brummie

Ings to Villa means Kane to Spurs if you ask me. Spurs linked with Ings for a while, think we got wind that was going to look more likely so got in there while we could. Genuinely not heard so much as a sniff about Danny Ings to us all summer.

That's totally out of the blue.

Danny Ings. Good signing

I'd much rather he stayed but we'll be a better team if we spend that money and spend it wisely. Buendia and Bailey are already very good signings, and I think Ward-Prowse would improve us a lot too. We need another option up front, though, definitely, and I am not sure Tammy fits the bill, but there is no getting away from the fact £100m is a lot of money.

Awww bollocks.

Kevin Friend displays a sense of humour. Responds to Villa fans telling him he's just a shit Mike Dean by booking them.

He's absolutely shite. Was the same with us and has not changed since - run fast in a straight line, run out of pitch, repeat. He reminds me of Tony Daley, except Daley used to score every now and then.

I used to watch Gazza when he was coming through with you when I lived up there, and watching Grealish these last few years has been exactly like watching Gazza was. I always remember Gascoigne in his early Newcastle days, head back, chest out, arrogantly playing with such swagger, he stood out a mile. I got exactly the same feeling watching Grealish come through.

Man City want to buy Grealish because they can and they need to show everyone they can. People who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

I think that's the thinking behind Buendia, Bailey and prob Cantwell - once Grealish was out, we had no creativity around the box.

I fucking hope so.

I would much rather keep Jack, even if the price is £100m. Jsut because of the symbolism of it. However, I concede, that's a fucking huge amount of money and could be transformative on top of what we've already spent of late. One thing we saw last year was that when he was out injured, we really suffered, and I think the signings so far this close season are aimed very much at being less reliant on him. Buendia and Bailey suggest a requirement for creativity, certainly, and I think Buendia in particular looks like an incredible prospect. My only comment on Grealish is that he is absolutely brilliant, and will become more brilliant, but he's prone to long injury lay offs, so perhaps spending that money a bit cleverly would spread that reliance and mitigate the potential chaos caused by a single injury. Ultimately, if he goes, it will because he wants to guarantee champions league football and medals and we're just going to have to accept it. What I absolutely do know though is, the owners will have pulled out all the stops to attempt to get him to stay.

All that Grealish stuff from something in the Guardian by Fabrizio Romano. I rest my case.

Drinkwater is an absolute disgrace. Every time it was like someone had gone into one of the pubs around the ground three hours before kick off and held a lottery whereby the most shitfaced punter by half an hour before kick off would get to play for us. One of my mates said it was like watching some fan who'd come in full kit, with his boots, just in case we needed an extra body (as per every schoolboy football fan's dream), only to find the dream came true and he got his chance. Except we were paying him 100k a week. And it happened every week. shudder.

Barkley is infuriating. There were performances like Arsenal away where him and Grealish basically just took them to pieces, they were both brilliant. But for every performance like that, there were 9 unarsed, petulant, nothing performances. It's a shame, he looked like an inspired signing for a short period of time, but you'd genuinely struggle to find a single Villa fan who would suggest we should have kept hold of him after last season. Not the worst player we've loaned from Chelsea in recent years, but when you consider the worst was Danny Drinkwater - genuinely, in 50 years watching the club, the worst player I've ever seen play for us in the top flight - it puts it in context.

I like him. We've been linked with signing him, which I am not massively excited about, but that's because we need to be signing players elsewhere. The fans loved him. He came here on loan and absolutely bought into it. He's got heart.

"Negotiating down from there". Really? I don't think that's how it is going to work. I also would bet everything I own if we were to put a price on him, it'd be more than that. We don't need the money and don't want to sell, he's got 4 years on his contract and is extremely unlikely to do a Delph on us. The arrogance of the ESL wankers (less so Spurs, as they weren't really credible in that company in the first place) makes me want to vomit. What's the point even trying with these wankers in the press making it so easy for them?

I don't know about the Grealish goes, Grealish stays thing but one thing which was crystal clear last season was how much we relied on him. Buendia is clearly here with that in mind, and so I imagine would be Cantwell.

Genuinely hadn't heard anything about that.

The owners have been absolutely brilliant since joining. They've made tons of money available, hired people who know how to run football clubs (something Lerner never did), instilled a solid coaching structure top to bottom, invested more in the training centre, are building a massive 'inner city academy' right next to the ground to develop local youth, and are buying players with the right attributes. Interestingly, on the acquiring players thing, they're doing it top to bottom, so right down to the youth structure - nicked Louie Barry from Albion via Barcelona, got a youth side which won the FA Youth Cup, hosing up promising kids where appropriate, and hiring top development staff to bring them on. One of them - Edens - watched his NBA team win the championship last night, built on a platform of keeping your best player and building around him. I've no idea if Grealish will stay, i suspect he will, but i like the fact we are at least trying to build something. No guarantees any of this will work, but it is good to be having a go after ten years of having liquid shit injected into our eye balls week after week and coming within literally hours of going into administration.

Lazio have always been like that - Mussolini was a Lazio fan and they have a history of anti-semitism, fascism and general nastiness that goes back decades. Roma were traditionally the club of the working classes.

Me too. That has 'massive fucking nightmare' written all over it.

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I don't understand what we are trying to do with this. It sounds like a highly unlikely transfer, but I don't think we'd be bothering if we hadn't had encouragement (and I don't think it is his agent pushing his wages negotiation). I also find it hard to believe we are just doing it to troll Arsenal (annoying entitled bell ends that they are)

No. If there was going to be a Grealish replacement (and there won't, as he won't be leaving) it would have been Buendia.