Yeah but so is Camara so if we add him. Its essentially a senior Nyoni who isn´t going anywhere any time soon. Basically a better, more experienced version of Nyoni at this stage.
Grav and Szobo have no passing game really. it´s just what it is. Sideways and back merchants for the most part and both at their best when bursting forward and as you say, playing them together means it doesnt work at all.
I do agree on Nyoni I just think that Camara is similar and more senior and would be a threat to his development (fine, if Camara is good enough). I would play Nyoni instead of Grav right now but I don´t think Iraola wanted to take that risk. Ultimately we need a midfielder in there that can pass and hold position somewhat.
Does he? He can cross and hit the odd long ball but he´s almost never playing it through the lines or playing little angled passes to open teams. You rarely see flowing passing moves from midfield with him, 1-2s or slipping it inside the full back for the winger
Very little finesse or crispness to his passing play, even if he can hit long passes from a technical standpoint.
Not to be ‘that guy’ but if we put you in a Premier League game you would very quickly find that you cannot in fact make short or long passes with accuracy.
Are people really suggesting that the elite of hundreds of millions of people who play football, who have been playing for hours every day since they were 4, aren’t capable of passing the football?
The only issue with them is that they somehow refuses to pass forward to break the line and simply prefer running forward…The season opener saw Szobo attempting longer passes with the only direction being sideways…
Yes I quite agree. If we don´t sign Camara, Mac or Nyoni need to play.
Hell, I´d even be curious to see Mac and Nyoni together.
We need somebody that holds position defensively somewhat and ideally that can get on the ball and pass through the lines a bit. Won´t be some pass master like I would like, but combine decent passing with solid defensive positioning, and I think it would see us considerably better off than we are now. A much better balance and platform to play, especially for Wirtz for example.
I don’t know if it’s Emery himself, as he said that he was a good player and would like to use him, but couldn’t because of a contractual issue. So, I’d rather lay the blame on the Aston Villa board, on that prick Hughes who did that horrible deal with them, and finally, on Slot who didn’t rate him at all and forced him out of the club.
The contractual ‘issue’ was that a mandatory purchase clause would activate if he played 10 games for them - (at least?) 5 of which had to be in the second half of the season.
According to Transfermarkt, Harvey played 9 games, but looking at the minutes played he only got 109 minutes in the league (over 4 matches), 101 minutes in the Europa cup again over 4 matches, and 67 minutes in 1 game in the EFL cup.
So, Emery could have given him more minutes. He could have even given him more games in the first half of the season without risk of triggering the clause, but chose not to.
That is backwards. Everything flowed downstream of Emery not wanting him and being willing to make a point very publically about it. We’ll never know how much of that was authentic and how much was a petty bitch move as part of his fight with and eventual victory over Monchi, but it’s important to remember that he committed to this path pretty much immediately making it difficult to put too much on Harvey’s performances and application. I think he even scored the winner in his one of if not his first game and still got dismissed.
In terms of the deal, it was not at all unusual. Loans with obligation, even those with performance milestones, are fairly routine these days. What is less routine is a manager in an open fight with his DoF at a club in a really deep financial mess. Villa as a sporting org were totally fine with reaching the milestones and triggering the clause. The only person who wasnt was Emery and wasnt pretty much immediately
All we need to do is wait for Chelsea to establish the acceptable offer then HIJACK the deal with a matching offer to AS Monaco. At that point it becomes player’s choice. The thing is I have not heard of us establishing any groundwork with Camara. But we don’t know for sure what is happening in the background.