming we can complete a few sales I would think at a push we might have 20-30m perhaps for a RB and another forward/winger. 

1 minute ago, M_Afro said:

I agree. It almost presents more of a threat as opposed to an opportunity. There’s always the chance that a desperate club, ie Man U or Chelsea, offer us something very difficult to turn down for Ollie. With only 2 years left on his contract, the club would maybe be forced to consider selling with very little prospect of finding an adequate replacement. Unlikely scenario admittedly but not impossible.

Yes. Hoping we can tie Ollie down sooner rather than later. 

[Insert Kenneth gif]

9 minutes ago, PaulC said:

Looked really good, stronger as well so less likely to be knocked off the ball like last season. Hopefully this will be a big season for him.

2 minutes ago, MaVilla said:

Has he bulked up a bit?

Yes I noticed that. Will definitely help him as he did get bullied too easily last term.

I only watched the first half but he was absolute quality.

Yes, pre-season etc, but against good opposition, and everyone writing him off needs to have a word. He's got bags to offer. 

Excited for him. That video is great - he's genuinely two footed as well as having a bag of tricks, looks a real handful.

I really should go to sleep but am more tempted to watch the game now. 

1 minute ago, villan95 said:

I think that is a big difference though, especially playing as part of the deeper 2 in midfield.

Yeah - don't disagree. Imagine he'll probably be sold and Dendonker retained unless there's a £15m + offer but we'll see. 

42 minutes ago, lexicon said:

I think Diaby is the guy we signed to play as a secondary striker - that's what it sounded like Emery was getting at in the presser. 

Agreed - second striker who also runs out wide, like Bailey when he plays there. 

Sounds like defensive workrate isn't his strong point so we'd be playing a pretty attacking / open way if it was him wide + another up top. 

From what I've seen of him he looks perfectly good enough to be part of the squad. Not sure there's that much between him and Dendonker other than physical presence. 

You would think one of them will be sold but probably not both unless we're going to sign again - perhaps there is a career here for him yet (but probably not). 

1 minute ago, villan95 said:

I'd say something like this is probably our strongest team at the moment? (assuming we get Diaby)

With the likes of Carlos, Konsa, Tielemans, Bailey, Buendia, Coutinho and Archer not even getting in!

Looks about right. Probably another couple to join also. 

I think Mings may be the one that shifts over to the right in our strongest XI but we'll see.

£35m (if correct) is a really good deal.

Great talent, will be delighted if this goes through.

It's not like we sign Diaby and then it's all money out the door.

We get an asset onto our books who is worth something in that region, who will hopefully help us become a better team - increasing revenues - and who will either increase or decrease in value based on his performance. If the former we might sell him for double in two or three years time - the kid is only 24. Even if he doesn't do so well, he's unlikely to drop below £25m value anytime soon.

This isn't £17m for over the hill Phil. We even got most of our cash back on Ings FFS. 

We need to get used to spending more money to land our targets now. The key is that they are the right targets and that the vast majority work out.

2 minutes ago, DevonIsAPlaceOnEarth said:

I wonder if he’ll get minutes today considering he’s only trained for 3 days.

No would be my guess. 

I don't think Digne is a bad player but he wasn't worth the outlay, especially as he seems quite injury prone.

He's no-where near as dynamic as Moreno but he's as good a defender and can whip a better ball in from deep. 

I am not surprised we'd consider offers but equally if he stays around he'll have a big role to play this season given our extra Euro commitments.

It's also not clear that Moreno is going to be fit to start the season, so we need a decent back up, whether that is Digne or someone else.