AstonVilla

Really happy for Norwich and Dean Smith. Really hope you stay up. 👍🏽

I honestly don’t know how it started. And I had/have no intention of trawling back through 400 pages of fish puns to find out.

I think at the time there was some offence taken by some comments made with regards to why Emi would sign for us, and the obv reaction to that was to hit back. Whilst I can’t speak for other people on the forum, I for one would love to see Norwich stay up, and do brilliantly. I respect the way you play football, and the way you do well despite such a small budget.

Hey, don’t knock it mate. 100% of the members currently browsing your forum are Villa fans. 😝

Make that 3. Congratulations on this signing. There was a lot of clamouring from our fans to get this done last season. Quoted prices were in the region of £25m. Form has dipped considerably, assumed to be a mixture of injury and disillusionment. Genuinely pleased for you guys, and I hope he turns out to be great signing 👍🏽

Haha touché

You're right. He certainly has an error, and a a bit of nastiness in him. But he does a lot of really great stuff. He was still a part of one of the best defences in the Premier league though. And he brings something to our club that goes above and beyond just what is out on the playing field. He's a leader, and we desperately needed one of those. And that makes us forgive a lot of his short-comings. I can see why other teams supporters wouldn't rate him though, because defence is the kind of position where it's hard to have a good highlights real. For us, £26m (including add-ons, which you quite rightly point out is the more accurate fee) is an absolute bargain.

What I wrote: What you wrote: What I wrote: What you wrote: You didn't need to mention in your post regarding what the Big 6 were trying to do. You were responding to my post about it, wondering why I was being derogatory about them. The rest of your post I agree with. Go read my original post. It is not about Aston Villa vs Norwich. In fact, I clearly state that I wish for you to do well. I like the way you operate. I love the way you pick up these obscure players and turn them into brilliant players. My entire post was about WHY Norwich fans would rather sell to Arsenal (especially considering what they had just tried to do) than sell to Villa who are comparatively the devil? That was it. Nothing more.

In your opinion, where do you think we would’ve finished if we spent £8m?

Wesley £22m. Slow start, but was picked for Brazil squad and was starting to pick up form before that thug Mee snapped his knee ligaments. 6 premier league goals before his season was ended. Not too bad, and a relative bargain compared to a £45m Joelinton. Tyrone Mings £20m - England international and part of a very good Villa defence. Maguire cost £80m and Stones £50m. Not bad business. First team player. Douglas Luiz - £15m. Brazil international. Good player. First team player. Matt Target £14m - An absolutely brilliant signing, and he’s been brilliant. Should be at the euros. Absolute bargain. First team player. Ezri Konsa £12m - utterly brilliant signing. He’s better than Mings, and will get even better. First team player. Nakamba - £10m. Has played well whenever called upon. Good at breaking things up, but little else. We needed squad depth, and he provided it. I appreciate he cost more than your record signing, but certainly not a poor signing. Trezeguet - £9m. 6 goals, plenty of assists, and an engine that goes on forever. Whilst not a runaway success of a signing, certainly not a failure. Also take into account he has 4m Instagram followers, he raises the profile of the club on the international scene. Still involved in the first team until his recent injury Samatta - £9m. Yes. Horrible signing. Done at a time where we had our only recognised strikers knee smashed up and desperately needed to buy when no one wanted to sell. After a promising start, was obviously out of his depth. Has been sold since, likely at a heavy loss. Anwar El Ghazi - £8m. Just scored 11 premier league goals, at a strike rate better than Mo salah, Rahim Sterling and Marcus Rashford. Bargain, would double his fee if sold. First team player. Tom Heaton - £8m. Was brilliant until he tore his ACL. We needed to buy, and we bought superbly with Martinez. Would still be first choice were it not for Martinez. Has just been signed by Man Utd as back up keeper. Bargain. Bjorn Engels - £8m. Was first choice, then he disappeared. Injured? Falling out? Not clear. But was brilliant, then got shown up for a lack of pace, and then he was out in the cold. Poor signing? I guess so. Jota - £4m. Not really £4m, more like a swap. We gave them a player that never played and was always injured, and we took a player that hardly played. Was released after one year. Kortney Hause £3m. Is he a brilliant player? No. Is he worth £3m? My god yes. He’s been very good when he’s needed to fill in. First choice backup DC. so £140m badly spent? I think we got a lot for our money. I’d say £80m was brilliantly spent. And £17m was wasted (Samatta and Engels). The remaining £48m was ok in terms of value for money. Our squad was by far the weakest of the 3 that came up, but we were the only ones that did stay up. As for the dodgy goal that kept us up - you’re right. A huge stroke of luck. But there were some really bad VAR decisions that cost us points. Nothing quite as bad as that though, but it is what the footballing Gods willed. 😉

Despite having some very good players there in McGinn, Luiz, Sanson, and Ramsey, you’re absolutely right. Our midfield gets bundled over game after game. We have Nakamba, who’s very good at what he does, but poor at everything else. That’s where the Ward Prowse links are coming in, but personally I think we need someone stronger and bigger. Our attack will be very very good, our defence is very very good, just need some depth in both. Our midfield is a problem. Good players, but lightweight. We need a hard tackling DCM that can play, but they’re like hens teeth.

That’s the biggest problem with trying to compete. People forget that if you don’t have the depth in your squad, it only takes a single injury to lead to disaster. We lost Grealish for 11 games, and we went from quite honestly believing we’d crack the top 4, to relegation form. That’s ONE player in that position. We supposedly had a superstar on loan to cover the creative role - but he was rubbish. The Buendia purchase was partly to mitigate against that loss again. (I hope to god he’s not the permanent replacement and that Grealish is being sold)

I have to admit I was disappointed at the end of the season with his lack of willingness to let the kids have a go, it was clear a few weeks from the end that we we safe from relegation, but Europe was out of reach. It was a perfect opportunity to let some of our youth have a run. He continued to play a failed ross Barkley, and a couple of pros who were clearly going to leave at the end of the season. We brought on a couple of teenagers from our youth cup winning side in the last game of the season, and one looks the real deal at 17years old.

We came up together. You were MILES better than us. You stormed the championship, playing beautiful football. We needed a record breaking winning streak to finish 5th and get into the play offs. We spent £140m and stayed up by the skin of our teeth. You went down with a whimper (although I understand that was a calculated decision by the club) If you can bring equivalent amount of investment through your academy then I will applaud you loudly.

Sorry, my response was to that chap in particular and laced with frustration. You guys have done brilliantly with your academy recently and kudos for that. we’re now trying the same, and have started recruiting the best young talent around the country.

You’re absolutely right. But how do you fix it? This FFP is a farce, No one pays any attention to it, and when fines/sanctions are put in place, clubs just go to court and get them overturned. The real way to fix it is to have a spending cap which is the same for every team, not based on anything other than a set number. No books to fiddle, no stadiums to sell to yourself, etc. But the problem then is the top players will just move to where there is more money - Spain, Italy, Germany... and suddenly the English game loses its reign. Its an unsolvable situation. And until something changes, it’s obvious to compete you HAVE to spend big. And if you’re not going to compete, then why bother at all?

No doubt I will be accused of being patronising once again, but your comment doesn’t even make any sense. There is a HUGE difference between spending a lot of money in order to COMPETE, and trying to create a situation where nobody else CAN compete, ever again. I think you need someone to explain to you what the plan was, because it clearly flew right over your head. These 6 clubs were about to join an elite competition where there was NO RELEGATION. Ever. So all these wonderful footballing teams that ‘do things the right way’ would NEVER, EVER be playing in their elite competition. How on earth you can say the Villa and their neighbours Wolves are treading ‘the same path’? Are they starting a closed competition where there is no promotion or relegation? Imagine if the remaining 14 premier league teams decided that they too would have a closed competition. Invite Celtic and Rangers and have a 16 team competition with no relegation. And said ‘ok Norwich, we know you got promoted, but sorry, you’re staying in the Championship. You’re not allowed into the premier league, because we decided that this is how it shall be.’ How on earth is spending money the same as that?? And as for your whole ‘holier than thou’ attitude - did Norwich City bring Buendia through from their youth ranks? No. You went with your £1.5m to Getafe, and took him from them with your big money. Just like you’re going to take our £40m and buy yourselves some other teams prize assets. The way you’re talking you’d think your squad was full of academy graduates! Cantwell, Aarons, any more? Even we had 5 players from our academy get premier league minutes - 2 very regularly.

You just don’t understand the simple fact that he was going to leave regardless, do you? Let me break it down for you, help you understand a little. He Was Going To Leave. Regardless. Arsenal wanted to pay you £1 a month in postage stamps for the next 33 million months. We gave you £33m in crisp £50 notes. Your club can now go buy players with real money, instead of waiting for Arsenals postage stamps to arrive each month. But no. You’d rather have the postage stamps because you’re too dumb to realise what’s good for your club. I’m not saying be grateful you sold your best player. I’m saying be grateful you DIDN’T sell to Arsenal or not only would you have lost your best player, you would now be trying to buy players in the same way that you sold yours - in monthly instalments. And guess what? Any CEO worth his salt will tell you to **** off, just like yours just told Arsenal to. Oh, and in case you haven’t figured it out yet, he was going to leave regardless.

I couldn’t care less about the timing of this post, I just want to make my point. The fact that many of you are less concerned about the fee rather than the destination speaks volumes about your mentality. You would have rather sold him to a club that are a part of an American led group of greedy bastards that tried to ruin the game by starting a members only club? Whose owner is an advocate of big game hunting? A club who sacked loyal staff due to ‘covid cost cutting’ while signing Willian on a bumper pay packet? Why? Because you want to maintain a status quo of the ‘big 6’? If we ever sold Grealish, I would 100% be delighted if he went to a club that wasn’t a part of that disgusting plan that would have crippled your, and our, club. So yeah, if BURNLEY managed to sign Jack Grealish ahead of Man Utd or Man City, I’d absolutely be like ‘fair play BURNLEY!’ Why anyone would want the ‘big 6’ to continue with their monopoly is beyond me. Hand on my heart, I would rather Norwich qualify for Europe than Arsenal, Spurs, Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea or Man City. I certainly would not be crying about it like some of you clearly would if we managed to do it. Also it seems that many of you don’t even understand how the transfer market works. Arsenal had no intention of meeting your valuation, if they did, they still could. But they won’t. They would’ve offered £20m. And waited, unsettled the player knowing full well he’d want to move to only them and kick up a stink. Then they’d have said we’ll give you £5m a year for the next 5 years. Stop acting like your CEO is stupid. He obviously went back to Arsenal and said ‘Villa are offering this much..’ and they said ‘we can’t afford it’. Count yourselves blessed that a club that knows how to do business came in, met your valuation, and got the job done. You now have a whole summer to spend your money, knowing what to spend it on. Arsenal would’ve messed you around over £5m until the very last day while they were trying to do other deals, and left you up **** creek. He was going to leave regardless. Why you so bitter about where he went?? Goodbye and good luck. And **** the ‘big 6’