This is part of the issue. “Oh didn’t think it would happen, so not my problem”. It’s totally foreseeable and always a mistake to structure deals like this giving free put options when we ‘sell’ players. I hope we have learnt from this as Italian clubs (amongst others) will be very keen to do a Villa.
This is an odd take. the Harvey deal is very different than the many “loans with an option to buy” deals done with Italian sides the let them just use our player for essentially free for a year before giving him back. It has required villa to go to extraordinary lengths, at a cost to themselves, to back out of it
It’s a very poor deal for us. 30m for Harvey was already good value; if Villa wanted any put component they should have been paying about half the fee upfront with no return if they failed to see it through.
Imagine having to buy back at least one among Quansah, Morton and TAA at the end of this season
.
Don’t forget that with the club’s failure to get Guehi, the homegrown rule is still hanging around as a problem.
He did turn second-tier players like Henderson, Gini, and Ox (unfortunately just for a while) into elite ones after his arrival.
The structure of the deal was at least in part because of Villa’s FFP concerns. Its unlikely they could have committed so much cash up front.
I want Alonso, now
Slot out, now
Slot on a yellow card. Bournemouth might be the end for him…
Throwing points away at home to really average teams he can’t last beyond the season regardless if they stick with him now.
We need rid. The players dont like pkaying for him and the football is boring as fuck.
Can still get top 4 if we change now. We wont if he stays.
Not beaten a newly promoted team at home this year
I get the feeling now after the Burnley game, the players seem to be trying to sort out the best way to play amongst themselves. No leadership in evidence on or off the pitch, nor any North star blueprint direction to follow…
If we stagger to the latter stages of the CL, only to get swilled by one of the other European sides by playing like today, then it will be difficult to keep defending Slot
I don’t think that there’s much to blame on Slot for today, but you do have to ask questions about the fitness levels. Burnley were chasing the ball for the entire game and looked fresher and fitter at the end.
This is becoming a recurring theme, and it just reinforces the perception that the preseason work was severely lacking.
My issue is what is being said at halftime when we are playing well, we come out conservative and look to consolidate rather than commit.
It happens week in week out, whilst the opposition seem to come out pumped up.
We need to start games and 2nd halfs snarling wanting to fight and run to win the right to play the football we are capable of and are now seeing glimpses of in the last few 1st halves of games.
We had plenty to win it, but we didn’t. A draw at home against a promoted side is poor, especially in the context of numerous other poor results.
It’s another data point on the Slot in/out argument, and it doesn’t go in his favour. You can argue that we played ok in the first half, and we did. And then equally you can argue that when we hoped we might build on it second half, we didn’t step up.
Plenty of boos coming through at the end on TV here, which is concerning, because when the match going fan starts to turn, it’s hard to come back.
It’s still not at the point of Slot out for me, but he’s obviously on thin ice I would imagine Hughes will be reaching out to Alonso’s people, at least for an exploratory ‘what if’ type of conversation.
That was mostly a pretty good performance today, the only thing I wanted to see when we lost control for a few minutes before their goal was Mac to come on and help us regain control. We missed too many today, from the penalty, Kerkez’s chance early on, other similar situations. Should’ve scored more than 1 goal.
Can’t we get rid of Hughes. I heard he is not an approachable type. Even Heitinga found him difficult to deal with in terms of his contract negotiation.

And then

Pure 2000s vibes ![]()
Did he? Is this on paper.
I am actually asking questions about him but I’m not sure we know much about him.
I can not see what’s good about playing passes that my grandson can run faster than let alone an opposition midfielder/striker … a backward pass at that.
Forward passes to feet that players don’t attack. They just stand there looking dump.
These are things you train to do!