TWar

I think the release clause/buyback clause means the club have the right to sign the player for that amount of money. The player is not obliged to agree personal terms or to accept it however. Isak had a buyback from BVB if I remember correctly and rejected them when they tried to activate it. As you say though, Chelsea are a lot more attractive than us if he is offered good minutes so I don't see him turning that down and presumably neither do they or they wouldn't have bothered negotiating it.

In theory Chelsea could buy him and sell on for a profit to Madrid, not sure how often this sort of thing happens in practice though

Sounds like he doesn't want to be at Chelsea as he wants to get minutes, if he gets minutes and smashes it and Chelsea try to get him back for £40m or whatever the buyback is to be a big part of their side he might be tempted.

We don't bank on any one thing really. JWP pitches in but so does Che, Ings, and Stuart Armstrong. We get a decent number from a combination of Walcott and Redmond too, and Tella should step up. Plus JWP ability from setpieces and corners means we get a good number from our CB's too heading in goals. I'd like to sign Armstrong, or a quality attacking mid like Danjuma but when you look at the goal scoring numbers of players at Wolves, Brighton, Burnley, Palace (who all survived comfortably) you realise we actually do have a good number of goals in our side and probably won't be relegated even if Ings' replacement does flop and only get 5 or so.

Convenience, it's harder to criticise JWP when you admit he had a hand in 16 goals last season, because that's actually very impressive for a holding mid.

Was being somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I certainly think he is top three or so. When you say Juventus you don't mean Ronaldo do you, as he is dreadful! One of the worst success rates in europes top 5 leagues for regular takers, I think JWP is over seven times more effective than him. Good article on this here. Dybala is up there, but he doesn't take much anymore because Ronaldo hogs and wastes them. Messi is probably best still although he gets so many more of them than basically anyone else it's hard to judge, and Milinkovic-Savic is very good. Here is a plot of best since 2017/18, it helpfully backs up my point of Ronaldo being crap too:

Romeus back, teams fit and rested, most likely an upgrade at lb, a back up rb which I hear is insane, Tella is more developed, and the summer is still young so still time to bring in an Armstrong or someone else equally exciting. You could ask what's changed from the second half of last season, but I ask what's changed from the first?

When you have the best free kick taker in the world you are going to score a lot of free kicks! We'll be fine. Also 15 goals between Armstrong and Adams is a very low ball estimate since Adams was in and out the side last season and still got 9 on his own.

Fun fact, of the top ten premier league midfielder goalscorers, three of them play for us! https://www.footballcritic.com/premier-league/season-2020-2021/player-stats/midfielders/goals/2/41756 including JWP who is second only to Gundogan who had a strange spell playing as a false 9 when KdB was injured. Not sure about this sites definition of "midfielder" as ASM is on there, but whatever, our lads outscored him too!

Maybe we'll gazump palace like we did Brighton, that would be insanely good 😉

Shame, would absolutely love Danjuma here.

Alan Nixon said he was still a target and the Obafemi swap deal was still on a couple of days ago: He is pretty good for us, breaking Jeremi Rodrigues early when no one else even mentioned it, including the club. He's had a couple of other good exclusives too I think but none I can remember off the top of my head.

Wonder if that's because the Obafemi swap has legs, swap deals are better for Blackburn than cash, and they don't want Gray.

Panic over for now, Blackmore seems to have ment basically the absolute opposite to what people thought. He could do with tweeting a bit more carefully with so many hysterical fans about, me included!

With regards to Edouard, would you consider the Scottish league stronger than the Championship? Celtic and Rangers are likely better than Norwich/Watford but is the average strength better? Are teams like Kilmarnok, Livingston, Motherwell better than Bournemouth, QPR, Derby. To be honest, I'm inclined to say the Championship is stronger, and Armstrong got a better return than Edouard in the league. Also played a bit of european football and got a goal at AC Milan, which is impressive, but a one off goal in a cup game doesn't make a season.

I think Armstrong is wanted independent of Ings going and if Ings does go we will get someone else as well, from what Leach said. Apparently Armstrong is wanted as back up for when Ings is injured and to rotate/challenge Che to improve. With regards to chances, he overperforms xG this season and last so he is making his own goals statistically speaking rather than being forcefed goals. I back him to step up, he's quick, two footed, and intelligent. All a matter of chance though, as I say, he could flop but so could anyone else, especially in our price range.

Saw that, think it's a load of rubbish tbh. I'm an NFL fan and the guy is an NFL "ITK", as well as Hockey and Basketball. A quick look at his tweets and he posts a lot of fairly sensational scoops which don't seem all that likely to come off. Also NFL is huge, as are the other two, if you were a genuine reliable ITK you'd have more than 2700 followers. Also if you flick through, a bunch of those are recent follows from hopeful villa fans so his play seems to have worked. It got tweeted as a picture by some football entertainment youtuber and that's why it blew up. I'd ignore this guy to be honest, bit of a chancer like "Aston Villa News".

"He is one of the best young players in his position in the country." Ralph seems happy. Full interview: https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/19486855.ralph-hasenhuttl-tino-livramento-made-good-choice/?ref=twtrec

Armstrong got 28 goals in the championship, while this is no guarantee of success it is more than Watkins, Adams, Bamford, Pukki, Lambert who all have had decent prem seasons. Therefore, in my opinion, he has a good chance to succeed in the prem. I don't think he is definitely going to do well but we are not a team who can afford players who will definitely do well. You get to pick two of "prem proven", "highly rated", or "expensive". As we can't afford expensive we either get highly rated from smaller leagues or prem proven and average, I prefer the former as a bet personally. With regards to Obafemi, I don't see him as a long term option as he can't stay fit. Also stories of his lack of professionalism worry me. Personally if it wasn't for Armstrong I'd still want to sell him, Armstrong just happens to be, in my opinion, a very good option.

I doubt he starts for a while. KWP and Perraud will likely be our starting fullbacks while he gets up to speed with how we play, likely just be a rotation/cup option in the first season. Going forward who knows though, and if either get a major injury he'll have to show what he can do.

I like Obafemi but after Ings I think consistency is really important, and he can't consistently stay fit. If it were up to me I'd try and swap for Adam Armstrong 100% (with cash to them obviously)

That ain't good...

Can't see us getting another right footed player so I don't think Williams is likely. Doig would be great though.

Also, Solanke has actually had a pretty decent season in the championship with 15 goals and 8 assists, he was kind of screwed by being bounced around at liverpool. Plus, you know, Mount, Tomori, James et al. also won the chelsea youth player of the season, but who cares about them right?