egg

From the few comments on twitter, it's fair to say that he's rated by Chelsea fans.

Absolutely, I'm not saying it had to be Williams. I'm just surprised that a £2m loan fee was an issue. Going way back to their promotion year, we took a 7 figure loan fee from Leicester (a championship club then) for a midfielder (name escapes me), and 7 years later we're baulking at not much more for a player who can cover both sides in the Premier League.

Having defensive cover, or an alternative, is vital. We often fell apart when we had to change our defence last season. We need full back cover/options and Williams would have given us that. As it is, we've got Valery and Djenepo and of we had to play both of them, plus say Stephens, it'd be carnage.

Hmmm. Not sure what to make of that. If the lad is rated as say a £10m player, then a £2m loan fee is about right. Not sure what our issue is.

How long until we all die Dic? Is it worth me putting anything into my pension this year?

Unwell

We do, and I'm in the "stats only tell half the story" camp. Whilst I've read above that there all sorts of stats that tell us all sorts, I've never seen them published anywhere or discussed on here. Regardless, if the club has access to these stats and has analysed them, they've done us no favours in terms of the rather important stats of not conceding goals and/or keeping a lead. That's down to mentality.

Ditto.

You figured out who he is yet?

It always pours rather than rains for that lad. Awful luck.

Grealish is the best English midfielder / winger imo. Whether he's worth £100m isn't for me or you to say, and why it bothers you that one football club are willing to pay that to another I can't understand. How much JWP is worth neither of us know, but the £50-65 m some fans claim is mental. He's a decent midfielder who takes a great free kick, that's it. If he goes, I'd like us to get as much as possible, but nobody will pay anything like £50m for him. The loan. It has to be repaid, that's how it works. Asking fans on a forum for evidence that we've spent it is as daft as me asking for proof that we haven't. However, nobody borrows that amount of money on such high interest rates, without needing the money. The issue is a) paying the interest, anyone with any sense would agree that wasting about 5% of your annual turnover on interest is best avoided; and b) where do we get the capital from to repay any capital we draw down on. Anyways, I've said more than enough on the subject. I'll leave you to it.

None of that has anything to do with spending millions a year on Interest if we can avoid it. I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make - for me I'd prefer that we spend money on players/wages, not interest on a loan.

Jeez!!

It is bonkers. He's never a £65m player. That's almost 3 Patson Saka's, or a Jadon Sancho.

They're not "looking" to sell Grealish any more than we're looking to sell JWP, or Spurs are looking to sell Kane, or Chelsea were looking to sell Hazard, or Real were looking to sell Ronaldo, etc, etc, etc. If you honestly believe we're going in a more positive direction than Villa, no doubt you'll set out the details.

Hard to disagree with much of that, but the suggestion that we'll get £50m for him is way off. He's a decent player, but he has very obvious limitations and is a million miles away from a £50m player.

We're not essential to him. They're a club going somewhere imo. Very Leicester ish. We're going the other way. Plus a small matter of a massive wage hike, loyalty fee on exit, signing on fee, etc.

Do you think he'll go for £65m? Mental suggestion. The fee will be much nearer £32.5m than £65m.

Behave! He'll go for about half of that, possibly less.

It is a lot when we haven't got £10m to spare. Spend it on Interest or players. Not much of a choice is it really.

To many on here its not even a debatable issue. To me there's an inevitability about it.

Conspiracy theorists? I'm not one of them, but I think we'll sell him if the right bid comes in and/or he's tempted by a big wage increase. If he's still here after the transfer window has shut, then the club will have convinced me that he's not for sale.

Grealish is as good as gone, they signed Buendia in readiness and Bailey is the confirmation for me.

And what's that based on? If they offer us money that tempts us, and chuck him an extra £40k + PW he'll be gone. Naive to think otherwise.

On that subject, he's a player that I could see coming back.