It’s only a quick one, but apparently after what was reported last week, where Fenerbache have supposedly made enquiries about loaning Jonathan Kodjia for next season, so it seems the player’s representative has now actually met the club to discuss a move.
If you can still stomach reading this absolute load of tosh story, it’s backed up by the “fact” that Kodjia’s agent is saying that Kodjia has a clause in his contract that says he can go on loan because we didn’t achieve promotion.
This is all a load of rubbish.
There’s no way the Villa would have allowed such a clause, unless they were so confident that we would achieve promotion at the first attempt, that they thought it was a totally laughable clause that would not have a chance of being invoked.
Oh, erm, hang on……
And that for me, is about the only reason there MIGHT be an inkling of truth in it.
But no, I totally fail to believe that that’s remotely possible.
You don’t sign a player for that sort of money and then allow such a crazy clause.
I believe this story is a total joke, but if it does turn out to be true, it would further claims that we’re willing to sign players at almost any cost.
And heads would need to roll.
In the meantime, I continue to treat early days speculation with the usual utter contempt, while totally accepting that some of us love it.
It’s only fair that I give the link, as much as I hate this sort of crap;
See Dr T has tweeted that media speculation on Villa transfers (in and out) are 0% correct – says it all really – fake news as usual.
Oh yes, I forgot about that.
Which sort of proves my point and why I can’t be arsed with it.
It also makes it more interesting though, as I suspect any of the lower league cheapo type signings will only be punts and hence bit parts in the bigger game.
Bruce said he wants quality and I believe him.
And I think we’ll get it.
I don’t believe anyone really “has it in” for the Villa.
I suspect it’s just a case of it being easy to justify knocking a “fallen giant”, as the fact is we’ve been a disaster of a club for years now.
Certainly it’s not my experience from fans of other clubs.
I always carry a Villa backpack to work and it has the badge clearly displayed on the back.
It has been mentioned once or twice over all the time I’ve been working in Liverpool (which is a couple of years now, over the last four).
Even then, when the joking dies down, it’s usually “what the bloody hell’s happened?” type question.
As for the FA/Wyness thing, well the FA has to be seen as politically correct, doesn’t it?
Which I find hillarious, as we all know very little in the game is PC.
That said, there is something in the comments about the media.
It still riles me that they favoured Ipswich over us in ’81.
Probably more of an underdog thing though, tbh.
They favoured Ipswich until the ducks quacked on the pond in Yarm. Bobby Robson never lived down that excuse and never set foot in VP again without the crowd quacking up!
Aston Villa transfer target Sam Johnstone will fall victim to a goalkeeping re-shuffle at boyhood club Manchester United this summer – even if David De Gea leaves for Real Madrid.
Johnstone is set to be shipped out by Red Devils boss Jose Mourinho, who has been buoyed by the news that No.2 Sergio Romero and Joel Pereira plan to stick around at Old Trafford in the event of a big name arrival to replace the Spaniard.
Mourinho as asked for 5 million and that means Villa will have to sell Gill, and Veretout to get the money.
Bill, would he come to Villa with other Prem clubs said to be interested – not sure he would. However, if he was prepared to join us then I think Dr T would make the cash available even if we hadn’t yet sold anyone.
Now linked with Glen Wheelan at Stoke?
If we wanted him we wouldn’t have to sell anyone as you said. Think Bruce only wants him on loan though. Or he’s looking out for another goal keeper.
At 33 and scored 8 goals in 332 games might get him for £4.50 , sure is going for the big names then.
LOL – apparently they see him as being able to take on the Jedi’s role when he isn’t playing but also to play alongside him releasing Lansbury to play higher up the field – but hey what do I know!
So he wants 2 defensive midfielders on at once? Wow… That would be Bruce. Negative and clueless.
Not all defensive mids score goals. That’s never been their job. And he’s always been a defensive midfielder.
Johnstone could go to Leicester, who could pay the wages, but would he be first choice?
Sunderland? I’d suggest they’re not really a much better bet than us and it might be a case of better the devil you know in staying with us.
I’d agree, we’ll raise the money if Bruce does genuinely want him to stay.
As for Whelan, I smell more BS, although he might be able to play a part as back-up.
But he won’t fit the wage bill or the timeline.
We really can’t be signing expensive old players now.
As for that link to the Norwegian player, wow.
Signed for two English clubs and never got a start?
I’d be calling for Bruce’s head.
Anyway, remember Xia’s tweet.
It’s all BS up to now.
In fairness to Forren, he only joined Brighton in March. Was never really gonna be more than back up that late in the season. We were linked before he went to Brighton so it seems an easy link now.
We could afford Johnstone without selling anyone. Wyness pretty much said the budget is already there. Yes they want to sell but it’s not 100% necessary. Johnstone on his showing last season isn’t worth 5m + whatever likely higher paid player wage he’d expect. I say let Sunderland have him when Pickford leaves.
Whelan’s your typical boring link. Old, “home grown” and that basically suits Bruce to a tee. Not that I believe you wants someone like Whelan, especially if he said he wants actual quality, which Whelan is not. Doesn’t matter how many he’s scored, he’s mediocre overall. Just up Bruce’s ally as well. If you believe the Irish Sun, which believing any media in and around England or Ireland would be pretty stupid, he’s close to signing, and if he does, shows how poorly Bruce judges talent.
I pretty much agree with all that Andrew. Bruce has said he wants 4 quality players; Wheelan doesn’t fall into that category imho. Also it seems he’s looking for a GK, CB, Mid and wide player – we shall see.
I am however assuming that midfielder is more of a defensive midfielder as Jedinak isn’t always fit, can’t play every game, sometimes needs help. Not sure how someone as bad as Whelan is and as old is going to help.
The feedback from the media Hitch we seem to be looking down not up, we know money is the problem over the FA rule but we do need experience in our team, we must make a show in the Championship this time otherwise Villa will be in it for years to come.
I suppose the question is – do you trust the media or the management at VP?
Only time will tell.
Linked to a soon to be free agent Angel, 29/30 year old Spanish forward , although looks more likely to join QPR. Think we’ll be linked with just about every player another Championship side is linked too.
That Andrew is about the truth of it!
I wouldn’t mind him, but I guess with Hogan, Kodjia and McCormack back, with Davis and Murphy. We don’t really need him.
just a quickie
the forwards we can call on next season mentioned above in Andrews posts. they are all slightly different forwards. which is a good balance we have needed in years. I like the two youngsters, both can play and handle championship. but will they need to go out on loan for a while I think so. we can not hold them back too long. Hogan in my opinion will score many goals next season and lead the line. he makes decent runs behind defences which makes them drop deeper. he is a very good footballer. I just hope he gets the service he needs from midfield. I can’t see why not now. the players in midfield and capable to provide the service
That’s all down to Bruce. His “tactics” last season was to bypass the midfield he bought and hoof it from defense to Kodjia/Hogan (which was the dumbest idea, Hogan’s nowhere near big enough to even consider doing that for) and skip Lansbury/Hourihane/Bacuna all together for the most part. He needs to fix that. His old school tactics won’t work.
yeah cause before Bruce came,we were playing wonderful free flowing football. I love that one two slick passing high pressing, high scoring football we were producing. why the fook we brought Bruce in.
And that’s why we’re in this mess. We aren’t playing free flowing football, we’ve been playing god awful, dreadful, ancient football under Bruce, McLeish, Lambert, Sherwood, O’Neill, etc. And that is exactly why we’re in this mess. You and a few other of our fans claim Bruce is the best we can get, and yet he’s proven nothing so far. We came 13th under him, with his ridiculous defensive tactics. Time for a change.
villa playing long ball lmao please explain this longball I watch villa we play bad football. but this is short and long balls all miss placed. I think the long ball is a tag for them fans that don’t know the difference.
fans also that expect a manager to come into a club that’s been losing every year for almost a decade. change results and style of play with no pre season and a squad top heavy with strikers and NO midfield.
Bruce has stabilised the club for them fans with short vision. he has a better balanced squad, he has strengthened the defence which was a joke under RDM. style of play doesn’t comes after. no team wants to play beautiful losing football. its all about wining Andrew not losing with style or we could hire you to manage the club.
give the guy a pre season to iron out more creases left by previous managers and losing years.
What a ridiculous post. We aren’t winning with defensive, garbage football. For someone who thinks Bruce is our savior, you make a lot of excuses for him. 35 games is more than enough for “the great one that got 4 promotions under his belt” to improve the side.
We have no midfield? Gee, who bought Hourihane (and dropped him for Bacuna after his suspension) and Lansbury in? I forgot they weren’t midfielders, two “highly” rated Championship midfielders our fans couldn’t stop praising. And yet what did we do? KICKED THE BALL OVER THEM to Kodjia from Chester or Baker. But I forgot, that’s not long ball football, because you said so. Guess they need to kick it even further up field and lose it so that can truly be the long ball style.
Pre-Season aye. So 35 games isn’t enough now to get some understanding into this side. Fact is, we aren’t winning. 16 wins in a season is garbage, and yes I realize Di Matteo was there for 11 games, and I know as I said before we signed him he was a garbage manager as well. But I’m sorry, we can’t score 47 goals in 46 games and get promoted. We had the 3rd worst attack in the league thanks to Bruce.
You are right though, we did get better defensively, which was a huge plus. Yet we still conceded a goal more than we scored all season. But please tell me how that wins you games, because it doesn’t. Beautiful, attacking football wins you games, defensive garbage football relies on not losing games. I’m sorry you’d rather us hide and draw than try to win.
that response was lame now you mention it.
the midfielders you praised was brought into the club by the man you slag off off. the club needs time. the new players need time. Andrew because you can assemble a great winning team on your ps4 managers game. players instantly gelling together. real life I guess isn’t like that. other problems happen.
now just maybe the club was in a right heap of mess last preseason. and rdm did nothing but move the club further into the mire. he shaped the squad not bruce. now since bruce came into the club he has stabled the ship. you cant see that then god help you. cause I can not. now fans like me do not claim things are perfect or close to perfect but fans like me see hope and green shoots. style of play is not my concern I know that style will not will promotion. but a team wining games will. style always comes with confidence and wining games.
“MAYBE” the club was in a mess!!! LOL!!!!
I was in a rush writing them comments. but point was last pre season villa needed a strong manager to organize a fallen club. somebody who could quickly breathe new life into a club that had been strangled over a decade of any ambitions and investments. so what happened they hired a guy who didn’t fix anything but might have fooked up the season by signing wrong players. before bruce came in. the squad was light in midfield clueless in defense. he might have been sacked after 11 games. but the damage was done last summer.
I cant believe I am trying to explain the obvious. ok bruce failed to get promotion. but he was always playing catch ups. lets see if he can sort the mess out now. I think he will. then will this be enough for some fans lol I guess not.
Huddersfield managed promotion with just 8 goals more than we scored. ??? anymore great predictions. I must remind you that last season you claimed Middlesbrough would survive in the premiership. when I claimed both villa and bro would struggle having watch the friendly. you claimed Alvaro Negredo was a class player and would do same in premiership. another great prediction
I reckon you forecast for next season so the rest of us could back against you we might win loads
That’s an interesting stat Nath – so for all Wagner’s new young foreign manager playing great football stuff he actually based his team on a defensive game to achieve promotion and, if I recall accurately the two games against Villa they didn’t actually uproot any trees – very flukey goal at VP. Of course anything short of playing like Barca wouldn’t be good enough for some fans who don’t appear to have grasped reality. Having said that, I did think our football was poor at last season and I’m expecting a lot more from Lansbury, Hourihane and Hogan next term.
On a separate subject anyone see that webcam is favourite with the bookies for a return to VP – more fake news?
Hitchens that’s another great point. Huddersfield I don’t have anything against them I wish um luck. they will need it for sure. that home game you mentioned what a fluke of a goal. we had the better play all game and lost it late on.
end of the day Huddersfield score 8 goals more and was finished the season with worse goal difference. I don’t suggest we play brilliant football or close to it. but long ball is also miles away from the truth. villa play to their strengths. they over played in many games. refusing to cross balls instead keeping it safe.
Lansbury and hourihane will both play a big part next season along with Hogan. we won’t be playing long ball far from that. we will play to our strengths and better organisation, more confidence we will win the championship.
I just hope Andrew can remember his comments and confidence in his team.
Villa didn’t play to their strengths. They long balled it to Hogan, often surpassing Hourihane and Lansbury in the middle. Multiple fans on here and other places complained about it the last 10 games or so. It’s not some made up fantasy. People have been questioning why Bruce would long ball it to an incredibly small striker and why they’d surpass the midfield he bought.
If Villa play to their strengths, which is the type of football I want, which is pass and move (no I’m not talking Guardiola style because we’re obviously nowhere near that level that we can dominate every team), but something similar to Koeman at Everton. Where we pass, move, get it wide, get it into the box. Not lump it from Chester to Hogan/Kodjia.
You’re right, Huddersfield did incredibly well to only score so few goals. That’s just it though, even under Bruce we didn’t have the composure Huddersfield had. They also got pretty fortunate going through on penalties in the playoffs and then the finals. However they had 6 draws all season, we had 14. We didn’t and don’t have the composure to turn 8 draws into wins. Which is why we need to go back to something similar to Lambert’s first season. Where Villa played with no fear, kept possession and dominated sides. Yes we were opened up a lot, but we always. Just go back to the last 5 games and now terrible our defending was. If we could play more like… Fulham, then we’d be on our way. However old Bruce won’t ever do that so, I guess we’re stuck with the standard outdated British style he plays.
You’re right, I did. And I still think Negredo’s class and Boro would’ve stayed up, if they backed Karanka in January, and not sign two crap strikers when they were so desperate for one good one. I was wrong, thinking they’d do that and I’d take Karanka every day of the week.
FFS we’re on about change the manager how many fucking seasons have I been reading this, give Bruce a full run at it not part the season then maybe start whinning about it. If he fails he’s gone new manager new squad lol, I do hope it’s someone I detest & a certain few love I guarantee to he farts out of place I’ll rip him apart. Get behind the manager & when we win praise not fucking knock.
Ps when Bruce wins at VP there’s over 30k happy clappers so we’re not a minority
35 games is a rather large part of a season, no?
When I mean a whole season that includes pre season.
Anyways, as claimed, it’s pointless arguing if Bruce should stay or not. It’ll do nothing but go in circles and Xia won’t exactly just change his mind as sack Bruce tomorrow.
So lets talk transfers, no? I’m actually wondering. I know we’ll look into the loan market. Two Fulham loanees in Piazon and Kalas would be great signings from Chelsea, Really think it’s about time we use Chelsea’s hoarding to our advantage. Multiple clubs do it, Ajax did it, Newcastle, Fulham, why not us? Chalobah isn’t a bad midfielder, as well as Hector as a center back. City with Patrick Roberts, Mooy, Denayer. It really is about time we got a piece of the action.
Andrew, Nath, I’ll take my hat off to you both, good points on both sides,, my take on what’s gone on and hopefully will happen is Bruce to show his abilities in the coming season, he had in the camp on arrival what he has today to work with, i didn’t like our style but understand it was safety first, up till now we are at a standstill with no news coming to us, we don’t know what’s going on yet but he has to show his hand in a few weeks time, up till now it’s speculating and none belief in the media. I want attacking football and not safety first by back to side , it shows me that the player has no confidence in his game and passing the buck. UTV.
long ball is mainly hit when their is no movement up front. or the opposition is pressing the defending backline, villa goalkeeper was often rolling it out or throwing it. that isn’t a tactic of a long ball team.
I suggest we call a truce and continue this after the first game, if your right iam sure this tactic will continue, villa have too many good players to bypass midfield and two strikers that love to get behind.
that is not a tactic Andrew you have two quick forwards loving to get in behind but we shouldn’t use that tactic if it confuses fans to believing we a long ball team.
when we had Gestede we uses him with long balls, this is not usual he was a weapon. so what is wrong with using =your strengths . I apologise for the team that uses their strengths and wins the game. arsenal should also apologise for being slick and excellent and moving with and without ball. how bloody dare them
Have to say Nath I am with Andrew on this point. Our football last season was awful most of the time. With the team and squad as a whole we should have done much better. The teams at the top of the division played better football than we did, and generally attacked more. Huddersfield only scored 9 goals more (not 8), and ended up with a poor goal difference. They got turned over by a few goals in a number of games, but as Andrew pointed out picked up a lot more points by winning more games than us, and drawing fewer.
The question I have though, is why are we comparing ourselves to Huddersfield? Simply because they didn’t score hatfuls of goals? We spent over £70M last year (net £32M after sales). Huddersfield spent under £4M (net £2.5M after sales). We spent £32M on strikers. Yet we don’t score many goals. Huddersfield spent £640K on strikers!
I don’t think Bruce is the answer, but I accept that he will be given his chance next season. He will have a preseason, buy a few players, and needs to have a good start next season or he will be gone by Xmas. If that is the case he will deserve the sack as well. Let’s hope he proves me wrong. I’ll gladly come on here to eat humble pie if that’s the case.
comparing with Huddersfield came from Andrew saying teams don’t get promoted scoring the amount of goals villa managed. nine goals or eight hardly massive difference. if you prefer to play great football and stay in championship than iam cool with that. many teams played better football than villa. I thought burton were playing great football. you see winning football is much different, than losing with grace. Sheffield Wednesday played good football two years and remained in championship. for me style comes with time. bruce can not be judged on last season. the squad was was chopping and changing all the way to January
the style of football you wish to see doesn’t mean or equal to promotion. the team need to gel ,starting off wining games regular. that’s step one then a style come after that. I would prefer to get promotion and build in the premiership. where you will have money to hire the players. premiership parachutes end this season. so this is last chance to get the promotion with advantages of having the better players. if you and Andrew want to sack Bruce and scrap all his work up to now and get new players in and allow them another 12 months. so they can play pretty football and finish 7 or lose gallantly in the playoff final . then I good with that
the comment on other teams at the top played better attacking football. I didn’t answer that one, if I cant use Huddersfield as example, we know they scored only 9 goals more that’s isn’t really much more over a season. I watched them a few times. they were not attacking by any means. Brighton I would class as a countering team, Fulham were probably the best footballing team along with Wednesday but neither of these two got promoted so good attacking football doesn’t guarantee winning football.
I never once said villa played great football. I would say we haven’t played attacking football for many years last time I would say we were attacking teams with good football was under Ron Atkinson. so Bruce isn’t to blame yet. GIVE him the PRE season to get his ides bedded in. or scrap the whole squad and start again in league 1. that’s were villa were heading before bruce