Ferran Torres

[ejs1111]

cannot imagine anyone turning up their nose or not being excited about this potential signing.  Give your heads a wobble!

Torres is absolute class.  Very technically gifted, skilled, good pace, and only 23yrs old.  He is 1-2 levels above his competition at Villa for his position.  He would walk into our 11.  This signing would certainly mean 1 player for Villa will be shipped out- likely someone in the Bailey/Traore/Coutinho trio.

I for one am very excited to see this potential link and hope this comes to fruition- UTV

[Frodo]

More & more I think about this, could this be the other striker we're after I know Barca played him as a winger, but his best stuff was at Man city where he was more central. Also could mean we're still after Marco Asensio as a number 10 (playmaker) imagine both them out our club  

[CVByrne]

7 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

Hopefully I've misjudged him if he joins. There's not a £50m player in there IMO. Far better options around for the deal he'll be on.

Full faith in Emery's opinions. Not as much in anyone in our recruitment team.

Be mad if Alemany was picking players. I think that's very unlikely.

The tweet says Barca want £39m (€45m) for him. Buendia cost up to £38m and Bailey up to £30m. If we pay £35m + £4m add ons I can't see how this isn't a great deal.

He's taller, stronger and quicker than Buendia and is at least as technical if not better. He's also only turned 23 a couple of months ago and has 35 caps for Spain and 15 goals. 

To me he's better off as one of the two forwards in our system than as wide left in the Barca system. His best performances at City were playing the cental false 9. 

He's a player who can speak English and knows the PL so should adapt quickly which is a big benefit. This would be an astute signing for Villa if we could pull it off.

[eholm]

This would be a fantastic signing. Immediately replaces Bailey in the starting XI as the wide right forward. Great pace and dribbling skill with an eye for goal (although not really an out and out CF). As a partnership with OW this has huge potential and gives us the right sided threat we so desperately need. At the quoted price if circa £35M this would be very astute business and gives us genuine attacking threat with genuine pace - something as a squad we desperately lack. 

[CVByrne]

Quote

The traditional No 9s

At times this season, Ferran Torres and Raheem Sterling have been referred to as false nines on the terraces and in the media, but they haven’t been doing false nine things at all.

The confusion seems to arise from the fact that they are not known as strikers and have not played as strikers throughout their careers. They are wingers being asked to play as strikers.

But when they have played down the middle they have had a very different brief to the likes of Grealish, Foden and Palmer.

Their job has not been to drop off the front line. They have been asked to stay high, make runs and movements that might be more useful on the day than providing extra passes in midfield.

“Gabriel comes more to associate (link up), to drop a little bit, and Ferran makes movements more to the goal,” Guardiola said earlier this season, explaining why Torres was being used as a poacher. “With our lack of goals lately, we need a guy who can make a movement there.”

Generally, though, Torres and Sterling had been asked to do the kind of things that a striker like Erling Haaland, for example, would be asked to do. They are not false nines, they’re people we don’t consider as strikers, playing as strikers. Which sometimes includes some false nine stuff.

False 9s, traditional 9s and playing without a 9: Analysing Guardiola’s strikerless Manchester City - The Athletic

Seems very familiar to what we have Bailey doing as a forward in our system. 

Edited May 13, 2023 by CVByrne

[CVByrne]

A good Article on Torres at City after playing as a 9 and scoring twice against Arsenal

Quote

This time around Torres put in the kind of performance that will be expected of him if he is to answer City’s striker problem.

“He makes movements like the best strikers moving behind, like Jamie Vardy,” Guardiola said of the 21-year-old after the match, which is high praise considering he once said Vardy is “one of the best strikers I have ever seen in the box and in the final third”.

There might be an element of pride in Guardiola’s words because sources close to Torres say the City boss has helped him with his movement over the past year. Sergio Aguero did, too, offering advice on the kind of off-the-ball runs he had to make to get into Guardiola’s team, for example running between two defenders to occupy both of them and open space for somebody else as an added bonus.

During Torres’ first season at the club, the City staff noticed that he is stronger inside the box than outside, despite being signed as a winger, and the decision was made to convert him to a No 9. City always expected him to need the first season to adapt before seeing much better performances from him, but not in this role.

Ferran Torres cut a Vardy-like figure against Arsenal which offers an interesting alternative to Ronaldo or Kane - The Athletic

 

I think he's probably very like Watkins tbh. Wide player who is probably better as a Striker. I can see this as the player who can play instead of Watkins or with him up top at Villa. It makes a lot of sense having a player who can run the channels or play as the central 9. We could switch our attack and have Cash down the right Watkins playing the wide forward of the front 2 and Torres centrally. This flexibility means we can play with the attacking FB on left or right if we want to as we have 2 winger/strikers up top. 

With two fast players up top who relish the hard work and like to run between CBs or between CB and FB. This is perfect for the PL as so many teams play pressing games and high defensive lines and the space in the PL is behind that line. Away at any top side with Torres and Watkins up top and players with superb direct passing from deep (Carlos springs to mind). This is lethal potential combination. 

At Villa he will be played in this more striker position, he will be a regular starter and have an Elite coach to improve him. This would be such an astute signing by reverting Torres to what he was excelling at when played as a 9 at City

Edited May 13, 2023 by CVByrne

[nick76]

8 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

Hopefully I've misjudged him if he joins. There's not a £50m player in there IMO. Far better options around for the deal he'll be on.

Full faith in Emery's opinions.

Yeah I’m a bit torn about this one.

 I watched him a lot when he played for City and wasn’t that impressed but he was young and homesick.  

Went to Barca and seen him a lot less but still a few times for Barca and Spain, and he never really stood out for me.

Against that he’s played significant minutes for Barca and Spain so that doesn’t happen if you’re not good and he’s only 23.

I knew Emery would be buying players that wouldn’t excite me initially because he’s so good with getting the best out of those kind of players so that’s in the back of my mind.

I’m surprised the excitement over him, is that because he’s played for City, Barca and Spain? or are people excited because they have watched loads of him? The first is impressive but I don’t care much about, if it’s the latter I’m interested what people have seen that has made them so excited.  I’ll go and watch more video’s if this gets more traction over the next few weeks.

I’m very open to him coming, I’d expect him to be an astute and quality signing but I’m not really excited by it at the moment as I’ve never seen anything from him that has stood out imo when I’ve watched him.

[CVByrne]

1 minute ago, nick76 said:

Yeah I’m a bit torn about this one.

 I watched him a lot when he played for City and wasn’t that impressed but he was young and homesick.  

Went to Barca and seen him a lot less but still a few times for Barca and Spain, and he never really stood out for me.

Against that he’s played significant minutes for Barca and Spain so that doesn’t happen if you’re not good and he’s only 23.

I knew Emery would be buying players that wouldn’t excite me initially because he’s so good with getting the best out of those kind of players so that’s in the back of my mind.

I’m surprised the excitement over him, is that because he’s played for City, Barca and Spain? or are people excited because they have watched loads of him? The first is impressive but I don’t care much about, if it’s the latter I’m interested what people have seen that has made them so excited.  I’ll go and watch more video’s if this gets more traction over the next few weeks.

I’m very open to him coming, I’d expect him to be an astute and quality signing but I’m not really excited by it at the moment as I’ve never seen anything from him that has stood out imo when I’ve watched him.

It's because he was on a very clear upward trajectory at City when being played as a 9 and he hit the ground running last year when he joined Barca. It's this season he's played more of a sub role off the bench and mostly as a left winger. I'm excited for him to be returned to playing as one of the strikers and improving under Emery's direction in our system. He also brings a lot of high standards from being coached by Guardiola and Xavi and playing for City and Barca. 

[gwi1890]

4 minutes ago, nick76 said:

Yeah I’m a bit torn about this one.

 I watched him a lot when he played for City and wasn’t that impressed but he was young and homesick.  

Went to Barca and seen him a lot less but still a few times for Barca and Spain, and he never really stood out for me.

Against that he’s played significant minutes for Barca and Spain so that doesn’t happen if you’re not good and he’s only 23.

I knew Emery would be buying players that wouldn’t excite me initially because he’s so good with getting the best out of those kind of players so that’s in the back of my mind.

I’m surprised the excitement over him, is that because he’s played for City, Barca and Spain? or are people excited because they have watched loads of him? The first is impressive but I don’t care much about, if it’s the latter I’m interested what people have seen that has made them so excited.  I’ll go and watch more video’s if this gets more traction over the next few weeks.

I’m very open to him coming, I’d expect him to be an astute and quality signing but I’m not really excited by it at the moment as I’ve never seen anything from him that has stood out imo when I’ve watched him.

He’s a massive talent right foot, left foot bags of technical ability and is strong on the ball, I think in parts his career has been underwhelming so far and I think that’s due to the fact he’s been at big clubs playing sporadic minutes . I think his run at City was fairly impressive considering the amount of goals he scored. He’s been far from impressive at Barca and his most memorable moment is the fight he had with Stefan Savic at the beginning of the season and to be fair he held his own against a brutish centre back . Back o track what excites me most about this potential transfer is that with the guidance of Emery and regular playing time he might finally fulfil his potential.

[Vive_La_Villa]

This would be a massive coup. 23 year old with 35 International caps and 15 goals.  Have we ever signed s player with this pedigree at such a young age ?

[Vive_La_Villa]

14 minutes ago, nick76 said:

Yeah I’m a bit torn about this one.

 I watched him a lot when he played for City and wasn’t that impressed but he was young and homesick.  

Went to Barca and seen him a lot less but still a few times for Barca and Spain, and he never really stood out for me.

Against that he’s played significant minutes for Barca and Spain so that doesn’t happen if you’re not good and he’s only 23.

I knew Emery would be buying players that wouldn’t excite me initially because he’s so good with getting the best out of those kind of players so that’s in the back of my mind.

I’m surprised the excitement over him, is that because he’s played for City, Barca and Spain? or are people excited because they have watched loads of him? The first is impressive but I don’t care much about, if it’s the latter I’m interested what people have seen that has made them so excited.  I’ll go and watch more video’s if this gets more traction over the next few weeks.

I’m very open to him coming, I’d expect him to be an astute and quality signing but I’m not really excited by it at the moment as I’ve never seen anything from him that has stood out imo when I’ve watched him.

When I’ve seen him he hasn’t stood out but he’s always looked decent. But he is also normally surrounded by top players where if he stood out around those players we wouldn’t really be having a chance of signing him.

Im confident he would really excel at Villa.  Still can’t see it happening. Reckon a Champions League club will snap him up.

[WallisFrizz]

34 minutes ago, nick76 said:

Yeah I’m a bit torn about this one.

 I watched him a lot when he played for City and wasn’t that impressed but he was young and homesick.  

Went to Barca and seen him a lot less but still a few times for Barca and Spain, and he never really stood out for me.

Against that he’s played significant minutes for Barca and Spain so that doesn’t happen if you’re not good and he’s only 23.

I knew Emery would be buying players that wouldn’t excite me initially because he’s so good with getting the best out of those kind of players so that’s in the back of my mind.

I’m surprised the excitement over him, is that because he’s played for City, Barca and Spain? or are people excited because they have watched loads of him? The first is impressive but I don’t care much about, if it’s the latter I’m interested what people have seen that has made them so excited.  I’ll go and watch more video’s if this gets more traction over the next few weeks.

I’m very open to him coming, I’d expect him to be an astute and quality signing but I’m not really excited by it at the moment as I’ve never seen anything from him that has stood out imo when I’ve watched him.

100%. All this “give your head a wobble” if you’re not excited by this. It’s quite normal and sensible to not fall about with glee at every big name we’re linked with.
 

He did ok at Manchester City but by the sound of it has struggled at Barca. There may well be reasons for that -injury/youth/competition for places/played out of position etc but their fans are desperate to get rid of him. Comments on Twitter are along the lines of “he’ll be playing in Turkey in 2 years” and his own social media are is full of “get out of our club” type stuff. Now I know social media is a cesspit and if we go for him then I’ll wish him the absolute best and support him but I’m not going to go giddy over him until he scores in front of the Holte End on his debut.

Edited May 13, 2023 by WallisFrizz
Typo

[Kiwivillan]

3 hours ago, ejs1111 said:

cannot imagine anyone turning up their nose or not being excited about this potential signing.  Give your heads a wobble!

Torres is absolute class.  Very technically gifted, skilled, good pace, and only 23yrs old.  He is 1-2 levels above his competition at Villa for his position.  He would walk into our 11.  This signing would certainly mean 1 player for Villa will be shipped out- likely someone in the Bailey/Traore/Coutinho trio.

I for one am very excited to see this potential link and hope this comes to fruition- UTV

Thought he was pretty average at City and not exactly pulling up trees since he left

[nick76]

29 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

When I’ve seen him he hasn’t stood out but he’s always looked decent. But he is also normally surrounded by top players where if he stood out around those players we wouldn’t really be having a chance of signing him.

Im confident he would really excel at Villa.  Still can’t see it happening. Reckon a Champions League club will snap him up.

I think your first paragraph answered your last sentence.  £40m for a wide forward/second striker is still a lot of money so you are generally looking at the PL teams for that.  Not City or Liverpool because they have players in that position, so Man Utd who have Rashford, Garnacho, Antony and Sancho…so only Newcastle who are likely after similar players to us.  They’ll have CL football, we’ll have Emery and Alemany even if they were interested.  I think we’ll do very well attracting the players we want, we have a lot to offer.

[gwi1890]

 

nothing like a highlight reel to influence opinions

[nick76]

3 hours ago, ejs1111 said:

cannot imagine anyone turning up their nose or not being excited about this potential signing.  Give your heads a wobble!

Torres is absolute class.  Very technically gifted, skilled, good pace, and only 23yrs old.  He is 1-2 levels above his competition at Villa for his position.  He would walk into our 11.  This signing would certainly mean 1 player for Villa will be shipped out- likely someone in the Bailey/Traore/Coutinho trio.

I for one am very excited to see this potential link and hope this comes to fruition- UTV

I have watched him a lot as I said above and I haven’t seen what you have seen in him.  I hope you are right if we buy him because I haven’t seen the “absolute class” as you call it, I just saw a decent player without standing out, a young player that drifted in and out, and was homesick and then the few games I saw him for Barca and Spain he was just ok.  There maybe something there that I’m not seeing and I’ll be very hopeful if we sign him but I can’t be “excited” based on what I’ve seen.  His CV looks impressive and he’s only 23 so that part is great.

Edited May 13, 2023 by nick76

[sne]

General consensus from the Barca forums I've seen is that he's OK but hasn't worked out. They think they should take the money and run and are thankful for Villa once again helping them out giving them money and taking an unwanted player off their books.

From a personal and petty point of view I hate that we are again helping Barca balance their books and keep their financial cheating going. And I've never really been that impressed with him although he is of course a talented player. His output in the league over the years has been underwhelming but he's mostly been a rotation player and is still young so that might change if given confidence and support.

Traore, El Ghazi, Trezeguet and even Bailey all have similar or even better seasons in the PL than what Torres has managed anywhere in his short career. Again, he's clearly better than all of these and circumstances differ but he really needs to start getting some end product if we are to pay £40m or so.

22/23

LaLiga

29

4

1

4 / - / 1

1.259'

21/22

LaLiga

18

4

4

1 / - / -

1.417'

21/22

Premier League

4

2

1

- / - / -

305'

20/21

Premier League

24

7

2

1 / - / -

1.307'

19/20

LaLiga

34

4

5

5 / - / -

2.256'

18/19

LaLiga

24

2

1

5 / - / -

842'

17/18

LaLiga

13

-

1

- / - / -

302'

 

Still think he could be a good signing and if it works out he could be a great one. Really want us to knock another £10m off their asking price thou so hopefully Alemany can sort that out. Also there is of course the very real possibility that this is all nothing and just empty paper/agent nonsense.

[Tomaszk]

14 minutes ago, sne said:

General consensus from the Barca forums I've seen is that he's OK but hasn't worked out. They think they should take the money and run and are thankful for Villa once again helping them out giving them money and taking an unwanted player off their books.

From a personal and petty point of view I hate that we are again helping Barca balance their books and keep their financial cheating going. And I've never really been that impressed with him although he is of course a talented player. His output in the league over the years has been underwhelming but he's mostly been a rotation player and is still young so that might change if given confidence and support.

Traore, El Ghazi, Trezeguet and even Bailey all have similar or even better seasons in the PL than what Torres has managed anywhere in his short career. Again, he's clearly better than all of these and circumstances differ but he really needs to start getting some end product if we are to pay £40m or so.

22/23

LaLiga

29

4

1

4 / - / 1

1.259'

21/22

LaLiga

18

4

4

1 / - / -

1.417'

21/22

Premier League

4

2

1

- / - / -

305'

20/21

Premier League

24

7

2

1 / - / -

1.307'

19/20

LaLiga

34

4

5

5 / - / -

2.256'

18/19

LaLiga

24

2

1

5 / - / -

842'

17/18

LaLiga

13

-

1

- / - / -

302'

 

Still think he could be a good signing and if it works out he could be a great one. Really want us to knock another £10m off their asking price thou so hopefully Alemany can sort that out. Also there is of course the very real possibility that this is all nothing and just empty paper/agent nonsense.

Yep.

Villa helping out one of the clearing in the woods clubs who can't run themselves properly and will push over and over for a super league is galling.

Be disappointed if this the best we can find.

[sharkyvilla]

I think we are the club and have the manager he needs to fulfil his potential having pottered around the Champions League clubs.

[picicata]

1 hour ago, Kiwivillan said:

Thought he was pretty average at City and not exactly pulling up trees since he left

I watch a lot of Man City as my step son is a supporter and every time Torres came on the pitch I would think to myself 'well there's a player who's not good enough for this City team'

If we did sign him I would back Emery to get the best from him long term but I don't think his signing would particularly excite in the immediate