2024 January transfer window - hopes, needs, expectations and rumours.

[pablo_picasso]

Are you talking about Brereton-Diaz?

My money would be on William Osula.

Yes

Fair enough. 👍

[Rudy Can't Fail]

We buy him back, for more money, and we're undoing the FFP benefits we got from shifting him in the first place. FFP is going to be tight enough for us as it is, nobody is going to want 20m plus of it tied up in a player who has not proved himself at this level.

With Duran that would be 35m worth of unproven, at best promising strikers.

If he'd 'proved himself' at Sheffield United this season he'd be worth £50m+ of anybody's money.

But he hasn’t.

And he wouldn’t anyway unless you think someone is genuinely going to pay 50m for a player with one decent season under their belt.

He started on the bench at the weekend. And the match before, too.

Someone I’ve never heard of got the nod ahead of him. McBurnie got on the pitch before he did.

I genuinely don’t get why normally sensible people let their brains melt over Archer.

50m? I’ll have some of whatever it is you’re smoking.

No serious person would have expected him to prove himself at Sheff Utd this season. As I've already said, I doubt Watkins or even Haaland would do better because Sheff Utd are shit. If a club are prepared to pay £20m for an unproven PL striker, how much would a free goalscoring (proven) player cost from a shit Sheffield Utd?

Just because Wilder prefers to play rugby league rather than Premier League doesn't make Archer a bad player. I understand your frustration that some see Archer's talents and keep banging on about him but more frustrating, at least for me, would be letting him go without ever giving him a chance with quality players around him.

Career wise moving to Sheff Utd was a really shit decision, it was obvious to everybody they were favourites to go down. I said at the time I'd have preferred to see him on loan at Leeds even though it would be another season in the Championship. No doubt they'd be people complaining that he's not PL proven but he'd have experienced the pressure of winning, something that would serve him well at Villa Park.

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

Boro need to snap our bloody hands off for Rogers.

[pauliewalnuts]

Just because Wilder prefers to play rugby league rather than Premier League doesn't make Archer a bad player. I understand your frustration that some see Archer's talents and keep banging on about him but more frustrating, at least for me, would be letting him go without ever giving him a chance with quality players around him.

Career wise moving to Sheff Utd was a really shit decision, it was obvious to everybody they were favourites to go down. I said at the time I'd have preferred to see him on loan at Leeds even though it would be another season in the Championship. No doubt they'd be people complaining that he's not PL proven but he'd have experienced the pressure of winning, something that would serve him well at Villa Park.

The manager makes the decision on what he sees in training, not just on the pitch. If it was 'a shit career decision' for him to go to the Blades, that's his problem, not ours - we got almost 20m for a totally unproven player, that's all we need to care about.

Archer never showed he could do it when he got a chance, and if he didn't get enough of a chance, that's probably connected with three managers not fancying him.

It's a tough business to make it in, and I still hope he does, but people act like our role is to develop Cameron Archer. It isn't. It is to do what's better for Aston Villa.

We need to get used to being, as the big man would say, more demanding in what we want from our players.

EDIT - and what PWS said in his post is spot on.

[eamonn]

This Archer talk is circular and boring.

[coreyfeldman]

This Archer talk is circular and boring.

Hello, welcome to heroes and villains

[edgysatsuma89]

This Archer talk is circular and boring.

Hello, welcome to heroes and villains

Is there any local land where we could build a new stadium? 😉

[Brazilian Villain]

This Archer talk is circular and boring.

Agreed, plus all this tedious chat about FFP gives the impression that accountancy is boring.

[pauliewalnuts]

This Archer talk is circular and boring.

That's why i got involved in this yawnfest in the first place - people unable to let go of Archer. He was here, he didn't make it, we sold him. Move on, we need better than that now.

[Percy McCarthy]

This Archer talk is circular and boring.

That's why i got involved in this yawnfest in the first place - people unable to let go of Archer. He was here, he didn't make it, we sold him. Move on, we need better than that now.

 But we’re buying him back in May, so not quite ‘moving on’.

[VinnieChase84]

If we buy archer back this summer it will be only to sell him on again

[pauliewalnuts]

This Archer talk is circular and boring.

That's why i got involved in this yawnfest in the first place - people unable to let go of Archer. He was here, he didn't make it, we sold him. Move on, we need better than that now.

 But we’re buying him back in May, so not quite ‘moving on’.

I mean people on here banging on and on about him needing to move on - like Vinnie said, he'll come back and be sold again.

The ratio of actual on-pitch discussion-worthy deeds vs chat about him on here is through the roof.

[VillaTim]

Really looking forward to Archer returning and providing some true competition for Watkins . Archer is a natural goalscorer

[algy]

Personally don't see any of the players we've sold coming back to the club in any meaningful way now. The reality is that we need players who can strengthen a side in the top 4/5, which necessarily means one of the top 200 or so players in the world.

What we've done is sold 2 players who are currently around bottom half Premier League level and 2 more who are around championship level for about £40m combined. Which will pay for 1 player who is in that sort of bracket. In that sense it's job done - our academy has, indirectly, strengthened the first team. And if any of them do turn out to be good (except Azaz) we can get them back at what'll be a very good price.

Rogers seems an odd player to go after. Presumably Emery etc have scouted the life out of him for the FA Cup game though.

[coreyfeldman]

Really looking forward to Archer returning and providing some true competition for Watkins . Archer is a natural goalscorer

Watkins is not a natural goal scorer, they are very very different types of players.

I remember reading stats about pressing and archers lack of it/lack of winning interceptions and closing off passing lanes.

At a lower level he has shown he can finish instinctively, let's not confuse this with being a complete or rounded player