A wonderful modern left-back. So composed, quick and technically gifted. Uses his body very well. 22 years of age and looks at home in a Champions League Final, in his seventh game in the competition.
Ian Maatsen | Aston Villa player
- Thread starter top1whoisman
- Start date
35 mil release clause.
Looks fantastic which is annoying because I just found out he's a Chelsea player.
Never mind, delete the thread 
Talk about a mega-jinx.
Oh dear
He did something a bit dopey before in the corner, trying to stand up carvajal. Ended up just letting the ball roll out of play. He'll learn from it, still a good player.
Who wants to leave and has a reasonable release clause. They don't mind selling to us historically.
Poch did him dirty. I hope the new guy, who I’ve been told loves his technically proficient inverted fullbacks, gets a chance to get to know him during preseason.
I thought they sold Hall to keep Maatsen. Then they loaned Maatsen. Honestly, we should be in for a player of this profile.
Cant believe Koeman leaves him at home for the Euros....
Really good going forward, been a great loan. A strange situation that Chelsea have a leftback crisis and they send him out on loan, but he isnt one of their expensive leftbacks they've kept signing over the past 5 years
The good old De Bruyne method. Chelsea are good at this.
Blaming the club when it was Poch fault.
If Poch wont play him what do you want the club to do?
Off to Villa, 6 year deal.
Maybe Dortmund can use that cash on Sancho instead now.
Thought we should’ve not only kept him but made him the starter. But getting north of £35m for a player that hasn’t even really played for our first team is kinda silly and hard to turn down.
We better hope Chilly stays fit. Which he hasn’t been able to do for very long since he moved here. Cucu had/has actually been playing well towards the end of the season so we don’t actually have a left back “crisis” as someone mentioned above.
Think next summer is when we go for another Lb if needed. Likewise goalkeeper.
We better hope Chilly stays fit. Which he hasn’t been able to do for very long since he moved here. Cucu had/has actually been playing well towards the end of the season so we don’t actually have a left back “crisis” as someone mentioned above.
Think next summer is when we go for another Lb if needed. Likewise goalkeeper.
"Just north of £35m"? Let's all agree to call it £50 mil then.
Dortmund messing about on this has cost them the player.
Oh well, extra cash now for Sancho eh Dortmund? 
Glimmer of hope for us with the Sancho deal, they were suppose to want both with Maatsen being the priority so maybe we can get rid for a similar figure to this now.
Sad to see him go, but knowing he was always leaving, to get almost £40m for him is not a bad deal.
That is a good deal for Villa. Looking forward fo see him play a full year in the Premier League.
Surely this is confirmation Jhon Duran is going to Chelsea the other way - to that I say a hearty "meh".
Still absolutely infuriating Maatsen was never given a fair shake at Chelsea but it is what it is; £37.5m is too much to pass up.
Still absolutely infuriating Maatsen was never given a fair shake at Chelsea but it is what it is; £37.5m is too much to pass up.
Fecking hell. £37.5m? What’s he done to warrant such a price? How the hell Chelsea do that?
I actually don't understand that business model. Any decent left back would cost atleast 40m which is what you are getting for him. I mean just give him a chance.
But then it's Chelsea and I never understood their academy deals anyway.
Can’t force coaches to give him a chance I guess. He was with the team this season but Poch didn’t fancy him, barely played him and when he did he exclusively used him as a LW/10, so he ended up on loan. I think he’s better than Cucurella, but I suppose when you invest £60m+ in a player he’s bound to get more opportunities to play than a kid from the academy. I’m more annoyed about Lewis Hall than Maatsen to be honest.
It will probably make more sense when we see the price Chelsea pays for whoever they’re buying from Villa.
No point doing a PSR-motivated swap unless you’re inflating the price on each side a bit.
Good signing for Villa. If they keep improving then they're going to be tough to catch next season.
Remember watching him at Charlton he's come a long way,good signing for villa.
Maatsen’s release clause was £35m all along. Thats always been the asking price. I suspect Villa are paying slightly above so they don’t have to fork out £35m up front.
Honestly perhaps I'm biased but £37.5m seems a reasonable fee for a 22 year old defender who was the best at his position in the Championship a year ago then went on to be a vital player in Dortmund's run to the CL final. 3 goals and 2 assists from ~1900 minutes at Dortmund is excellent, especially when you consider that 630 of those minutes were in the CL knockouts. This definitely isn't a Danilo / Joao Cancelo situation.
They should have sold Chilwell and kept him. It must be hard to be a Chelsea fan and have to justify selling your youngsters. There won’t be a better full back picked up in Europe for less than that this summer.
Nobody is taking Chilwell off our hands when he’s £200k a week and can barely stay fit - 24 starts the last 2 years. For better or worse we’re stuck with him until his contract runs out.
The thing is I don’t mind selling Maatsen if we had kept Hall. I don’t mind selling Chalobah, if we had kept Guehi. I don’t mind selling Gallagher if we had kept Mount. To end up selling them all is definitely frustrating, and solely a problem of their own making spending so recklessly.
The good thing is Cobham never stops producing, so there are already a couple of more gems, Tyrique George being one, close to the first team that we can pin our hopes of breaking through on.
Yeah, I totally get that there isn’t room for all of them, but as you have said, there is definitely room for a lot more than are made room for. Someone like Mount/Gallagher can do a job at the very top level of the game and should definitely be kept around as part of a competitive squad.
I think Maatsen is probably the best left back at the club, so I just don’t get the nature of the business they do.
I think the current sales of academy players is the result of the out of control spending the last 2 years. I’ve come to terms with it now. Some of those players definitely should have been kept. My hope is that the initial crazy spending spree now over, so the next crop of Cobham gems won’t have to be sacrificed the way the current crop are. We once played a CL knockout game with 6 academy players on the pitch at the same time. I’d love to get back to that kind of situation.
Very happy if we pull this one off.
I think that’s a good objective. There was something special about the cup final and having kids involved in youth levels scoring the goals. There was more emotion involved on the day and I think it gave ten Hag a lot of sympathy that he wouldn’t normally have had.
Chelsea are so prolific developing Premier League level players, it’s a pity there aren’t 4-5 in on the pitch regularly on a match day.