A time when some things happened, and some didn’t.
Midway through the transfer window and things are hotting up. We’re interested in Conor Gallagher, then we’re about to buy him. The deal is imminent, until Spurs decide they’re interested,offer more than we do and off to mediocrity he goes. He’s shite anyway; him and them are well suited.
No matter, because there are rumblings about Tammy Abraham, currently on loan at Besiktas. It goes from rumour to speculation to ‘exclusive’ and back again within 48 hours.
Also moving a fair bit is news of Donyell Malen to Roma, which starts off as surely not, becomes a hot tip and before you know it he’s landing at Rome airport, ready to sign on one of those it’s a loan but he’s staying there anyway deals. Sort-of good luck to him but the money won’t be much use if we can’t spend it.
Away from the frenzied speculation Brian Madjo’s signed and you can bet there’ll be no bullying the new boy at Bodymoor. Our other new signing Alysson’s injured, just for a change.
In non-transfer news we’re at home to Newcastle in the FA Cup fourth round. Why we bother raising our hopes in this way is a mystery but may as well keep kidding ourselves that it’s our year.
Us and Spurs have been charged with misconduct after they kicked off at the end of the cup match. We should just plead guilty and save time – the FA will say it’s our fault anyway.
Finley Munroe, one of our left-backs on loan, isn’t on loan anymore as he’s gone to Middlesbrough for £350,000. Which brings to mind that great philosophical question – how much would you want paying to go to Middlesbrough, and how long would you stay there for it?
NSWE have bought 30% of Annecy, who play in Ligue 2 and are probably going to get a few players on loan soon.
Unai’s been named Manager of the Month for December, and well done to him. Now win it again. There’s still no news about Boubacar Kamara, which is definitely not good news.
The weekend starts with some good results for us on Saturday, then another decent one on Sunday. We’ve got a chance to go second and move closer to Arsenal. You know what happened after that. You can look at the result and the performance and Typical Villa about it all day long but the truth is that we weren’t that bad. We’ve certainly played a lot worse and won but was the sort of game that shows the difference between champions, who can find a way to win it, and the rest.
Jadon Sancho rang in sick, Harvey Elliot was nowhere to be seen again, Doyell Malen was scoring for Roma and Tammy Abraham’s vanished off the radar. Add John McGinn going off injured early on and all was set fair for one of those days, again. On another afternoon Morgan Rogers would have got a couple, Evann Guessand would have scored instead of hitting the post and Emiliano Martinez wouldn’t have tried to play the hero. Any of these things happen and we go on to win. Instead we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and start all over again.
