[NOT HAPPENING] Marvelous Nakamba

Fair point, happy to concede I know zilch about their respective personal wealths. Wonder how many local butchers own English football clubs these days?

 

Disagree.

 

I reckon Villa have enough quality in their squad to stay up. They're splashing the cash, as Fulham did, but I reckon they've got some slightly better players from it. Fulham's defensive signings in particular were just atrocious.

Sure there'll probably be a few duds amongst the lot Villa have signed, but that's usually the case.

As for Mings, they paid a fair whack for him, but he was excellent for them and key to getting them promoted - they were indeed desperate to sign him, however it was with good reason. If/when they stay up, then that £20mil + £6mil add-ons will have been worth it.

 

Looking at the wealth of the owners, only Burnley's and Norwich's owners are worth less than ours with pretty much everybody else worth over £1bn. It's a blooming miracle we're anywhere near this league. Even most of the Championship clubs have wealthier owners

 

I don't disagree they wanted him and that he was good in the Championship. But you have to consider Bournemouth didn't rate him and were happy to sell. At some point you have to ask yourself why isn't he good enough for their crappy defence?

 

Money doesn't buy brains though. This is why we're in the Premier League because we've got owners who actually know what they're doing.

 

Utd paid £36mil, potentially rising to £56mil with add-ons for Martial that summer.

Highest transfer fee so far this summer is £62mil for Rodri. Pulisic, who is probably fairly comparable in profile to Martial, was bought for £58mil.

So even counting Martial at somewhere round the middle of his potential fee, say £45mil, then this season considering Pulisic and Rodri the fees are only more like 30-40% up.

 

He was in direct competition with Ake, who is their best defender. It's pretty simple.

And it makes more sense for them to sell Mings for a good fee and use the money to then upgrade one of their other defensive positions which are more in need of being upgraded.

 

Indeed. It is a big worry as I fear transfer fee inflation will continue due to the huge wealth of the backers and price us out of many first team ready players. I guess eventually one season we will be outgunned and fall back to our level.

 

Unless we can find external investment in the next couple of seasons I suspect that's the likely outcome. And, to be honest, I can't see clinging on at this level like a beggar at a ball would be a laugh a minute either. Two or three miserable seasons scraping by before falling through the trap door would probably do more damage than the bubble just bursting one season.

 

A fun game.

Bournemouth bought Mings for 10m in 2015. Villa bought Mings for 26m this summer.

Mings is probably fairly comparable in profile to Mings so transfer fees are up 160%.

 

Given there was that story about Gino pulling out of a deal with US investors last season, and coupled with the fact that Duxbury gave one very in depth interview about the state of the club...to the FT of all papers, I’m not convinced the club aren’t already tentatively touting for investment.

Thing is, I just don’t think many people with money will want to invest in a club where the main point will be they won’t control that club.

 

Add to that that Villa have bought players in needed positions. Fulham were stocked with players but just decided to replace them all. Villa had a number of loans that expired and players like Glenn Whelan and Alan Hutton that have been released and were unlikely to be good enough anyway. They needed to do a lot of business. What they have paid is largely irrelevant as they can afford it. It’s the quality they have got for that money that matters. I haven’t heard of a lot of their signings. But I could say the same about a number of players we’ve signed over the years and we have done alright.

 

Most teams play with two or even three central defenders. To say he's being kept out of the team because of Ake doesn't make sense. It's like saying you can't play Cathcart now because we've signed Dawson.

Mings' competition at Bournemouth was Ake, Chris Mepham, Steve Cook and Jack Simpson. Ake is a good player, but he should be able to compete and get past the others in the pecking order.

Mings was not vital to Bournemouth, a club who had an even worse defensive record than us last season. That in itself should sound alarm bells. They were happy to loan him to the Championship and were even happier to sell him this season for the fee they got. I bet they couldn't believe their luck.

You have to question the wisdom of Villa for spending so much on a player Bournemouth clearly wanted to offload.

 

Aston Villa bought Jordan Ayew for 8.4m in 2015, Palarse bought him for 2.5m this summer.

Ayew is probably fairly comparable in profile to Ayew so transfer fees are down 236%

 

It's £20mil + £6mil in add-ons.

And you've got to factor risk in to that - Mings is seen as much less of a risk now to Villa than he would have been at the younger age for Bournemouth; lower risk = higher fee.

Plus, Bournemouth just signed Lloyd Kelly from Bristol City for about £13mil, who is not hugely different in profile to what Mings would have been in 2015 coming from Ipswich. So that would be 30% up again.

 

Who would be you Felix comparable in 2015. £113 million.

 

Mings and Ake are very similar in style and both much prefer the left side of the back two - they both played a lot of games at left-back earlier in their career. They'll want to mark the same spaces and do the same things when defending. They just wouldn't compliment each other at all, or you'll just end up slightly wasting one of them for the sake of playing them together.

One reason why Utd seem so dead-set on signing Maguire is because none of their other CBs are as comfortable playing as the left-sided CB than the right-sided. I've seen Utd fans comment that Lindelof looks a much better player for them when he's the right of the 2 than the left, for example.

Another thing, supposedly Mings actually did very well for Bournemouth in the few return appearances he made around Christmas before going on loan to Villa.

As long as he stays fit, I reckon he'll do well. Anyway, we'll soon find out how they do,

 

There weren't really any. The most comparable signing in general would be Dembele to Barca in 2017 for £97mil, so that's a 16% increase at the mid-way point between 2015 and 2019 (which is coincidentally half of 32%).

Whichever way one looks at it though, I think that fee for Joao Felix is just stupid. Atletico were suddenly flush with the Griezmann cash and lazily just paid JF"s release clause; similar to when Barca were flush with the Neymar cash and quickly paid over the odds for Dembele (and later Coutinho). I think the signing of JF will end up looking as rash and overpriced as the Dembele one has looked so far.

 

That is true but an extra bit of bunce wouldn't be a bad thing

 

On the back of a hugely successful loan last season where he scored a grand total of one goal in the Premier League

 

Sad we've missed out on him. Hopefully we can focus our attention on Excellent Firsttouch instead.

 

Not forgetting Decent Pickthatoneout

 

I agree. However I’d say Felix is comparable to Martial in 2015

 

I agree. However I’d say Felix is comparable to Martial in 2015

 

vs ???

 

Also, while they still have McGinn in their team they won't do too dreadfully:



(just a pre-season game I know)

 

Interesting , hadn’t realised this, but I do think we are a very well run club, £30m spent wisely is probably as effective as £100m in a scatter gun approach.

 

But £100 million spent wisely...I am sure that external investment is on the horizon. Updating the branding, etc plus investing in a squad split between plenty of young future bright prospects and senior pros (capable of mainting Premier League status), will be attractive to an investor looking at a sports investment. Combining our executive teams know how with greater capital strength could be the only way to grow in this league. Having survived that first season Leicester have gone on to grow, Wolves could follow that, but to keep up with them we need a stronger balance sheet and cash to grow.

 

We ll probably end up with
Meh Rather-Unimpressed

 

Gino's turned into Pennypincher Cantbearsed.

 

Sorry, I'm going to bournemuff mate.

 

If Gino wanted you, he'd have got you.