stanthemanisgod

What makes you think Berbatov would have chosen us over his old manager back in London? He was not an option for us even if we'd wanted him so there is no point banging that drum over and over again. Well we'll never know will we because we paid 7m for another striker who at the moment would look poor at Rangers! Buying a player coming to the end of his career on mega wages, when we're trying to reduce our wage bill makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Buying a player at the start of his career, who the manager thinks GIVEN TIME will be a steal makes sense all round. Not when you've been fighting the possibility of relegation for the past two seasons because of a dearth of quality in the team. Why then risk a third season when you could have brought quality to first stablize the club in the Premiership thereby allowing Lambert to play the lower league players at the right time. The problem you can create then is when you've still got other players on high wages as well, and you try to buy other players or renew the contracts of current squad members (Bent, Gabby etc). Due to footballers egos, they see other players at the squad on high wages and want a piece of the action. Look at Citeh, everytime they renew a contract or buy a player he is asking for astonomical amounts. Also you can create arguments within the squad. At the moment every player we're purchasing knows what the wage structure is, and the environemnt they are coming into. I think the club have put a line in the sane to stop the spiralling amount going on wages, and said we 're planning more long term rather than short term. We also need strength in depth, so why spend so much of your resources on a 31 year old. Yeah a valid point, we can't hope to keep hold of players like KEA and Vlaar if they see half the 1st team earning twice what they do.

Yes both our opinions are purely speculative but we could have also agreed to Dempsey's wage demands and thats always been my point. Why bid for such a player knowing that his wage demands were going to be high unless you were prepared to pay it? It is my understanding that in order to talk to a player about contract terms you have to have formally approached the club and be in the process of agreeing a fee. Unless you start 'tapping' players up. Therefore we made an enquiry about a player we were interested in, the club accepted our fee but the player turned us down outright before we even got to a position to talk contract terms and wages. We may have been going into that negotiation (Had it happened) with a maximum figure we were prepared to pay and that figure may or may not have been acceptable to the player, but we never got that far. I certainly do not think it was a fake bid even if the chances of succesful contract negotiations were slim. I'd be surprised if a lot of business wasn't done in the same way which is why we tend to keep things quiet as a club.

Of course there's some really useful information Lambo has that we dont... How they're performing in training. Benteke for all we know could have come off the back of a strong performance against City and put everything he touched into the top corner in training. It's Lambert's job to pick his team and it'll be him that get's the sack if it all goes horribly wrong but it's what he is paid to do, sure we can discuss who we would prefer to see in the team etc, but surely we have to believe that Lambo makes the decision he considers to be best for the side based on the information available to him at the time?

Clint Demspey may have been at the top end of what we're willling to pay. We've had this conversation on at least one other thread, we do have room to pay some players high end wages, Bent, Given, Gabby, Ireland etc. Dempsey probably would have slotted into that group, but we never even got close to discussing terms with him so it's all academic. we might have bid for him and then failed to agree terms, it happens in footy. What is implied in the way we did business is that we could not have afforded to sign Adam, Johnson and Berbatov and keep Bent, Ireland, Gabby and probably even Given.

It's just unfortunate that he didn't do that well in the first televised game of the season, therefore the people who have only seen him play once have nothing else to compare him to. I wasn't at City but have heard good things about his performance, seemed to be a key part of a side that beat the current league champions, took his goal well on debut, but has also missed some sitters. Think he'll fit in well to what will be a very up and down season for the team in general.

But that's the issue being discussed, just because you have all the money in the world doesn't mean you can take a nothing club and buy a dream team, because to most of the world's best players success is as important as money. You can see the same scenario with us and Lerner's money, we had to endure the Harewoods etc before we were in a position to buy the better players, now obviously we were never in a position to buy real world beaters but you can largely see an improvement in the signings as our status improved. City are now in a position to challenge the top clubs for the top players both in terms of money and potential silverware, they are the PL Champions, the FA Cup winners and they're in the CL, only a handfull of clubs are in the same position. So now their spending power should kick them on further.

Do you think he'd have left spurs for Real Madrid if he had to take a pay cut? Money is what its about, the possibility of sliverware is just an added bonus. One thing to note is that I don't think players are to blame in any of this. They have short careers and its fair enough they seek out the best contracts they can get, I'd do the exact same. Difficult situation that, you would expect that a 'promotion' to a bigger club would normally attract a pay rise. The issue become when clubs like Chelsea and City start their spending spree, neither were big clubs and netiehr were winning things it was all about the money. Now you could see from the first and even second wave of players they bought the majority of really good players were happy earning less at Barca, Real and Utd etc. I mean Rooney could have got £250-300k a week if he'd moved straight over to City, but he chose to stick with Utd. Obviously now that those initial buying periods are done City and Chelsea can offer top players top wages and the chance of meaningful silverware, they are now big clubs. But imo the very best players would rather be earning £100k a week at Utd than say £150k a week at the next club trying to buy success (QPR maybe?).

Can you explain what this means? What's a plastic club exactly? Is it one that buys players? One that pays high wages? One that wins things? It infuriates me when people try to belittle Chelsea and Man City for "buying success" and then go on to praise Man Utd./Arsenal for doing it the "right" way. All clubs in the premier league since it has been founded have bought the title. Its just the reality of football. People seem to get jealous of City and Chelsea because they were unsuccessful, "small" clubs and accuse them of being plastic. They don't seem to have the same jealousy when it comes to Man Utd. buying the title, maybe they just enjoy the status quo. i.e. "its okay to see united buying the title every year but I'll be damned if I'm going to watch Fulham/Stoke/etc. do it...". All good points, although it seems to the majority they are unable to see the way Utd have bought success because they've been doing it gradually for 20 years, for the last 10 it's just business as normal for Utd, not like these Johnny jump up clubs tha get a rich owner a superstar manager and spend £400m quid in 2 years! etc etc. I get annoyed when people look back at our history and say if only we were more like Arsenal.... Well Arsenal did not just stumble across a decent youth set up and win the league, the supplemented the quality youth they acquired with a fair number of good players on wages that we could only dream of playing at that time. Their policy has changed somewhat since then and now they're 6 years without a trophy, and only really doing anything on the basis of their CL status which is looking increasingly shakey under pressure from Spurs and Newcastle, if Liverpool finally sort themselves out then Arsenal will be in proper trouble. It takes a combination of money and success to get the best players, if you have no success to speak of then you need more money. But the best players will generally always want to play for the best teams, and they happen to be the ones that are paying the highest wages. However, UEFA seem intent on protecting the current big boys by preventing another Cityesque rise to the big time.

Your general point as i understand it, was that we can no longer afford quality signings due to their wages. I made two points on that. One was that the chairman made funding available for Lambert to buy more established players which Lambert refused and secondly, we placed a bid for Clint Dempsey. Both those points would fly in the face of your assumption that we can no longer pay the type of wages quality players would expect, but you can carry on as you wish to try and fudge the issue. Secondly i have never stated that we should have a squad full of quality players on 40 grand per week as it is simply not sustainable for our club at the moment but Lambert inherited a poor squad, with a dearth of quality and with the signings i have mentioned, it would have undoubtedly improved us, still allowing Lambert to purchase lower league players but building in and around the players i have mentioned which would have given us more stability rather than gambling on those younger players hitting the ground running. Finally i wasn't suggesting that Lambert should have spent all of his budget on three players. There was probably more funding available to him with the bid for Dempsey as an example to fill both FB positions. Look it's pointless having this debate with you because without the Villa ccounts in front of me, and without knowing what wage budget Lambo is working to neither can prove the other wrong. I just find it difficult to believe that if we had signed Adam, Johnson and Berbatov there's be any room left in the budget for either full back, Westwood, KEA, Bowery and Benteke. Now you may argue with Berbatov we wouldn't need Benteke which is fair enough, or with Adam we wouldn't need KEA. But we'd still be lacking a replacement for Hutton and warnock would most prob still be in the squad. we'd also still be short on numbers.

That's quite incredible!

To be fair I'm a Villa fan and there are times when I wonder what's going on until I see the clock and realise it's the 19th minute. Some opposition fans will do it, some won't I'm sure Mr Petrov doesn't really care about them though so no need for the silly name calling if they don't.

A bit tongue in cheek but the sentiment applies, people live to their means.

Just a question to those saying they're disappointed the players havn't donated a weeks wage, when your mates/work colleagues etc are fundraising do you usually sponsor them a quarter of the your monthly 'take home' wage packet? If you do then fair enough criticise away, although you should note that these players will not see £45k a week by the time the Government has got hold of it. I know they earn atronomical amounts comapred to us but you have to remember it's relevant, they probably have a much higher mortgage, can't be cheap filling Bentleys and ferrari's up at the pumps these days, wags are expensive to keep etc etc. I know from my personal experience I tend to chuck a tenner in, if it's somebody I really care about maybe £100, but nowhere near a quarter of my take home monthly wage. They've donated something, the money will be put to good use that's the important thing.

Well I think you're guaranteed goals. Can't see there being many 0-0 games at Villa Park.

Dont get me wrong I'd love the ability to put out a 'B' team that included some of the names on display for City last night. I'd love Villa's fixture calendar to be so full of CL fixtures we have to allocate the league cup as a lower priority. Just not sure I'd feel comfortable knowing that it all came from paying player 2 or 3 times as much as they'd get elsewhere. Also it's a bit harsh to say they thought they were too big to be bothered, that team would be in the runnning for a top 6-8 finish in the league it still had some real quality, it wasn't as if they threw out the under 21 side.

It's a sign of the attacking potential available in this squad, and reminder that you write gabby off at your peril. Consistancy has been a problem but as a few have stated he was played all game every game regardless of form, fitness or opposition. And quite frankly the last 2 season should be scrubbed from the history books completely if you ask me! Gabby does not need to, and clearly will not, play every game this season, he will be picked on form, when fully fit, and when the tactics and approach to the game suit his involvement rahter than Benteke or Weiman. Purely for that reason alone we should only see the best of Gabby when he's on the pitch.

So just to confirm... We're happy again today are we? Hard to keep up these days, yesterday on this thread we weren't getting enough points to stay up. I think it's fair to say we need to look at the average somewhere between the 2 extremes this season, there will be games like everton and saints and equally there will be games like last night. It's been banded around a lot the last couple of years but I believe this is truely a season of transition.

Not at all. And I did read your post and whislt you did identify your proposed targets you did not specifically identify the actual signings he is 'playing russian roulette' with. So I assumed you were criticising all of his signings hence my argument was based on the players that were here when he joined and the 4 you wanted. Yes we do not know what Berbatov is on, just as we don't know what Ireland is on here but it's fair to speculate they're both on a fair whack. we laso do not know what Dempsey would have wanted, all we did was agree a fee with Fulham for a player that would have improved us. Nothing wrong with the odd proven player on a decent wage but we already have a few of those on our books, but I can't see how we could ever afford to have a squad full of players on that type of wages. As for Lambert's prudence in the transfer market, it's a balancing act. I don't know the exact budget he's working too but I think it's safe to assume we would not have seen the same number of players coming in if they were all £40k a week plus players. It's up to him as manager how to balance the books whehter thats 12 player on lower wages, 4 players on high wages or something in between. Also as far as I can tell he has signed 4 players who have been an instant impact on our team, Vlaar now promoted to Captain after 4 games, Lowton who scored in a league victory, Benteke who scored on debut and seemed to have been an integral part of a side that beat City last night, and KEA who looks a composed midfielder who also has a goal to his name. I'm not disputing that Adam, Johnson and Berbatov may have had more of an impact on the quality of our side but our squad was lacking both numbers and quality and in place of those 3 players we manged to get Guzan back, Lowton, Bennet, Vlaar, KEA, Homan(Not lambo I know), Westwood, Benteke and Bowery. I mean I could argue that spunking all the available wage budget on 3 players is playing Russian Roulette becuase if they got injured we'd have nothing but youth players in reserve, but it's all academic untill we know how the season pans out. Just have a bit of faith in a manager who seems to know what he's doing.

Of course it will... so by that logic I'm now taking out the first 2 league games as bedding in time, so now basing the rest of the season on the last 3 league games I predict we will finish on 50.6666667 points which should be enough to be safe, therefore hence or otherwise proving we do not need a relegation thread! This is a fun game isn't it?

Well using my basic maths if the season is condemend to pan out as it has over the last 5 games we will finish on exactly 30.4 points. So clearly that should be everybody's prediction right? 8)

The wage issue has only been 'dealt' with because we havn't replaced the likes of Beye, Heskey, Cuellar, NRC et al with the likes of Adam, Berbatov, Johnson et al. Whilst they probably do reflect a significant short-term improvement on what we have, that level of spending was deemed unsustainable to a club with an income as limited as ours. We simply cannot afford to pay our entire starting 11 in excess of £40k a week, and if the UEFA regs are accepted by the league, meetings happening over next 2 days I believe, that will be stated by the league and not just our owner. Where i have said that our whole starting eleven should be on in excess of £40k per week? The problem was that we had players earning in excess of £40k benched when MON was at the club. The players i have mentioned would be automatic picks for the first team! However, I agree totally that there should be a balance within our squad and i believe Cuellar was on less than £40k. Berbatov was exactly the type of striker we needed. Someone to play off Bent and give him the service so desperately lacking at the moment. At 5m it was a no brainer for me especially when we paid 7m for Benteke. Johnson is head and shoulders above anything we have at the moment in wide positions and would do the things that N'Zogbia quite obviously can't and Adam could have been the playmaker which we haven't had in many a year. All three would have been immediate first team picks who would have brought the required quality to our team which is so severely lacking at the moment and thats my main point. As i have already explained the exodus has not finished yet with Dunne, Hutton and Warnock on their way so there will be more room to accommodate quality! Lambert is playing 'Russian Roulette' with our Premiership status at completely the wrong time even when our chairman had made the funding available to purchase the aforementioned type of player. It is a massive gamble and one i hope the club don't regret? Hang on a minute... Without Lamberts signings we would have something like: Given - £40k+ Dunne - £40k + Collins - £40k ish Cuellar- £30-40k Hutton £30-40k Warnock-£40k + Ireland - £60-80k depending on who you believe Petrov - £40k + Gabby- Around £60k Bent - £60-80k depending who you believe You're then suggesting we pay Berbatov whatever Fulham are paying him which I would say is at least what we're paying Ireland and Bent, then Johnson and Adam on wages that are probably around the £50k mark. The initial problem with MoN was that high earners weren't playing, but if and that's a big if for a number of reasons we want to be compliant with the UEFA regs we can't afford a wage bill at that level whether the players are nailed on first teamers or not. You only menion the transfer fees when comparing Berbatov and Benteke, but I'd be suprised if Benteke was on more than £20k on his initial contract. We would be paying 4x that for Berbatov! Can't be certain but it was rumoured that Cuellar was on no more than 30 grand. Petrov won't play for us again and i would assume insurance would be paying his wages at the moment? Collins is gone along with his wages and replaced with someone who may be on less? As i have previously stated the probability is that Hutton and Warnock will be gone in either January or at the end of the season and will not play for us again. Dunne will also go at the end of the season if not before. You are quoting players here who are going to be transfered or already gone so your points aren't valid! Why pay 7m for Benteke who doesn't exactly fit into Lambert's style of play (narrow midfield with one upfront) when you could have purchased Berbatov for 5m and used 2m for his wages? Berbatov is a much better player than Benteke and more suited to the way in which Lambert wants us to play. You were criticisng Lambert's transfer policy in general not singling out individual players so based my arguement as if Lambert had not done any of his business and signed the players you are asking for. Also how long do you think the £2m 'saved' by signing Berbatov would last when £2m only pays his wages for 5 months. He must be on at least a 3 yr deal at Fulham. Assuming Vlaar is on much less than Collins is dangerous too. And finally why would Lambert sign Benteke if he doesn't 'exactly fit his style' it doesn't sound like it was a board signing forced upon the manager from all of the interviews I've seen. You're also now assuming that Berbatov and the others wanted to play for Villa, you only have to look at the actions of Dempsey to realise we're hardly flavour of the month at the moment.

The wage issue has only been 'dealt' with because we havn't replaced the likes of Beye, Heskey, Cuellar, NRC et al with the likes of Adam, Berbatov, Johnson et al. Whilst they probably do reflect a significant short-term improvement on what we have, that level of spending was deemed unsustainable to a club with an income as limited as ours. We simply cannot afford to pay our entire starting 11 in excess of £40k a week, and if the UEFA regs are accepted by the league, meetings happening over next 2 days I believe, that will be stated by the league and not just our owner. Where i have said that our whole starting eleven should be on in excess of £40k per week? The problem was that we had players earning in excess of £40k benched when MON was at the club. The players i have mentioned would be automatic picks for the first team! However, I agree totally that there should be a balance within our squad and i believe Cuellar was on less than £40k. Berbatov was exactly the type of striker we needed. Someone to play off Bent and give him the service so desperately lacking at the moment. At 5m it was a no brainer for me especially when we paid 7m for Benteke. Johnson is head and shoulders above anything we have at the moment in wide positions and would do the things that N'Zogbia quite obviously can't and Adam could have been the playmaker which we haven't had in many a year. All three would have been immediate first team picks who would have brought the required quality to our team which is so severely lacking at the moment and thats my main point. As i have already explained the exodus has not finished yet with Dunne, Hutton and Warnock on their way so there will be more room to accommodate quality! Lambert is playing 'Russian Roulette' with our Premiership status at completely the wrong time even when our chairman had made the funding available to purchase the aforementioned type of player. It is a massive gamble and one i hope the club don't regret? Hang on a minute... Without Lamberts signings we would have something like: Given - £40k+ Dunne - £40k + Collins - £40k ish Cuellar- £30-40k Hutton £30-40k Warnock-£40k + Ireland - £60-80k depending on who you believe Petrov - £40k + Gabby- Around £60k Bent - £60-80k depending who you believe You're then suggesting we pay Berbatov whatever Fulham are paying him which I would say is at least what we're paying Ireland and Bent, then Johnson and Adam on wages that are probably around the £50k mark. The initial problem with MoN was that high earners weren't playing, but if and that's a big if for a number of reasons we want to be compliant with the UEFA regs we can't afford a wage bill at that level whether the players are nailed on first teamers or not. You only menion the transfer fees when comparing Berbatov and Benteke, but I'd be suprised if Benteke was on more than £20k on his initial contract. We would be paying 4x that for Berbatov!

The wage issue has only been 'dealt' with because we havn't replaced the likes of Beye, Heskey, Cuellar, NRC et al with the likes of Adam, Berbatov, Johnson et al. Whilst they probably do reflect a significant short-term improvement on what we have, that level of spending was deemed unsustainable to a club with an income as limited as ours. We simply cannot afford to pay our entire starting 11 in excess of £40k a week, and if the UEFA regs are accepted by the league, meetings happening over next 2 days I believe, that will be stated by the league and not just our owner.

To be fair to Gabby he clearly had an issue with Houllier, as did most of the squad, and the less we say about last season as a whole the better! I still remember him scoring the winner against Manure, winning a pen in the Carling cup final (which should have sent us on the way to winning that game), yes he's not the sharpest or most talented but his pace is such an asset when used properly. As a defender who played to a decentish level, I would always rather have a slower player who thought he was Ronaldo trying several step overs in front of me because unless they are as good as Ronaldo it's easier to defend against than somebody with proper pace, the ability to knock the ball past somebody and then just blitz them in the a foot race is so difficult to defend against, you either need to get so tight you get to the ball first (and risk getting turned) or give them a few yards which is all a player like gabby needs to get clear.

Depends how you define 'fine'? For once we seem to have numbers in the squad so you could argue that bare all but the worst injury crisis we have cover form what would now be classed as the first team squad. Do we have the right quality throughout that squad, well it depends what you expect. Realistically we're nowhere near the level of having a quality back up for every position like the top 3 or 4 because we dont pay the wages and we're not winning anything. Our good players are going to want to be playing and those that think they should be playing wont hang around for long if a team in a similar position to us will give them a game. IMO for a team that (rightly or wrongly) struggled to stay in the league last season, has a new manager and is enforcing a reduction in the overall wage expenditure our squad is about as 'fine' as it can be. Still some unknowns that may be our next Ash Young and still some players that need tiime to settle into the club and the manager's way of doing things. Despite the 4-1 loss to Southampton (who aren't as bad as their early form would indicate) I honestly dont think we'll be anywhere as bad as last season. The squad whilst largely unknown or unproven fills me vastly more confidence than the one AMc had at his disposal and ther majority would seem to think Lambert as more of a clue on how to utilise it effectively.