NUFC Transfer Rumours

[Yorkie]

2 hours ago, wong989 said:

The only thing I’d count against Eddie compared to managers in his bracket is signings and squad turnover. Think we hang onto or play players too long out of loyalty or not wanting to risk disruption, when we’ve needed a good few players, and value has been around. The French-African midfielder from Monaco we’ve been linked with was near out of contract last year, we go for Ramsey. In the other hand, Eddie’s record of improving players is second to none. This also makes it baffling he seems averse to taking a risk on foreign players, at least players who show robustness and quickness of thought.

 

Dropped more than £100m on players from Serie A and the Bundesliga this summer.

 

The approach is more balanced/varied than so many people bleat on about. Everyone who can buys from the PL.

[Kid Icarus]

These sort of myths in plain sight (wont buy non-PL players, Villa are doing better than us) are really puzzling me like. 

[KennyUtd]

Villa are definitely doing better than us like. No denying that.

[healthyaddiction]

9 minutes ago, KennyUtd said:

Villa are definitely doing better than us like. No denying that.

As in right this second? Yes, absolutely. Over multiple seasons, I wouldn't say so at all.

[KennyUtd]

2 minutes ago, healthyaddiction said:

As in right this second? Yes, absolutely. Over multiple seasons, I wouldn't say so at all.

I'm only concerned with now really. 

We'd be wetting ourselves if we'd won 11 on the trot and in a title race. 

[Kid Icarus]

13 minutes ago, KennyUtd said:

I'm only concerned with now really. 

We'd be wetting ourselves if we'd won 11 on the trot and in a title race. 

How long does now count as? We won 15 in 20 this year while Villa were languishing in 11th. Wonder how many on the Villa forum were saying the same but with the teams reversed.

[joeyt]

They'd be wetting themselves if they'd won a cup and in the Champions League in the last 12 months

[KennyUtd]

Just now, Kid Icarus said:

How long does now count as? We won 15 in 20 this year while Villa were languishing in 11th. Wonder how many on the Villa forum were saying the same but with the teams reversed.

This season. 

[Kid Icarus]

2 minutes ago, KennyUtd said:

This season. 

That's fair enough, just goes to show how quickly things change back and forth though. When they were in the CL last season they massively struggled until March. Just looking at us now and from December we went on a run of 21 wins out of 27 in all comps. Incredible.

[Kimbo]

Things are looking good for Villa, they look very likely to get CL football next year and they’re favourites for the Europa League. As for us, I’d bite your hand off for a conference league place.

[Kid Icarus]

8 minutes ago, joeyt said:

They'd be wetting themselves if they'd won a cup and in the Champions League in the last 12 months

I was so excited going into that Arsenal match with 2nd in our hands. It's just a shame our spineless centre forward wasn't. We were still very unlucky in that as well, Raya was unbelievable.

[Pilko]

The "we don't sign players from abroad" thing. Obviously that's not true.

 

I think it stems from big fees for Elanga, Ramsey and Wissa who all for one reason or another haven't done it yet. People think we could have spent half the money on an equivalent from abroad who might have been better, or at least if they weren't any good were half the cost. And we've basically not missed on a signing from abroad so far, whereas the more dubious signings we've made (the three above, Targett, Ramsdale, Wood maybe) come from the UK. Obviously this narrative ignores how good Hall, Tino, Burn, Barnes, Pope have been.

 

I also think people see Brighton, Forest etc making signings from places like Africa, South America etc where we don't seem to operate across, for low fees and a good amount of those end up either fetching megabucks or being serviceable players who probably at worst wash their face when sold to somewhere on the continent. Seems like we're beefing up scouting in these areas which you'd expect with Wilson coming in from Forest. Maybe the manager is not as convinced these players will adapt to the PL/distance move as quickly and that's why we never seem to buy from there? Hard to say, but I think it influences the narrative that he just wants British lads.

 

Whether by briefing or by lazy 2+2 journalism we seem to get linked with about half the PL when the window is opened, too. It definitely adds to the feeling that we want to shop in the one expensive market even though lots of that will be bullshit and the "list" will include options from abroad too.

 

 

Edited December 29, 2025 by Pilko

[MagSA]

19 hours ago, Ben said:

 

Even Sterling is confused by the link

[Colos Short and Curlies]

1 hour ago, Yorkie said:

 

Dropped more than £100m on players from Serie A and the Bundesliga this summer.

 

The approach is more balanced/varied than so many people bleat on about. Everyone who can buys from the PL.

 

We did, but if you wanted to be unreasonably pointed in the argument you would counter that his first choice striker was from the premier league (Pedro) and we only went for Thiaw after missing out on Guehi last summer

[SAK]

1 hour ago, The Prophet said:

 

If Real are interested, we won't have a sniff.

I live in the hope he prioritises game time and development than sitting on the bench of a glamorous club. See the trajectory of the likes of Hall, Tino, Miley and Big Nick.

[lovejoy]

6 minutes ago, Colos Short and Curlies said:

 

We did, but if you wanted to be unreasonably pointed in the argument you would counter that his first choice striker was from the premier league (Pedro) and we only went for Thiaw after missing out on Guehi last summer

 

I'd have been delighted with Pedro and Guehi though, so whats the issue here?

[Optimistic Nut]

1 hour ago, Kid Icarus said:

These sort of myths in plain sight (wont buy non-PL players, Villa are doing better than us) are really puzzling me like. 

 

Their most expensive signing this summer being a player from Nice whose barely had a look in, while the rest are Premier League experienced players on Frees & loans who we'd have turned our noses up at (other than their backup GK). 

 

 

[Rafalove]

 

[Conjo]

38 minutes ago, Pilko said:

The "we don't sign players from abroad" thing. Obviously that's not true.

 

 

It's obviously not true, but we would have signed significantly less players from abroad if Eddie got his top priorities in, so it is a valid concern imo.

[Ben]

21 minutes ago, Rafalove said:

 

 

We signing a cartoon 

[Holmesy]

1 hour ago, Pilko said:

The "we don't sign players from abroad" thing. Obviously that's not true.

 

I think it stems from big fees for Elanga, Ramsey and Wissa who all for one reason or another haven't done it yet. People think we could have spent half the money on an equivalent from abroad who might have been better, or at least if they weren't any good were half the cost. And we've basically not missed on a signing from abroad so far, whereas the more dubious signings we've made (the three above, Targett, Ramsdale, Wood maybe) come from the UK. Obviously this narrative ignores how good Hall, Tino, Burn, Barnes, Pope have been.

 

I also think people see Brighton, Forest etc making signings from places like Africa, South America etc where we don't seem to operate across, for low fees and a good amount of those end up either fetching megabucks or being serviceable players who probably at worst wash their face when sold to somewhere on the continent. Seems like we're beefing up scouting in these areas which you'd expect with Wilson coming in from Forest. Maybe the manager is not as convinced these players will adapt to the PL/distance move as quickly and that's why we never seem to buy from there? Hard to say, but I think it influences the narrative that he just wants British lads.

 

Whether by briefing or by lazy 2+2 journalism we seem to get linked with about half the PL when the window is opened, too. It definitely adds to the feeling that we want to shop in the one expensive market even though lots of that will be bullshit and the "list" will include options from abroad too.

 

 

 

I know you say it’s not true but that seems like it’s out of necessity rather than preference.

This summer, our primary striker targets appeared to be Pedro and Delap. We couldn’t get them so went abroad.

Last summer our primary CB target was Guehi. We couldn’t get him so went abroad. 
Elanga appeared to be our only RW target. 
We do sign players from abroad but there’s no doubt our preference is PL-proven players.

[Colos Short and Curlies]

55 minutes ago, lovejoy said:

 

I'd have been delighted with Pedro and Guehi though, so whats the issue here?

 

Nothing, I said it was unreasonable 😀

 

It's just (I'm in one of those moods) a continuation of the never ending cycle of the we only buy premier league players, but these players are good, but look at what we've spent overseas, oh yeah those players are also pretty good, but but look at the premier league premium we pay argument.

 

Personally I don't think we as a club have ever got a medium term transfer strategy right, going right back to Keegan.

 

We have good windows, sometimes 2 or 3 in a row but they never seem to follow a longer term plan and we're always prone to a summer in South America buying Bassedas and Cordone (was Gavilan the same window?), a summer buying cast offs like Butt and Carr or a few buys who just do nothing for us (hello Ramsey, Elanga, Ramsdale).

 

Maybe Wilson will be the guy but we have been crying out for a DoF long before they became a thing

[Jagten]

3 hours ago, Yorkie said:

 

Dropped more than £100m on players from Serie A and the Bundesliga this summer.

 

The approach is more balanced/varied than so many people bleat on about. Everyone who can buys from the PL.

This is an abstraction that ignores the players we are buying - wherever they are from - have been increasingly bad value. We cannot afford misses like Elanga. 

[The Prophet]

I personally think it's premature to completely write off Elanga, but good to see our first real dud in many a teansfer market would give some folk the stick they've been craving to beat the transfer policy with.

[Weezertron]

This forum is boring as shit and you're all annoying.