19 Jan 2026 12:34:25
Afternoon all

A defeat that leaves a raw feeling. We were far from our best, but good enough to win that game. Everton offered little, but, fair play, they pounced when we gifted them an in. Our game is built around dominance in the centre of the park, breaking the lines, feeding Rogers etc etc - something made all the harder with Onana, Kamara, Barkley and now McGinn out. Which leads nicely into the main topic on everyones mind - transfers and squad depth.

Emery is right - we are not a top five contender (bear with, i'll explain my logic). We have been punching about our weight since UE arrived, eventually it will catch up with us. Some of our financial issues are of our own making - some poor transfer decisions for which everyone at VP must take the blame (not just Monchi), some ridiculouly high wages compared to our revenue. But a big part of our challenge relates to the daft financial governance of football. Governance that in no way allows for anyone outside of the 'big seven' to be truly competitive season after season. City, Arsenal, Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs, Newcastle, all have spent £100M to £150M plus over recent transfer windows (noted there are some outgoings in there too), sums of money that we cannot hope to compete with.

To consistently be in the top 7 in the Prem you need to spend daft money season after season - I mean regular additions of £50M - £70M players. If you do that, you finish higher up the table, qualify for the CL, generate more money, buy more players.and on and on. We can't do that (not with a NET spend of bugger all over the past 3 years) which is why, like Emery says, we are not a top 5 contender.

Right now Villa are crying out for those additions to the squad, to grow what we have, toi add depth to cover injury to key players.but we can't get them as rules (and a bit of our own past stupidity in the transfer market) stop us. But mainly rules stop us. Which is so so so frustrating.

I've no idea what, if anything, we can now do before the end of Jan. Letting Malen do without a replacement coming in was dopey (as many have said) but maybe we let him go because we don't have two pennies to rub together. And we need the money, or his wages off our books.

We'll have kids out in Turkey on Thursday - which is great if you do it out of choice not out of necessity.

1.) 19 Jan 2026
19 Jan 2026 14:40:10
Spot on Syston couldn’t agree more. What I find so frustrating is that we are so close to doing something special and this biased system is preventing us forcing our way into the top tier, it makes me so angry