Should we be surprised that the last week has changed a positive out look to one that ranges from measured to desperate?
A week might be a long time in politics but for Villa fans it’s just four days with ACL injuries to two key players and an embarrassing drubbing by our arch enemies from the North!
Whilst not all fans agree over Mings qualities he is a vociferous leader on the pitch and will be sorely missed. The stats don’t lie – when Mings doesn’t play we just don’t win . Since the arrival of Emery, he has probably played his best football for Villa and his partnership with Konsa was arguably the best centre back pairing in the EPL last season. Replacing him is a massive challenge for Emery and his staff
With Buendia and Mings out for the season, it also means Villa have to spend money on positions they thought were already filled which, due to FFP, may affect their ability to reinforce other positions.
Emery is on record as saying he wants two players for each position – is that now feasible particularly if FFP is a challenge and given that loan deals for players of sufficient ability may be difficult to achieve.
Take the Zaniolo deal for instance. According to reports Villa wanted a season loan and option to buy whereas Galatasaray are insisting on a loan with mandatory purchase and a share of any onward sale. Further reports suggest that Emery has insisted that Villa get the deal over the line.
Sky are suggesting Villa will let Digne, Bailey and Coutinho go if good offers come in for them to balance FFP although, it seems, we are also content to retain them in the squad – although I question that’s the case with Bailey.
It’s recently been reported that Monchi is looking at young La Ligua players for both full back positions – lower cost and lower wages with the opportunity to develop them.
In addition Villa are selling Aaron Ramsey on the basis of a buy back provision within two to three years – again is this a sign of needing to bring in money now to balance the books?
Whilst we have extremely wealthy owners who have been brilliant in funding Villa to date, the implications are that without the levels of revenue enjoyed by the ‘elite clubs’, attempting to challenge the top six is severely restricted by FFP.
So should we put away the euphoria of qualifying for Europe, Emery’s meteoric impact and the successful pre-season and be concerned about the season ahead?
I, for one, think overcoming Buendia and Ming’s injuries will have a significant effect on our season and it wouldn’t surprise me to see us struggling in the league – particularly with Ramsey and Moreno also out until late September at the earliest – as did West Ham last season for similar reasons.
Emery will, no doubt, go all out for a trophy and may now see this as the best opportunity to qualify for another European campaign rather than through the league.
Not sure everything is quite as rosy in FFP terms as we may have thought – exacerbated by two injuries. Talk of very large sums available to spend in the transfer market this summer might well have been wide of the mark
Hitch, Isn’t it strange that Chelsea can spend spend spend! There way round FFP is to sign players on 7- 8 year contracts and hope they qualify for Europe with Champions league. There again, the Citeh investigation has gone quiet. I wouldn’t be surprised if nothing comes of it just like Chelsea or any other big spending Sky 6 team will be penalised over FFP.
They are selling as well Holte and that income balanced by amortising acquisitions over 8 years has given them decent spending power on top of their years of TV / European revenue streams.
However, these 8 year contracts have now been regulated to a maximum of 5 years by FIFA for FFP amortisation purposes.
Sky have just put up some net spends in this transfer window which, if the Villa figures are anything to go by, are not worth looking at.
According to Sky, Villa have spent £97m and not received anything in sales – which is clearly baloney having sold Wesley and Nakamba and received loan fees for a number of players including Sanson.
Notwithstanding, according to Sky Chelsea’s net spend is just £53m – more importantly they’ve put c£250m on their bottom line from sales – more than enough, I would have thought, to offset their amortised spending.
Despite all the upheaval this week, Wolves have given a bloody good example of themselves at dodgy Old Trafford tonight. Never gonna be a late penalty at ManU is it…
Well, to offer some positive balance, this is why we wanted 2 players in position. It’s just a shame it’s all been called into action within 30 minutes of the season.
An injury to 1 or 2 key players is almost guaranteed at some point during the season. I for one have always been a huge Mings fan, his recovery runs are so reassuring and has been a luxury insurance policy in terms of defending.
However, we have spent on 2 quality centre halves in 2 seasons. Diego, Pau, Chambers and of course a most often than not Konsa still leaves the window open for a great pairing. Who knows, Mings replacement may be an improvement and thinking long term, this was a situation that would always need addressing at some point, More games and Mings only getting older , the change was inevitable. A couple nights sleep after a defeat and we can all start thinking rationally again. I know it hurts but if Pau scores on Sunday and keeps a clean sheet you know you will feel better this time next week. A lot of teams will struggle at Newcastle this year, yes we could have got something had we approached it differently but we don’t have to go there again this year now. UTV
I’m wondering if Monchi might raid Villareal again for defenders who have already played alongside Torres. They’ve got some decent players such as Foyth (25) and Cuenca (23). Cuenca scored yesterday in the loss against Real Betis and he looks like a good prospect.
Also wondering if Carter-Vickers from Celtic might not be a candidate. He always strikes me as being a very Mings type of player.
Oh well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
Birmingham Live saying we’re interested in Marcus Acuna – left back with Savilla.
Marcus Acunda anyone Savils left back
Now he can play Left
Or right back and centre defender
Acuna, pacy full back and let’s not forget, World Cup winner along with Emi Martinez for Argentina. A great signing if we could get him.
Absolute proof that VAR is for the Sky 6 after Wolves didn’t get a penalty. A shocking decision!
Yup. Was never gonna be given, and ive no idea why my earlier post on this was halfway up the page…???!!!
Would be poetic justice if Wolves finished above Bournemouth this year the way they hoofed out their Manager.
Hitch, I’m still not quite understanding how FFP works.
I’m pretty sure the rules changed recently and they’re now counted over a longer period of time, because of Covid?
Plus, the money we’ve spent must surely be countered by amortisation?
As for Mings, well, I’ve given my opinion on him.
As for Buendia, I’m meh about him too, as much as I like him. If we’re being honest, has he been as productive as we thought he would be? I think Ramsey is the bigger loss, but hopefully he won’t be out as long.
I’m staying upbeat, because I don’t think things are that desperate.
Let’s face it, we were expecting to get relegated during the clown’s final days.
Nor do I Badger – fully understand how FFP works that is.
They did do something with the calculations over Covid but I think that was a ‘short term’ relaxation and there’s been some reports of changes to the way it’s going to work in the future but I really don’t know if that’s been implemented?
I do know you can amortise transfer fees for acquisitions over the period of the players contract but the rules have been tightened to limit this to a maximum of five years since Chelsea started to use eight year contracts. If you sell within the players contract then the unamortised portion of the costs goes to the bottom line. 100% of monies received for player sales can be accounted for in the year of acquisition so, yes, this helps a lot in FFP accounting terms.
In the Grealish case £100m went straight to income but our outgoings of a similar amount would (on an average of 4 year contracts for Buendia / Bailey and Ings) would for FFP purposes be accounted for at £25m per annum. Hence the Grealish sale helps FFP by posting a £75m profit against the three year rolling period within which the clubs allowed (I believe) to lose a maximum of £105m
I should have said an initial £75m profit – although we still have to carry the £25m per year thereafter. Selling Ings at a good price was, in part I’m sure, with FFP in mind
Blimey – Sir Alex picked out Villa as the team that most impressed him from the opening round of EPL games – he actually said they played some fantastic football and the scoreline was not representative of the game admitting Villa did allow ‘bad’ goals to be scored.
He said in football you can play teams off the park and still lose – it’s what happened on Saturday.
Don’t think Emery would quite agree with that assessment!
He’s always had a soft spot for us. Don’t forget he nearly came to us before Utd. Think how different thing could have been. Plus we guaranteed him 6 points virtually every season. That bloody Ronaldo in particular. I always remember him saying he loved coming to VP because we made him feel so welcome! That is NOT how to do it.
I thought some of our play was fantastic too, but we had a REALLY bad day organisational wise. Kamara, McGinn etc didn’t suddenly become awful players overnight, no matter what some have been saying. We’ll do the BarCodes back at our place!!!
Also, papers all saying they have no idea how Wolves weren’t given that penalty last night. Corruption all around.
I don’t think we played Newcastle off the park by any means but even with the shocking score line we played some decent stuff until it went 3-1. Before that I was quietly confident we would make it 2-2. we played some good football and that’s without arguably 2 of our most influential players last season in Moreno and Ramsey. If Watkins had put that fairly easy chance away in the 1st half when all he had to do was connect properly with the ball or Cash puts his chance away (a lot harder chance admittedly) it’s probably a different game. The Mings injury affected the players i’m sure and after the Konsa error, heads dropped and they gave up. Mings will be a big loss for sure, particularly when you look at the statistics without him, but the same can also be applied to when we lost Grealish and we went on to become a better team so i’m hoping this enforced change will actually be a blessing in disguise. Zaniolo looks like a very good player and well suited to the prem with his strength and power he should be available for Everton. We really need Bailey out of the club fast, such a waste of space it’s like starting with 10 men!
Not sure what to make of this – linked with Acuna again (another former Monchi signing) – 31 now. Sevilla want €15m but Villa have to sell Digne – one of our top earners (thanks Stevie) who (it seems) isn’t wanted by Emery. Even so it’s being reported Villa don’t want to pay €15m and may offer Carlos who, it’s said, is not in Emery’s plans!
Pick the bones out of that?
*as part of the deal
I think that with Moreno and Acuna as full backs we’ll have both defensive nous plus pace and crossing ability. Watched Sevilla struggle for much of last season, they’re normally a Top 6 club but finished mid-table. However, Acuna always gave 100% and I think that he’d be a good addition to the squad.
As for Carlos, he’s been pretty dreadful in every game I’ve seen him play pre-season so it wouldn’t surprise me if Emery off-loaded him.
1874 – have no issues about unloading Carlos but with Mings injury if we’re prepared to offer him for Acuna, I assume Emery / Monchi have another CB in their sights.
Theses deals look like a line of dominoes going right to the deadline day wire 🙂
It also appears that we are prepared to let Archer go – wonder if that will be on a deal similar to Aaron Ramsey’s to Burnley as reported Luton wanted a loan but Villa not interested?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-12408369/Man-United-vs-Wolves-referee-VAR-AXED-Premier-League-weekends-matches-admitted-glaring-penalty-error-helped-United-victory.html
Shocking.
As I said in a recent post Bum Bum – VAR is just a tool, it’s the tools that operate it that are the problem!
On the Newcastle VAR offsides – why were no lines drawn – surely that’s a protocol being ignored?
There is far too much subjectivity involved which, if it can’t be reduced or removed through clear protocols with serious consequences for those that ignore them, then VAR will continue to be a failure. Being ‘suspended’ for one weekend is not even a slap on the wrist.
Nicolo Zaniolo is allegedly at VP for a medical today but his injury history is shall we say, a little Andertonesque?
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/nicolo-zaniolo/verletzungen/spieler/392085
Adama Traore goes to Fulham for nowt. Surely would have been worth a sniff. Capable of tearing every single defence in the PL a new one. Oh well…
I have to be honest the way I see it is open to a massive fiddle , VAR up till now hasn’t made me trust the way it’s presented to the sport. It still open to who the person supports in his or their childhood team. It now been given to referees who in their reign as refs a job, and I still say some are corrupt even now. We need to start a scheme where you and I know it’s fair and each official are screened beyond doubt. Our game are a money making operation and should be taken seriously. That’s my thoughts.
Fabrizio Romano exclusive: Tottenham considering Mateu Alemany as potential option as new Director of Football starting from September. Alemany will part ways with Barça on September 2 and was close to Aston Villa in June — PL opportunity could return soon with Spurs.
Badger – on FFP – sorry if this is boring!
I made a couple of errors – firstly it’s the EPL and EUFA not FIFA and the rules between the two are different!!
So EUFA have bought in a limit of five years for amortisation whereas the EPL hasn’t. As Chelsea are not in Europe they can continue to sign players on eight year contracts but …….
The BBC have just put up the following article to try and provide some answers to the ‘Chelsea spending’ question.
For those interested or suffering from insomnia 🙂
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/66507341
Hitch I’ll take the time to read it once I’ve got through the terms and conditions of my mobile contact 😂😂
🙂
FFP is like VAR – bent – and it winds me up.
Acuna was immense for Sevilla tonight v Man City. Got an assist for their goal but liked his pace and the way he played so high on the wing. Could be an amazing signing for us.