sharkyvilla

I saw Jay Spearing linked with a £3m move to Bolton. He likes a tackle and his work-rate is great, is young and hungry. At first I thought he was a bit of a joke basically because he's a Scouser but he grew on me a bit the more I saw him play and he could be a good partner for El Ahmadi. Also what do people think of Ruben Rochina at Blackburn? He might be a nice foil for Bent from the limited amount I've seen of him.

As much as I like O'Neill it does seem that he hasn't learnt from his mistakes whereas Randy seems to have done. I guess that's the beauty of being a manager, you can just leave and wait and pick up another job whereas as an owner you're tied to the club and its finances. Sunderland will flirt with Europe this season I think, if they don't then something will have gone very wrong.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone call somebody 'really fine' before. Get the man a thesaurus.

We've still had 3 great, fun seasons under Lerner and 2 shit ones which puts him in the positive just about. He came with a 5-year plan and I'd give him a 6/10 for it. I generally don't mind people making mistakes as sometimes you need to get things wrong to get them right in the long run and they do genuinely seem to be trying to fix the wage structure, have brought in a young vibrant manager with a footballing philosophy and revamped the scouting. We just need 3 more players in the next week and it will be incredibly frustrating if we don't manage it.

Yorke for me as well. I was on holiday in America and my older brother who hadn't come with us told me over the phone, I was gutted. Also finding out Petrov was ill was a kick in the guts. Keep fighting lad.

He says 'it's well documented what kind of players I'm going for' but is that true? I must have missed that because I have no idea what kind of player he wants, unless he just means ones from Holland.

Someone said in the transfer speculation thread that Lambert has ruled Jones out.

I breathed a sigh of relief at that one

I'm getting increasingly worried that we're getting too wrapped up in balancing the books rather then assembling a competitive team. It's no good sitting after the window closes with a smug grin on our faces thinking "we've not spent beyond our means though" whilst 4-5 other clubs seem to be overtaking us.

At present I rate our squad at roughly 13th -14th in the league in terms of depth and quality. That's only 4 places off 18th. I just don't want to be dragged into yet another relegation scrap just to prove a financial point.

I know there's only one game been played and i'm jumping the gun massively but you can just see it happening as soon as we're hit with a couple of injuries to key players we're **** again.

Saying that I'm glad Jones and Defoe are no goers. Not the "young and hungry" players that Lambert has been waxing lyrical about.

Not sure how you're assessing the merits of our squad compared to others but even so it doesn't work that way, I would argue going into last season that Newcastle didn't look to have the 5th best squad in the league, Liverpool probably didn't have the 8th best squad in the league, we didn't have the 16th best squad in the league on paper etc etc.

Did Norwich have the 12th best squad on paper? I would argue not so surely you have to proportion a lot of emphasis on the effect of the manager, the tactics, the confidence the squad has etc etc.

Also you claim that we have the 13-14th best squad but then claim you're glad that a player that would improve that squad in Defoe is not coming, sure there's a phrase about having your cake and eating it.

On Defoe I just don't think we should be going for players reaching the end of their careers looking for one last move before the end. I can just see Defoe being hard to motivate and being happy to sit collecting his wages for a couple of seasons.

I think we should be looking at players that are younger and eager to prove themselves. Players who will bust a gut for the club. Both Defoe and Jones are the complete opposite of that.

Defoe is only 29 ffs. He's pretty much in his peak condition if you ask me. He always seems to bust a gut to try and score a goal even if he's only coming on for the last half hour, he just has that desire built in him like all great goalscorers do. That said, a better fit for Bent would be Robbie Keane from about 5 years ago. Not sure what players are out there that fit that kind of role.

Lerner has spent money... Source: http://www.transferleague.co.uk/league-tables/transfer-league-table-last-five-seasons.html

Last 5 seasons Premier League transfer spends by club.

Purchased Gross/ Sold/ Net/ Per Season

Man City £498,450,000/ £102,800,000/ £395,650,000/ £79,130,000/

Chelsea £293,300,000/ £77,600,000/ £215,700,000/ £43,140,000/

Stoke City £71,225,000/ £8,650,000/ £62,575,000/ £12,515,000/

Man United £180,950,000/ £120,800,000/ £60,150,000/ £12,030,000/

Aston Villa £144,100,000/ £89,350,000/ £54,750,000/ £10,950,000/

Liverpool £239,150,000/ £192,050,000/ £47,100,000/ £9,420,000/

QPR £36,500,000/ £850,000/ £35,650,000/ £7,130,000/

Fulham £46,800,000/ £24,700,000/ £22,100,000/ £4,420,000/

West Ham £70,400,000/ £53,300,000/ £17,100,000/ £3,420,000/

W B Albion £38,725,000/ £24,810,000/ £13,915,000/ £2,783,000/

Tottenham £163,700,000/ £152,250,000/ £11,450,000/ £2,290,000/

Nrw City £12,050,000/ £1,100,000/ £10,950,000/ £2,190,000/

Sunderland £101,900,000/ £91,550,000/ £10,350,000/ £2,070,000/

Wigan £54,600,000/ £50,250,000/ £4,350,000/ £870,000/

Sthamton £16,450,000/ £14,600,000/ £1,850,000/ £370,000/

Swansea £16,430,000/ £21,860,000/ -£5,430,000/ -£1,086,000/

Reading £9,200,000/ £25,850,000/ -£16,650,000/ -£3,330,000/

Everton £57,000,500/ £75,816,000/ -£18,815,500/ -£3,763,100/

Newcastle £72,850,000/ £109,550,000/ -£36,700,000/ -£7,340,000/

Arsenal £137,400,000/ £181,400,000/ -£44,000,000/ -£8,800,000/

Total gross spend under Randy Lerner £177,500,000.

Doesn't include wages. Randy was worth approx £600m prior to our takeover if I recall correctly, has spent approx £200m on Villa and sold the Browns for approx £600m. If we have to start breaking even, so be it. Lerner has invested in Villa and cannot continue to do so at the same level!

Interesting post. Almost forgotten in all this is that Lerner is a dollar billionaire and not a sterling one. Also shows how good Wenger, Pardew and Moyes are and to a degree Redknapp.

Would you take out a second mortgage and buy your next house before having an offer on your current one?

If I was a billionnaire who had just pocketed another billion I would.

If we can't shift hutton and Warnock will it bankrupt us? It won't be ideal but with the prem money going up this year, finishing higher should cover that issue.

I bet O'Neill knocked on Lerner's door every transfer window saying that. It's one thing having ago at Lerner for his record over the past 2 seasons but it's another wanting him to make the same mistakes again

Again, I've said this before but if Lambert only had 6-8m to spend he wouldn't have blown almost half of it on a League 1 full-back so early in the window. We actually did some deals reasonably early in the summer compared to the other clubs largely because Vlaar had a release clause that could be activated immediately and Feyenoord were pretty desperate to sell El Ahmadi because they need money. Other than in those circumstances it is difficult to force other teams to sell players until they themselves are more certain of their own transfer strategy, and that will become clearer towards the end of the August. Managers will become much more keen to offload players for cheaper/on loan or pay over the odds to get a player in. To me there is just no evidence that our shopping is over and the fact that there are no rumours means nothing when the club goes out of its way to do its business in silence. We do need to balance the books as well because we are midway through the recovery from our overindulgence in better times. Lambert seems well aware of that judging by his willingness to let people move on and has come to the club on that premise. I don't think we'll do earth-shattering business like the 40m we spent each summer a few years back but there is still time to add quality.

Arseballs

Can't believe this thread is 12 pages long

There was the odd flicker of hope in terms of performance around Christmas if I remember correctly where Ireland and N'Zogbia actually turned up, only for McLeish to turn back to plan A of Heskey on the right wing a week or two later because it was against a club who were supposed to be better than us. That's what wound me up the most about McLeish. Still, in terms of using up a season so we could get rid of some of the wasters at the club without getting relegated he kind of achieved what he was supposed to. We then sacked him at the first opportunity and the whole period is best forgotten. UTV

Ollson is a similar shade to Howard isn't he?

Don't want to put a dampener on things (I really don't as am desperate for some Villa excitement) but isn't there a game going on at Bodymoor heath?

Yep, v Stoke.

Kenwyne snuck in with the u-21s

In all seriousness I think this is bollocks, if we didn't want another transfer to come out we'd hardly arrange it for when a crowd would be in attendance.

Well that was fun whilst it lasted...

Unless he's having a medical, in which case it doesn't really matter...

How long before someone mentions the 'r' word. And I don't mean Regis.

It's all very exciting anyhow. I just wish people who spot players at training ground had a better knowledge of what footballers look like.

I see Mbia is Cameroonian, maybe Makoun put in a good word for us

10m for Jarvis and up to 9.5m for Dawson shows how easy it is to blow a massive load of cash when buying from England. If we signed them then we would just be making the same mistake all over again

There is lots of speculation that we wont sign many more players of quality, the facts are as brilliant a signing Paul Lambert was if he isnt given the tools to do the job properly he will fail and I wont blame him 1 bit, I will walk away burn my season ticket and never come back until the clubn is in the right hands, I will not be complaining and shouting I will do that by stopping my hard eared money going into this what appears downwards club. Fair play to Rabdy if he dont wanna spend thats upto him I am just going to see what ahppens from now til the end of august and if it aint satisfactory to me I will always love the villa but ill become a sofa supporter.

I just can't see why if Lambert only had £8m to spend he blew it so early in the window and almost half of it on a League 1 fullback. All logic points to getting a couple more players in imo

Straight swap for Andy Carroll would be a good move for all parties.

...except for Aston Villa

Considering he had the best batting and bowling averages for England I'm surprised KP didn't get the man of the series award

There was pretty much a concensus where we thought 10th-12th would be a good result for this season and 1-0 away defeats will be part and parcel of that. There's only so much a manager can do instantly with a painfully average squad with still some players who shouldn't really be here that are hard to shift. I really hate the negativity of some fans, I wish they would at least try to forgive and forget what has gone before and try to concentrate on the new start.

Having Johnson, adams and Carroll would make us into a good squad.

And more than likely haemorrhaging money again...

Adam is on £65.000 at Liverpool

Carrol on £60.000-90.000

and Adam Johnson is on £ 85.000 at City

Even if you take the figures with a pinch of salt, how much would those players be willing to decrease their wages for the honour of playing at Aston villa?

Surely it's only haemorrhaging money if we pay those kinds of wages and then not play them. That's where our money troubles have stemmed from. Bent on 70K a week is good value, Heskey and co on 50K is where the problem lay. I'm sure if we signed them we would pay the going rate.

15 minutes into the season and he's on a hattrick already. Let the 2012/13 wankfest begin