oishiiniku_uk Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 2 hours ago, Villan_of_oz said: I will disagree with you. Watkins has better stats than Wilson since Wilson joined Newcastle. Wilson only scored 3 more goals than him last season. Weghorst was Manure's only striker and Nketiah played over half the season as the main striker. No one player will decide whether we make Europe or not. Ollie haters gonna hate, no matter what he does Ollie scored a similar amount of goals to Callum Wilson, but he played about 1300 more minutes of football, so his stats per 90 are quite a bit lower. I'm not saying I would want to swap Watkins for Wilson - Ollie does a lot of valuable work outside of goal-scoring & Wilson probably couldn't be relied on to start every game - but there are definitely a number of strikers out there who finish more efficiently and confidently than Watkins. The issue is whether they could do the defensive and hold-up play as effectively as he does. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osmark86 Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 Just now, Keyblade said: I don't know if this is an indictment of the state of striking quality in world football today or what, but Watkins is among the very best strikers we could hope to have play for Villa. Put it this way, if we were to sell him, it'd be unbelievably difficult to replace him with someone just as good, let alone improve on him. Yeah Ollie is great for us. Defo part of the spine of the team. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheltenham_villa Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 Making the jump from where we are into the top 4 is one of the hardest. Especially to do it consistently. Realistically it probably means replacing the majority of our starting 11 which includes Watkins, Mcginn and Mings. I don't think you can do it over night. I love Watkins but I can happily accept his failings. If you are suddenly looking for him to become Kane or Halaand you will be disappointed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lexicon Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 28 minutes ago, cheltenham_villa said: Making the jump from where we are into the top 4 is one of the hardest. Especially to do it consistently. Realistically it probably means replacing the majority of our starting 11 which includes Watkins, Mcginn and Mings. I don't think you can do it over night. I love Watkins but I can happily accept his failings. If you are suddenly looking for him to become Kane or Halaand you will be disappointed. I don't agree. We have a side that is potentially capable of challenging top 4 now and in 2023 so far, we've been the 2nd best team in the country. We also have a lot more depth than last season due to some excellent signings. Ollie is a key component of this team, and while he might not be Haaland or Kane, he's definitely good enough for where we are and what we're doing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrBlack Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 The only concern with Ollie for me is his lack of a new contact. Kind of wonder what he's waiting on. I'm sure the ambition of the club is clear to him. The quality of signings we've made should leave no doubt in that. Is he worried about himself or worried about us? By that i mean does he fear for his long term place, or does he think he needs to be playing in the champions league next season (either with us or without) and is waiting to see where we end up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lexicon Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 1 minute ago, MrBlack said: The only concern with Ollie for me is his lack of a new contact. Kind of wonder what he's waiting on. I'm sure the ambition of the club is clear to him. The quality of signings we've made should leave no doubt in that. Is he worried about himself or worried about us? By that i mean does he fear for his long term place, or does he think he needs to be playing in the champions league next season (either with us or without) and is waiting to see where we end up? Probably more that the club will be very busy with the transfer window at the moment. I wouldn't worry about it just yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Villan_of_oz Posted July 31, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted July 31, 2023 I predict: Ollie will score more goals than Callum & Villa finish higher than Newcastle this season. You have been told! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrBlack Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 3 minutes ago, lexicon said: Probably more that the club will be very busy with the transfer window at the moment. I wouldn't worry about it just yet. It's not a huge concern, just my only one. Compared with the other longer standing players, he's the last one to sign an extension that we'd want to keep i think. Suggests there's a bit more of a challenge going on behind the scenes than the recent McGinn renewal. Could well be nothing though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viloon Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 Good energy, never stops trying, liked by the fans. I do agree he lacks composure and more importantly accuracy in front of goal and his touch isn't great either. He will suffice this season if Unai can't get better in, but I think we will see him exposed now the team is better, if he missed those chances in a league game yesterday (which he does) he will cost us points and the mood on here will shift in seconds. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turvontour Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 1 hour ago, cheltenham_villa said: Making the jump from where we are into the top 4 is one of the hardest. Especially to do it consistently. Realistically it probably means replacing the majority of our starting 11 which includes Watkins, Mcginn and Mings. I don't think you can do it over night. I love Watkins but I can happily accept his failings. If you are suddenly looking for him to become Kane or Halaand you will be disappointed. We've been consistently the 2nd or 3rd best team in the premier league from the start of November last year to the end of May this year. Why would we need to replace the majority of our team to make top 4? Newcastle finished 3rd with a team which features Schar, Burn, Willock, Murphy, Almiron, Targett etc. They all played at villa park in April. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thunderball Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 I would imagine Ollie's camp will wait until the window closes as it suits them. If he starts the season well it strengthens his hand further as his contract runs down to its final year next summer. I would expect it will suit all parties if he signs a new 4 year contract (taking him to 31y.o.) in the run up to Christmas. I think he would be a target for Arsenal or Man Utd next summer if he hasn't signed, his price would be more like £20-25m then. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobzy Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 16 minutes ago, Viloon said: Good energy, never stops trying, liked by the fans. I do agree he lacks composure and more importantly accuracy in front of goal and his touch isn't great either. He will suffice this season if Unai can't get better in, but I think we will see him exposed now the team is better, if he missed those chances in a league game yesterday (which he does) he will cost us points and the mood on here will shift in seconds. I largely agree… but I also think it will change on him whereas the onus should be on us having a midfielder or two who can chip in with 10 goals each in a season. You basically want a main striker scoring 15 to 50 goals (large stretch, at least 15 essentially) with the midfield being capable of 30-35 goals and then some others just chipping in. That’s the base IMO and the side we have is good enough. Watkins will miss chances, but at least we’re creating them. He’ll still put enough away (again). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duke313 Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 Watkins x Diaby is going to cook. Emery is a Michelin star chef. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobzy Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 52 minutes ago, duke313 said: Watkins x Diaby is going to cook. Emery is a Michelin star chef. Absolutely no shade on you personally, but how do these shit phrases start? ”Inject it” ”<x> is cooking” Where do they come from?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 1 hour ago, thunderball said: I would imagine Ollie's camp will wait until the window closes as it suits them. If he starts the season well it strengthens his hand further as his contract runs down to its final year next summer. I would expect it will suit all parties if he signs a new 4 year contract (taking him to 31y.o.) in the run up to Christmas. I think he would be a target for Arsenal or Man Utd next summer if he hasn't signed, his price would be more like £20-25m then. my expectation too as a complete guess as a scenario - ollie was offered £100k a week + win, goal and starting bonuses of let say £10k for each based on him being a starter in say April, his team said thank you very much that's a good looking deal we'll have a think, villa have then gone on to sign tielemans, diaby and torres on lets use a completely made up number of £140k a week, all of a sudden that £100k doesn't look so good, we then sign torres or a.n.other on £160k a week, or we sign another striker who threatens his place so the theoretical £150k goal bonus and £380k appearance bonus isn't there anymore - with that in mind you can see why it makes more sense to just sit and wait until september / october, he's not going anywhere Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRO Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 I love Ollie Watkins's hold up play and his goals.....I would just like Ollie to show a bit more aggression, with himself....a bit more fire in his belly. I know its pre-season, but he looked a bit too passive for me.....I saw a few other forwards in other teams in this series show a bit more aggression. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam2003 Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 15 minutes ago, bobzy said: Absolutely no shade on you personally, but how do these shit phrases start? ”Inject it” ”<x> is cooking” Where do they come from?! “No shade” Where does that phrase come from?! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abdulaziz1 Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 For me, I’d sell him if a very good offer comes. I think next summer we’ll have to upgrade anyway. But I have two concerns, first one is that I would like to see our main players stays so we don’t think our setback (if we had) is because of a player left. Last time under DS I knew that it was all over because Smith success was basically Grealish. This time we don’t really depend on individual (well apart from Emi possibly). I’d like us to try Archer and Duran for some games and see what Watkins really mean for us? The second thing is striker signings usually fail than success, so I’d like to see if Duran and Archer can make a big step in their development so that when we get the new striker, we can have a good backup. We can’t risk that right now, and we can’t bench Watkins and take his value off. With Emery, we should know who’s not a first choice plan before the season ends and before other teams know he isn’t wanted. Watkins, Cash, Bailey and Buendia are the most sellable assets we have that we should look to upgrade on them soon. For Bailey and Buendia they’re already part of the squad. Emi, Kamara, Luiz, Ramsey, Konsa, Moreno, potentially Diaby and Torres should be part of our plans. McGinn, Tieliemans, Mings, Carlos and so on are great options to have for the squad and currently can’t get us money for their values. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobzy Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 15 minutes ago, Adam2003 said: “No shade” Where does that phrase come from?! I have no idea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DakotaVilla Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 Selling Watkins would be absolute madness. Give him a new contract and he will, if he stays fit, undoubtedly break most recent goal scoring records that we have this season. Hopefully that will mean we win a cup or finish in champions league next season. That will then be the time to see if we can upgrade but it will cost north of 50m and we should still keep Ollie regardless as he would be the perfect squad option for the forward positions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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