Tomaszk

My mate who's a Preston season ticket holder says he's unrecognisable from when he first joined. Ten times the player coming in off the left wing now. I think Bournemouth were very interested in January.

I meant under Smith sir. Did he play this shape for most of his time at Brentford? You lot ever experiment with 3 CBs under him?

Whatever you want to call it, it was the same identical shape IMO for that grim run. We setup the same way week after week and looked poor every time. We will improve with better players absolutely, I think it's worth having a different shape we can try if we've gone four games without a "good" performance.

Hope so, it will benefit us. Brentford played 433 every time we played them. We played 433 every match except one last season, I think we might even have switched back to it towards the end of that Swansea game. 433 has been 100% his plan A in the past. Player ability, workrate and attitude is definitely more important than any discussions like this btw. I think Dean will get that side right and it'll help if he's got some formation flexibility to go alongside it.

Back to you Jeff.

I sincerely hope it's fun and not painful. We need to get results to keep confidence level high for the way we play.

I'm hopeful El Ghazi was demanding to come back here. His improvement under Smith was stark. Excellent signing on loan by Bruce, but I don't think he knew how to use a player like this.

Something I really really think Smith needs to decide on is some sort of alternate system. If he really wants to, I've got no problem with him going to Man City, playing 433 and trying to beat them. We could try 25 different things away at City and lose every match, we might even win playing Dean's style, who knows. But with such a defined shape, if we are suddenly not getting results or goals or possession in five successive home matches, confidence will dry up and it's become even harder to pick up points. Attacking teams wildly in the Championship is what I wanted the whole time we were down there, it was brilliant for the most part. Ended up being one of my favourite seasons ever. From memory I can only remember one match we played a different formation under Smith and that was 4231 at Swansea away, a 1-0 win with a last minute Bony penalty being missed (greatest moment of Nyland's Villa career). I think going up we need something in our back pocket to go with if we're in sticky form, or are hanging on to a 1 goal lead, or want to play a match on the counter, something, anything. The run without Jack through Dec/Jan/Feb was grim viewing, we weren't even getting into half the games, just swept aside.

Interested to see how it'll be practically carried out. They've been testing this for the last three seasons every single Saturday from a production company in West London where the Premier League pictures are distributed from. They should be ready with a clear plan, but I fear they aren't. The pictures the UEFA officials get from their little crapbox at the side of Champions League pitches are not as good as many of the TV replays available IMO, it's really weird. HawkEye do the Champions League replays with their own system, different from the operators in control of the TV pictures. Not sure who is in charge of the replays that will be shown to the crowd or ref in the PL. Hopefully the match production truck at each ground, because they have access to every single camera in the ground. You can't have an official making a decision then show the live crowd a different replay, it's potentially hanging to ref out to dry and asking for trouble. Couple of teams are going to get royally screwed early on, maybe even throughout the season. I really hope it isn't us.

Such a great post this. Don't think we'll bring in 10. I'll say 9. Including Jota, that's 8 left in 64 days. One every 8 days, lovely.

Agreed. El Ghazi may have plenty of extra suitors though. And he's a Mendes fella isn't he? So they may be turning round and asking for £60k a week now we're PL. Hopefully not, but they might be. Fingers crossed Hause will be simpler. Both of these and Mings should be desperate to get to Villa and continue their improvement with our superb coaching team.

Feels like it would be borderline foolish to not complete for this figure, bearing in mind our squad.

Welcome Jota/Yota/Hota/Zhota. Superb value signing, miles better than any wide options we've owned for a few years. Great tricky winger to bring on if we're struggling to break teams down, I think that'll be his main role. If he's starting for a run of games it'll be because he's playing very well, which will also be fine. Good luck in Premier League football.

Club and fanbase I detest the most. They are horrible yet think sun shines out their arse.

20 mins in and this is fantastic. Loads of Villa. It's a reason the Peter Crouch podcast is so popular. There's so few interviews around with footballers that go beyond "How much did that moment mean" type horseshit.

Not sure on Etheridge, honestly think Kalinic is worth a go. Not my £10m, but seems to me we're not as short between the sticks as almost every other position.

Best find out what else he knows.

Yes to that spoiler. Was clenched.

He's the only person I've blocked on here. Such an obvious troll. Improved the site big time but annoying I can still see people replying to him constantly.

DON'T FEED TROLLS

There's something a bit weird about it. It's like he was hanging around on a few people's transfer lists and we were absolutely desperate as Nyland was chucking them in every game. I remember Smith saying he had good distribution which I'd never noticed with him before. Or good with his feet, something like that. Then I watched him for Villa and as I thought he was lumbering in possession and definitely didn't appear confident playing it on the deck. May have been a cliche Deano was just throwing out there, which is rare for him, he doesn't pander like that. Stuck in my head though because it seemed wrong, and I wonder if the gaffer hadn't seen that much of him. I think the raw materials are there actually. Guy can be a real commanding keeper for us. He can work on his feet and communication with the defence but Steer can't work on growing taller. No problem from me starting the season with Lovre and Jed as 1/2. We've got too much else to sort out.

Where was that?

No chance we'd go that high after the season he's just had.

Shhhh! He's fine. Come on Blades, £2.25m and he's yours.

Get him in. £25m fine. His attitude makes it doable for me. If he blew hot and cold with his effort I'd be more wary despite his goal tally. He works his arse off for 90 minutes every match, usually contributes even when he isn't scoring. I actually think him and Kodj are fine as starter/backup. Suppose Smith has to make a call if he thinks he can motivate Kodj.