Hooray, something to talk about for a change.
I can’t say I know much about this player. I think I’ve heard his name mentioned, Villa rumours apart, but I honestly couldn’t tell you if I’ve seen him play or not. I probably have, seeing as he has 23 Spanish caps, but like most fans, I suspect, I don’t tend to concentrate on centrebacks unless they give an extremely good or bad performance.
It’s another signing that seems to be universally liked amongst us Villa fans and I’ve seen fans of other clubs who have said that signing Torres would be a real coup. So if football fans’ opinions mean anything at all, it would seem we’ve done some very solid business again after signing Tielemans on a free.
The fee, although officially undisclosed is rumoured to be around the £30 million mark and I have to say that seems pretty cheap to me. Of course, it’s a lot of money, but it really isn’t in the scheme of things. Not that I think the actual transfer fee is that significant these days. I’d be more interested to find out what the club is actually paying him, as it’s that that is now the real indicator of how high a club is aiming. It sounds ridiculous, but £100k a week really isn’t a big deal now, is it?
No, you’d have to guess that he’s probably being paid nearer the £150k mark. The mind boggles.
So what little do I know about him?
Well, apparently he’s a left footer, which I find interesting seeing as Mings, who is probably our top centreback is also a lefty. It doesn’t seem to be ideal to play two left footers together at the back, but who knows? Emery knows the player well, so maybe he thinks it’s doable. Is it really likely that the manager wants the pair of them to compete? How likely is it that Emery would drop one of them?
There’s no way Torres would have been signed just to sit on the bench. I suspect we might see more of a 5/3 at the back. We’ve already seen it to some extent under Emery, where he likes to play a more fluid game than most. Six at the back hasn’t been unknown, so I can easily us playing three which allows our fullbacks/wingbacks to bomb on.
I fully expect a right sided defensive yet attacking player similar to Moreno to come in during this window.
Back to Torres and he’s seemingly someone who likes to play out and has a couple of tricks in his repetoire, with one notable one being a Cruyff turn. I can’t wait to see that one.
The dampeners of Moreno’s and Ramsey’s injuries apart, this is looking to be a very successful transfer window. If the aforementioned right back, maybe a right winger and another striker were to come in, particularly if they’re the sort of calibre of player we’ve already signed, I’d be seriously happy.
Being more realistic though, I think the reality might be more like one top calibre player along with a couple of next tier players. Not journeymen, but not top level either.
I’m not sure where we stand with our squad numbers and to be honest, I haven’t kept track for years, but I’m sure we had at least a couple of vacancies that could be filled.
Which might mean that at least a couple of those we expect to go might end up staying, just as backup for the Conference.
Which I’m also looking forward too.
The optimist in me sees this competition as a pre-cursor to us entering the Europa league. And given that we’re the favourites, it’s our cup to throw away.
Favourites. You don’t hear that about the Villa in any competition very often.
Some more nice weather and it’ll be a very nice summer indeed.
Sky Germany’s Florian Plettenberg reports today that Aston Villa have reached an agreement in principle with Bayer Leverkusen to sign Moussa Diaby (24) for a reported €50m plus add-ons.
Hopefully he will now choose us over Saudi Arabia club.
Well, you would hope that, at the age of 24, he’d pick us over the Saudi old people’s home for aged footballers.
This will tell us a lot about the mindset of footballers.
Diaby has said he wants to play in the Prem and in Europe – preferably in the European Champions League so Villa weren’t necessarily his first choice – or so it’s been reported.
If he’s offered £500k a week to play in Saudi we’ll find out how important European football is!
Given that offer I’d be very surprised to see him in a claret and blue shirt, that’s an awful lot of money to turn down?
Word is – if one can believe the press – that Villa and Leverkusen have agreed a deal at £43m plus add-ons and Diaby has opted to join Villa.
We’ll see.
It’s true the Frabrizio Romano top Journalist concerns signing
Confirms. Sorry
Even Sky are saying Diaby is joining Villa.
It seems he’s turned down a move to Saudi which if he’s serious about his career is the right decision at 24 years old. Plenty of time in the future to go to Saudi and earn stupid money.
Notwithstanding, I doubt whether he’ll be going short 🙂