Champions League - PSG

[Ian.]

A really tough call for the boss. Malen must be gutted, but I must admit, it’s the right call and shows Emery’s ruthless side.

[Smithy]

Sky Sports website is still saying that Villa can register 4 of the 5 new players for Europe.

I'm lost

Have they edited it again to show four?

Yep, it's back to four now. Changed yesterday morning by the look of it.

Long story short, it appears that Philogene counted as a "club-trained" player in our European squad, so although we technically COULD add 4 players based on those we lost, we also lost a club-trained player, so one of the four replacements would also have to be club trained to keep our full compliment.

If we'd sold, say, Cash, instead of Philogene, we'd have been able to add Malen to the squad as well.

Oh well, lesson learned.

[olaftab]

But there are no cash buyers around these days.

[Dave]

Sky Sports website is still saying that Villa can register 4 of the 5 new players for Europe.

I'm lost

Have they edited it again to show four?

Yep, it's back to four now. Changed yesterday morning by the look of it.

Long story short, it appears that Philogene counted as a "club-trained" player in our European squad, so although we technically COULD add 4 players based on those we lost, we also lost a club-trained player, so one of the four replacements would also have to be club trained to keep our full compliment.

If we'd sold, say, Cash, instead of Philogene, we'd have been able to add Malen to the squad as well.

Oh well, lesson learned.

Sorry, still nonsense.

If we'd sold Cash and kept Philogene we could still have added three players.

[Percy McCarthy]

Blimey. You can add three players unless your season begins and ends in the same calendar year. That’s it.

[AV84]

I'm open to correction, but I think the main take away from this is that we really need to have more club trained players in the senior squad. Selling them for profit is all well and good, but we were never in a position to name a full 25 man squad because we only had JJ and Philogene (I think?) that were old enough to go on the A list. We'd have needed 2 more at the start of the season to have a 25 man squad.

[Dave]

It's not really the main take away from January. We only filled two of our four club-trained spots in September, so that turning into only one of four in February isn't that big a deal.

I think all of Liverpool, Arsenal and Man City will fill two* of their four in their post-January squads, so us having just Ramsey isn't really much of an outlier.

The only real "lesson" is that it's A Good Thing to have enough good players in the squad at the start so you don't need to do a big overhaul halfway through. If we'd not loaned Ned and Buendia out and not bought Garcia and Malen, we'd had just added Rashford, Asensio and Disasi and all this "is it three or four players?" thing would never have even entered anyone's mind.

So while it's shit for Malen, the 20 players we do have for our next 2/4/6/7 matches are probably better than the 23 we had for our first 8. So...it's fine. Not perfect, but fine.

*Alexander-Arnold, Jones, Foden, McAtee, Saka, Martinelli. But I may have missed one or two.

[JUAN PABLO]

Blimey. You can add three players unless your season begins and ends in the same calendar year. That’s it.

absolute stupid

whats the point in having it , how many leagues start and finish same year >?  about 2

[cdbearsfan]

Norway, Sweden, Kazakhstan, Finland, (Republic of) Ireland, Latvia, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Lithuania, Georgia, Estonia, Belarus.

[TelfordVilla]

Norway, Sweden, Kazakhstan, Finland, (Republic of) Ireland, Latvia, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Lithuania, Georgia, Estonia, Belarus.

And how many of these have got teans still in the CL

[cdbearsfan]

None, but the rules cover the other two competitions, too, and were drawn up before the season started.

[Somniloquism]

It isn't just a rule for CL though, it is across the three competitions.

[OCD]

It's not really the main take away from January. We only filled two of our four club-trained spots in September, so that turning into only one of four in February isn't that big a deal.

I think all of Liverpool, Arsenal and Man City will fill two* of their four in their post-January squads, so us having just Ramsey isn't really much of an outlier.

The only real "lesson" is that it's A Good Thing to have enough good players in the squad at the start so you don't need to do a big overhaul halfway through. If we'd not loaned Ned and Buendia out and not bought Garcia and Malen, we'd had just added Rashford, Asensio and Disasi and all this "is it three or four players?" thing would never have even entered anyone's mind.

So while it's shit for Malen, the 20 players we do have for our next 2/4/6/7 matches are probably better than the 23 we had for our first 8. So...it's fine. Not perfect, but fine.

*Alexander-Arnold, Jones, Foden, McAtee, Saka, Martinelli. But I may have missed one or two.

Another rule that favours the established teams and works against new upstarts like us. Although by your workings even the more established sides haven't yet taken full advantage of it.

[olaftab]

Norway, Sweden, Kazakhstan, Finland, (Republic of) Ireland, Latvia, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Lithuania, Georgia, Estonia, Belarus.

Yes but like Scotland these are not real countries are they?

[cdbearsfan]

Scotland considered switching to playing in the summer but then remembered we don't have one. ☹️