26 million

>bought the stadium they already own
Wow I mean how the fuck does that get around FFP?

Can't believe Aston Villa have spent not much shy of £100m on pretty much the same team as last year

Don't know how Villa did it, but Derby did it first and it was just a case of selling an underpriced asset on the club's books to a second company with the same ownership as the club at market value and leasing it back to the club. You have to sacrifice the value of the stadium as an asset and the revenue it brings in, but so long as your owner isn't a bastard, there's no real downsides to doing it.

well that's fucking ludicrous

Not really. Mings was 20m plus add-ons apparently. Kourtney Hause was 3m.

That's the problem with relying on loanees to get you promoted. Had no chance of signing Abraham or Tuanzebe permanently.

Selling the stadium to the owners is a loophole in FFP and is cheating. Hope karma gets to them when owners put their clubs up for sale and charge an extortionate price for the ground

Not really, loads of clubs have flogged their stadium to other companies when the going's got tough for them, the sole difference is that the company being sold to has the same ownership as the club, but there's rules in place that the revenue generated by these secondary companies can't just be put back into the club. Like I said, you lose the value of the asset and you lose the revenue it generates, so it's not the complete "get out of jail free" card that some make it out to be.

Tuanzebe and Abraham are shit anyway

How possible is it for Aston Villa to win the league?

Its not, this is just to keep us up innit

Everyone saying Villa are going to 'do a Fulham'.

Big difference between Villa's spending and Fulham last year. Fulham changed the whole team/squad around and bought in lots of unproven foreign players. Villa have kept the core of last years team together and signed loanees permanently (Mings, El Ghazi, Hause). Team spirit last year was key to our promotion. Matt Targett is a decent young English player who we've paid over the odds for but that's just the market. The only risk so far is Wesley for 22m to replace Abraham. But last time we signed a similar player from Belgium (Benteke) it didn't exactly work out badly for us.

We're also likely to sign either Butland or Heaton and bring in some more quality attacking players. Villa will not be setting the Premier League alight this season but will not be getting pissed on like Fulham did. I fully expect us to survive.

Impressive that Bournemouth managed to sell a player that was a complete flop signing for them for a near £20 mil profit

The promoted teams generally do well. Last year was an off year when 2 of the promoted sides went straight back down. You'll probably be fine because you're choosing to invest whilst there'll be teams like Newcastle that do nothing and could likely end up relegated.

The funny thing is people laughed when they paid £8million or whatever for him as well.

He had some bad injuries at Bournemouth. I'll sound obviously biased as a Villa fan but he was immense for us last season. I know it's Championship football but you can tell when a player has quality. He has every attribute required to be a top centre half. Many Villa fans are embarrassingly obsessed with the guy but that's the impact he had.

If Maguire is worth 90m, 20+ for Mings is no big deal imo. The market for English players is mental

well that depends what rent they're charging the club I guess
surely if they get relegated they're not allowed to buy it back for fuck all so wouldn't they be at huge risk of insolvency on the balance sheet?

It was £8m yes. He done well for us at Ipswich, but the pressure was off and no-one was looking at him to make miracles and win things, at Villa the pressure will be on him to perform desu

>26 mil for a man who can scare zlatan
Sounds great

Fuck Villa. Spent like £150m in the championship to scrape through by play-offs. Can see them coming straight back down desu.