Summer Transfer Window 2023

[Vive_La_Villa]

Wasn’t this the lad they were talking about 40m for?

[duke313]

Just now, Vive_La_Villa said:

Wasn’t this the lad they were talking about 40m for?

Yeah, I think so.  I'm sure Monchi can haggle Barca down a bit.  They need some room financially if they want Cancelo, Joao Felix etc.

[HeyAnty]

2 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Wasn’t this the lad they were talking about 40m for?

This guy isn’t even worth 20m.  Hes been out on loan and on Barca B.  Hasn’t set the world alight either.  Its Barca PR

[Kiwivillan]

4 minutes ago, duke313 said:

And? Emery has literally said he wants too players for every position, so who cares what Liverpool and City are doing?

I think several of those players are players we already have but people don't think are good enough and want us to upgrade before end of window which is unrealistic for wages, club spending etc

[Kiwivillan]

...

Edited August 31, 2023 by Kiwivillan

[duke313]

11 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

I think several of those players are players we already have but people don't think are good enough and want us to upgrade before end of window which is unrealistic for wages, club spending etc

Well, one of them is Buendia who is out for the season and the other is Coutinho who can't stay fit and might be off to Qatar, so yeah, we probably do need an upgrade in that position, to at least offer competition for JJ if anything.

[VillaChris]

19 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Wasn’t this the lad they were talking about 40m for?

Nico Williams wasn't it?

Being linked to him seems a very long time ago now.

[paul514]

5 hours ago, DakotaVilla said:

Curious as to why considering he joined us after just turning 19. Already an international at that point for one of South America’s better teams and already physically ready for the league. 
 

As a point of reference at a similar age Jack was on loan at Notts County. I’m not saying he’s going to be on jack’s level but just to say there is a lot of time to work on him realising his potential …. Which could be amazing. 

Simple, never saw him play, didn't see anything in the stats on him that he was special.
 

Hardly seen him in a Villa shirt in the last 12 months too

[Sulberto21]

25 minutes ago, duke313 said:

And? Emery has literally said he wants too players for every position, so who cares what Liverpool and City are doing?

And Liverpool since then are getting a lot of injuries.

[Mazrim]

Reminder: We had just 8 subs against Burnley including one (utility) defender and 2 youth goalkeepers. Yes, we 'll get a couple back from injury in a month or 2 but its nowhere near enough.

[Kiwivillan]

7 minutes ago, duke313 said:

Well, one of them is Buendia who is out for the season and the other is Coutinho who can't stay fit and might be off to Qatar, so yeah, we probably do need an upgrade in that position, to at least offer competition for JJ if anything.

That's fair. Never counted Coutinho as crap and perma injured and we did fine without. I think Diaby who can play either side but is playing support striker which is pretty much same role and hopefully Zaniolo can cover. We not playing rigid left right in final third anyway

[allani]

2 hours ago, CVByrne said:

We have never played 4 3 3 so this idea of 3 forwards up top isn't a formation we have played at any point under Emery. 

If we play Watkins Diaby and Zaniolo on same team it would likely be Watkins and Zaniolo up top with Zaniolo dropping off as a 10 and Diaby playing RM as a winger. The left side would have LB as other winger and LM as the other 10. 

Everything Emery has done here has had two 10s a Striker and width almost always involving LB as the left most winger. So never is there a LM who operates as a winger like we do RM. So a Watkins injury wouldn't impact left side of attack basically 

Everton we played Ollie, Diaby and Bailey.  As we did against Hibs.  Diaby and Bailey certainly weren't playing as midfielders.

[VillaJay]

It's been a brilliant window and despite the bench at the weekend our depth looks good. Ideally one more attacking player but look at the below options available after the international break, we've never had such options off the bench - All are full internationals too.

Bench

Olsen
Diego Carlos
Lenglet
Tielemans
Bailey
Zaniolo
Dendoncker
Duran
Digne
Chambers
Traore
Coutinho?

Injured
Mings
Buendia

[duke313]

2 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

That's fair. Never counted Coutinho as crap and perma injured and we did fine without. I think Diaby who can play either side but is playing support striker which is pretty much same role and hopefully Zaniolo can cover. We not playing rigid left right in final third anyway

We did fine without Coutinho because we had JJ and Buendia rotating, we currently have neither.  Diaby and Zaniolo could play there, but they are left footed, Emery want's all bases covered.

We need a right footed player for that LM role when Moreno is back, we can't have a left footed player there as they will take up the space Moreno should be in.

[CVByrne]

15 minutes ago, allani said:

Everton we played Ollie, Diaby and Bailey.  As we did against Hibs.  Diaby and Bailey certainly weren't playing as midfielders.

Ollie was Striker, Diaby was the right 10 and Bailey was wide right.

Wide left was Digne and left 10 was McGinn.

We seem to always have wide left be left back and left 10 be LM. 

Edited August 31, 2023 by CVByrne

[Knutserov13]

1 hour ago, Jas10 said:

Absolutely mental… Boehly is a psychopath!

Crazy how far Potter’s stock has fallen too… everyone was going mad about him but no one’s talking now… can’t seem to get a decent job either… unless he’s willingly taking a long break and rest… can’t blame him really! After working at that madhouse!

I guess Brighton’s set up was a bigger factor toward their success than Potter and his team…  De Zerbi is excelling…

Again, Chelsea throwing millions, if not billions, at the wall in complete desperation… and incurring such a loss after sacking him…

Don’t know how they get away with it and only suffer minor repercussions…

Corrupt.

I guess Sweden would like him to take over our national team but we cant compete on the wages hes still getting from Chelsea.

I don't think Potter would be as eager to takeover the Swedish national side though...  

[Philosopher]

53 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

JJ? Don't say he's not a winger because Emery since he joined doesn't really play wingers unless it's FBs playing as wing backs like Moreno Digne Cash

He doesn't play JJ as an out and out wi ger though. He plays him as more of left midfielder. I think he sees JJ and McGinn as wide midfielders and as 8 / 10 cross type players. Rather than a wide forwards, Which Bailey, Traore, and Diaby are. So I'd say a right footed left wide forward is exactly what we are after. 

From what I have seen tactically, Emery usually has a wide midfielder with an attacking fullback on one side and a wide forward, with a defensive fullback on the other. But occasionally he'll play with two wide midfielders if he wants us to be more solid defensively. Emery seems to be building a squad that is tactically, and stylistically flexible, so to not have a right footed wide forward in his squad would hurt this.

If JPB goes (as is expected) then I expect we'll see a right footed wide forward come in. 

[fightoffyour]

41 minutes ago, Mazrim said:

Reminder: We had just 8 subs against Burnley including one (utility) defender and 2 youth goalkeepers. Yes, we 'll get a couple back from injury in a month or 2 but its nowhere near enough.

We need to get

 

[striker]

3 hours ago, alreadyexists said:

In all seriousness, I hope you do come back soon mate. I miss the old Striker.

Thanks for that mate.
 

However, I haven’t really changed at all other than being more active in defending my opinion. I don’t mind my opinion being challenged. It’s a forum so you should expect it especially when it that opinion goes against the grain. Some of those comments were quite provocative though so I replied in kind while trying very hard not to breach any rules.

I suppose it’s always going to be difficult for a visiting supporter (although I’m also a Villa fan) on any forum to be accepted so you have a choice of either being quiet when you disagree or, being more defensively vocal on site. I’ve recently chosen the latter due to taking exception to several comments but I’m sure you would accept that is part of human nature.

I’m sorry if I have disappointed you by defending my opinion or having an opinion that differs from others on site but isn’t that what a forum is for?

[allani]

2 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

Ollie was Striker, Diaby was the right 10 and Bailey was wide right.

Wide left was Digne and left 10 was McGinn.

We seem to always have wide left be left back and left 10 be RM. 

OK - I think we're mainly arguing the same point (kind of) or at least something not completely opposite.

But using the above terminology if we sign an attacking left 10 (for the purposes of illustration only someone of the ilk of Chiesa or Ferran Torres) then we could play Digne/Moreno wide left, Chiesa/Torres type as left 10, Ollie as striker, Diaby and right 10 and McGinn as wide right.  At times McGinn would tuck back into a more central midfielder role to either allow Cash to provide the width or to allow Luiz / Pau to drift wider to cover Digne/Moreno on the left without leaving a massive gap through the middle.

This still allows a new forward to play with Ollie most of the time.  It also means that during the game we can bring on Ramsey (when fit), Zaniolo or Bailey and not lose any attacking threat whatsoever.  Indeed there will be games where we might want our left and / or right 10s to be more defensively capable - in which case Ramsey and McGinn could play that role.  But I think ultimately that left 10 gives us a huge range of options - with Ramsey, McGinn, Zaniolo, Diaby, Ollie, new L10, Bailey - in a wide variety of situations.  If Ollie is out then obviously one of the three more attacking 10 options would need to play the more central role (and each have pros and cons in terms of playing that).  I also think that if you have one (or two) attacking 10s on then we can give Duran more minutes as he wouldn't be our sole/main goal threat so there's less pressure on him.  A left 10 also means that we are better covered in the case of injury to Diaby or Zaniolo (or Bailey) rather than only covering Ollie.  The downside is that there will be elements of Ollie's play that are not a natural fit to players like Zaniolo, Diaby or a Chiesa/Ferran type.  But then there aren't that many strikers who have those skills anyway - certainly not many that we could afford.  I'd be happy that an attack that included Zaniolo, Diaby and Chiesa/Ferran would still have enough of a goal threat that the impact of not having a recognised striker wouldn't be a disaster.  Especially given that it isn't easy to find a striker who'd be capable of scoring 15 goals a season in the PL but who would be comfortable effectively being Ollie's understudy - let alone one who would score that number of goals and do the legwork that Ollie does. 

Of course a CF who could also play as a 10 (either left or right) or wider if needed - would solve the same puzzle but from the opposite direction - so I wouldn't be averse to an Ollie "clone".

I don't think you're a fan of Duran (but I might have muddled you up with someone else whilst writing this post - so apologies if I have got that wrong!) but I do think the way we can give him time is to have a stacked attack alongside him so that he isn't under massive (bad) pressure when he comes on and instead is better able to relax and play his natural game.  That way I think we'll find out whether he will be someone who will be putting Ollie's starting position under threat in the next two or three seasons.  Although we are on the back of three big wins - it was encouraging (I thought) that Emery felt better able to sub Ollie off earlier that he did last season in order to try and keep him fit and healthy.