The Aston Villa Courier
Market18 Aug 2031
Nicolas Jackson moves on
Atlético Madrid pay $87.7M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Player ratings18 Aug 2031
Evann Guessand scores twice — 7.96
Two goals and a mark of 7.96 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The terraces18 Aug 2031
Aston Villa sell a favourite for $87.7M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Nicolas Jackson was one of the reasons people came, and $87.7M does not replace that by itself.
Market18 Aug 2031
Boubacar Kamara raises the bar for Aston Villa
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Aston Villa heard it as anything else.
Market18 Aug 2031
Only the photograph left for Nicolás Chaves
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nicolás Chaves will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Aston Villa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad18 Aug 2031
Jon Giménez gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Jon Giménez has just signed for Aston Villa, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad18 Aug 2031
Boubacar Kamara in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Aston Villa this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom18 Aug 2031
Iliya Gruev signs for Norwich City while still at Aston Villa
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Iliya Gruev has agreed terms with Norwich City for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad18 Aug 2031
Ollie Watkins falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
In brief
- Boardroom Graduation day at Aston Villa
- Match Aston Villa get the job done against Swansea City
- Market Timothy White steps up from the Aston Villa academy