Now don’t get worried, I haven’t heard anything.
But there are the usual rumours beginning to circulate when any player does well and they did make me wonder.
Apparently from what I’ve seen, Arsenal and Real Madrid are practically nailed on certainties to sign Jack in the January window.
I say “from what I’ve seen”, but I haven’t even read the stories because they’re nothing more than clickbait and I refuse to give them any credence whatsoever.
Of course, if Real were to come knocking, the player and the club would have to take it seriously, as you can bet they’d be talking serious money.
Arsenal, on the other hand, well, yes, they’re still a big fish, but are they really the draw that would be big enough to entice Jack? I’m really not so sure.
And the club don’t exactly seem to be in the mood for spending much anyway, after having had their pants properly pulled down over the likes of Pepe, whose value has halved since he joined them according to transfermarkt.
There’s no doubting though that Grealish has been excellent of late and someone who’s been playing so well for England that he’s given a seeming reluctant England manager no choice but to play him, is quite simply going to attract offers. Offers so large that both the club and the player are going to find very hard to resist.
That’s not nice to contemplate, but we know it’s going to happen if Jack keeps playing as he has.
So I got to asking myself what would be a reasonable fee that the Villa would accept?
I say the Villa, but seeing as Grealish is one of our own, it complicates things somewhat in that you partly have to keep the fans happy too. No one wants to think we’ve let a player go to cheaply, but it does happen sometimes.
So what would be a realistic fee then?
Well, it isn’t going to be the much vaunted £80 million is it? Which reminds me. I don’t remember a sell on clause being mentioned when we quite recently gave Jack a new contract, but I’m sure the one previous contained a rumoured £45 million. You wouldn’t get Grealish for double that now and I’d love to know if his current contract contains one.
Talking of contracts, you have to wonder how long it’s going to be before we have to double his current measly £120k a week contract. It’s madness, I know, but his agent must surely be thinking that Jack is worth a quarter of a million a week.
As much as I like Jack, I’d baulk at the thought of paying him that, simple as.
That’s £12 million a year out of our turnover of what? £90ish million a year?
Grealish is currently the best performing England player and has been for three consecutive games.
Us Villa fans all know what he brings, but now football people worldwide do too.
That makes him massively valuable.
I’m going to be reasonable and suggest that we’d want £120 million for him.
I’ve picked that figure for three reasons.
1) It’s low enough to stop Grealish and his agent saying we’ve outpriced him.
2) It’s low enough to get offers in.
3) It’s high enough to keep us fans happy. I mean, let’s face it, that’s ten £12 million players. Or five £24 million players. That is, it’s not to be laughed at.
Yet, if we were to sell him for that, I think I’d feel short changed.
It’s a hell of a lot of money, that could go a long way to adding to our squad.
But at the same time, how nice is it to have a player that does something different and frankly terrifies the opposition at even the very highest levels.
Players like that don’t come round very often, do they?
It’s just something for us to think about, while we wait for the footy to restart.
To be clear, I don’t want us to sell him at all.
Building the team around grealish would be worth much more to us. Better players would be itching to play alongside someone of that calibre. If he stays, the side improves, we’ll be in Europe in 3yrs
Just no, please. He’s a once in a generation talent, who loves Villa. Genuinely believe he would only even think about leaving for Barca or Real Madrid, and that only if we tail off over next 12-24 months and he sees us as not having CL potential
I’d hate to see Jack go for any amount of money, and I’d like to think he would be reluctant to leave ‘his’ Aston Villa. I’m sure Jack has claret and blue blood!!!
Villa are seemingly ambitious, so I’d hope they’d fight tooth and nail to keep him as a major part of their plans
He is a stunning player and probably irreplaceable. That said, 4 £30M players would probably leave us a better side overall.
Hope he stays though. Love watching him play in a Villa shirt. It’s nice to have England’s best player in your side.
Agreed, but I too think he’s irreplaceable!
Barcelona is the club for Jack Grealish
Barcelona is the next club for Jack Grealish.
I don’t see our owners as sentimentalists or just along for the ride. Both of them are used to making their businesses a significant player in their field.
On the contrary – I can see both getting great pleasure from telling the traditional moneybags clubs of Europe like Manure and Real that they would not take a cheque in case it bounced, which is increasingly likely as the debts pile up.
The press have not noticed which way the wind’s blowing now and are flying the wrong kites. United in for Grealish? Any more likely than Villa in for De Bruyne and Leicester in for Greenwood? Who has the cash and who has the debts?
On a similar theme OLL – it’s not as if our owners need the money.
Ambition is the key word here – that of our owners and of Jack himself but for Jack, patience is also an important factor.
Our owners have a stated aim to return us to the top tier of European football where I believe we belong. They don’t need to sell Jack to do that, neither, I think, would they want to. Keeping Jack is a strong statement of intent.
As long as they can keep his ambitions realised (one big one now achieved) then I don’t believe he would want to move.
But back to the question – (in Parliamentary speak) I refer to my previous answer – if Sancho is worth £120m ………..
My thoughts as well, lads he not going anywhere, if you want like our owners want he stays. Our owners as Hitch saying don’t need the money but need the club to be big, you don’t get rid of your best player’s like the did in the past, you build to be the best and build to make money, it’s all bull shit and unnecessary talk. GREALISH is ours and here to stay, give him the best and build around him.
It all boils down to ambition. I believe our owners are aiming for the top and have backed it up till now. Of course it’s the players who call the shots now and like mentioned already, will Jack have the patience to stay when he could be offered instant success elsewhere.
I don’t think wages will be a hurdle and our owners know losing Jack would devalue us. Sometimes it’s better to be a big fish in a small pond knowing that the pond you’re in is getting bigger anyway.
Following the 2 post Liverpool defeats, if we’d have been spanked by Arsenal we could have said our great start was a fluke, but that 3-0 win was stunning. We really are a different team now.
it would have to be a monumental amount of money, over £200m to see Jack leave January. Maybe things will be different in the summer.
Perhaps Jack saw the future in signing the 5 year contract as a genuine Villa fan.if he goes to Real or Barcelona and we replace him with 5 £30m players, then it’s win win for everyone, but would be a shame to see him go!
20 years ago Aston Villa were as big a club if not bigger than Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham. The influx of massive foreign money made Man City and Chelsea what they are today. The Premier league money and being well run made is what made Spurs and Arsenal.
Man Utd and Liverpool are the 2 really big clubs.
Villa now have multi billionaire and ambitious owners – Martinez, Watkins, Barclay keeping Grealish. From what I can see we are now being very well run. I am sure we are on a steep upward trajectory and that we will be competing with the top 4 in the next couple of seasons.
Grealish is captain of his boyhood club, should now be an England regular and he can I believe achieve what he wants on the pitch at Villa. What would be a better achievement than to lead your home club back to the top.
Aren’t we playing today?
Badger an additional factor to consider in increasing Grealish’s pay and keeping him is the distribution of premier league funds. In 2019-20 we were expected to have received £106.1m for finishing 17th. Whereas, Wolves who finished 6th received £144m.
I think we all believe we will finish higher than last year increasing the funds available to the club. I guess the question is will the funds be used to buy players or pay wages?
I fully expect Grealish to stay as he is the stepping stone our owners need to move up a level.
I also believe in future seasons we will obtain one marquee signing per season. The recent significant investment in U23 players will be the life line. These players will either add to the quality of the first team or be sold on like Brewster for massive profit.
I trust our owners to continue to play a blinder, which much of the existing football order have not recognised yet.
Yes we are. Brighton are just the sort of banana skin that would cause Villa to slip in recent seasons. Today we have much greater fire power, and it is important to turn that into goals. If we score 3, I cannot see Brighton taking anything from the game.
Matt Targett is a gain going to have his work examined by Lamptey, an impressive young right-winger (in old money). So far this season, Brighton have been vulnerable to left-sided attackers running into the space behind Lamptey after he has gone upfield. Jack would be better suited to that move rather than trying to help Targett.
i wouldn’t sell grealish end off, even for figures above 500 million. look he is our future and without him we would struggle. he is unique and he loves villa. so i would do everything in my power to convince him, we are the club for him making his own personnel goals accessible by staying put. that is the key. we need to progress further into be competitive with the top dogs. JUST LIKE WE ARE THIS SEASON SO FAR.
i am really proud to be a villa fan again, ppl are very nice to us now. great football great attacking play. its great. there is no reason why grealish would want to leave 5 year deal and we are progressing faster than anyone would have dreamt. players like barkley and mcginn are also key, our recruitment has to match grealish ambition bringing in players that excites grealish to new higher levels. barkley has push grealish on further.i can only see us getting better as the season progresses.
today game is a dodgy one, we were on a high like beating pool and the damn internationals came,that result frizzled out while england tried to play. beat gunners i mean hammered them and again international came to spoil our high moral buzzing around. it will be like starting fresh today. brighton are a very impressive footballing team. they will be like leeds but not as good without the ball. but with it, they will keep long periods of possession, making us chase it around. but we are getting really good without the ball, so should be a great watch. if we can continue our game like against gunners then we will beat the seagulls. but if we are just off it a little and brighton start knocking the ball around we will be in for a tough game.
i predict 3 2 villa
IF we were to sell Jack we would need to find a replacement…there isn’t one…or the teams that want him would have got them.Also who would come to us knowing we are a selling club.
Don’t you think we may be putting all our eggs in one basket pinning all our hopes on one player? If he gets injured, then what?
under smith we have built a decent team around jack, but it is still jack grealish pulling the most or main strings. but he is that good, you can see him in england team just in those three games. how important he is as individual player. who is very unselfish great for the overall team. he forever taking the pressure off the other players. he always offers himself and he creates loads. i guarantee theirs more premiership teams he would improve if he played for them than he wouldn’t. they would soon be reliant on him too.
smith and villa are not gonna sit on their laurels they will be working hard producing more gems ramsey brothers etc. we just need to keep hold of jack for as long as we can. if we continue to progress as we have, who knows how far we can go this season. we were a proper team at arsenal last out. best i seen in years.