21 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

So I guess now we know why they paid so much for the relatively unknown and inexperienced Essugo and Quenda ... a nice sweetener for the current Sporting hierarchy to smooth negotiations for the takeover deal ...

That looks likely the case. Sums up our transfers. No wonder we never buy anyone to actually improve the team, all just driven financially.

Have we signed anyone or been even linked with anyone that would suggest we’re trying to improve and step up to compete with Liverpool and City?

Hopefully Delap can be less frustrating than Jackson, but that looks about as much improvement we’re going to see.

2 hours ago, Snedger said:

That looks likely the case. Sums up our transfers. No wonder we never buy anyone to actually improve the team, all just driven financially.

Have we signed anyone or been even linked with anyone that would suggest we’re trying to improve and step up to compete with Liverpool and City?

Hopefully Delap can be less frustrating than Jackson, but that looks about as much improvement we’re going to see.

You could argue Caicedo and Lavia are both definitely improvements for the midfield, Cucurella has turned out to be an upgrade at left back, right back was never gonna be upgradeable with James there. Obviously Palmer was an upgrade, and we`ll see with Delap but frankly my mam is an upgrade on Jackson, and she has 2 knackered hips.

I haven’t been here for a while so here goes:

TWATS!!!!

5 hours ago, dkw said:

You could argue Caicedo and Lavia are both definitely improvements for the midfield, Cucurella has turned out to be an upgrade at left back, right back was never gonna be upgradeable with James there. Obviously Palmer was an upgrade, and we`ll see with Delap but frankly my mam is an upgrade on Jackson, and she has 2 knackered hips.

That is fair. I guess was thinking a bit more at present, although it is early in this summers transfer season. The players you mentioned have been an improvement on what we had, but I am a little fearful we won’t take another step. It feels like we’ve long since done our recruiting with teenage players that most of which look like they won’t get a look in under Maresca. And whether any of them are even ready or good enough is unknown.

Signings aside, I also fear our current manager might actually be our biggest issue in progressing to compete with Liverpool and City.

They are only interested in saleable assets not usable ones.

21 hours ago, dkw said:

You could argue Caicedo and Lavia are both definitely improvements for the midfield, Cucurella has turned out to be an upgrade at left back, right back was never gonna be upgradeable with James there. Obviously Palmer was an upgrade, and we`ll see with Delap but frankly my mam is an upgrade on Jackson, and she has 2 knackered hips.

But can she head the ball ?

44 minutes ago, terraloon said:

But can she head the ball ?

More importantly, does she slide in studs up on the grocery delivery kid?

2 hours ago, terraloon said:

But can she head the ball ?

1 hour ago, dermott said:

More importantly, does she slide in studs up on the grocery delivery kid?

No and yes...her favourite player was ChopperHarris...learnt from the best.

Edited June 28, 20251 yr by dkw

We are Amputee Cup Champions 🥳

Fair to say this strategy is having "mixed" success.

Edited June 29, 20251 yr by Fatty_Speeding

Villa also now selling their Women's team. Premier League owners seem to be pushing things as close to the sun as possible just to avoid collapse. It's concerning.

1 hour ago, Scott Harris said:

Villa also now selling their Women's team. Premier League owners seem to be pushing things as close to the sun as possible just to avoid collapse. It's concerning.

Its not actual collapse though, none of these clubs are in financial trouble in any way, its all to fit in with the stupid PSR regulations. Basically the FA have half arsed the whole thing leaving loop holes the size of a small moon open for clubs to exploit, so they are.

I used to look forward to Transfer Windows years ago.

Now I hate them, because we're just spending stupid amounts of money on bang average unproven players.

What the f**k is going on? Delap was a good signing IMO I'll give them that, but everyone else? Not so much, and then you look at who we are heavily rumored to bring in... Blimey... We are never solidifying our place as a top 4 team, just forget it.

100 odd million on Gittens and Pedro, it makes me wish we had Conte singing players for us again.

Edited June 30, 20251 yr by Victor90

1 hour ago, dkw said:

Its not actual collapse though, none of these clubs are in financial trouble in any way, its all to fit in with the stupid PSR regulations. Basically the FA have half arsed the whole thing leaving loop holes the size of a small moon open for clubs to exploit, so they are.

Yes exactly. Our lawyers and financial experts have probably seen host of loopholes in those hastily fixed laws that nobody is able to follow nor don't exactly understand why they are there.

Smaller clubs are actually in more trouble with that than the biggest clubs even though they are basically meant to level the playing field. Fine job lads. Fine job.

1 hour ago, evissy said:

Yes exactly. Our lawyers and financial experts have probably seen host of loopholes in those hastily fixed laws that nobody is able to follow nor don't exactly understand why they are there.

Smaller clubs are actually in more trouble with that than the biggest clubs even though they are basically meant to level the playing field. Fine job lads. Fine job.

How is selling the women's team exploiting loopholes exactly? It looks more like desperation.

4 hours ago, Victor90 said:

I used to look forward to Transfer Windows years ago.

Now I hate them, because we're just spending stupid amounts of money on bang average unproven players.

What the f**k is going on? Delap was a good signing IMO I'll give them that, but everyone else? Not so much, and then you look at who we are heavily rumored to bring in... Blimey... We are never solidifying our place as a top 4 team, just forget it.

100 odd million on Gittens and Pedro, it makes me wish we had Conte singing players for us again.

Just pray that the Directors who earn millions to do this job and scout these players know their job.

I mean ive seen Gittens in one CL final and ive never taken notice of Pedro and in my unexpert opinion, they are worth half of what we paid.

FFP was never about levelling the playing field, more the big club cartel trying to shut up shop.

I felt for Villa really, did well to get top 4 then have to sell players for FFP when the owners want to invest it’s not right.

We've added about £265M worth of players to the squad since the January transfer window closed (if we consider that Joao Pedro and Gittens are done).

8 new players should be joining next season, along with two more in the following season. This is without counting the returning loanees who don't have a future at the club, a couple of which were signed only last summer.

So much for the four window plan eh?

5 hours ago, yaz said:

We've added about £265M worth of players to the squad since the January transfer window closed (if we consider that Joao Pedro and Gittens are done).

8 new players should be joining next season, along with two more in the following season. This is without counting the returning loanees who don't have a future at the club, a couple of which were signed only last summer.

So much for the four window plan eh?

Reiterating the the complete uselessness of these farking septics who are ruining this club.

9 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

How is selling the women's team exploiting loopholes exactly? It looks more like desperation.

Because they don't really sell the team. We sold our woman team to blueco, villa will do something similar

A large majority of posters here are only really here for a moan, irrespective of the trajectory of club. We are finally hitting our goals and people are still having a moan.

Im off now, not sure if I’ll log back here again. The echo chambers of negativity are tiresome and quite frankly, disgusting and delusional.

I wont let the door hit me on the backside, yes I’ll kindly go f* myself, and whatever abuse I’ll have thrown my way. To the minority, thank you for having me on here; Wish you the best in your future chats with the negativity herd.

15 minutes ago, Clown Lake said:

A large majority of posters here are only really here for a moan, irrespective of the trajectory of club. We are finally hitting our goals and people are still having a moan.

Im off now, not sure if I’ll log back here again. The echo chambers of negativity are tiresome and quite frankly, disgusting and delusional.

I wont let the door hit me on the backside, yes I’ll kindly go f* myself, and whatever abuse I’ll have thrown my way. To the minority, thank you for having me on here; Wish you the best in your future chats with the negativity herd.

Thank you for this public service announcement

2 hours ago, Bob stark said:

Because they don't really sell the team. We sold our woman team to blueco, villa will do something similar

It's still not a loophole. It's a rule thats available to all. We benefitted because of the intrinsic value of our dominant women's team. Villa similarly but to a much lesser extent. The same could possibly be said for Arsenal and the two Manchester clubs. After that I would say the majority of WSL teams are worth fck all squared financially, but they could all do it theoretically

15 hours ago, evissy said:

Yes exactly. Our lawyers and financial experts have probably seen host of loopholes in those hastily fixed laws that nobody is able to follow nor don't exactly understand why they are there.

Smaller clubs are actually in more trouble with that than the biggest clubs even though they are basically meant to level the playing field. Fine job lads. Fine job.

Quite. Kieran McGuire of the excellent Price Of Football podcast says it takes him half an hour to find any number of loopholes in the updated laws.

5 minutes ago, dermott said:

Quite. Kieran McGuire of the excellent Price Of Football podcast says it takes him half an hour to find any number of loopholes in the updated laws.

I have to take a listen on that. Thank you!