Matt D

I can see there being *some* truth in both the Wilson and Brandt rumours - landing both for free would be a real coup, even if they are a little long in the tooth (zero fee means that there's no risk over resale value).

I also have a suspicion we'll keep Luiz for about £18m.

No idea on the rest.

Not intended to be negative in any way. Just a prediction.

That's c£120-130m book profit based on amortised fees etc. I think Bailey will prob go out on loan or go to Saudi/Turkey.

We would need to find a new GK, 2 or 3 new forwards, 1 or 2 new midfielders, a new RB and a new striker.

Early prediction on who will leave #AVFC in the summer and a guess at fees we'll get, regardless of CL

Rogers (£75m)
Guessand (£28m)
Malen (£25m)
Martinez (£10m)
Watkins (£25m)
Sancho (Not signed)
Elliott (Sent back)
Barkley (£2m)
Garcia (£6m)
Gauci (£0m)
Dobbin (£5m)
Barry (£1.5m)
O'Reilly (£1m)

Glad our scouting department spent all that time, money and effort on finding the perfect player for Palace. I assume we lost some kind of bet when they beat us for the 3rd time last season and as a result had to spend our entire budget on a player they needed.

#AVFC

Good job that 60% of those are now unavailable.

Hope they’ve introduced a single ounce of jeopardy into this season. It’s a little dull when there is nothing whatsoever at stake in any fight or situation for the main character, especially when the resolution in absolutely all cases is “big lad fight good”.

When Rogers leaves we’ll be at a similar crossroads to when Yorke left.

We signed an aging Merson out of nowhere back then. He was absolutely revelatory for a couple of years. This could be that.

(Or it could the old Danny Ings that we signed when Grealish left, but we’ll ignore that one)

#AVFC

Aston Villa’s Emi Martinez appears to be breaching FA’s gambling rules Argentinian sports betting website bplay announced Martinez as an ambassador in June 2024.

Good lord Emi, you're an absolute sausage sometimes.

#AVFC
www.nytimes.com/athletic/709...

If Villa disappeared I wouldn't watch any football ever again.

Probably both - but leaving at half time in the numbers they left in is quite something.

Think it's because of the number that left at half time, to be fair, rather than those that left at 85 minutes.

Hope you’re right, but I simply don’t see it. I don’t see where we get any money at all that would allow us to rebuild while remaining competitive.

We’ll almost definitely sell Rogers, but that’s a little counterintuitive to strengthening when we have 5-10 other players than need to be replaced.

This simply is not true in any way at all.

We would also still be subject to UEFA’s SCR rules, which we will breach again next season and probably get another fine to pile onto the mess we’re already in.

The reason that that’s a big problem is that that means we still have to sell-to-buy but we don’t have a huge number of profitable sellable assets anymore - we clearly need to replace Watkins, but that will cost £60-70m + Bailey, Buendia, Cash, Mings, Pau, Martinez, Garcia, Digne MUST be upgraded.

Without CL for an 2nd year our revenue will return to roughly 23/24 levels - c£300m. Our wages are currently around £293m and we have around £150m of additional expenses.

All told, we’d be looking at a loss of about £150m next season alone before signings.

Nope, his tenure at one club doesn’t define him. He’s elite because he’s elite across his career.

Eddie Howe didn’t win multiple trophies at Sevilla, Villarreal and PSG. And we finished 4th when we got CL, not 5th.

Depends on what you class as “achieved”. No Villa manager in our 150-odd years has qualified for Europe 4 times.

Oh, I’m well aware of the financial catastrophe that’s heading our way. We have one last financial dial to turn this summer in Rogers that will keep us afloat, but after that we‘re in deep deep trouble.

He walked from Sevilla, Valencia and PSG and we poached him from Villarreal. He rarely gets sacked.

Does he get to a dead end and leave? Maybe. That’s why I think he walks from us this summer.

He’s elite because not one other manager anywhere on earth could’ve turned our team as it was into a champions league team or do what he did at Sevilla and Villarreal with the squads they had. That makes him elite.

There‘s no way he knew how restricted we’d still be 3 years on. If we have another summer like the last and end up with the same tired, old, out of form players next season , or we’re forced to sell Rogers to make up another financial shortfall, then i am absolutely certain he will leave.

He is elite but much like when Ferguson walking at Utd in the end, he’ll know when we’re about to hit a dead end - especially if a big job appears.

We don’t have anywhere near the money to both fix the squad and remain competitive. He literally told us last season “I don’t want to waste my time”

So we can talk about whether our players are good enough, sure - but they’ve been good enough for the past 3 years, so why not now? Mcginn and Tielemans being injured doesn’t make Martinez make mistakes, or Rogers misplace a 6 yard pass or Buendia fall over whenever he touches the ball.

People keep using Luiz but he’s playing better by a MILE than Onana.

Buendia isn’t better than Barkley AND he’s playing badly.

If we didn’t need Abraham, why sign him. Watkins is in the worst run of form of his entire career, but plays every single game.

We don’t need to play Bailey but we do.

Emery’s tactics and constantly picking staggeringly out of form personnel are the main factor for why we‘re playing badly, not the injuries (They are a factor but not the main one).

If we lose against Utd we will have gathered 9pts from 10 games, which is by chance the same total that Steven Gerrard got in his last 10 league games with us.

If we fail to score, we will also have scored 1 less goal than in those last 10 games of glorious Gerrard-ball.

#AVFC

Between the two Lille games we beat Arsenal and followed them by beating Bournemouth. We lost 3 out of the previous 10 league games in the run up to Lille (we‘ve lost 4 of the last 10 now).

I don’t think anyone’s doing anything on purpose - I’m being silly.

We scraped past Lille 2 years ago when we were actually playing ok. Now we are playing worse than at any other time under Emery. They will beat us in both legs, I am absolutely convinced of it.