Howay

The fucking state of the Villa fans in the comments on this post man. Genuinely thinking they’re beating us to signing players, in reality they’ve not beaten us to a single one Digne our lot didn’t like his attitude so moved on, Coutinho we were never in for, Kamara despite the bloke making the fucking ludicrous claim he’s “one of the best young players in Europe” our scouts reported he was a good player in his role but limited and knew he’d cost more than we valued him at so again we weren’t in for him (worth noting they were the only club that offered him a deal and they still paid mental money), Carlos we’ve long moved on from. The state of them bringing up their “project” and draw of Gerrard as well we’re being talked about by agents and players as the next Manchester City, meanwhile they finished fucking 14th - their project is to be the next Everton.

Aye he’s class. I remember someone making the point that he might be less prone to injury if there’s someone he’s actually competing with for the role, as if ever there’s games where he’s not fully fit he won’t have to be risked like he has been.

Forgot about the Krafth overhead kick

I also like that he has to make up some convoluted lie of how he knows about this thread, when it was clearly him just scouting around random teams forums hoping for a mention “wonder who else is proper MLF’s and aaayutes the Maggie cooonts, maybe altrincham fans”.

You know what I always find funny about them is that they’ve never clicked that disliking a team is often because that team is or has been good. Like I dislike Manchester United, Liverpool, etc because they’re good, even sides like Villa and Everton have been good/rivaling us for positions and players. Compare this to say Fulham, I don’t give a fuck about them so I might say I’m happy they got promoted etc. Take their special friends Feyenoord, they don’t like us because we knocked them out the CL. Being “liked” isn’t particularly something to aspire too in a competitive environment.

Credit where it’s due, I’ve never seen a tactically less prepared, and physically unfit squad before. In fact to this day I genuinely don’t know what his tactical plan was in basically any game, admirable in a way because in comparison you have a general idea of how Klopp and Guardiola will set their teams up - it’s a mystery why that didn’t trick teams and they were able to easily counter what Steve did. It must have been because of other reasons, maybe the fans.

People are tagging Sean Casey, so everyone’s favorite ITK is on the case.

Sure Steve, we just needed a never done before turnaround to stay up this season thanks to your groundwork. Took over a team that never looked all that worried about relegation and made relegation look more and more certain the longer you stayed, but sure didn’t do too bad or something.

Remember those 2-3 weeks post takeover he remained where the pundits were all adamant that he deserved a chance, and then when they decided it was obvious the owners would replace him they began to say it was a hugely disrespectful to have Bruce do his job while the owners figured things out . It simply wasn’t fair to Bruce as it was embarrassing him having to do what he was paid for (or pretend he was doing what he was paid for) when everyone knew it was temporary. The fucking mental gymnastics the pundits leap through to support this shambles of a bloke. It’s always also worth noting he was an even bigger disgrace post takeover iirc, they trained (somehow) less than before the takeover and he just completely gave up on the games he managed. He’s a fucking disgrace tbh, I’m still shocked West Brom hired him.

I was just thinking about this again, and I think Edwards is misunderstanding what he is hearing. Two £30m signings do not equal £60m of budget hit for FFP, if we signed a £60m player on a 6 year deal and gave him £100k per week for FFP that fee is spread over the 6 years, so he would be a £15m hit each year - it’s possible that he had heard £60m-£80m is all we can absorb this year for FFP purposes but I think he’s oversimplified what that means by just saying “oh then they can only get two £30m players and that’s the budget gone”. He’d already shown with his embarrassing takes throughout the takeover process that if he doesn’t understand something he will come out with his best guess and assume that’s fact (I remember there was some filings which happened that he didn’t understand so he just announced it definitely meant it was all bollocks, before people told him it was normal procedures), so while my FFP discussion above definitely isn’t fact I think it’s closer to reality than his assumption that the £60m is a reference to the literal entire fee spent on players.

It’s good isn’t it. It is interesting that none of them have a sponsor on, has the Fun88 deal ran out? Or is this likely meaning they’ve cancelled it early, it could just be mock ups that someone found before a sponsor was put on but I’m not convinced by that.

Aye, this is what makes me laugh we’re repeatedly told that we will only spent £60m… err £80m…. I mean £100m because of FFP despite spending absolutely chuff all for yonks and actually being profitable some years, yet all these other clubs that run at huge fucking losses have massive budgets.

To be fair to him he maintains that he only wants to be at a club where he’s the starter, which I respect but means the chances he’d sign if we sign Lodi are very unlikely.

Good stuff, yeah I think the tricky part is we aren’t all 100% sure what way Howe wants to play since he’s kind of adapted to the situation - so your point about perhaps Lodi is more the type of fullback Howe wants is interesting.

I don’t mean to be. I think he’s been solid, dependable, and a good addition in a similar fashion to Burn, I agree with DK that he’s not that Bruno/Trippier type upgrade which is really what I was meaning. I’d be happy if we signed him permanently, but I’d not be disappointed if we didn’t as I don’t think he was first choice in January. I think we’re going to have to get a bit more used to lads who come in and do well but aren’t part of the team going forward, I’ve felt for a while Targett was going to be that and it looks like it’s leaning that way. Imo we won’t be signing Targett, I just don’t understand why they’d delay taking up the option - would have thought it was a nice send off for the squad if a well liked team mate was rewarded. They can’t, we have a £15m option (we paid a £2m fee so £13m left to make it permanent).

Yeah, I think it’s nice to get background on the player for sure, and Diego obviously knows a lot about the player. But we could level all of that or more at Targett, ask most Villa fans about him even prior to us signing him and it wasn’t glowing reports. Targett also has never come close to being capped whereas Lodi is competing against Marcelo for caps, if our scouting team and Howe prefer Lodi I’m more than happy with that tbh. I do think there’s a bit of overrating going on with Targett as well by sections of our support, he was dependable but I personally don’t think he was much better than Krafth post January - he was a late loan signing who come in and was solid, but not spectacular. I’d be happy if we signed him and he started for us but as I say if our team rate Lodi higher, which it seems they do as I think they also tried for him in January before loaning Targett, then fingers crossed we can get him. If this was happening under Ashley I’d be gutted and we could safely assume he was looking for a cheaper stop gap, but with this lot we will be looking to improve.

Because he’s been fed bullshit, or he’s just completely made it up. They added in that £20m or so through the share workaround for FFP which meant we could spend that without any FFP hit, so that meant the £60m amount would have meant we were restricted to £40m for FFP , meanwhile everyone else has been throwing money around like mad. Even Leeds are buying some bloke for 30m from Leipzig without blinking.

Another fucking round of thoughts and prayers will be the result. The same people sending the thoughts and prayers will be the ones opposing even the most minor of restrictions on firearms. Texas as well, so there goes another one of their fucking shit “it wouldn’t happen in a state that doesn’t have gun restrictions as the teachers would just shoot them back” excuse they always fucking use as well. Sickening, tiring, and fucking depressing. You could honestly record the aftermath of prior shootings and play it back - it would be a mirror image of the discussion that will be had on the topic. The sides of the political spectrum aren’t just opposed anymore, there’s a fucking chasm between them and they will just vote against the other side simply to stop them doing anything no matter how much it’s needed. I’m not sure if it was discussed here but there’s a mass shortage of baby formula over here, after fucking ages of people raising the issue it finally was looked at and when Biden tried to put something through every fucking Republican except 9 voted against it. They cited some fucking bullshit about how it was Biden trying to get money into the pockets of FDA employees or some fucking nonsense. Even if it was true so fucking what? It was $26m, just bite the bullet and allow some action in the area - this is literally a month after them acting like they all actually give a fuck about human life to such a degree that there’s no way a fetus should ever be terminated, but now when parents are driving 180 miles scavenging for fucking baby formula you don’t give a shit? Because indirectly giving $26m to some employees is far more important? Fuck off you bunch of fat old pedos. I’m fortunate my daughter is 19 months so is past the age she needed formula, it was fucking soul crushing that when my wife put up that we had ONE single serve bottle of ready made formula on our town Facebook group that she had lots of messages asking if they can have it, and a woman drove across town to pick it up - a single fucking serving man. Between the response to the formula shortage, the inevitable handling of this school shooting, and the anti abortion fucking insanity I’m about ready to move.

To be expected really. Can’t see any possible argument that he deserves it over Howe tbh, but I don’t think anyone can be surprised as they weren’t ever giving it to Howe.

If anyone is wondering he said France is brilliant, he stuck some of his canned battery acid on random shelves in a Carrefour supermarket. He also said he highly recommends their toilets as a washing facility, it’s free (provided you sneak in as security is swapping over so they don’t stop you), and not as dangerous as the ones at the docks, perfect after a month under a local bridge.

William Storey . Honestly makes me laugh everytime I see him and his fucking kite sticking out of a reg Vardy top, with his scraggly beard and sunglasses. There’s actually mackems that want him to takeover their club.

I like Targett, but Lodi is a 24 year old Brazil international with a league winners medal. When we think of how good some of our lesser players look in Howe’s system it’s exciting to think what more talented ones would be like. If our set up prefers him to Targett I trust them tbh. We had/have an option to sign Targett for £13m, I feel like if we were going to exercise it we would have by now.