tajjuk

We offered him that contract months ago, like February wasn't it? And I'd presume he got offered that contract because he showed a preference to wanting to stay. Over the last 4-5 months he has obviously changed his mind, maybe twice, going from wanting to stay, to wanting to move to champs league club, to possibly just wanting to move. We then don't know know how that impacted his motivation, work rate etc. or the approach from the club.

I would be surprised if maybe be touted him around.

It's quite a lot for a player they clearly don't want or have much intention of playing, who is likely to slip even further down the pecking order because they want Lukaku. Also for one who is good, but ultimately only has 26 PL goals in 87 appearances.

We won't sell JWP. Nor do I think Villa can afford him, as they have already spent £100 million basically and probably added £250k a week to their wage bill, can't see them making a £50 million plus signing. Interestingly looking around the league - Newcastle still yet to sign anyone, West Ham have signed loan GK, Leeds have signed a left back, Burnley have signed a back up centre-back, Brentford have only signed two, Watford have signed a centre-mid from France and then Danny Rose and Josh king on a free, Everton have signed Demarai Gray and Andros Townsend, Spurs have signed Bryan Gil and a back up keeper, but also lost Alderweireld, Bale, Vinicius, and Lamela. (plus have the Kane issue) It's not exactly busy out there, people worried about us getting relegated, but I am not seeing how anyone else around us has really improved yet. On a side note, if we think we have had it bad with some poor management, Benfica have apparently over the last 10 years made over 1 billion Euros in player sales, more than any other club in Europe and have just had their president arrested for money laundering, tax evasion and fraud. With apparently a lot of that money going missing and not going back into the club.

Don't they want like £40 million for him? Not sure there are a lot of takers at the moment. Good player though.

Has he even been really involved pre-season? Not seen him about (I know he came back late) but I get the impression Ralph seems to be planning without him.

Because ironically we have tried to improve, we didn't sign Hoedt or Lemina for example because we wanted to avoid relegation, we thought they would improve the team, improve and either take the club to the next level or be able to be sold for big money. They were talented young players, at big clubs, who were looking for more game time, they just flopped. Plus clubs like Villa will still have people on Championship wages, many of their first team squad will probably be on £15-20k a week contract signed in the Championship, whereas similar players for us will be on more like £30-40-50k a week, that is even before accounting for the likes of Lemina, Hoedt, Carrillo, Boufal, Forster, etc. who were/are probably on £60-70k a week but offering basically nothing to the first team. The last 3-4 years we've probably had £250 - 300k worth of wage bill doing nothing, and that is problem with established PL clubs, once you get into the league and stay there for a while all your players and all your signings expect PL level wages, so you end up with a big wage bill with not much room in it unless you change your income stream.

No one pointed out the possibility that maybe we pushed Ings to go? The club said the offer was too good to turn down, we knew he wasn't signing a new contract, we know he has injury issues, we know his age. Maybe the club preferred him out of the door now for this very good offer, rather than going on a free at the end of the year or 2-3 days before the end of the window to say Spurs or Man City for like £15 million. Just a thought. Maybe they said 'Hey Danny we know you want to go a Champions League club but none of those have shown any interest at all so far, Villa have made a bid for you, it's a really good deal for us, it gives us time and funds to find a replacement for you, please could you seriously consider it, they'll probably throw a lot of money at you'. I remember back in the day that things came out of the club that they weren't too disappointed in the Shaw deal, because not only was it very good money but there were question marks about his diet and professionalism, which turned out to be pretty accurate. Maybe similar here, maybe a few things have come up behind the scenes in his medical report or his numbers pre-season have been off and the club have thought we need to get rid of him now for the best deal we can. We don't know what goes on behind the scenes, I mean there was all this talk about him being professional and not letting his levels drop, but maybe they have, maybe he's not been at it since he's returned.

I mean maybe, he's got the pace but I am not sure there is much evidence of the goalscoring yet. Yeh but Werners lack of ability in front of goal last year basically became a meme, but I more meant in style of play. I like Che, I think he's decent and improving, I also back him to get maybe 10-11 goals this year in the league, but he's not a natural finisher he rushes a lot of chances and needs to get more composed, plus he doesn't have lightning pace in behind and seems actually best dropping off, picking passes and bringing people in. I mean people criticise the 'second striker' tag as an excuse for his lack of goals, but that is what he is, he's a striker who drops into space and brings people into play more than a genuine runs in behind on the last shoulder sort of player. Armstrong looks like more that sort of player, he looks Vardy like to me if anything. Sorloth is a Heskey, he's the kind of striker that I think the team would play better around and would get the best out of other people, but aside one season in the Turkish league he's never scored a lot of goals. 80 in 232 is his career record, with 33 of those coming in one season in the Turkish league and another 23 coming in the Danish/Norweigan leagues. His record in the Bundesliga and PL is 5 goals in 45 games, now a lot of those might be substitute appearances, and the guy is only 25 so still might improve, and maybe whatever happened in Turkey can be replicated to get the best out of him, you never know sometimes players work very well in certain set ups and not in others. But that is a lot of ifs going on.

In terms of profile of player and style of play Armstrong fits closest with Ings IMO, has played out wide I think and is used to cutting in (which Ings has scored goals from for us before and our strikers tend to drift wide to create space for the no. 10s), seems to have good work rate and harries defenders so should suit the press, overall looks a very busy bustling sort of player with good movement and good finishing from both feet. Some of the goals he scored last year on the half turn or cutting in look very Ings like. Sorloth is a target man, which Ralph has used effectively before at Leipzig, Poulsen did that job with Werner the out and striker running in behind, but we don't really have that player. Armstrong and someone like Sorloth or Abraham might be able to create that sort of combo, but the target man on his own leaves either Long or Adams as the 'Werner' and neither is really that player.

Er what? It's a fair comparison because Ings played in the PL BEFORE he went to Liverpool. The season after his last in the Championship he scored 11 in 35 in the PL for a relegated Burnley, also got an England cap AND got a move to Liverpool. How the fuck he supposedly 'improved' at Liverpool is beyond me when he had two serious injuries and barely played in 3 years, he might have learnt some new injury recovery techniques but that is about it. If he has improved anywhere it was here under Ralph, but very clearly he came out of a good season in the championship into the PL and played well. As more recently have players like Maddison, Watkins, Ebre Eze, even Che Adams has done alright. The Championship is a strong and high quality league these days, the depth in quality is likely better than leagues like the Eredivisie, Portuguese top league, Scotland etc. mainly because Championship clubs can pay high wages and half of them are living of PL parachute payments.

Doubtful of this, don't rate Smith as a manager and have to wonder how much he was propped up in the dressing room by John Terry who has now left. They were awful without Grealish last year, truly awful. Now yes they have made some decent signings but question marks over all of them. Ings obviously has his injury issues, plus are they dropping Watkins or playing two up front, how will that impact their style of play. Bailey is extremely hot and cold, he's quick and direct, but plenty of wingers with pace have come with decent reputations to the PL and not done much, Villa have one in Traore. He's been linked over the years with bigger clubs but none have ever tried to get him, Dortmund and Bayern tend to snap up the best Bundesliga talent, and Dortmund have literally just lost a player in a similar position and you'd think might be interested for what seems a reasonable fee, yet he's ending up going to a midtable PL club. Buendia, very good in the championship last year but last time in the PL looked good at times but didn't actually have much impact. Defensively they are not great, shown by how good their keeper had to be, is he going to be as good again. Plenty of teams over the year as well thrown some money at big signings and then not really gelled or performed, you don't form good teams overnight. We'll see, but I don't think it's a given they will be better than us. Personally I think we have the better balance in our squad (and we have more signings to come), better style of play and the better manager.

From what I have seen of him, he's quick, has good movement, seems to get across the defender well, can score comfortably with either foot, takes a good pen and looks like he has decent work rate, even wins a header or two despite being pretty low. He honestly looks like a little pest. If we look at last two seasons, 80 starts, 44 goals, 11 assists for a mid table championship side.

I think I read that Smith actually mentioned something about that, being a bit of a leader, very professional, good for the younger players etc. ------------------ Also £20 million might be overpaying for Armstrong, but Villa over paid for Ings, Man City are over paying for Grealish and round it goes. Plus it seems like several clubs might be interested in Armstrong so that has probably driven the price up. Also I do wonder whether the club will just sign a player out of left field and all this Armstrong link is just agent talk, we have signed quite a few players before with not much paper/social media talk before IIRC.

Or hes got an injury, hence why he wasn't playing golf with everyone, but was actually there.

It makes it less likely Villa would meet our valuation because they are £30 million down (not to mention the combined £70 million spent on Buendia and Bailey) and the fact they likely have 3 new high earners on the books and must be paying Ings upwards of £140 - 150k a week, seeing as we offered him likely around £100k a week over 4 years, they have only given him a 3 year deal so must be basically giving him silly wages for him to abandon his 'champions league' ambition and move effectively sideways and have a year less on his contract. So they have likely spent a total package of around £50 million on an injury prone 29 year old, I am wondering how you think they will likely come up with the £50 million plus fee and the substantial pay rise for JWP, so another £100k a week plus over 4 years, so again around £70 million plus in total.

That rule only applies to us, Saintsweb logic at it's finest, we are the only selling club in the world and no one else loses their best players..... No one else is run at a budget either and no other club in the world has owners who don't invest shed loads of money into the club.

lol yeh that is why we sign aging crocked 'experienced pros' players like Wilshere or Cahill right? Just to stay up and stay in the league Oh wait no. Nonsense comment. We are run on a budget like 99% of professional clubs in the world.

Ings and JWP are unrelated, baffling to me that people think because we accepted an over the top bid for a player who clearly wants to leave and will leave for a free in a year (and is 29) it suddenly means we'll accept a bid for a player who is 26, has 4 years on his contract and doesn't want to leave. JWP isn't going. Villa have already spent all the Grealish money now btw pretty much 3 x over £30 million fees, and are probably paying Ings alone more than Grealish was on. But yeh of course they are going to come up with another £70 million plus package for JWP, lol.

Depends if its sell on or percentage of profit sell on.

That is stretching £24 million quite far to be fair. Does mean in theory though we have a 4 year around £100k a week contract that was budgeted available to throw at a striker now, which as a total package with the fee received and the wages is around £45 million budgeted. Think we need to go get the best high rated striker in Europe that is not at a big club and throw everything we have got at them.

Patson Daka costing £24 million and going to Leicester hurts even more now. Let's hope the club have the replacement lined up and ready to go. They've known he was leaving for a while now and should have been planning for it since he didn't instantly accept the contract.

Not IMO, our best player they have been trying to buy.

Yeh so he's greedy then. Oh well, at least its a good amount, I mean he is 29 and injury prone with 1 year left on his contract, so getting £30 million is a decent amount. But just be honest FFS, you wanted more money, don't give all this BS about 'wanting to test yourself'. he's swapped middle table for maybe slightly more upwardly mobile mid table but no fucking way Villa are getting champions league before his legs are gone. Can we go buy a striker for £25 million now please with better hamstrings and knees than Ings. Don't want to ish anyone will, probably similar decision we'd all make, but won't stop me laughing if he spends half the season in the physio room.

I'm presuming reading is an issue for you.