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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jovon Makama. 1‑0 against Liverpool, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Mohamadou Kanté.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Charles Thompson could afford to be generous.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lewis Hall signs something — a contract at Aston Villa or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
24 goals in 38 games at Gillingham — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Aston Villa updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Luke Skinner was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Something was said to Bryan Mbeumo and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
The dugout15 Apr 2030
Sam Tickle is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Aston Villa can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Sam Tickle is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Aston Villa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Kieran Dowell will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Aston Villa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Aston Villa told Jovon Makama something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Aston Villa has been clear about where Rory Wilson stands, which is more than many ever get.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Aston Villa has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rodrigo Muniz trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lewis Hall signs something — a contract at Aston Villa or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Squad25 Mar 2030
The division's best last weekend was a Aston Villa man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Bryan Mbeumo was the best thing in any of them.
22 goals in 36 games at Gillingham — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Aston Villa updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Mohamadou Kanté and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Luke Shaw.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Rodrigo Muniz
The dugoutRodrigo Muniz asks for a word with the manager
Marked 7.77 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Aston Villa had the best player on the pitch.
Squad11 Mar 2030
8 new faces, and Aston Villa are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
13 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Aston Villa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Aston Villa they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Chris Rigg was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Louis Page is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Leon Goretzka has moved up it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Mason Cotcher has agreed terms with Cambridge United for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Luke Skinner and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout25 Feb 2030
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Charles Thompson left the room before anybody could ask which.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lewis Hall signs something — a contract at Aston Villa or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
6 shut-outs in 27 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Ronnie Hollingshead has been having a lot of them.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
In brief
The dugoutLewis Dobbin knocks on the manager's door
John McGinn and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Player ratings18 Feb 2030
Lewis Hall was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.20. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Successful dribbles: 15. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Aston Villa told Josh Key something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
19 goals in 31 games at Gillingham — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Aston Villa updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
The offer from Barnet for Isaac Davies was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
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.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Aston Villa have done the hard part with Dynamo Kyiv, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Corinthians have kept their man, and Aston Villa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $1.8M of what Aston Villa paid for Micah Hamilton is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 7 arrived, 11 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Aston Villa is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Sonny Carey’s exile
The deal with Newcastle United is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Brighton go through and Aston Villa go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The most awkward business a club does is signing tomorrow's answer while today's is still in the building. Bradley Fink comes from Wycombe Wanderers for exactly that purpose, and the handover will not be discussed publicly by anybody.
$6.1M was the most the club would pay and Tottenham were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Transfer targets28 Jan 2030
$590.0K settles it between the clubs for Luke Shaw
Manchester United have accepted the money. What Aston Villa do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Nobody at the club will say out loud who this signing is for, which is how you know exactly who it is for. Mohamadou Kanté has been brought in to take a shirt somebody is still wearing.
The fee is $510.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Bournemouth drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
$60.5M on the table at Leeds United. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
The offer went to Brighton this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Aston Villa have gone to West Ham United with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
15 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
$6.1M on the table at Tottenham. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
John McGinn was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $6.5M — a club that wants Scott Twine enough to be asked twice.
The fee is $66.0M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Brighton drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
The offer from Walsall for Emiliano Buendía was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Aston Villa people have started saying his name in the past tense.
14 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Aston Villa asked and Middlesbrough said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Middlesbrough have accepted the money. What Aston Villa do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
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.
$66.0M settles it between the clubs for Bryan Mbeumo
Brighton have accepted the money. What Aston Villa do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
$110.0M on the table at Tottenham. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
13 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $5.7M — a club that wants Tyrese Campbell enough to be asked twice.
Chris Rigg and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Matteo Ruggeri wants continental football; whether Aston Villa can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
John McGinn and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
“I watch every Aston Villa game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sporting CP runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Aston Villa told Chris Rigg something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.02 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
John McGinn was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
11 goals in 19 games at Gillingham — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Aston Villa updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Kadan Young has his answer from Aston Villa; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout24 Dec 2029
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Charles Thompson, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Aston Villa will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Esquerdinha and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout17 Dec 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Charles Thompson was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Aston Villa dressing room was either.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Lewis Hall’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Aston Villa needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Shifted about, taken off before the hour, asked to do somebody else's running — Emiliano Buendía has had enough of being useful and would like to be picked. Aston Villa know, and have known for weeks.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Rory Wilson has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Esquerdinha was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aston Villa, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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.
John McGinn and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
200 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Aston Villa, and 5 appearances in 16 say he has earned the hearing.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aston Villa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Emiliano Buendía and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Mattie Pollock has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Aston Villa have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Chris Rigg was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Something was said to Rodrigo Muniz and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Nottingham Forest in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Aston Villa, another week without a signature from Luke Skinner.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Aston Villa. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Mark O'Mahony has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Jamie Shackleton has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Aston Villa have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Luke Skinner has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against West Bromwich Albion, and it could have been more.
Player ratings5 Nov 2029
A brace, and John McGinn takes the afternoon — 8.45
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. John McGinn provided it, and the 8.45 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Aston Villa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Aston Villa can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
John McGinn and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
“I watch every Aston Villa game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Sporting CP runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Kadan Young has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with John McGinn in the middle of it, and West Bromwich Albion unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
0‑5 to Arsenal, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Aston Villa told Matteo Ruggeri something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
The dugout29 Oct 2029
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑5 Charles Thompson left the room before anybody could ask which.
The ambition story running the other way, and the one nobody tells: a footballer asking for a smaller stage, fewer cameras and a crowd that does not turn. It is not weakness and it is very rarely reported as anything else.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Esquerdinha and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Charles Thompson after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
At 28 he has made the position his own, and the man he took it from has to find something to say about it. Aston Villa have a decision that made itself.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at Aston Villa has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
Emiliano Buendía was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Nothing resets a career like somebody arriving who did not pick the side last season. John McGinn has taken the hint, and Aston Villa are getting a version of him the previous regime had stopped seeing.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Seth Ridgeon is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Something was said to Leon Goretzka and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“I have watched this squad. There is more in it than the table says.” First press conference, first promise — Charles Thompson made the one every new manager makes, and now comes the part where it gets checked.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Aston Villa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
John McGinn was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Rodrigo Muniz. 2‑1 against Crystal Palace, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings1 Oct 2029
Rodrigo Muniz was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.12. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The dugout1 Oct 2029
John McGinn is playing like a man with something to prove
The oldest phenomenon in the sport: a new voice in the dressing room and suddenly everybody is available for everything. John McGinn is training as though the last team sheet never existed, because as far as he is concerned it does not.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Aston Villa, and both men came out saying it was fine.
39 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Aston Villa can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
The target is the manager, the approach is real, and the compensation clause is the whole conversation. Clubs deny this kind of story right up until the photograph.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Middlesbrough have kept their man, and Aston Villa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Manchester City left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout17 Sep 2029
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 the manager left the room before anybody could ask which.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Charles King was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
$1.5M was the most the club would pay and Hull City were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
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.
Aston Villa asked and Newcastle United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad10 Sep 2029
7 new faces, and Aston Villa are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Aston Villa, and 3 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The words a physio says slowly. 17 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. West Ham United have kept their man, and Aston Villa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
572 appearances across 11 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Aston Villa know what they have.
Boardroom3 Sep 2029
Aston Villa close the window on a squad of their own making
21 in and 23 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
$1.4M on the table at Hull City. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $1.6M — a club that wants Harry Gray enough to be asked twice.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Farense waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Aston Villa is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
27 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Aston Villa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Aston Villa have paid $24.6M for Rodrigo Muniz, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Rodrigo Muniz has just signed for Aston Villa, and for once the answer mattered.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aston Villa, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
11 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
The end came on a Tuesday, as these things usually do: a short meeting, a shorter statement, and the manager clearing his office by noon. Football’s cruellest ritual, performed to schedule.
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $56.0M has been paid because Jovon Makama is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
“Somebody has to pick the team on Saturday, and this week that is me.” An interim appointment with no promises attached, which is how most of them start.
He is going to AC Milan, the club has $61.7M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Add another name to the list: Blackpool have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Emiliano Buendía. The answer from Aston Villa has not changed — yet.
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.
Everything agreed with Norwich City, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
The name of Alexis Mac Allister has come up in conversations Aston Villa were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
John McGinn and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Newcastle United have kept their man, and Aston Villa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
15 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Aston Villa, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and John Victor trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The offer went to Norwich City this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aston Villa, and it is not being withdrawn.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The offer from Charlton Athletic for Emiliano Buendía was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Alexis Mac Allister was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Aston Villa is running low.
The name of Emiliano Buendía has come up in conversations Aston Villa were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aston Villa, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $7.8M — a club that wants Will Fish enough to be asked twice.
The deal with Newcastle United is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Manchester City wanted more than $820.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Aston Villa can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
In brief
SquadMicah Hamilton falls out with a teammate over standards
The dugoutRory Wilson knocks on the manager's door
The fee is $7.9M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Birmingham drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aston Villa, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Rotherham United for Louis Page was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The deal with Sunderland is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Rory Wilson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Aston Villa are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
The offer from Inter for Alexis Mac Allister was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The offer went to Birmingham this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
$2.2M was the most the club would pay and Arsenal were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Aston Villa asked and Newcastle United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
14 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Josh Coburn is in the works
SquadWords at Aston Villa training over how hard people work
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Aston Villa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aston Villa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bristol City have kept their man, and Aston Villa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Aston Villa people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Aston Villa have gone to Arsenal with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Alexis Mac Allister was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
In brief
SquadMicah Hamilton falls out with a teammate over standards
The dugoutSonny Carey knocks on the manager’s door
31 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Aston Villa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Aston Villa have done the hard part with Newcastle United, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. the manager has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Aston Villa is running low.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Ian Maatsen was one of the reasons people came, and $58.0M does not replace that by itself.
The shirt still fits. Chris Rigg is back at Aston Villa, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. West Ham United have kept their man, and Aston Villa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
John McGinn and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad25 Jun 2029
Louis Page 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.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Aston Villa will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The deal with Sunderland is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. West Bromwich Albion have kept their man, and Aston Villa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The offer from Newcastle United for Stefanos Tzimas was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Aston Villa have lost him in all but the paperwork.
$6.6M on the table at Newcastle United. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Add another name to the list: Luton Town have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ian Maatsen. The answer from Aston Villa has not changed — yet.
“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.
$1.5M was the most the club would pay and Coventry City were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Alexis Mac Allister and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Aston Villa offered $19.6M; Stoke City said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Brighton have kept their man, and Aston Villa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Alexander Isak was one of the reasons people came, and $116.2M does not replace that by itself.
Every dressing room knows how to read a signing like this one. Sam Tickle is not here to sit and wait indefinitely, and the man whose place he has been bought to take knows it better than anyone.
“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.
Alexis Mac Allister was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $3.2M — a club that wants Márk Kosznovszky enough to be asked twice.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
Boardroom4 Jun 2029
the manager has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Aston Villa can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Boardroom4 Jun 2029
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Aston Villa
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Aston Villa have gone to Wigan Athletic with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Transfer targets4 Jun 2029
$1.1M settles it between the clubs for Samson Tovide
Stockport County have accepted the money. What Aston Villa do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Wigan Athletic have kept their man, and Aston Villa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The name of Alexander Isak has come up in conversations Aston Villa were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
$2.6M on the table at Portsmouth. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Leon Goretzka was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
42 games, 1 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Aston Villa now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
Aston Villa have made Oli McBurnie available for transfer. A career at this club is over in all but paperwork.
Squad28 May 2029
Words at Aston Villa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Micah Hamilton is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Aston Villa know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Aston Villa. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
In brief
The dugoutLuke Skinner knocks on the manager's door
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
The last league game has been played and the table has stopped moving: 50 points. The summer begins on Monday, and so does the argument about what it all meant.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Aston Villa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Alexis Mac Allister wants continental football; whether Aston Villa can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Aston Villa they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Leon Goretzka.
Squad21 May 2029
Words at Aston Villa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Louis Page is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Sam Proctor was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
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.
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 May 2029
Louis Page 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.
The dugout14 May 2029
the manager answers for it
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
44 starts and a season average of 7.08. The loan is doing exactly what it was arranged to do.
The dugout14 May 2029
Somebody else is better right now than Leon Goretzka
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aston Villa, and it is not being withdrawn.
“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.
John McGinn was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Saša Kalajdžić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
Alexis Mac Allister and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 11 combined actions and a mark of 7.07, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Aston Villa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Aston Villa is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Aston Villa will quote 15 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Louis Page was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Saša Kalajdžić will call it something else in private.
Seth Ridgeon was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The dugout16 Apr 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” the manager kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Leon Goretzka and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Words at Aston Villa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saša Kalajdžić is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout9 Apr 2029
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 the manager left the room before anybody could ask which.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Something was said to Ryan Longman and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Aston Villa know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Louis Page was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Chris Rigg is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Aston Villa know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aston Villa, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 2 goals adrift this was a formality, and the formality lasted right up until it did not. Aston Villa found something the first half had given no notice of, and Newcastle United could not hold what they had.
Two goals and a mark of 8.56 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Aston Villa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Malick Yalcouyé scored, was marked 7.77, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Aston Villa they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Alexis Mac Allister wants continental football; whether Aston Villa can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Aston Villa can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Saša Kalajdžić was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout19 Mar 2029
the manager answers for it
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
In brief
The dugoutJohn Victor asks for a word with the manager
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Leon Goretzka
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aston Villa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Alexis Mac Allister was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Louis Page was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout12 Mar 2029
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑3 the manager left the room before anybody could ask which.
In brief
The dugoutSaša Kalajdžić asks for a word with the manager
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aston Villa, and it is not being withdrawn.
Alexis Mac Allister and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Aston Villa hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Aston Villa can tell you which week it ends in.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Aston Villa is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Seth Ridgeon and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Marked 6.89 on 11 actions at both ends of the pitch. Midfielders like this get described as unspectacular by people who have never tried to play against one.
“I watch every Aston Villa game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Watford runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout19 Feb 2029
the manager: “No excuses”
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Micah Hamilton was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alexander Isak signs something — a contract at Aston Villa or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings12 Feb 2029
Chris Rigg, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.91
A mark of 7.91 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Aston Villa offered $100.0K; West Ham United said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Aston Villa asked and Newcastle United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
A 1‑0 win over Crystal Palace, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alexander Isak. 1‑0 against Fulham, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aston Villa, and it is not being withdrawn.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Paris Saint-Germain moved on, Alexander Isak reports back to Aston Villa, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $12.1M of what Aston Villa paid for Ousmane Diomande is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
Add another name to the list: Southampton have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ian Maatsen. The answer from Aston Villa has not changed — yet.
10 seasons and 556 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
Boardroom5 Feb 2029
Deadline passes with 3 signed and 8 gone
That is the business done at Aston Villa until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
The offer from Preston for Zépiqueno Redmond was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aston Villa, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Ajax for Alexander Isak was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Aston Villa is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bradford City have kept their man, and Aston Villa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alexander Isak. 1‑0 against Manchester United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Aston Villa have made the call to Nottingham Forest. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Peterborough United paid $5.6M and Aston Villa took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Alexis Mac Allister wants continental football; whether Aston Villa can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Milton Keynes Dons wanted more than $2.0M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
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.
Successful dribbles: 20. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
A 2‑1 win over Nottingham Forest, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of John Victor
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Grimsby Town had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Flamengo have kept their man, and Aston Villa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Corinthians have accepted the money. What Aston Villa do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Aston Villa have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Aston Villa have gone to Burnley with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The offer went to Chelsea this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Northampton Town had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
$2.0M on the table at Milton Keynes Dons. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aston Villa, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Aston Villa can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Aston Villa hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Zépiqueno Redmond will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Aston Villa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Kion Etete is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Micah Hamilton was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
Seth Ridgeon was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The dugout25 Dec 2028
Somebody else is better right now than Leon Goretzka
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Louis Page was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout25 Dec 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” the manager was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Aston Villa dressing room was either.
Two goals and a mark of 8.65 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Alexis Mac Allister was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Aston Villa they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Involvement in 2 goals, from a player who spent the ninety minutes doing the thing a manager actually wants: being where the ball was going to end up. 7.49 beside his name.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Aston Villa and Chelsea in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
John McGinn and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
7.76, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Aston Villa had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout11 Dec 2028
the manager answers for it
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Aston Villa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Zépiqueno Redmond will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Aston Villa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Aston Villa hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Alexander Isak is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Aston Villa will explain it as a decision about the team, and it may well be one. A dressing room has never once read it that way.
Squad4 Dec 2028
Louis Page 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Aston Villa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Lewis Hall and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Alexander Isak. 1‑0 against Newcastle United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 7.76. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout27 Nov 2028
A satisfied the manager
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, the manager could afford to be generous.
The dugout27 Nov 2028
Somebody else is better right now than Leon Goretzka
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jack McGrath will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Aston Villa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Micah Hamilton was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Aston Villa know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Manchester City next, and one man in the Aston Villa dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Kion Etete has written the date down.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aston Villa, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Alexis Mac Allister wants continental football; whether Aston Villa can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Leon Goretzka was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 88. Sunderland had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Squad13 Nov 2028
Words at Aston Villa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Louis Page is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Aston Villa they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“89 caps is more than I ever expected, and it is time somebody else had them.” At 34 he is finished with his country and nowhere near finished with Aston Villa.
Yasin Özcan was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Oli McBurnie has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings30 Oct 2028
Jason Simmons could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.28
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.28, 0 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Toti scored, was marked 7.68, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
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.
At 17 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
John McGinn was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jack McGrath will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Aston Villa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Louis Page was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout23 Oct 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” the manager was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Aston Villa dressing room was either.
14 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Alexis Mac Allister and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Aston Villa know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Kion Etete trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
0‑3 to Burnley, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Zépiqueno Redmond will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Aston Villa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Lewis Hall was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Squad9 Oct 2028
Words at Aston Villa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Micah Hamilton is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings2 Oct 2028
Chris Rigg, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.17
A mark of 8.17 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
7.72, 1 on the scoresheet, and the specific comedy of a back-four player celebrating like somebody who does this every week. He does not, and that is exactly why the ground reacted the way it did.
“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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Chris Rigg. 2‑1 against Crystal Palace, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
He is 21 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
At 21 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Aston Villa will try not to make too much of it.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
In brief
The dugoutSomebody else is better right now than Oli McBurnie
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.29 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.45 for the rest of it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jack McGrath will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Aston Villa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Leon Goretzka and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Malick Yalcouyé. 2‑0 against Fulham, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
0‑3 to Liverpool, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Aston Villa ran out of time with Huddersfield Town. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
The music was off and the showers ran late. What was said in that dressing room stays there, but Saturday will publish the minutes.
The dugout18 Sep 2028
the manager faces the questions
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” the manager after 0‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Aston Villa have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Aston Villa they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Middlesbrough have kept their man, and Aston Villa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The offer went to Real Sociedad this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Aston Villa have gone to Huddersfield Town with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The chase for Mark O'Mahony ended with $9.1M changing hands and Brighton out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $649.5K of what Aston Villa paid for Charlie Savage is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
Deadline passes with 26 signed and 51 gone
That is the business done at Aston Villa until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Aston Villa have done the hard part with Brighton, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
The chase for Ryan Longman ended with $2.5M changing hands and Wrexham out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Aston Villa, and it is not being withdrawn.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Aston Villa can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Alexis Mac Allister and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Aston Villa have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Aston Villa and Fulham have settled on $5.5M. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
The fee is $7.6M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. West Ham United drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Alexander Isak and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $5.5M — a club that wants Seth Ridgeon enough to be asked twice.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Luke Skinner has just signed for Aston Villa, and for once the answer mattered.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Aston Villa lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The offer from Swindon Town for Tyrone Mings was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Aston Villa asked and Everton said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Everything agreed with Nottingham Forest, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
“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.
Ian Maatsen and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alexander Isak was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Aston Villa, and 0 appearances in 5 say he has earned the hearing.
21 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Aston Villa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Tranmere Rovers waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Aston Villa is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
339 appearances across 9 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Aston Villa offered $78.0K; Brighton said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The clubs have shaken hands with Northampton Town; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
The words a physio says slowly. 29 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Aston Villa have gone to Reading with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Aston Villa have lost him in all but the paperwork.
$15.1M was the most the club would pay and Nottingham Forest were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Aston Villa is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The phone has started ringing about Tyrone Mings again, and this time the name on the line is Swindon Town. Aston Villa are listening politely and promising nothing.
Alexis Mac Allister and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
38 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Aston Villa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The offer went to Nottingham Forest this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Zépiqueno Redmond will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Aston Villa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Alexis Mac Allister was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Aston Villa asked and Stockport County said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $16.2M — a club that wants Zach Abbott enough to be asked twice.
$78.0K on the table at Brighton. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
In brief
The dugoutA fresh start for Alexander Isak under the new man
SquadAston Villa are still strangers to each other
“I have supported clubs like this one. I know what a bad Saturday feels like here.” The new man starts with nothing behind him and everything in front of him.
47 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Aston Villa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Aston Villa can pretend not to have heard.
The chase for Micah Hamilton ended with $3.0M changing hands and Middlesbrough out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Aston Villa can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. West Ham United have kept their man, and Aston Villa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Aston Villa hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Day 39 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Yasin Özcan 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.
Oli McBurnie has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Aston Villa have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Liverpool paid $13.8M and Aston Villa took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $7.6M — a club that wants Kuryu Matsuki enough to be asked twice.
John McGinn and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Words at Aston Villa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alexander Isak is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Samuel Iling-Junior and Aston Villa agree another 4 years.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Fulham have kept their man, and Aston Villa go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Đorđe Petrović
BoardroomAston Villa sign 10 boys into the academy
Aston Villa asked and Lazio said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The fee is $4.3M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. West Ham United drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Ronnie Hollingshead had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Aston Villa offered $3.5M; Stoke City said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
22 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Aston Villa lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The offer from Brighton for Zion Suzuki was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Aston Villa have gone to Stoke City with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Alexander Isak wants continental football; whether Aston Villa can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $3.3M — a club that wants Jonathan Varane enough to be asked twice.
Middlesbrough paid $21.6M and Aston Villa took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The name of Evann Guessand has come up in conversations Aston Villa were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Alexis Mac Allister and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Words at Aston Villa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Evann Guessand is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
11 days with the chair empty, a list of names that grows and shrinks by the day, and not one signature on anything. Every week that passes takes the best candidates off it.
With 5 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Middlesbrough waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Aston Villa is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“I am not thinking past Saturday, and I would advise nobody else to.” The caretaker’s first rule is to pretend the job is small; Edward Hill recited it perfectly.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Alexis Mac Allister and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Aston Villa have had the benefit of it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Zépiqueno Redmond will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Aston Villa the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Alexis Mac Allister was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad29 May 2028
Words at Aston Villa training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Johan Manzambi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
44 games, 0 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Aston Villa now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ian Maatsen trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.