nta786

I think in all likelihood any player we buy will be "an unproven player in the PL", if you want a proven one we can pay £150m for Kane or pay £250k+ a week for Aguero!

Ings is the club’s fourth signing of the summer and the 29-year-old sat down for his first interview since sealing the move. “The club itself is a huge club, as everybody knows, you can see the direction that the owners and everyone wants to take the club,” he said. “It’s a huge club with a huge reputation and huge expectation from the fans. “But it was a challenge I couldn’t really shy away from and a challenge that I’m looking forward to.” “It is a tough challenge, a club like this should be competing for Europe with its history and everything else. “Hopefully I can play my part in achieving that but there’s definitely a lot of good times to look forward to for this football club.” “Everywhere I’ve been in my career, one of the biggest things for me is to get that bond with the fans as quick as possible and I’ve managed to do that at every other club that I’ve been at, and this is no different. “I’m really, really looking forward to running out in front of them at Villa Park and showing them what I can do.” He continued: “It’s a great stadium, great fans, as I said before, great history, and I think all together with myself and the other signings, and the great squad that’s already here, I’m sure we can achieve great things.”

I’m not trying to be doom or gloom or anything, but it’s usually around this time we do a ‘predict the first 7 fixtures’ kinda thing. Aug 14 Everton (a)Aug 21 Manchester United (h)Aug 28 Newcastle United (a)Sep 11 West Ham United (h)Sep 18 Manchester City (a)Sep 25 Wolverhampton Wanderers (h)Oct 2 Chelsea (a) Anyone else look at the above and think we could be on 1/2 points after the first 7 games? Historically, we are awful at Goodison Park and up at Newcastle*, and United/City will be difficult. I think WHU will be tough and that 3-0 on the last day left a sour taste, but we could beat Wolves although they beat us last season at SMS. That then follows with Chelsea away who could still yet add Lukaku who does well against us. With little time for a new striker to bed in too I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned. *MLG don’t give your nonsense about why past results shouldn’t impact a fixture today

to be fair I wonder if we had Jack Grealish, whether we would have accepted a £70m bid from City as opposed to holding out for £100m, if that is what @benjii is trying to say. All hypothetical though

I kinda think what Villa did was similar to what happened when we asked for Neco Williams back in January. We made the enquiry, and then Pool said "how about Minamino on loan instead", and then we just accepted it. Villa came to us and said "we bid £25m for JWP", and we must have turned around and said "not for sale, but you can have Ings for £30m if that is your budget", and then just like that the sale went through.

Yeah I do get that, but who is to say Ings was giving us mix signals or saying something else? Ultimately, we’ll never know. Though this is a forum so I welcome listening to all opinions. It is what it is, in an ideal world he signs a contract with us and gets 15+ PL goals. That didn’t happen, so the next best thing is either: a) We kept him, he gives us that 15+ season and then walks on a free OR b) We receive £25m-£30m for a player who was clearly disinterested with 1 year left.

I completely understand your view point, but what would you have done assuming Ings didn't want to sign the contract we put on the table for him? Because, again this is on assumptions, but there was also every chance had he stayed we would see a sluggish Ings going through the motions trying to avoid an injury that would jeopardise his big final payday. And if above was true, then it would be silly to turn down £25m+, and we could still go down if his goals dried up.

Agreed, although not all 18 clubs are bigger than us financially! I'm pretty sure our wage bill is still top 12 in the PL. I mean sure we haven't spent a significant amount on 1 player like so many other clubs have but in terms of wages we can definitely compete with teams from 12-20.

If bigger due to history and trophies won, then yes for sure. But this is a debate that is so subjective that to go into it would detract from the real story of Ings leaving. I would argue our payroll is still greater than Aston Villas too, irrespective of comparing highest paid player for each club.

https://www.villatalk.com/topic/22074-danny-ings/ Even the Villa fans only started this thread around 20 minutes ago!!!

For the short-term yes they are. However, they aren't and I'm going to confidently say won't be in the upper echelons for long. I doubt they will even have a period like we did 4 seasons in a row from 2013 to 2016. Eventually things somewhat restore to natural order, only Leicester have been bucking that trend somewhat. With one good transfer window similar to WHU with Coufal, Soucek etc etc and some good due diligence and effective scouting finishing top 8 is difficult, but doable.

Armstrong and Delaney for a cost of £20m in total would be nice. I'd be willing to offload Obafemi too to Blackburn if that brings total down too. Assuming AV paid us £30m, and Liverpool take their 20% cut, that is £24m we have received. However, would still need one more striker in my opinion - I'm not sure what the budget is though but it would be £4m which isn't enough... However, sad as it is to lose Ings, I'm excited for what the transfer market holds now

Well Dean Smith has already said a few words apparently - this has gone through officially!

My mate just messaged me and I said fuck off. Then he shows me the tweets and everything. Wow no one had an inkling. He has followed the money then, nothing to do with trophies. If we have received £30m for a player with 1 year left and no intention of staying with us, I'm all for it. He was never gonna give us 100%. Let's spend wisely, it is a huge gap to fill but I'm confident we can address it.

I would argue that if its just home games you will go to, you'll still be okay without a membership. With some aways, then it purely depends which ones you want to go to - usually all London away games don't make it down to membership as they get sold out whilst still only being sold to Season Ticket holders. I can imagine Brentford will be the hardest game to attend this season. I'd personally recommend that you wait and see how sales for the Manchester United in just under 3 weeks goes - I reckon the game will make general sale to anyone with a purchase history - which I assume you will have so will get a ticket fine whilst saving membership fees.

If someone did offer £6m for Obafemi I think I would take it. I don't think it is one that would haunt us in the future. I can't see him ever leading the line or reaching 10 PL goals a season. Although at the same time, how much would it cost to replace someone of his ability as a fringe player...

tbf this is a forum, I like reading everything from both the verified sources to random "football insider" links to random posters and drawing funny conclusions. It gives us something to speculate on and later ridicule.

I spoke to the ticket office about this like 3 days ago. They said unfortunately we aren't able to see our purchase history, but from their side they can. They said they're working hard to display this for us again and will hope to do so soon.

£25m for JWP have a word. If Ben White is going for £50m I'd want at least that as well. Can we engage in some shithousery too - we should offer Man City £5m for De Bruyne, see how they bite. At least we'd get some publicity too. 😜

I don't think club is in shambles, we have almost 2 players in every position barring fullbacks and centre midfield at the moment, but I am worried about our squad quality and very much fear we continue this season in the same vein we ended last season. Anyways, back to Ings, I'd prefer to sell than have him run down his contract. If he isn't playing at 100% for us, and we blindly assume he will, without his goal contributions there is every danger we go down. For Ings, apart from supporting us it means nothing, he will be able to jump ship. I'd like club to muster up something and just buy his replacement now regardless of whether he stays or goes this season.

Brighton are being linked with Nathaniel Phillips for £15m as a potential Ben White replacement. I'd prefer Nat Phillips based off what I've seen in past 6 months over Jack Stephens, but then who knows if he is only looking good in that team because he was at Liverpool. Liverpool - could give them £20m for an Ings, or could end up spending £20m on a Solanke or £15m on Ibe...

I just think if we had a star like Grealish he would have been sold and moved on by now. Ofc it remains to be seen whether he’ll stay at Villa this season but I think he will.

Agreed - Ings won't be main striker if he does move to a European club, he'd have to be back-up. I don't think his knee could handle playing twice a week in a CL game and then a PL game.

There has been more talk on all the ticketless Wembley fans and the racism abuse rather than the actual game we lost on pens. Perhaps we could try to shift attention onto 2022 WC - for my two cent's I genuinely think that when France won in '18, they beat Argentina, Uruguay, Belgium and then Croatia in the final. The Italians this year beat Austria, Belgians, Spain then finally us to win the tournament. I am not as confident for 2022 as a lot of the big pundits are. Will we be back? Because I think our mental resilience in big knockout games is damning.

Yeah agreed it does feel like that. This is currently how the squad looks then: GK - McCarthy, Forster RB - KWP, [Valery] CB - Vestergaard, Bednarek, Salisu, Stephens (need 1x CB if JV leaves) LB - Perraud CM/No. 6s - JWP, Romeu, Diallo, [Lemina] (need a new CM in my opinion) RM - Armstrong, Walcott LM - Redmond, Djenepo, [Elyounoussi] ST - Ings, Adams, Tella, [Obafemi], [Long] The blue is players I'm not sure if they are in Ralph's plans. On paper, currently and inc. the blue, except for fullback we do have basically 2 players for every position.