WallisFrizz

6 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

It's making me a little uncomfortable how confident everyone is about England's game today. Got banana skin written all over it. 

I’m one of the confident ones. I don’t think it will be a walk in the park, probably a narrow margin but I genuinely don’t think it will be a banana skin. To be fair to GS, he will make sure their mental approach to the game will be spot on.

5 hours ago, Jas10 said:

Can we stop considering ourselves a care or revival home for mediocre, overrated, overrated, overpaid, deadbeat, has-been players?

Let’s show a bit more ambition and stop looking at the tired, failed or common names. We don’t need other team’s cast offs (we’re so much better and above that) and put ourself under financial strain again by senselessly wasting millions. We don’t need inferior players either…

We aren’t the Villa of the shitty Lerner and Xia regime, the Villa of mediocrity and looking to take punts that we heavily pay the price for later…

Those days are over, we mean business and have genuine ambition now.

Our owners (and manager) are doing everything they can to push and progress us, they are wise and ambitious. Let’s join in with that.

We have a truly world class talent in Jack and excellent players like Martinez, Konsa, Buendia & Ollie…. do we really want to surround them with mediocrity? I think not. We are aiming high and need high quality players to help us progress and improve. 

When we have invested so much into our scouting department, why the hell would we want to go for mediocre players such as Alli, Winks & Hughes (no better, if not worse, than our existing players) when we can scour the globe, identify the best talent and potential and bring them in to contribute to our success and progression? We’re looking for value and potential, these kinds of names do not fit the bill at all. I don’t give a shit if they have “PL experience”. A tired, overrated and overused phrase. We have enough PL experience in our team as it is, there are good players there. What we need to do is enhance that team, not sprinkle shit on it…

 

I agree with a lot of what you say but Will Hughes is pretty young and was one of the best midfielders in the championship last season. You mention Konsa, Buendia and Ollie, maybe Hughes would be a perfect fit.

I’d rather Will Hughes than Harry Winks.

21 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

As much as we'd like to think it, Arsenal are still ahead of us. 

It's going to be tough to break into that top 6. Everton have a good manager and I'm sure will spend money. Spurs are now sorted with a manager and will spend money. Leeds are signing players and improving. 

I fully believe in our project but I'm not sure next year will be the year. 

I know it would have been difficult but I’m a bit disappointed we didn’t sort another major signing whilst the whole management fiasco was going on.

My Spurs mate would piss himself if we paid them good money for Harry Winks. Says he’s totally useless.

As if by magic…Telegraph on Twitter say

“Transfer notebook: Aston Villa express interest in James Ward-Prowse and also monitoring Harry Winks and Todd Cantwell”

Thats about it, no basis to it, just that. Also mention that Roma want Douglas Luiz.

Waiting for a new transfer link like…

8 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I wish he would sign a new contract before he continues to impress for England.  All this exposure will persuade City to pay very big money for him. 

I want Kane to rediscover his form so City focus all attention on him. The goal last night should do him the world of good.
 

I’m desperate to believe Preece and reading far too much into Matt Law tweeting happy tweets about John Percy….but could someone explain to me how JG could sign a new contract with us whilst in a Covid secure bubble in the England camp? 

2 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

There's pretty much 8-9 positions more pressing requirements of cover than CM x2 

I said one midfielder would make the world of difference, and I really hope we get one. 
 

Engels replacement - low cost

Heaton replacement - low cost

Barkley replacement - high cost

Full back cover? (not sure if this is Young or not) - low cost

Back up striker - med cost.

We’ve signed Buendia, if we keep Jack our only other big outlay would need to be the Barkley replacement. We should still pursue a midfielder. Obviously if we lose Jack then we’ll need to replace him but I’m working on the basis that he’s staying.

How are you getting 9 positions outside of midfield?

If you read the article in the Athletic, it’s v positive about Villa- makes mention of how he would not be a Grealish replacement as we aim to keep him but an addition to the squad, mentions our wealthy owners and our ambition, how we’ve already signed Buendia and even our European Cup gets a mention.

Im starting to think that whether we get ESR or not, this was a PR move designed to bolster the clubs reputation in the transfer market after the Grealish to city story.

I honestly can’t see this happening. It’s really weird.

Just now, Dave-R said:

Bet they're loving the attention, all till the window is over and they're bought out to be the lieing ass wipes they are.

 

Fingers crossed. 

2 minutes ago, Dave-R said:

Was it really though or was it some City fan let's say saying Jack's agent had broke the story and it came from them.

 

Well Stellar Sports Agency is mentioned in most of the articles I’ve seen. I think it’s wishful thinking to think they weren’t involved. 

6 minutes ago, Tommo_b said:

What have I missed about Jack’s agent? 

It was them who broke the story to the tabloids and probably TalkSport the other day about the ‘agreement’ or whatever that Villa would sell Jack to City. Villa then had to use their own media sources to deny it and presumably keep their own transfer plans on track. 

23 minutes ago, villaglint said:

Broadly that’s where I’m at. I think there is a third option though and Jack decides he really wants to move and tries to push it through. I don’t think we’d ever here that because it definitely won’t go public but it isn’t out of the realms of possibility the club rewards him for the excellent loyalty he’s showed so far. 

Has he showed excellent loyalty tho? He was off to Spurs until he wasn't’ (and was apparently gutted). Since then other clubs have sniffed around but I can’t think of any respectable offers that have come in for him that would have given him the opportunity to move.  Yes he signed a new contract which gave him plenty more money but if it allows him to move at the first opportunity, how is that demonstrating loyalty. I’m not saying he hasn’t been loyal and it would actually be nice if people gave me examples of how he has but I think the loyalty thing is possibly a bit of a myth.

3 minutes ago, Tommo_b said:

Ben White is a bit like how we see Grealish compared to other fans, unless you’ve seen him play more than 5 times, you don’t fully appreciate how good he is.

Two Ben whites would be pretty good business. Not that I want to seek Grealish at all, and I don’t think he will be leaving at all either. 

I agree actually. If we could buy two players of that quality in the positions we need them, they would massively enhance the team. We might not be able to match JG quality in that one position but if we do sell (still hoping we keep him) we can still make progress if we use the money effectively to improve 2-3 positions.

You know what pisses me off a bit. There is no way Jack’s agent has started feeding these stories to the press without Jacks knowledge and agreement. Which in turn has caused problems for Villa and potential transfer dealings. If he is planning his exit, I would expect him to do whilst being as respectful as possible to us and giving us the time to get our transfer business sorted.

Do people really think he doesn’t know and approve what his agent does?

So for all our fancy recruiting, data analysis and scouting appointments, our signings have so far been a championship player of the year and an ex player (happy with both by the way) and our links have been to a couple of other prem teams stars and an ex loan player. 
 

My money is on our next major signing being a complete surprise and not someone who has played for us before in any capacity.

2 hours ago, GENTLEMAN said:

Surely this is common knowledge? Or do you mean because they’re a Hibs fan?

Cos they’re a hibs fan and how he was talking. What have I missed?!

25 minutes ago, Stockbridgehibby said:

I have loved watching SJM in the Premiership and I‘m convinced he sees his future as part of a successful Villa side: first promotion, then survival, consolidation, and soon challenging for a top 6 finish.  I love the way Villans embraced him, and adopted the SJM anthem.  He has had his struggles in the last season and a half: serious injury, being asked to return from injury sooner than was good for him, being played out of position, opponents working out some of his tricks, being too reliant on his left peg, being surrounded by midfielders who don’t share his enthusiasm for hard work and a high press. But having also been an avid follower of the comments on this forum,  it’s pretty clear that a sizeable number of those commenting (about 50%?) like McGinn well enough, yet have serious reservations about his future in the side, valuing him more as a squad player at best.  I would love to see Villa competing again at the very top, but wonder if both club and player would now benefit from parting company.  

Genuine question…do you know him or those close to him? I ask only because the struggles you cite particularly in relation to being asked to return too early suggest an insight beyond the average fan. 
 

1 minute ago, Tayls said:

If Jack was to go to city, it would be difficult to not be completely done with football. He has turned into the player he has by staying with us until now, and then suddenly Man City come along, basically say “good job, we’ll take it from here” and then off he goes and then they can be rewarded for creating a global star. 

The whole thing would just disgust me. Honestly, what would be the point? We finally try and get somewhere but we are prevented from doing so by the Super League clubs. 

This is a bit how I feel about it. I could understand it from his perspective but for us, it would feel like one step forward and two backwards. We finally have the wealthy owners and some excellent players, a real chance to achieve something, a project of our own and we’d be reverting back to the same old story of selling our best to the North West. Gut wrenching.

If he does go, the club are going to have to make a couple of stellar signings to lift the morale of the fan base.

38 minutes ago, DaveAV1 said:

Jack seems to keep referencing players who have stayed at one club all their careers. He quite randomly spoke about Totti recently and just yesterday he was saying how iconic he though Gabby was and that he regularly speaks to him. 

He didn’t randomly speak about Totti. He was asked a specific question about Totti by an Italian journo at an England press conference (based on a misunderstood tweet from years ago). He then named a couple of facts he knew about Totti and politely backed out of the question as he didn’t know what else to say. If you watch the clip, there is nothing to get excited about from a Villa perspective.

We all want him to stay but trying to decipher hidden messages in his media work isn’t going to help because as many as you could find that you interpret that he wants to stay, you could find the same amount that would hint he wanted to leave.

Honestly, I think he’d probably want to give Man City a go, they’re going to dominate English and European football for the next few years. I think Villa still hold plenty of cards tho (providing no release clause) and if we hold on to him for another year and make some quality additions (got to be honest, none of our links so far are really that impressive except JWP) he could still be happy here for another season.