Again it seems you lot are a few hours ahead of me on this one, but I feel it deserves a post of it’s own, so here goes;
According to various sources and I’m going with Sky in particular;
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11677/12061767/matty-cash-aston-villa-agree-fee-with-nottingham-forest-for-right-back
We’ve agreed a £14 million fee with a possible £2 million extra in add-ons.
I’ve said previously that I haven’t really seen the right back position as so much of a priority as the left flank. I think Guilbert, with Elmohamady and even Konsa as back up was sufficient.
But hey, Dean Smith’s the manager and he probably knows a lot better than me.
In fairness, Elmo is getting on a bit now and he’s just signed a one year extension to his contract.
Hence it’s probably fair to think that we might look to let him go in the winter window, where he’ll still have some value.
So, yes, perhaps getting another RB in is a good idea.
The interesting question for me is will Cash go straight into the team?
I’d definitely think so, but it begs the question on what it is that Smith doesn’t like about Guilbert?
I mean, the Frenchman has often not been played even though he’s been available and it’s led to a few fans, myself included to be surprised.
I wonder if the player’s not happy at the Villa? But that’s me guessing and wondering again.
Anyway, I like this signing, assuming it actually gets done (and it should do if you believe we’ve already agreed personal terms) as from what I’ve been reading Cash is a good pro who’s willing to learn.
I think he originated on the wing and has been moved back to full back, which should mean that he offers good options on the attack side of our game.
My only concern about him is that his being somewhat inexperienced in the defensive position means his positioning can be poor at times.
It’s just a big bugbear of mine and is why I’m not massively keen on Targett and Taylor on the other flank, but apparently Cash learns quickly and hopefully we’ll see improvement in that side of his game under Smith’s tutelage.
So happy days then and it’s not before time.
Bring in some more signings, sharpish and I’m sure we’ll all be even more positive.
UTV!
Hopefully this gets the ball rolling.
A couple more before the end of the week?
He looks a livewire Midfield/wing/fullback so will be useful in the sqad.
As for Guilbert – he looked up for it and dedicated to the cause in the Arsenal match but as you say he seems to be messed around with selection….but this can be said for a few more.
It seems like it takes an eternity to get a player in these days. I hope we try and sign a couple of proven premier league players because last season we almost paid the price with a massively inexperienced squad. All the names we have been linked with are either championship or foreign league players. We can’t risk the getting up to speed process we endured last season. Cash obviously has great potential but so did El Ghazi, Jota, Wesley etc!
It seems to me that we still have a lot of players we need to offload too which might be what is causing the issues of getting players in.
Hopefully we can can get a LB, winger and a couple of strikers in before we play Sheffield United.
According to the BBC we’ve opened talks with Bournemouth over a deal worth £20m for Callum Wilson.
This makes sense compared to the frankly ludicrous figures being touted for Watkins.
Watkins is unproven outside the Championship whereas Wilson has a proven track record of scoring goals in the Prem.
Brentford may well find themselves with a very unhappy player if they really are trying to screw that sort of money out of a Prem side.
There are also reports we’ve agreed an £8m fee for Manure’s stopper Romero.
If you believe the reports he’s not happy being pushed back to 3rd choice following Henderson’s new deal.
I would be surprised if we were not in for a new experienced GK – we’re certainly short of quality in that department.
Hitch, Why not go for Wilson and Watkins? I would then either sell Samatta or send Davis on loan to a championship club where he might get a few goals to build up his confidence. Wesley is back in the new year to add extra depth and competition. I don’t know what is going on with the GK situation and whether Steer is still injured. If he is fit, I can’t see why he wouldn’t be first choice till Heaton is fit in a couple of months. Romero for £8m is decent if true but surely Nyland would have to be sold. I’m still hopeful we sign Benrahma because I think he has what it takes to make the step up. Fingers crossed that the wheels are now fully in motion.
Holte – agree with you on Watkins and Wilson – as suggested in my last post. But not at any price and I think £28m (if true) for Watkins is ludicrous.
Both Steer and Heaton appear to be high injury risk. OLLis not a Heaton fan – I bow to his greater knowledge – and Steer is unproven at this level. Are either Steer or Heaton actually fit?
I don’t rate Nyland or Kalinic and wouldn’t want to rely on either so hope both will be sold this window.
Alongside the need for new striker(s), we need a quality GK – let Heaton win the shirt on merit.
Cash is a great signing. Really happy with that one. Just hope we can now kick on and do something about our forward line!
I really think we should go all out and go for Edouard of Celtic. That would be a real statement of intent from us. We could definiltey put some players into the deal too…ideally Hogan or Lansbury…but even Hourihane if necessary. By all accounts, it sounds like they are willing to sell.
Benno, Celtic want at least £40 mill because PSG are due 40% of any fee.
What a great clause that was!
Whatever, I can’t see that one happening. It’s just too big a chunk of our war chest unless Grealish leaves.
Cash is a decent signing – but very underwhelmed if Callum Wilson is the best we can get upfront. Unimpressive for Bournemouth and his stats regarding his overall game are very poor. Also, another injury prone player and one with very little resale value considering he is approaching 30. We should be doing far better – Edouard should be the number one target and I’d pay the big money for him.
Sky confirming Cash move all agreed and medical completed last night. Also quoting Cash as saying Dean Smith was a ‘big factor’ in his decision to move to us.
Keep them coming now.
Ye we definitely need more experienced prem players how many championship players have we signed that turned out to be awful,we cannot fall into that trap again
The question is, which experienced Premiership players can we attract at the moment?
Who is going to leave to come to a club that will be one of the favourites for relegation?
All the talk of Edouard for £40m is never going to happen, and to be honest, if ever there was a reality of us spending £40m on one player, then my choice would be Danny Ings, now that would be a statement of intent, however, if i take my rose tinted glasses off, even though historically we are a bigger club than Southampton, would Ings want to join a team that avoided relegation on the last day of the season?
And therein lies the problem, Wilson and Watkins are the best we can hope for, unless we find a gem abroad but we all know how that usually goes.
Historically we have missed out on some great players because we are unwilling to pay the extra cash to secure the deal, i’ve said this before and i’ll say it again, we are dinosaurs compared to much smaller clubs than us, our transfer record is £22m on Wesley, and our highest earner is Grealish on 60k a week, Bournemouth spent £25m on Lerma and pay Wilson 100k a week.
Until we address this we are always looking for hidden gems that inevitably are sold on for profit, this is a model we have to break, but even with all the talk of billionaire owners, we are still trying to do things on the cheap.
We should have payed the extra £5m for Kalvin Phillips last year but we wouldn’t and now he’s in the PL and about to become an England International.
We should have payed the extra for Benhrama and now he’s worth an additional £10m on last year.
I hate to sound negative about our club but until we make changes in our approach to recruitment and wage structure, then we are stuck trawling the Championship and tin pot leagues in Belgium for our players.
The fact that villa stayed up we will see bigger signings with bigger salaries.
if we had done that last year and gone down it would have been a disaster.
Our first team now have a years premier league experience under their belt and it showed towards the end of the season. That can only be built upon.
Re Ollie Watkins – go back 2 years when we missed out on promotion ironically to Fulham. and assume our new owners had arrived how much do you think they would have wanted to sell Grealish. I bet it would have be more than Brentford want for Watkins now. What’s the difference.
It might be frustrating to us as fans but Brentford are holding out for as much as they can get and villa have done exactly the same with Grealish – £80 million- if that is to be believed.
Our owners aren’t stupid and villa know who they want it just takes more time. Why move on to your second target when there is a chance to get your first choice.
Last year I was concerned about not enough prem experience and no proven striker. This year I am confident we will be much better prepared to start our progression up the table and hopefully be competitive nearer the top of the table in a couple of years.
We now have the financial clout for this to happen.
FINGERS CROSSED.
So much for bigger signings and bigger salaries, it seems we won’t pay for Benhrama and are now looking at Diangana who is £10m less.
It’s a constant groundhog day, but what i do not understand is, if we do not think they are worth the money, then why were we interested in the first place?
You summed it up really well Guest. I thought when Lerner replaced Ellis we were going places, when actually we continually move backwards and sideways. Is it also down to our location. Players would rather be in London, Manchester (Cheshire) or even south coast clubs. Yes, money talks but we don’t seem to be able to tempt players with big transfer fees / wages right now so we are destined for basement shopping.
I agree with the location dilemma 100% Holte, who wants to move to our great city over London, Manchester or Liverpool?
This is why unfortunately you have to not only outbid your rivals but also offer better wages, neither of which we do, so we are left with the players not deemed good enough by the ‘bigger’ clubs.
I’d also love to know why our transfer budget, if to be believed, is leaked for all to see, i wonder if this plays a part in some of the fees being touted, as some have said, £28m for a Championship player is absolute madness, and i wonder if this is because every club knows we are spending money?
I don’t ever remember any other clubs transfer budgets being mentioned, ever, so why is ours?
I think in Lerners defence O’Neil stitched him up. 3 seasons of massive spending – loads of players on big lengthy contracts (half of which O’Neil never played) and then after consecutive 6th place finishes O’Neil through his toys out the pram when Lerner said this spending is unsustainable. I think from that point Lerner lost interest.
A thing that has always bugged me is O’Neil gets credit for us finishing 6th 3 times but with the exception of 2 or 3 poor seasons villa averaged 6th / 7th in the premier league until he left and we went into decline. Atkinson, Little and Gregory all finished higher than O’Neil with a lot less money.
Good question Guest.
It’s almost like boasting, isn’t it?
I’d love to know where it came from and it might well be utter rubbish.
But it’s certainly stuck and is mentioned everywhere.
Mentioning the size of any war chest these days is just madness and asking to be bent over.
It’s utterly bizarre and makes no sense, and to be honest, i can’t imagine we would do that, its transfer window suicide surely?
I can’t see how that has come out of the club.
Something very odd is going on there.
Don’t believe it’s anything other than the Brum Mail speculating on what we might spend but, even so, it’s unhelpful.
Having said that though, I don’t believe that other clubs take any notice of journo click bait nonsense.
A fact more likely to affect the fees being asked is that we are the fifth (I think) wealthiest club in the EPL by owner and other clubs know that and exactly where we need to strengthen.
Bit like the current housing market, there is a growing number of people needing to buy, a limited supply and a stamp duty deadline!
I totally understand that having the fifth wealthiest owners may push the price up, however, if it’s just a case of the Brum mail speculating, then why doesn’t every regional rag do the same?
This isn’t the first time it’s happened either, however, i do not recall any other speculation around other clubs transfer budgets from local papers, i just find it a little odd.
Fair point Guest – can’t comment though as it’s bad enough reading the Mail without trawling through all the other garbage 🙂
I agree Hitchens60
I’m sure all local rags and the main media are all the same they make it up to grab our attention. They are just guessing to fill space and sometimes they are right but mainly they are wrong.
“In another twist” actually means they were wrong in the first place.
e.g Rashica was all but signing a few weeks back and then they said he didn’t want to come to the villa and be in a relegation battle. Villa want United’s reserve back – No we didn’t.
It has been reported !! that if villa sign Watkins he will be on £70k a week. That straight away makes him our biggest earner, So I would expect half the first team to get a large pay rise as well. So £28 million plus £70k a week plus say 5 players with a £20k a week (at least) pay rise. Plus the big rises Grealish. Mings, McGinn will get anyway on top of £140 million last year – its eye watering.
£100 million may be don’t go that far. Negotiating to try and keep the price down (which is difficult) could be the difference between us signing 4 or 5 players.
In other news, Sky are saying we’re trying to hijack Diangana’s proposed move to the Baggies. Fulham also reported as trying to muscle in.
Don’t really know anything about him – is he any better than what we have?
He spent last season on loan at West Brom, he’s supposed to be quite good.
The annoying part to this story is that it will then give West Ham additional funds to buy Behnrama.
We are probably expressed an interest in Diangana just to wind the baggies up as it would be their all time biggest signing. 🙂
In amongst all the click bait fantasy, this is quite an interesting story from the Manchester Evening News.
According to them (as reported by Sky) we tried to get Henderson on loan from manure after he signed his new contract but were sent packing. The spin off is that it gives some credence to the Romero story – ‘sorry Dean, you can’t have Henderson but how about you bung us £10m for Romero!’
On the other hand a loan deal wouldn’t be a bad idea – would it?
Villa agree 24 million for Ollie Watkins. is he ours yet.
Bloody hope so Bill, I am sick and tired of it dragging out.
Where did you see that Bill?
Sorry Hitch, went to bed earlier last night, dont know about you and allotment but busy at the minute, answer to question Twitter Hitch but seen it again saying 28 million, if you ask me must be something in it as they have again left him out of the side unless he’s injured.
Hi Bill, no problems mate – not into Twitter and all the other social media.
Similarly busy with allotment plus large(ish) challenging garden 🙂
Brentford signing Tonev is a strong pointer that Watkins is going but to whom and for how much? £28m seems a lot to me particularly with our recent history of signing duff strikers for too much money.
if villa want Benrahma West ham having £18million from selling Diangana in the bank won’t make any difference.
I think the point i was trying to make is that if we won’t spend the money and want to buy a cheaper alternative, we are lining the pockets of the club that want to buy the player we are too cheap to buy.
Anyway, it’s all speculation, until it isn’t.
A lot of people on here thought the Matty Cash deal was speculation as we had two RB’s already, but it wasn’t.
Its being said that todsy at 4.30 a vote for 5 subs been defeated, seaon starts with 3, also all close games will be televised decision to be made next week, .
On a sadder note lads Paul McGrath mother passed away, R.I.P. He’s on the website saying love of he’s life ,and will miss her sadly.