So those of you who have been reading/contributing or whatever for a while will know that I’m not a fan of speculation because 95% of it is typically absolutely rubbish. But at the same time, I know some of you love it and given that I’ve just realised I haven’t written anything for over a fortnight and tomorrow is the start of the transfer window, it seems a good time to start this thread.
As per usual, we’re selling most of the team and buying a whole new premier league for our squad. Hmm.
It does seem though, that if you try and read in between the lines a couple of possible moves might prove to be reality. First is Douglas Luiz to leave at £50 million or whatever. While this is miles lower than the £80-100 million that has been talked about I think this might be a good deal for us.
I haven’t previously wanted him to go, but I now have a sneaky feeling that his agent and him have been trying to engineer a move. I know some have said his form dropped in the last couple of months, but I think it’s more than that. I think there’s been something very strange in his attitude and it was demonstrated by his sudden terrible disciplinary record. I’m going to go so far as to say that was some small form of a protest and demonstrative that he quite simply wants out.
I don’t think it’s a money thing. He wants a new challenge and his agent thinks Juventus is the place. Good. If you want to go that much, clear off. With my blessing. The club is bigger than you. I can’t say I’m particularly interested in Winston McKennie and the other lad coming our way, but we do need numbers in.
Second, is Jhon Duran to Chelsea for £50 million. That’s frankly laughable and half of that would be a good deal. I’m convinced the lad has a serious attitude problem, as much as I believe he actually has a somewhat valid reason for having it. The fact is Emery doesn’t yet deem him to be good enough to outdo Watkins and it’s as simple as that. And if he doesn’t have the patience to listen to the manager he can go. Particularly if he’s giving the manager a problem, which I think he is.
Having had another glance at the news, it appears Chelsea have agreed a £42 million fee. I’m inclined to think he could be a bargain signing for them, but if it isn’t working for him at the Villa, that’s a lovely amount of money in the pot to stave off this PSR rubbish.
Then, there’s Matty Cash. We’ve apparently slapped a £30 million price on his head. Where do these stories come from? I’d take half that if we have a replacement lined up.
And finally (although I’m sure there’s plenty of other stories) there’s Diegos Carlos, who cost us a fortune, given his age. I liked the look of him early on, but wouldn’t miss him now. That said, we need better defenders and I’m not convinced Mings is ever going to get back to where he was. Maybe we might do better keeping Carlos as a back up? No doubt he’s on big wages though, so I’ll trust the club’s judgement on that one.
Anyway, this is just a starting point. I’m sure many of you will be more interested in the speculation and chat about other rumours.
Me, I’m only interested in deals inked, whether in or out.
Football – what do you mean football?
It’s all about money and paper profits to satisfy the lunatic bean counters.
Sawiris had it right and I hope Villa do take legal action against the EPL corrupt cabal.
Youri scores for Belgium got a good feeling for him next season and I think jayay will have a great season as well just hope he stays fit
Good goal by yuri for Belgium think he will kick on next season also excited to see Jay Jay play think he will be amazing as well UTV
Link to BBC article re Luiz to Juventus.
Thought we would have got more for him but this is (yet) another example of PSR interference. Forest got done – one of their mitigating pleas was selling a player later in the summer window to maximise their value – didn’t gain any sympathy!
Accordingly Villa have to lower their value to get the deal done early.
I can only assume Emery is prepared to let Luiz ago ahead of other players. Ramsey might have been favourite but his injuries last year have put paid to that as an option.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cxwwv409r17o
Sickening. I have some crude analogies for how we’re being screwed but I’ll leave it as it’s a Sunday.
And we’ve signed Dobbin from Everton – although I’m not really sure why – other than it’s pure PSR trading between clubs to get around the rules.
On the Luiz deal – Villa can put £42.3m to the bottom line less any outstanding amortised cost of his transfer from ManC which can’t be a lot (say £2m) and circa £3.7m of amortised costs from the two players coming to Villa from Juventus (as these will be structured as separate deals)
With the sale of Iroegbunam to Everton for £9m (less the amortised costs of the Dobbin deal – fee not disclosed but assuming amortisation at say £4m) and the sale of Kellyman to Chelsea less c£8m amortised costs for Maatson means Villa have increased their revenue for 23/24 by a net amount of around £50m.
If they need £59m then a deal including Duran would provide the necessary few extra ‘Bob’.
Daft isn’t it?
I’m lost, Hitch. If you sell something for a pound then buy something else for a pound, surely your bottom line remains in the same state and hasn’t improved? I don’t get how the Dobin/Tim deal helps. And selling Kellyman is bordering on tragic.
BFR – it’s 0ne of those strange accounting practices allowable in PSR calculations,
When a club sells a player they can include the whole of the fee received in the current years accounts – I’ll come back to that.
When a club buys a player they are allowed to amortise (or spread the cost) over the period of the players contract. So if we buy a player for £20m and he signs a five year contract then the club only have to account for a fifth of that (£4m) in each of the following five years accounts. My belief is it can only be amortised over the period of the original contract – any subsequent contract alterations / extensions are immaterial for accounting purposes.
Getting back to the revenue received for a sale. So, a hypothetical example – we buy X for £50m and he signs a five year contract – that means £10m of costs per accounting year for 5 consecutive accounting periods. After 2 years we sell him for £75m. £75m is included in the current years revenue but the club also have to account t for the rest of the unamortised purchase price – in this case 3x£10m – so the actual net increase in revenue is £45m. It has nothing to do with stage payments to the selling club – that’s purely a cash flow issue.
So, when we sell an academy player there will no outstanding amortised costs and the whole of the revenue goes to the bottom line as ‘profit’ – hence the reason Villa are selling promising academy players – it’s the quickest way to ‘balance the books’ – rather than loaning them out.
Villa did include buy back clauses for Archer, Bodace and Aaron Ramsey and may well do for Kellyman – but you’re right and one has to wonder why the EPL clubs failed to vote in favour of lifting the allowable losses to £135m over three years (as Villa proposed) – I suspect a mixture of closed shop protectionism by the wealthiest and pure jealousy from other clubs.
Tragic indeed!
(Apologies for the lengthy response)
My feeling on your last point is, very few clubs need it this season and will likely wait until they do to raise it again when they really need it – hoping by that time, enough people will vote in favour. No other reason made sense for it to be voted down – unless they saw it benefiting a rival and not themselves. Villa aren’t just one of the biggest spenders in the league, but in Europe, so there’s only a handful of clubs that it’s affected – namely ones who’ve been promoted and need to spend to catch up.
Good points Texas
I honestly don’t think it was a purchase we’ve made for the first team. I think it’s academic. You scratch our back, we’ll scratch yours. What I also think we get is a player who we can loan out, grow in value and make increased value return from in 2-3 years. If he comes good for the first team, bonus. I think this is clearly our business model until PSR allows differently.
Spot on Texas – I totally agree with you.
Sawiris said as much – football is all about creating paper profits to satisfy PSR – it’s a nonsense.
Absolutely this.
Just as you can manouver aruond taxes, so you can do the same with this rubbish.
It might be temporary, to suit the books but any losses will be paid back over time.
And as long as that’s the case, it’s all good.
Hence, total bollocks.
They know all this. The problem comes when you can’t pay it over time and it’s an indicator that a club does indeed have serious issues.
Scotland just about to kick off and for our club skipper “you have my heart and every breath I take” This is your moment
Watching Scotland – not a single shot on goal – in fact only one shot in the whole game!
How Hungary haven’t scored is beyond me!
McGinn looks totally shot after his demanding season with Villa! Is this a issue with a lot of UK players?
I think that McGinn was just shot because he was one of the few decent footballers that Scotland had and he was trying to do the work of at least two players.
Anyway, thankfully he won’t now be coming back injured.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c5111jg2r3yo
This is quite a long article but what it demonstrates, imo, is that PSR is not fit for purpose.
But the EPL, in its wisdom would rather ‘close loopholes’ than look at the problem itself. There is also evidence that jealousy amongst clubs is influencing the voting.
Add to that the PFA saying clubs are treating players like commercial assets rather than employees! Sorry chaps, they are both and if the EPL start arbitrarily challenging the valuation agreed between two clubs or change the rules around academy players (for instance for each academy sale requiring a level of academy investment to be included in costs for PSR purposes – at present it’s excluded) then a couple of things could happen. Some owners will possibly make good their threat of legal action against the EPL for restrictive practices and there could well be a significant reduction in academy investment.
Rather than taking a pragmatic approach the solution mooted is, next season, to run two alternative financial models neither of which are binding – a typical design by committee approach!
NSWE must be ripping their hair out!
Stop ripping out hair and sue the f****** c****! 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
Hitch, I’m finding all this incredibly annoying.
The Premier League itself has caused all these money problems, in chasing the money in it’s dealings with Sky.
If the Prem want to get arsey, we should indeed sue them. Ultimately, no rules are being broken and if they don’t like it, tough, imo.
I’d love to know who those clubs are who think it’s wrong (which of course, it is, really) but I think we can guess. All those in the group who have already attained that notch up and feel threatened. Utd spring to mind.
Cartel.
Badger, no I think it includes clubs, that don’t have wealthy owners and have no chance of challenging the established order, who want to stop others.
Whatever, the EPL is a mess and just demonstrates that shareholders having equal votes that can control / direct management decisions just doesn’t work.
It will ultimately self destruct
I’m not convinced that makes sense Hitch.
If these clubs have no chance, what difference does it make whether it’s Villa, Newcastle or Man U or Pool or whatever?
Much more likely to be clubs that have taken the proverbial for years, such as Utd, who are nearly a Billion in debt, but are supposedly secure (!), imo.
Where would they be if they were to ended up relegated, for example?
The whole Prem setup stinks and us fans all know it.
Not necessarily, Badger. It’s the age old “if I can’t have you/it, nobody else can/should”. Jealousy, basically.
You’re right about the debt though Badger.
Portsmouth (and other clubs) went bust because of unaffordable debts, and subsequent lack of cash, run up by owners that the club was left with. That’s not to say unmanageable losses aren’t part of the problem – they are. But to completely ignore the strength of the balance sheet – i.e. shareholder funds v liabilities (debt) is complete and utter financial nonsense.
Villa have zero debt so if NSWE walk away tomorrow the club is financially secure and any loss (on the sale of the club) is borne 100% by the shareholders i.e. NSWE. They can more than afford the accounting losses because the shareholders are funding them – not the club.
Now the EPL conveniently talk about ‘loopholes’ when they don’t affect their ‘big six’ mates whilst overlooking the fact, for instance, that Abramovich ‘forgave’ Chelsea’s £2.5Bn pounds debt he owned. ManU are over £600m in debt to the Glaziers and Liverpool have similar debt liabilities to their owners. Why aren’t the EPL factoring debt into their financial measures? One can see why Sawiris, as a business man, is so angry
I rest my case.
Anyone seen the gorgeous green adidas villa tracksuit top Lewis dobbin wore at his signing today bloody lovely
Not bad, is it?
https://www.premierleague.com/news/4043578
I’ve had a few Everton fans asking about what Tim Irouegbanum is like, today.
I’ve told them that he seems okay, but we haven’t seen very much of him. And that many Villa fans wanted him played more, but he was never really going to get much game time at the Villa.
In return, I asked about Dobbin.
A late teens fan told me he has tons of pace and looks a decent player.
Another older fan told me he looked a prospect and okay and a third told me he’ll never get to play in Villa’s first team in a million years.
So along with some others, basically a pure squad filler, by the sounds of it.
https://x.com/TheVillaHome/status/1805541710434279842?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
Its getting incredibly difficult for fans to understand all this stuff and we seem nearer than ever to playing the game on a Saturday and getting the result on the following Monday in the High Court. Looking forward to a convincing result from England and probably the only Irishman to do so. Might I even be the only one here that wants that.
7 minutes in and I’m already bored 🥱
Southgate out!
I’ve switched my attentions to watching the paint dry Holte
The comms are actually talking up the 57th ranked team in the world, we’re that poor.
Apparentlym the fans were singing Southgate’s name earlier.
Really? Only to tell him to FO, I’d guess.
He really is the most uninspiring England manager I can recall.
He has to go and I really don’t care if we go on to win the competition (we won’t).
Is it true that Southgate wears safety goggles when doing the washing up? 🤔
Lee Dixon co-commentating just aggravates the yawn fest.
Loving Foden tonight. Plays with the enthusiasm of a schoolkid. Brilliant. He also seems to be getting hacked off with the lack of movement.
Get Ollie on!!!!
Anyone for for a large slice of tripe? When will I learn not to give up sleep to watch England? The irony is not lost; I could be in bed actually sleeping, but instead I’m watching England trying not to fall asleep… 😴 🤦
Pure torture
Embarrassing! That’s what England are under this Conference league manager. Clueless and if they are happy to get out of that group while scoring 2 goals, then they don’t deserve to wear the shirt. I feel sorry for the fans who have paid a lot of money to watch that shite.