Although I have my doubts about Tony Xia tweeting as much as he has been lately, it seems he’s being pretty much true to his word, when he said that there would be players leaving.
Brad Guzan has undergone a medical at Boro and it’s massive odds on that the deal will be done tomorrow.
It’s a shame really, as I mostly quite liked him as a goalie; mainly because of his shot-stopping. His faults were there for all to see, but my thinking was that he’d improve his dominance in the box and more importantly, his distribution.
Sadly he didn’t improve either and ended up seriously lacking.
That said, I won’t forget he was our player of the year a couple of seasons back, an award richly deserved, in my humble opinion.
How times quickly change though and it’s good to see his fat wage off the books.
I think it says quite a lot that he’s seemingly happy to take second place to Victor Valdes and he surely must have known his days were numbered.
No tears overall on my part over this deal.
Then it seems Gana is off too, to Everton.
That’s the way to do a deal.
Get the bid in and just sign the player, job done.
And although it wrankles that we set such a measly release clause, given that we seemingly paid more than the supposed 7.1 mill Euro fee we’ll be getting, I can’t say I’m too sad about this one either. I know the stats were amongst the best to be had last season, but I was never convinced, as I’ve alluded previously.
Hence I’m happy that we’re getting that sort of money, but it still annoys that we probably could have got 10 mill+, with the right release fee.
Who sets a release fee lower than what you paid for the player, these days? Obviously, the Villa do.
Maybe it was just something that his agent specifically wanted, in which case, fair play. Sign him up to our negotiating team, I say.
I’d guess Sinclair will be next.
Which means it looks like we’re going to be stuck with the bad eggs.
To be honest, I’m really not surprised that we can’t shift the troublemakers.
But now, given Xia’s rattle on Twitter, he really needs to deliver something in return, if the Villa fans’ opinion of him isn’t going to go down the pan.
The uneasiness amongst fans about how little the squad/team has changed has been readily witnessed on all the Villa websites and we’re fast running out of time, even if you don’t think players need time to integrate.
We need players in, fast and I’m sorry, but the “massive squad numbers” argument doesn’t cut it for me.
If we go with what we have now, there isn’t a cat in hell’s chance that we’ll get promoted this season.
And even though I know we will still have a few weeks of the transfer window to run once the season is underway, it’ll be too late, as we’ll have lost impetus straight from the off.
I was speaking to a Wednesday fan today and he’s well confident that they’ll beat us, because we don’t have the balls for it, in his opinion.
I suspect he’s right.
Come on Tony, you’re supposed to be a “doer”.
Let’s see some doing.
An article from the Mirror has just hit news now claiming that we are buying Pantilimon for £2m. I’m not sure what to think about that. I thought Gollini was going to be the new keeper, but the article is suggesting they would both compete for the number one spot.
With Bunn and Steer still at Villa, I think the Mirror’s solely rehashing a story just to put one out. Villa weren’t in for him to start with, or we’d have gotten him already.
Why do people insist we’re going to have such a bad start. I get we were bad last season. But we finally have a player who is captain material. We have players back from loan who did well in the Championship so that experience (which usually means nothing but our fans seem to love it so there you go, plus we just bought 2 that have it).
Gotta tell ya people, Wednesday lost a fair few players who played a lot of games for them last season, Lopez, Pudil, they no longer have McGeady, Turner, and they’re heavily reliant on one player, Forestieri for goals. We don’t have this ridiculously hard start. I know people like to think we do, but we don’t.
But we still have too much dross in the team Lescott Bacuna Richards and gabby. None of those players are good enough for championship they are crap. Sanchez Westwood Clarke all rubbish too. Baker is injury prone and nothing special anyway, Joe Bennett is average championship at best. Traore will be lucky to start any game and would be kicked of the pitch anyway plus too injury prone. Veretout is too lightweight, Ayew scores great goals but is not a great goal scorer. Gestede may do ok not sure. Gabby is fat and finished. So tell me again why you think we will get promoted as they is no logic. Youngsters will be hit and miss but we need men not boys for this league.
Seems with Marseille getting Gomis on loan and paying a chunk of his wages, they can’t afford Sanchez or Veretout on loan with their wages. Incredibly sad for a club their size.
As far as I know, the maximum squad size is the number of players the club states are its senior professionals from who the team will be chosen at the moment the transfer window closes. Any players still being paid wages by the club but not in the plans do not count as squad members. Chelsea for example had teams of players available for loan but not always on loan. So the Bomb Squad players at VP can be listed as available for loan. This would not provide a numbers restriction on signing new players, though it would be a financial constraint.
no link again for today friendly GRRRRRRRRRR hope this isn’t a norm for the season. being in championship iam only get to see the odd game on the box. this is why we need to go up asp. my saturday afternoons are ruined thanxs randy
i can see many clubs going under through debts.clubs are spending crazy amounts. makes our debts look like pocket money. time we stopped trying to compete with this. back to basics. we have first class facilities. we should improve these and invest more in surrounding areas and schools. the youth team should not be a conveyor for lower lvl clubs. it should be conveyor to our first team.
far too long have we abandoned the kids after a certain lvl. our kids are great up to a certain age, then they seem to fade away. must be a reason why this happens.
if this season we come out of it, with our premiership status back and blood grealish, green, murphy, toner, sellars and lyden give them this season, iam sure all these players are lacking, are experience not ability.
@Nath
Do you mean video link?
Its on AVTV free again and all you need to do is register if you already haven’t – https://www.avfc.co.uk/AVTV
This should give us an idea of where we are as a team. Boro got up in second so a win or draw would be okay in my book.
How have the mighty falling when a draw against a newly promoted team is acceptable? Anyway its where we are.
UTV
SORRY!
Its not on AVTV. I had it on relaible info from someone and just checked.
Nath can I also say GRRRRRRRRRR!
i was jumping for joy then pat lol but i soon returned to my misery. lol i was so much looking forwards to this game. see how we fair against a team that was so strong in championship last season
It will be hard to find any links with the Villa in the championship. Our days surfing the net looking for links are over.
@Nath
Sorry about that. Last time I’ll listen to that wally in the pub!
HOLD THAT HE WAS RIGHT AFTER ALL
https://www.avfc.co.uk/News/2016/07/29/pre-season-middlesbrough-live
It was on the website opening page this morning as free to watch
Will be really interesting to see the line up today
I think we’re get an idea about his starting 11 for the weds game next weak!
Gabby, Lescott and Richards not even on the bench today
Lineup: Gollini, Hutton, Elphick, Baker, Cissoko, Gardner, Westwood, Bacuna, Ayew, Gestade, Grealish
Surprised with that🤔
Bacuna starting is the biggest surprise. Good news is Amavi is on the bench.
Yeah i see that
In case you didn’t see above match is live on AVTV –
https://www.avfc.co.uk/News/2016/07/29/pre-season-middlesbrough-live
you are a life saver pat 🙂 many thanxs for this link
Cheers fella👍
Thanks Pat
Thanks guys for sorting out the link……brilliant…..thought I would have had to stare at a blank computer screen all afternoon…..or worse…..look at FB….
Bacuna is shit sorry!! Why is he even on the pitch
Hey he’s a champions league player how dare you mock him 😄
Get in baker, go on son
Wtf is gestead doing???
Why haven’t the players got their names on the shirt.
Too embarrassed to probably
Gestede cant read the game when the ball is on the ground. Overall we are playing well.
Gestede seems to be a waste of space at the mo
I do hope it changes in the second half
At last……it took 56 mins though…..Tony Morley says “whats Ayew doing playing so deep”…I said that all last season…..hes the only one last year that looked like a forward but was never in a forward position.
Talking of last season…….just let in one of last years goals….is Guzan playing ???
Retract my last post we are shit. Nothing changes .
Am I witnessing a mirror of last season? This has been crap. Boro were in neutral 1st half and go up into first and makes us look horrid. Westwood still playing, Gestede useless, replica Guzan, crappy tactics…..do they it starts for real next week? Play like this and it’ll be mid table at best
First decent team we’ve played in friendly and typically get stuffed