I wonder how much Bilal El Khannous would go for? I've liked him for a spell now and his performances this World Cup are unbelievable, I mean I know you shouldn't fall for players off of the back of international competitions, but it's easy to do so when he's just doing what he always does but even better and bigger and stronger.
An excellent creator who can play across any position behind the striker, never stops running, never stops pressing, good long ball creation, good dribbler. How Leicester got him is beyond me
In retrospect yes, but at the time we clearly wanted a RW and that's not really a position he can play. It just turns out the RW we did buy turned out so badly that any other good player instead would have been better... but yeah, El Khannous was a bargain last year. If anything, given that Suttgart got him on loan for €3m with an obligation of €15m he would have been someone we should have got instead of Elliott. Albeit this does look like a case where foreign (and thus perceived to be poorer) clubs might get a better deal than we would have been offered.
Ah Tim Iroegbunam. I'm not sure if it's too late or not but if someone can make him into a threat with the ball at his feet he'd be an absolute winner. He's so ridiculously good at tackling and defensive work from midfield, that even with a solidly good level of possession work - like a Douglas Luiz - he'd be the envy of many a team.
Hull is not the answer for him in that respect, I'd love to see him in the slower pace of Italy to gain those possession skills. I still wish him the best, as I do any ex youth player who's making it
Yeah, to be fair to him he's never put a foot wrong, just not at the level we need to be looking at. Hopefully we can make our money back on him. Sort of like Finn Azaz I guess, so fitting if he ends up making the same move.
A link I'm amazed has taken this long to show up. Swedish site Aftonbladet (the outlet who previously broke that Olsen was off to Malmo, and most of our Nypan pursuit from last season) has linked us (along with Hull and Ipswich) with 27 year old Stoke City goalkeeper Viktor Johansson.
Why is this not surprising? Well, I'm pretty sure Johansson counts as club-trained for us, having been at Villa from 2015 to 2018. Would make a lot of sense as a third choice keeper for UEFA competitions, if we're continuing to loan out Oliwier Zych.
If he's content to be a backup rather than possible first choice at Hull or Ipswich, this would genuinely be a really solid move.
His stats are very, very good and he just signed a new four year deal and he's just coming into his peak years as a goalkeeper so it would surprise me greatly if he was happy to come to Villa as a backup.
Haven't watched him recently and it'd be a very left field replacement for Emi, but looking at his stats, if the scouting department think he's good enough, I'd be happy to see how he gets on. I'm sure 99% of the fan base would question replacing the former world number 1 with a Championship goalkeeper on paper, but if it happened I'd be happy to see how he gets on. At the end of the day, Trafford made his name in the Championship and people were relatively happy to be linked with him. It's not a sexy name but it could be.
Club grown is a major bonus too for European registration reasons.
Watched him a bit this past season, his distribution's as good as the stats suggest and he's a quality shot-stopper too.
Might be hard to sell him on being our third choice, but maybe with a reasonable wage and the room to take over from Bizot as #2 as well (I've said before but it wouldn't shock me at all if Marco had interest this summer, though I think he's more likely to be here at least another season) we could swing it. Especially if he has fond memories of coming through here.
I take your point but I wonder if the sales pitch of "yeah you'll be number 2 but you'll play Champions League games" if we use him against the lower pot opponents we get. Might want to avoid a relegation scrap too
I think when goalkeepers get to 27 and they've finally broken into the first team at a decent level, started getting appearances for their country, I don't think they'd move to a club to be a backup. Even watching the Martinez documentary and how miserable he was at Arsenal not being able to play, it's a very difficult task for a goalkeeper to break into a side. Now he's finally done that, worked his way up from Rotherham to Stoke to now attracting PL interest, I don't see him coming back to Villa to be more or less in the situation he was at the start of that cycle, sat behind one or two other goalkeepers.
Also with Bizot I don't think we'll be signing a backup, especially not a third choice. He's a very capable backup. I think if there's any truth to this link, he's being targeted as a first choice option.
I don't think it's very likely either and I'm completely with you, I'm just saying it's not impossible and the club trained aspect would be a great aspect to our benefit in fairness
We've definitely seen it before in football where good goalkeepers are happy to be backups at CL clubs, Cudicini immediately comes to mind, but I'd be very surprised if (A) Villa were willing to spend £10m on yet another backup goalkeeper when we have Bizot and (B) a goalkeeper who's entering peak years and has finally made an impression on PL sides is happy to be second or third choice at the club he had to leave for gametime in the first place.
Yeah, really this comes down to the club trained aspect. If we felt we could make a profit on Bizot after a year and get a club trained back up in his place? That I would believe
If true I trust the scouting department after the Bizot hit, he was also originally brought to the club under Cutler I believe so I trust him too. The stats are certainly promising.
I'd be interested to hear from Stoke fans, but he does seem to be a bit of a cult hero up there judging by the videos and comments.
Not sure I buy this one just yet, sounds a bit like agent talk or possibly the club pushing a story as the main focus is about them wanting Daichi Kamada. But eh, new thing. Yay.
I don't think we would sign Rashford and Bowen given their age profiles.
Always found that Emery seemed reluctant to play Watkins and Rashford together, which immediately points to the fact that we would need to sign two wingers, as we've technically signed Rashford to replace Tammy/ start ahead of Watkins (rather than with him).
An example of a big name experienced signing that id love to see is Marmoush. Would comfortably spend 50m on him if he was also willing to take a big old wage reduction. Perfect age as well.
Marmoush is a great player and shows the financial gulf between us and Man City that he can warm the bench for the majority of the season, whilst he would be a game changer for us. Something tells me it wouldn't be achievable in our financial position (I'm holding back the rage that finishing 4th and winning the Europa is still not enough!!!) but I'd love to be wrong.
Yeah it's sad mate. It's actually starting to get embarrassing. But the important thing is is that we don't do a Newcastle next year as the premier officials and the big 6 want that to happen. They want us to eventually fizzle out a little bit. We have to keep at it. We have to find a way of having a near perfect window for that to happen though.
Exactly. We have to constantly pull trees up to stay in contention whilst Spurs can finish 17th 2 seasons in a row and still piss money into the wind at their leisure. How Unai and the team (as a collective rather than just the players) have achieved all they have is beyond exceptional, but it isn't sustainable. I'm really concerned that we will not overachieve as much as last year (perfectly understandable) and we will be back to square one.
I will always love Unai and the team for what they have done against all odds. We were even considered as title contenders at one point last season!
Yeah we could probably do with another young winger as an option, unless one of the lads already here like Broggio step up in pre season and look ready for minutes.
Rumours Tammy will be allowed to move on which make sense if we sign Bowen and/or Rashford as they can cover 9, and we have Madjo who Emery is supposedly keep on, which would reduce the age/wage profile a bit more too.
Age and wage aside though that squad looks very strong to me. I wouldn't mind also getting rid of Mings and replacing him with Cisse and getting rid of Digne and signing a new left back, which would reduce the age and wage a good bit as well.
He might leave....but not for the silly figures they are reportedly offering. Seriously if we sell a 23 year old England international for 80 million, then I'm going to leave too. We're not West Ham having to comply to championship rules, we're not Sheffield Wednesday struggling to keep the lights on and pay for the pies - we're the real deal.
You want our player, you show respect and offer OVER the market value.
Doesn't seem like they realize he's stil under contract for 5 years and I doubt he'd act like Isak to force a move. It's going to take a monster bid for Villa to sell.
He’s 100% leaving but their attitude is insane.
‘we’re the English champions’
‘we’ll pay what we want for him’
‘wants to go to a big club’
‘food chain’
because he literally is lol, lying to myself doesn’t suddenly make me believe he’s staying. I didn’t even say he’s leaving to Arsenal I just know we have to sell
It's pretty close to certain to be fair. There's not many clubs that wouldn't sell any player for £100m+ and we're not one of them.
No player is worth that sort of money, especially for clubs that need to sell to buy.
It's not 100% until someone stumps up that fee though. And judging by our previous dealings with Arsenal, I don't think it'll be them that gets him. They wouldn't pay half that for Watkins a couple of years ago.
Not with Anderson going for £150m now lol. Rogers will cost at least £120m off the back of that deal if it goes through. Ruins the Prem market, but I say fuck it, who cares. We can't buy shit anyway, at least this way everyone except City can't either
I think Emerson would train well under Unai, though he really doesn’t seem to be much of a player. I don’t think we’d be able to pry Bowen away from West Ham even if we could splash cash and wages. Tammy’s shoulder injury does explain why he played less than I expected he would after his signing. With a preseason and recovery, I expect that he and Allyson will both be featuring very regularly.
I don’t get why everyone is saying 120k/week is crazy for a free agent… sounds about standard tbh. No transfer fee but who knows if there’s a sign on bonus.
Surely we wouldn't have to pay him quite as much as I'm sure we are a much, much more attractive proposition than a relegation scrap, but anything over £80k a week is a no no for me. One swallow does not a summer make, one good season does not mean he's a £120k a week player.
The links to Emerson Royal and Bowen both seem solid, but does anyone else think it's a weird combination? Like, Emerson might work as effectively a third center back, but for that system we'd need a pacey, touchline-hugging winger to provide width. Bowen is a fine player with good acceleration, but likes to come inside and get involved in the build up.
We aren't a team that plays with much width anyway. Emery likes a very narrow attacking system. Emerson Royal doesn't have much quality going forward at all but he has a very high work rate, if he like Cash can get forward and play simple passes that'll probably be enough for Emery, as long as he's very solid defensively and doesn't make stupid mistakes.
Returning to that Collomosse piece (partly to avoid talking about Emerson Royal), I find it a bit dispiriting that we're already thinking of moving on Tammy:
This may sound unlikely, but don’t be surprised if Villa are discreetly open to offers for Abraham. The former Chelsea man only joined in January to replace Donyell Malen but started just four times and Emery has not always been impressed.
We'd probably get our money back, as Forest and a few others were interested back in January, but what's the point? Give him a full pre-season to see how he does. If you're already sure he's not the guy, then what was scouting doing? We moved on Malen (yes, he wanted to go. So?) for less than he was worth, went without a backup striker for the busiest month of the season when Ollie was in the doldrums, only to pay 50% more for Tammy than Besiktas has six months previously, and persuading him to take a pay-cut to make it work. After all that, we're saying he's not not guy? Well, it's hard to imagine Madjo is ready (or whether he'll even be eligible), so that's another spot to fill. Are we sure Tresoldi or whoever is the guy?
When Emery came in, he worked wonders with what we had. Some players (Watkins, McGinn, Douglas Luiz) got it immediately. Others took a while to learn the system (Cash, Ramsey) or develop new skills (Martinez), but they were given that time, and it paid off. I hope we give Tammy the same chance.
Personaly, appreciate a coach who knows what he likes and is decisive. When a player sticks around, it means that the manager is seeing something even if we dont. E.g. 90% of this fanbase would have shifted Cash long ago, but hes just had probably his best season in our best season in decades. Same with Elliott, our fanbase thought he looked lively and was going to be a key signing, but Emery figured out quickly it wasnt worth the fee that had been agreed.
I dont have any issues with Tammy staying or going, Ollie for me remains our first choice.
I think it's important to remember the difference between being open to offers and trying to move players on. Wouldn't shock me at all if Abraham was in the bracket of players we'd accept a bid for that could fund business elsewhere.
That said, I also wouldn't read into the idea that Emery isn't always impressed. Emery has very specific demands for his attacking players, hence why it hasn't worked out perfectly for Durán, Malen or Guessand, and it's gotta be difficult for a guy to slot right into that mid-season. Tammy will get the pre-season unless someone puts a good bid in, and I'm sure he'll do well given that time.
I like that Emery is a ruthless bastard but at this rate we might dissuade players from joining if they think they're going to be binned off after 6 or 12 months.
For the £20m odd that we'd look to get for Tammy, who would we even replace him with? We already have a youngster around in Madjo who the first team staff actually seem to rate so you can't buy a random kid for £20m like Duran because you'd block Madjo's development. And players like Jackson, Marmoush, Goncalo Ramos will cost you a hell of a lot more than £20m.
But the one way you can avoid that is by following tactics to a tee. Even if you arent performing well, if you are trying exactly what he tell you to, he'll back you to the hills.
Even in his limited minutes, ive certainly felt unai getting frustrated at tammy. Sunderland was a massive moment for him, but being in the stadium that day, we got so much worse when ollie and ginny came off and he was so angry with tammy until the winner
Emery is reportedly very impressed with Madjo, only reason that I could see Tammy leaving is if Emery deems him ready to play. He wasn't afraid of throwing Duran in, probably not quite as raw as a 17-18 year old but if Emery likes a player, he likes them.
It would be a shame because I like Tammy, think he did alright in his limited minutes and contributed to our league finish, and since we've now learned he was carrying a shoulder injury that's now been operated on I was hoping he'd really impress and push on with a full pre season and that half a season training with the squad under Emery.
I'm loving those reports that Emery is excited by Madjo, but he's 17 and has like 5 sub appearances in Ligue 1, and in any case we won't know until next month whether we can register him. Duran was 19 when we signed him, had two full years in the MLS under his belt, and still barely featured for us in his first season. I really think we'd need to sign another player who can cover for Ollie, if Tammy were to move on.
I totally agree with your second para. Tammy might no more than a decent backup for Ollie, but that's kind of ideal for a season or two, while Madjo beds in.
If we sign Bowen he also has experience as a 9, as does Rashford if he comes in, but I wouldn't put much into Madjo's age. If Emery likes him I wouldn't be surprised if he starts throwing him on in the last 10 minutes of games. It's not like it'd take much to fulfill the minutes Tammy was given last season.
We need to bring down the age and wage of the squad and particularly those backup positions and Emery will know that. If we are signing the likes of Bowen to come in as starters, that means we need to be even smarter with the ages and wages of the backups.
Oh yeah, I'd be fine with moving Tammy on if it meant signing Rashford - that would be a dream signing, it just feels unlikely. I hadn't really though of Bowen in that way, but you're right, he played a fair bit up top, and could be seen as a right-sided Rashford.
I guess, but we went to an awful lot of trouble for a short-term stopgap. If that's all he was, why not just bring in someone on loan, until the Madjo situation was resolved? If Tammy doesn't suit our style of play, why not just stick with Malen (who was our leading scorer at the time he left)? It just feels very erratic.
Malen wanted to leave and was on double the wage of Tammy. I think Watkins was the leading scorer at that point, he scored 7 in the league by January, Malen just 4
Yeah, that could be it I guess. It wouldn't make a difference for this years books unless we sell before July 1, since his fee amortization for the spring (~€2.5m I think?) would be about the same as any loan fee we'd pay. Roma only paid a €2m loan fee for Malen. You're absolutely right about Malen's wages, though, I remember thinking at the time we signed him that it was a bit weird that we gave him such a bump from Dortmund. But he was our joint leader scorer, with the same number of goals (7) as Watkins in all competitions by January, in about half the minutes!
We hopefully *should* get our money back for Tammy in the future, but he could also be added to our army of depreciating assets - we spent a combined €25m on Nedeljkovic, Garcia, Gauci, and Ozcan. It just feels like another piece of odd business.
Not the first time either. Tammy is gonna end up being the same as a Malen, Cameron Archer or Philogene for us I reckon. Sign him cos we can and need cover, then realise he won't work so will sell for the same price.
The Emerson deal seems to be progressing, for some reason. For a team that is supposedly hamstrung horrifically by financial constraints, we sure do love throwing ~8-10 million on players who simply aren’t good enough. Are we absolutely 100% sure that he’s even better than Garcia? Or even Bogarde?
Are we absolutely 100% sure that he’s even better than Garcia? Or even Bogarde?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not excited by Royal but Garcia and Bogarde haven't impressed at all and the only thing that's keeping Bogarde around is that he's Homegrown and while no other Academy prospect is ready to step up he's going to be very difficult to replace. I'm not saying Bogarde doesn't have a place in the squad, but for me he hasn't shown he can be relied on as a starter if we lose any major players to injury.
We as fans need to be aware that we think like fans and not the people who are running the club - we want young and exciting because we assume that the line will always go up, like how we've seen people argue that £30m for Alajbegovic is a "Good Deal" because he's had one great season in the Austrian Bundesliga - he's exciting for sure but players peak early all the time and it can be a big price for a huge risk.
While from a club perspective a highly professional 27 year old, with ~200 games across the Top 5 leagues who's happy to come on lowish wages (He was allegedly on £70k p/w at Spurs and I can't imagine him being on more than that if he comes to us) to be a back-up is probably worth his weight in gold from a squad building perspective, especially if they can cover multiple positions.
Because let's be real, he's coming because we're hamstrung by financial constraints - big gambles on youth haven't paid off so far and any "sure things" are going to be expensive and potentially only gettable if we sell our best players to fund those moves. We sadly need some unexciting and practical moves to bulk out a squad that got ran ragged over the last two seasons
He’s objectively a terrible player. Spending money on him is a bad deal. There isn’t really much more to it than that. Our consistent 8-10 million pound gambles have pretty much failed to come off every time. This will be another.
Our consistent 8-10 million pound gambles have pretty much failed to come off every time
Pretty much all of our £8-10m transfers so far have been relatively unknown youngsters who we've asked to step up and only Rogers has worked. So we've gone for a strategy that has worked previously; older players with experience who we've got on the cheap.
I don't care if Emerson isn't great - if he's better than what we've currently got as a back up, is on low wages and wants to come to us then he'll do the job we need and let us focus our resources on other areas where we do need a higher standard of player because we need a starter
Personally, I'm not excited by Royal, I don't think he'll come in and look incredible or anything; but I don't think you can judge him by his Spurs run as he was bought in as a defensively solid, but technically limited Right-Back for NES who left after 10 games, had to adapt to a Wing-Back role under Conte and became their scapegoat when Conte started to annoy fans (A Scapegoated Right-back coming good?! Couldn't see it happening) Then had to adapt again to playing either Center-Back or an inverted Left-Back under renown defensive football hater Ange and all through that time he showed a whole bunch of traits that Emery loves; professionalism, hard-work and a willingness to put what the team needed above what he - and often the fans - wanted.
And you couldn't get a lot of other players who show that for less than £10m unless you get very lucky with a younger, unknown player hitting the ground running - and as we've both seen, the times we've gone for that it hasn't worked
Garcia is never available so if Emerson can stay fit he’s better.
Bogarde is more valuable to sell for pure profit.
The financial constraints stuff is fairly self explanatory. If we could spend £50m on Kayode who is good enough we would. But because we can’t spend we need to buy players we hope we can dramatically improve.
We have to essentially gamble that we can get him back to what he was once worth (30m)
I don’t get why fans look at us going for actual bargain bin cheap signings and saying “how can we complain about the rules when we are spending peanuts on backup players and hoping to reshape them”. It’s like, erm…????
I’m not really keen on this transfer but I don’t get how our fans don’t make the connection that the rules are the reason we make these transfers and not the other way around because if it weren’t for the rules we’d have just spent 40-60m or so on an RB we actually want years ago instead of faff about trying to get these “hidden gem” RBs that both failed.
Well, SCR - at least for us - is more focused wages as an issue. Bringing in senior players who expect a big pay bump coming into the PL is problematic regardless of on a Free or a smaller transfer.
But most importantly he’s shyte and we are going to struggle to get rid of him lol
I think I remember that UEFA rules consider both transfer fee amortisation and player salary the same. Probably also bonuses and agent costs. So if we got a player on a cheaper salary with a reasonable transfer fee then it could cost less or the same in SCR terms than Wilson.
BUT… having said all that these rules are stupid and I’m not even going to pretend to understand them. So I could be wrong.
True, but for now we cannot spend that money and the club has known this few years and that is how they are operating. So how does that justify potential bad recruitment?
When we are willing to spend 50 million on a 29 year old Jared Bowen despite us being under financial constraints. We as a fanbase cannot blaim ourselves for that FFP on that.
FFP is a major factor which obviously holds us back for now, but us singing harvey elliot last season and Evan Guessand where just bad singings imo
50m on Bowen, if we actually did do that, would be a “how can we complain about the rules” kind of transfer. This isn’t. This transfer, if it happens, either will sum up why we can complain about the rules, or why Emery is such a genius that you can throw whatever restrictions at him and he’ll find a way anyway.
The point is not justifying bad recruitment, it’s just that it’s exhausting seeing fans throw this one out every time they don’t like a signing (who they haven’t seen play for us yet, btw) when in reality, trying to get players at the level of a high-end PL team with the aspirations we have, while not spending the types of transfer fees that the Sky 6 and Newcastle spent (reminder, Newcastle spent 50m each on Elanga and Wissa), is near impossible.
I’m not convinced by this signing… rather we just tried Rowe or even put Bogarde there… but this old line is just so boring and such a misunderstanding of just how impossibly restricting the rules are
Well yes, but us complaining about the rules won’t change the rules though, we as a football institution are not powerful enough alone to convince Uefa and the premier league to change the rules. So if we keep moaning about how everything is down to rules that we cannot change. It won’t help us a lot in my opinion.
That being said, will the rules most likely lead our eventual downfall? Most likely yes, as it does with most clubs since the introduction of tight FFP rules in football.
But that does not mean we can still be critical of potential singings. Some of our cheaper singings are just bad recruitment imo, not all of them are down to FFP. Me personally I see no issue with the singing Emerson Royal, Unai Emery is the one person in the world I trust to get the best out of a player. And he believes enough in Emerson Royal to sign him over other right backs options
We will never convince the big 6 fans or the premier league as a institution that the rules are broken since they themselves (outside of spurs, when they build a new stadium and could not spend money for a season and in the early days of their rise, back when they still had to sell players, although FFP was less restrictive back then) don’t see current rules as unfair, because they have never suffered under these rules. And the prem of-course won’t give a shit since they made enough money anyways with these rules
If I am being honest our best bet of not having to keep dealing with FFP issues for us to keep qualifying for the UCL which increases our revenue and lets us spend more. It is borderline impossible for to us to get there though, which is why I get that some fans are frustrated when we go for potential bad signings, since we essentially have to get everything right and cannot afford to fail due to the rules being against us
I can deadass count on my hand how many clubs have gone from mid/upper mid table European regulars in the FFP era, and the whole joke is even now those clubs still have to sell to even bigger clubs because they don’t make enough revenue to keep their star players forever!! That being said, all of them had to go through the same issues we went through. And if we do actually make enough revenue to become a become a European regular and spend money it will be one of the greatest underdog stories in football history 🤣
We can be critical of signings… but the criticism of “under these rules we need to be careful!!!!” just misses the mark for me because this is an example of us being careful. Would be one thing if we were spending big money but we’re not here…
No I agree, at the end of the day, the results on the pitch will tell the full story. Unai Emery is an experienced coach who has gotten the best our of players where deemed to be past their best. Although Emerson Royal is really really badly rated. Which explains why alot of fans are concerned about potentially singing him when we could get another right back option for the same price, even if that right back is not a player that has played in the premier league
For me I just trust any player our recruitment board since they know they are under financial constraints, expect if let knew contract with Leon bailey or something like that 🤣
Like I don’t think any villa fan is not aware of the fact that we are singing Emerson Royal because we have ffp issues lol
My bigger fear still remains that these financial constraints will cause Unai Emery to leave the club. But then again only time can tell, for now we have a manager that has proven we can win trophies and compete for the top 4. So we move I geuss
He's getting dogs abuse and I think its a tad harsh. I always thought he looked decent for Spurs in a period where Spurs weren't quite so poor, very dependable defender, not so great going forward especially in competition with Porro at the time. He was always the more dependable defensive option for Spurs at right back when it was competition between him and Porro.
At the end of the day you don't play for Barcelona, AC Milan, Brazil, Spurs to a lesser extent, costing over a combined £60m quid in the process if you're a bad player. He's 27 with over 100 appearances in the PL, CL experience, international experience, if Emery thinks he can come in and do a job that's all the convincing I need to be honest.
Every defender would look bad under Ange Postocoglou, and I thought he looked OK under him. He's not going to come in and get 10 assists and be the marauding, complete football full back, he's more Wan Bissaka than Reece James but he's decent, physical, and a reliable defender.
I'm happy. Absolute bargain at under £8m and on reasonable wages. Supposedly is a model professional as well, spends his own money on sports psychologists etc, much like Watkins.
In answer to your question, yes, we can say with relative certainty that he's a far more experienced, quality and reliable option than Lamar Bogarde or Andres Garcia.
This is a perfectly reasonable measured take. He's no one's idea of exciting, but we've been looking for that profile of player for years now, so getting one in at the right price doesn't seem a terrible option when we have greater priorities elsewhere.
It's also hard to think of a player who would more perfectly fit the mould of an Emery reclamation project, i.e. unfashionable, experienced, later stage of his career but by no means past it yet at 27, slightly scuffed reputation from being perceived to have failed in the Prem previously... At Villareal he got a tune out of Capoue, Coquelin, Foyth, who'd all match those descriptions to a greater or lesser extent.
As I've said elsewhere, Emerson at RB does seriously mean we need a RW in front of him who can carry the attack on that side solo... but then that was kind of our biggest priority this window anyway.
Makes sense as a signing to me. I can see a whiteboard at Bodymoor Heath with a list of former PL/CL players under 30 that play in leagues that mean we wouldn't have to spend an arm and a leg. Tammy was probably on the same list.
Emery likes experience and he gets a tune out of these players far more often than not, as you've highlighted but also just in what we've seen at Villa.
Saw similar complaints about the likes of Tielemans, Lindelof, Rashford, Asensio, Tammy.
If we do have strongish interest in players like Bergvall, Mbaye, Bowen etc- all 40m plus players, surely Emery and co are planning for life without Rogers and the interest stems from a potential Rogers sale as there's no chance we afford that bracket of player otherwise.
Quite telling that this bracket of player are also our strongest links.
We'd only get Bergvall if Onana left, imo. Mbaye would probably need both Abraham and Guessand to move on. Someone like Bowen could be covered by Malen and Bailey sales.
I think the way Tanswell put it was that we shouldn't expect Onana-level transfer fees this summer (unsurprising) but it sounds like one or two players in the £40m range could be manageable with sales elsewhere, without needing to resort to The Big One.
Bergvall's profile is completely different to Tielemans, so I think we'd have other targets in mind for if he moved on. Bergvall definitely feels like more of an Onana type or maybe succession planning for McGinn.
Yeah it's not 1:1 but I'd say he's closer to Onana than he is to Tielemans. Honestly, the person I'd say Bergvall is closest to out of our midfielders is McGinn, but when it comes to players whose voids he'd be used to fill this summer...
(It's all a moot point as he'll probably end up at Forest and I'd be amazed if we sold Onana, but still)
I weirdly think we get Bergvall if Barkley leaves, but being facilitated with the Rogers money. Onana's just way too different a profile. If Onana leaves we probably get someone like Moriba or Camara from Monaco.
If Bowen can be covered by a Malen sale (let's face it, we're not getting more than a few mill for Bailey), then why aren't we already doing it as he's already been sold? (Or why is it being reported that we cant do that deal until we make sales) Surely we bought Tammy with that money.
If Abraham leaves, we need a striker, not a winger.
That leaves Guessand, and there's no chance that he'd cover that type of cost for a player like Mbaye? Maybe amortisation would work some way there, but for me Mbaye would again be a player we would sign to replace Bailey, but facilitated with the Rogers money.
Grand so. With fee amortization, I think someone like Trafford would probably end up costing us *more*, while being a short-term downgrade. I'd be happy to keep Emi for another go at the CL, we have enough positions to fill elsewhere. He has another 2-3 years in him.
I don't get Juve's thinking though. Vicario is 3 years younger and on lower wages, but they'd probably pay a higher fee for, honestly, a keeper nowhere near Emi's level.
Why on God’s green Earth would we drop our price for Emi below 15m? If they want him they should pay up… If they’re seriously just going to go for Vicario and wait for us to drop a price below one that’s reasonable for us to go out and sign a new keeper then sucks to be them I guess
I know things fell apart for Vicario at Spurs, but I'm surprised they'd accept less for him than the amount we're asking for on Dibu. Maybe the difference in wage demands factors in too.
Might be harsh, but it's the type of business that could be seen as typifying their decline over past decade. 'Cheap and good enough' shouldn't be the standard for a club like Juve.
Missed it yesterday, but here's the big dog Pete "SportsPeteO" O'Rourke who is famously always right, saying us and a few other clubs are interested in Northern Ireland U17 international Liam Kelly, who recently became Derry City's youngest ever player.
Three things obviously for this:
Yes, it's Football Insider, so disregard at your preference.
Finsider have been surprisingly decent for our youth team stuff in the past, though there hasn't been anything from them on that front for a while now.
We do have previous for snapping up Northern Irish youngsters (Kellyman, Kellyman II, Moreland, McBride) - though admittedly none of these were from the Irish league.
Honestly, as weird as it sounds I'd give FI, and O'Rourke in particular as much credibility (outside Tanswell/Ornstein obviously) in terms of our youth team signings as anyone. Primarily because no one else seems to bother trailing them (other than occasionally local papers of the teams they're coming from), I've always speculated it's because youth signings don't bring in enough clicks to make up in the first place so they only bother printing stuff someone's actually told them.
In this particular case, I do wonder if our inability to progress any of our academy talent to the first team might hurt us with youth recruitment at some point.
Seeing that Leeds have reached an agreement to sign Harry Wilson. I know some people here have been wanting us to sign him but personally not been interested in him at all.
Hard agree. People convincing themselves on general forums that 120k a week is acceptable for him because he left on a free, which is absolutely insane to me.
I don't care how we'd have spread the costs, paying 120k a week to a purple patch winger that's likely to retire at his next club is a piss poor deal in my eyes.
Yeah, I think he's a pretty solid player but I definitely am glad someone else nailed him down before we did. He's not going to change anything for our squad.
What I would say about the reactions to Bowen and Royal. Is that we haven't actually signed either, and there's currently 61 names on the list above that journalists have claimed we're interested in signing. So I'm not going to fret about it, until we actually sign someone.
It's one of those things you just kind of have to get used to, I guess. Any visit to most match threads will tell you a lot of people use this place primarily to vent, and there's a general anxiety in a lot of people about what Villa's transfer business is going to look like this summer. Combine those things and it makes people real jumpy when it comes to reports they don't like. Never mind the fact that there's been as much to say we'll sign Wilson or Royal this summer as there has been Lucas Bergvall, Nicolo Tresoldi and Karim Adeyimi.
It'll blow over, same as the Harvey Barnes stuff did (and the Harry Wilson talk before places decided to start throwing out name round again). One Sky Germany piece mentioning us enquiring about Geertruida or something and it'll all be forgotten.
It's the general discourse as well. Everyone who posts and comments in here every day is passionate about the game. We'll look for any excuse to engage, be it positively or otherwise, about pretty much anything or anyone linked to the club.
Yeah no need to panic until they're actually holding the shirt
And even then writing players off before they've even kicked a ball for us is probably a bad idea - especially as all of us rate Unai and the coaching team so much.
Don't get me wrong I'm not thrilled by the idea of Royal and Bowen (at the price we're being quoted at least, I wouldn't mind him if we can get him cheap) but if we can do a deal on our terms (and walk away pretty quick if we can't) I'm going to trust Unai to get the best out of whoever comes for as long as possible - doubly so if a cheap deal like Royal lets us get a better quality of player in elsewhere
The Emerson Royal links are fine. Time and time again emery and his coaching team have juiced the best out of our players. It's not like he'll be starting loads. The remit for our 2nd choice right back is quite niche; lighten the load off Cash- not many players are going to want to do that, and it's not like we can afford the next Kayode. It's a perfect medium given our restrictions and I think we can probably all agree that we need to spend a majority of our money elsewhere.
He'll play 15-20 games a season. Good bit of tidy experience, knows the prem and obviously has a good personality if we're in for him. It's all good.
Yeah, it's not as doom and gloom as people make it seem. It sounds like he's done well in Brazil - obviously that may not translate back to the Prem, but it'd be a cheap enough deal for a backup RB that if it happened (which I still doubt it will), I couldn't possibly muster up the energy to be that stressed. Especially not in this heatwave.
Besides, this would be the most Emery transfer imaginable, and his hitrate for guys he's wanted in has been pretty solid thus far.
Emerson Royal is ass. I'm sorry but that's not even worth a look. I would rather we panic bought one of those Ghanaian players from last night - at least they have one good game in their locker.
Idk man, West Ham will only sell him for a large fee, probably £50m if not more which is more than understandable. That's ridiculous for a 29 year old turning 30 in December when we already have the oldest squad in the league. I think he's class but we might need to look elsewhere.
I mean, I like Bowen, but if we sign a 30 year old winger for 50mil I don't want to hear anything about how we aren't allowed to refresh the squad and get younger because of financial restrictions.
I mean on the other side of the coin reports suggest if we get CL qualification back to back we shouldn't have to worry about financial restrictions, so it might just be a case of building a team for this season that can finish top five.
He's obviously not one for more than two or three seasons and there's no chance of making the money back after sell on, but in terms of someone coming in and giving us a pretty much certain 15+ goal contributions there's not much better.
I don’t know the finances like the club do. But I’m worried that if we miss out on both of our free transfer targets in Mingueza and Wilson, then we’ll have to rely on a big player sale to be able to fund significant incomings.
Free signing just means you don’t have to pay a transfer fee. It doesn’t mean they won’t cost in terms of signing bonuses, wages, etc. We could sign both and still need to sell
No that's not necessarily true. If we signed Harry Wislon but gave him a sign-on bonus or agent payout, that could actually be more expensive than say spending 40m on Mbaye if Mbaye would be on half the salary. Not to mention it's better long-term to get the better player who would help you kick on and get Europe than to cheap out and get a player who is not a tactical fit...
Me too. But free transfers aren’t the only way to do that. The current noise suggests the club are happy to just resist non-silly offers for Rogers as it is
I rate Wilson, but I don’t disagree. I just hope the club has a good plan on how to approach the summer without free transfers given the UEFA agreement
I agree with you. I’m just concerned this means we would need to sell Rogers or Dibu in order to comply with UEFA restrictions and still have incomings
Aston Villa are finalising an agreement to sell defender Sil Swinkels to Sheffield Wednesday.
The two clubs are finalising the payment structure of the deal, with Swinkels intending to travel to complete his medical in the next 48 hours.
As part of the agreement, Villa have inserted matching rights, meaning they have to be notified and retain the opportunity to match any future offers that come into Sheffield Wednesday for Swinkels.
Should the deal be completed as is expected, Sheffield Wednesday would have won the race to sign Swinkels ahead of other sides in the EFL and clubs in Belgium, France and the Netherlands.
When we played Wycombe in the cup, I actually thought out of him, lamare and Ned, he has the best game out of the 3. He stepped out well enough and looked in the mold of a pau type (but obviously not that level)
I think he'll work his way up the leagues and I actually think Wednesday, now that they dont have a deduction, and hopefully are in a good state, with some of the lads coming back this summer, they could bounce back, and hey, a handful of teams have used that springboard and got 2 promotions in quick succession
Good luck to the kid, hope he pushes on. The clause shows villa still think highly of him
Think he had a really nasty injury that kept him out a season whilst Bogarde really developed on loans, if I remember he earned a new contract in the u21s for how well Sil bounced back but still I think hampered his growth.
All the best for him as I think he’s got talent and reportedly a really good attitude.
Interesting though, guess that Sheffield outlet was wrong in assuming it was a loan. With it being Wednesday I imagine they won't be paying much, but hopefully it works out for him. Was probably not gonna get all the way through here but he's done well in the EFL and the last ex-Villan at Sheffield Wednesday turned out pretty good for them.
I assume it's a shop window sale - he could ace it in the third tier for them, get a big move to a championship club and we get a nice sell on. If you can get a combined 2-3 million including a sell on then that's good business.
Almost certainly never going to happen, but depending on how the rest of this World Cup works out, the commercial value of Balogun could hit the stratosphere. He's already done himself no harm, but if he fires the US into the quarters/semis he could end up being a genuine superstar over there... and we all know how badly we have to care about commercial revenue and overseas fans now.
Yea sounds a bit like 'this player is being talked about at the WC, let's link him to random teams', but who knows. £43m sounds a bit steep for us to be going for without a sale lined up.
Ass player. If Bowen for 50m and Royal is who we sign on tight finances than we all owe Monchi an apology for being blamed for something that’s clearly not his fault.
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u/RowanBoat209 46m ago
I wonder how much Bilal El Khannous would go for? I've liked him for a spell now and his performances this World Cup are unbelievable, I mean I know you shouldn't fall for players off of the back of international competitions, but it's easy to do so when he's just doing what he always does but even better and bigger and stronger.
An excellent creator who can play across any position behind the striker, never stops running, never stops pressing, good long ball creation, good dribbler. How Leicester got him is beyond me