pmcla26

Greaves Brownhill (free) Sensi (free) Carvalho (Loan) Adams (free) Something like that would be sensible.

Sensi and Brownhill would be two decent budget signings for our midfield next season.

Villa have lots of money and ambitions to be part of that gang. They'll have to keep spending a lot to maintain where they are in the league so it makes sense, really.

They're not in any danger of going down - might as well continue with his philosophy and hope it benefits those that come into the side, like O'Mahoney and Offiah, in the long-run.

Abdul and Stephy

Doesn’t have the pace to play the way that he does at the top level.

Pickford, Walker, Dunk/Maguire, Stones and Chilwell is still a very good back line. Only missing Shaw from the starting defence plus options for depth.

Fil Dor at 25/1 E/W. Too good a price not to back it.

Vestergaard was signed to be first-choice for that season, he just performed poorly so Amartey over took him in the pecking order (wrongly, IMO). Evans' injury problems had began and Fofana was out for the season. Daka made sense as the heir to Vardy. Soumare was a waste of money. Lookman was good enough for RW anyway, the mistake was not signing him permanently.

Where was the interest in them though? Cags' agent was trying to get him a move, so I'm sure he made contact with plenty of clubs. We could have sold but it would have been below their market value at the time, something which no one thought was necessary as we couldn't foresee relegation in 2 seasons time.

Did we reject any bids in summer 2021? I don't remember anyone making offers for Cags, Ndidi or Tielemans.

We're one step away from Wembley, this is biggest game of the season to date IMO. I'd love to see us get there.

Simon Jordan said recently on TalkSPORT that 99% of the time owners don't care what the fans think when it comes to hiring or sacking staff - they will purely make any decision on what they think is best for the club financially and on the pitch.

Needs to be a right-footed player where you've put Greaves there. Unless you do Ricardo inverting from the left and have Greaves LCB, Vestergaard RCB and JJ as the RB.

I think Enzo knows his potential, once it starts happening for him everyone that follows English football will know about it.

We don’t have the personnel to play with two wing-backs. I don’t think it’s the system that’s the issue as we wouldn’t be where we are so far if it was the problem, but more recently it’s been the execution of it.

Most likely, there’s only a few scattered around English football.

We create plenty of chances for our strikers in the current system.

@Lee Monty don’t bother going to the game either while you’re at it

Can’t deny he does seem a promising manager though. Says some questionable things at times but all of his sides he’s managed have played good football.

He’s been very good this season, think he’ll be ok in the Premier League in this system but needs pace surrounding him - problem is I’d sooner replace him before JJ and Faes. I doubt we could sign much better than them two to support him. Fingers crossed the trio works but hopefully this new contract is only one year as I have reservations about him at Premier League level, still. Regardless, been fantastic this season and he deserves credit for how consistent he’s been.

Fancy West Brom to get a result tonight.

I agree it’s not good use of money, but I think it was thought out with genuine good intent that we were thinking they’d help us stay up and be important parts of the squad for years to come. Things have happened since then that have meant this won’t be the case. Kristiansen is good enough to play in a Maresca side but, despite having the attributes, doesn’t want to play the inverted full back role in the system. Souttar on the other hand is a straight up dud. Not a bad defender but doesn’t suit us whatsoever and a lot of money, poor signing really.

I’m sure she’s a nice lady but Robyn Cowen’s commentary is poor.

Tbf though, I’m not sure we’ll get a much better back-up to JJ for that sort of price that has the attributes and potential to play in our system like Doyle has. Could easily see him going on to be a good Premier League player as he develops. £10-15m wouldn’t be a lot at all for him.