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Preview Percy is back in a bumper season-opening edition containing references to 1960's children’s puppet TV series and 1970's prog rock. So pretty much the same as ever then, as he kicks off with a look at our opening opponents Aston Villa...

Hello and welcome to all brand-new (spoiler alert – not really – ed) Preview Percy Matchday Preview Experience Type Thing Featuring Research From The Beautiful Daisy. The audio version is available in 4k UHD via the red button and the written version isn’t. All sorts of new stuff to go through at the start of a brand-new season so pay attention, there’s a good thing.




So we open our season with a home match against Aston Villa at the Olympic. The TV companies picked this one up for coverage right from the start, meaning that you’ll have to wait until 5:30pm on Saturday until kick-off. Should be able to sneak in a swift dozen pints or so then.

Maybe even more because the new season seems to have taken the transport companies by surprise as, at the time of writing, they seem to have failed to arrange anything in the engineering works department for trains into Stratford. Keep it under your hat in case they change their mind.

So Villa, then. They have qualified for the so-called Champions league this season having finished fourth in the league the last time around. They limped across the line to a certain extent with two draws and two defeats in their last four, their earlier form enabling them to profit from what appeared to be a lack of desire on the part of most other clubs in that area of the table to actually try and qualify for what is going to be the most bloated competition ever.

The format has been tweaked in an attempt to appease the sort of club that might still be thinking about a super league. Villa’s hopes of progressing further in the competition will have been tempered by their experiences last season when, after months of looking forward to picking up the Thursday Night Conference League Trophy on the grounds of “how difficult can it be if West Ham won it?”, the wheels came off in the semi-final against Olympiacos, a team - lest we forget - we effectively knocked out of the more senior Thursday Night League competition.

Villa are one of the clubs who are likely to struggle with the Profit and Sustainability Rules (henceforth PSR) over the coming season. The loss of £120m before adjustments in 2022-23 meant that some serious cuteness needed to be applied to the accounts before the end of June, with profits from player sales being required to avoid a points deduction.

All of that needed to be balanced with the need to maintain a squad capable of remaining competitive on both the domestic and European fronts. Happily for Villa – and many others – the wonderful world of accountancy was there to lend a hand.

You see, there is a disparity between the accounting treatment of player purchases and player sales. If you sell a player the transfer fee is booked into your accounts when the transfer is complete. However, for player purchases, the asset is treated as depreciating over five years, thus spreading the expense in the accounts over the period. Put very simply, if you buy a player for £50m then sell one for the same amount you will be credited with having received £50m in that year against an expense of only £10m. Look, stop yawning, this is important.

Anyhow, the perfectly legitimate taking advantage of what appears to be a flaw in the system saw them do a fair bit of business in advance of their 30 June end of year. Which has kept the beautiful Daisy busy with her new player research bit.

Not that the arrival of striker Cameron Archer would have had much effect on the outgoing side of the books. Archer arrived on what was effectively a free transfer from Sheffield United. It’s a return to the club for the player who left for Hypocrisy Towers only a year ago. No doubt the fee of £18m was noted on the incoming side of the ledger, though the Blades paid only £3m of that up front.

Having been hilariously relegated last season and with the ignorant and gullible Lord Griffiths having long since departed this mortal coil they found themselves either unwilling or unable to pay the rest of Archer’s fee so back to Villa the player went.

They spent £10m to bring the amusingly-named Lewis Dobbin in from similarly cash-strapped Everton in what was one of those accounts-busting swap deals that helped out both sides, with 21 year-old midfielder Tim Iroegbunam going to Goodison for £9m. Dobbin didn’t hang around for long mind – he joined West Brom on a season-long loan at the start of August.

More swapping occurred with the arrival of Dutch winger Ian Maatsen, whose fee of £37m seemed rather a lot to me - even when you take the £19m reportedly received for 18-year-old Omari Kellyman, itself rather a lot of money for an 18 year old with but two league appearances under his belt for Villa.




Maatsen spent five years on Chelsea’s books as part of their “Loan Stock” of players seemingly employed purely for the purposes of being lent out to other clubs. Maatsen, who can function up and down the left-hand side as full-back, wing-back or out and out winger, spent time at Charlton, Burnley, Coventry and, oddly last season, Borussia Dortmund on loan before joining Villa. The 22-year-old has Dutch Caps up to Under 21 level. He’s made the senior squad a couple of times but has yet to play, though he was a late injury replacement for the Dutch Euro 2024 squad.

They played some more swapsies with Juventus. Winger Sanuel Iling-Junior started his life as a kid on Chelsea’s books before leaving at the age of 17 for Juventus. The 20-year-old made 36 league appearances for The Old Lady before moving back to Blighty in a deal valued at €14m with €3m in potential add-ons.

Also arriving from Turin was Argentinian midfielder Enzo Barrenechea valued at €8m. Note I say “valued at” in each case – with Doulas Luiz going in the opposite direction there is likely to have been some horse-trading involved.

A couple more Everton connections ensued, with former Toffee Ross Barclay coming in for £5m from Luton and ten times that amount being paid to the Toffeemen themselves for Amadou Onana. The transfers in list was completed – much to Daisy’s relief – by Hull winger Jaden Philogene.

He’s another one returning to his original club due to an unusual deal. Hull accepted an £18m bid from Ipswich but Villa had a clause in the deal that took the player to Humberside in the first place allowing them to match any bid. Which they did. However, having inserted a sell-on clause in the original deal Villa ended up paying something like £13m for the player.

Let’s move on to the Wild & Wacky World Of Association Football, shall we?

Well we had the Euros, in which the England side somehow bumbled its way to the final before coming up against a Spanish side containing a player young enough to legally be my great-grandson had I been traipsing around Spain way back when.

Southgate got a lot of stick for continuing to select Harry Kane, who seemed hell bent on not ruining his spotless record of having his career untainted by anything so tawdry as a trophy. Substitutions were also something of a mystery to the manager, bringing back memories of dear old Sir Alf Ramsey, who, bless him, at least had the excuse that substitutions at international level were a new thing for him.

Still, given our record of losing players to injuries sustained on international duty perhaps we should be grateful that the now-departed Southgate didn’t make greater use of Jarrod Bowen, who should be fit to start the season.

Elsewhere, the world of football finances were much in the news over the summer. To lose one prospective buyer may be regarded as misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness on the part of Everton.

The deal for 777 Partners to take over at Goodison looked holed beneath the waterline for months before the deal finally collapsed, 777 being unable to actually show that they had the wherewithal to complete the deal. Enter the Friedkin Group owners of Roma. It was a case of Veni, Vidi, Scarper once the due diligence had been completed, leaving Everton back in limbo. More points deductions perhaps?




Leicester may face similar sanction relating to the last time they were in the top flight and any club in similar schtuck will no doubt be considering their position given the revelation that Man Utd were given an allowance of £40m to deal with Covid, a figure some 40 times what most clubs were given. Look out for lots of asterisks in the points column of the league table as positions changed after meetings behind closed doors.

And so to us, then. Well we have been busy, haven’t we? The board considered many options over the course of the close season, rejecting their original plan to requisition each season ticket holder’s first-born to be sold off for medical experiments in favour of removing concessionary tickets for the young, the elderly and the infirm. This all took place as their latest attempts to pretend to engage with the fans were published, with nominations for the new Fans Advisory Board being sought.

On closer scrutiny from some supporters’ groups, the arrangements seemed to come with so many strings that the whole thing resembled an episode of Thunderbirds. FAB indeed. The concessions issue brought condemnation from many sources, including David Cross who, reportedly, has been threatened with a ban from the hospitality suites for daring to question the wisdom of the board. Classy West Ham, very classy.

On the personnel front we should bid welcome to Julien Lopetegui, whose surname I fervently hope to have mastered by the end of the season.

Formerly at Wolves a while back, he left when promised funds were not forthcoming. Rest assured that, standards here will be maintained what standards? – ed and no matter how difficult I find it to pronounce Lopetegui I shall on no occasion reduce myself to referring to the manager as “J-Lo”. Anyhow we at the Avram Grant Olympic Rest Home For The Bewildered say Bienvenido and Buena Suerte to you sir.

With some of the board seemingly distracted by something or other from their usual search for square pegs to fit in round holes, we finally managed to spend that money that was crying out to be spent back in January, with eight players (to date) turning up.

Brazilian youngster Luis Guilherme was first through the door, commanding a £25.5m fee from Palmeiras. Still only 18 I’d say it’s a wee bit of a gamble on a player who has just 30 first team appearances in the Brazilian League to date, though he is well-regarded and made a recent list of “The Best Players Born In 2006” (yes, there is such a thing, apparently).

At the other end of the pitch and at the other end of the age scale came Wes Foderingham. The much-travelled custodian arrived on a free from Sheffield United. On his CV was a spell at Swindon Town where he incurred the wrath of none-other than Paulo Di Canio, who was managing the Wiltshire outfit at the time.

On being substituted by the Italian, Foderingham kicked a water bottle, prompting Di Canio to announce that unless an apology was forthcoming PDQ the ‘keeper would be out on his ear. That’s right, Di Canio was threatening one of his players with the sack for having a temper tantrum. Online dictionaries containing definitions of the word “irony” are available. Foderingam will slot into what has become known as the “Scott Carson” role.

Max Kilman is an interesting chap. Of Anglo-Ukranian stock, he spent many years in non-League with the likes of Welling and Maidenhead before making the leap to the Premier League with Wolves in one bound. He was also quite good at Futsal, which, for the uninitiated, is the internationally-recognised standard for the smaller form of the game. Sort of five-a-side with bells on. Amongst his Futsal clubs was an outfit called Genesis FC. Presumably Banks played in goal and a central defensive partnership of Kilman and Hackett would be one to instil fear in the most prolific of forward lines.

Killer, as one suspects he will inevitably be named, attracted the attention of the Ukranian FA who enquired of FIFA as to his availability for international selection. However, the enquiry was presumably not accompanied by the brown envelope FIFA usually expect on these occasions, as they pointed out that “Killer’s” 30 caps for the England Futsal team meant that he was tied to England for the rest of his life. Still, on the bright side, Alan Devonshire’s Maidenhead will be around £4m richer as a result of a sell-on clause.




Next-in was Crysencio Summerville who, to save my spellchecker on this laptop from having some sort of existential crisis, I shall re-christen Jimmy. £25m was enough to prise the left-winger from Leeds. No full international recognition as yet for the 23-year-old Dutchman (I’ve already done that joke) who came through the Feyenoord Youth system but failed to make a league start for the Rotterdam side, spending time out on loan at Dordecht and Den Haag before ending up at Elland Road.

Next we signed a striker. No really. Niclas Fullkrug arrived for £27m from Borussia Dortmund. Germany’s oldest international debutant for 20 years, he was part of their squad in the recent Euros and scored against Scotland, although that’s not the greatest of recommendations I suppose.

He has 13 goals in 21 International appearances and is known as “Gappy” (in German) due to the arrangement of his front teeth, though he’s no Nobby Stiles. Other dentally-related information located by Daisy includes the fact that, in his time at Werder Bremen, he ended up in hospital with a team-mate’s tooth embedded in his forehead following a training ground accident.

Defensive midfield options have been bolstered with the arrival of Argentinian international Guido Rodriguez, who arrived at the conclusion of his contract with Real Betis. A former team-mate of Edson Alvarez at Mexican side America, he admits to having spoken with his fellow midfielder before coming to his decision to exchange Spain for Stratford.

There has been one loan signing to note, in the form of Jean-Clair Todibo, who has arrived from Nice in a loan deal that, allegedly, contains an obligation to buy for £40m if he starts more than five league games. Probably best not to dwell on his unwanted record of becoming the recipient of the fastest red card in Ligue 1 history clocking in at an eye-watering NINE SECONDS. Daisy tells me that his competitive international debut for France came in a 14-0 trouncing of Gibraltar, though to be fair, the word “competitive” is doing some pretty heavy lifting there.

What at the time of writing seems likely to be the final signing of the window was the £15m deal that brought Aaron Wan-Bissaka from Man United. The deal was much anticipated, though it seemed to take a lifetime to trundle over the line – think Zamora’s winner against Preston that year.

The talk was that there was some haggling over a bonus that the player was owed by his now former employers. That being sorted, he finally pitched up to do all the posing in the new kit stuff that seems to be compulsory on these occasions. Wan-Bisakka has come a long way to overcome his third world origins in New Addington, an area that is so deprived even the rest of Croydon looks down on it. So bid him a welcome but think twice should he offer you a lift. He has a fairly hefty rap sheet for motoring offences.

So what’s it going to be like on Saturday evening then? Well there will be some changes to VAR for a start. They will be trialling – but not actually using – a Semi-Automatic Offside system with a view to using it properly from October. All well and good, but they have elected to use a different system to that which looked ok in the Euros.

There will also be “referee’s call” similar to cricket’s “Umpire’s Call”. Good luck with that. Still, whilst they have still shied away from having to explain themselves to the paying crowd, they have said that decisions will be explained on whatever Twitter is called this week as live as possible. Look forward to Liverpool being awarded another dodgy goal because Donald Trump said it was onside.

The match itself. Difficult to call really. Loads of new players require time to bed in and it’s difficult to say how many of them will start for either side. However, new season optimism and all that so I will base my prediction purely on the feel good factor of us potentially having some sort of squad depth for a change.

So the £2 that I was going send to the club to contribute to Baroness Brady’s next bonus, in case taking the money from the young, the elderly and the infirm doesn’t quite provide enough, will be digitally input into a wager Mr Winstone’s Turf Accountancy App on a 2-1 victory in our favour.

Enjoy the game!




When last we met at the Olympic – Drew 1-1 (Premier League March 2024)

The Jarred Gillet show as a woefully substandard performance even by his standards handed Villa a point. Two iffy VAR decisions plus a refusal to apply the law on kicking the ball away to Villa players, at least one of whom would have faced a red from a competent and honest official all tipped the scales in their favour Zaniola’s second half equaliser cancelled out Antonio’s diving header conversion of a teasing Coufal cross as yet again points were dropped after a European trip.

Referee: Tony Harrington

Last seen denying a certain Mr Kilman an equaliser for Wolves in our 2-1 win up there last season. The decision, which came after what seemed like the longest VAR check ever, but probably wasn’t, was described by Wolves boss Gary O’Neil as the “worst decision ever”, despite it being correct.

Danger Man: Ollie Watkins

Being better than Harry Kane is no guarantee of selection for England apparently. Runner-up Jhon Duran – so good they named him. We were close to signing him apparently so it’s one of those that could come back to bite us in the backside.

Percy & Daisy’s Tenuous Villa Fact Of The Week

The Rev. W Awdry, author of the “Thomas The Tank Engine” books was a vicar in Kings Norton, a town which is only 8 miles from Villa Park. True story.

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