Pez1974

1 hour ago, duke313 said:

Compared to Everton we've had an amazing transfer window 

Really?

Everton raised £40m, and got rid of Rondon.
We got about £12m for Ings, and the rest were loans, cutting short loans and a free transfer out.

Emery out 

3 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Ok I just watched the last press conference and I think he makes it pretty clear that they wanted to sign another striker but only if he was the right player and if not in January then in Summer. He did say Duran is not Ings replacement so he will probably be frustrated that he hasn’t managed to get another striker but he did emphasis how important it is the striker is the right player.
 

But unless I missed it I didn’t sense any frustrations at all in the presser. 
 

Unless there’s been one I’ve missed since the Southampton one?

This is my take.

If he is frustrated - its not with the club, but with the craziness of the January transfer window, and this one in particular. He's not here to make 12 months of progress and take the next step up. He wants to build something special, and to do that you need the right players for the next 3-5 year; not 3-5 months. 

I think some people believe managers  just 'want a midfielder' rather than a specific players.

Unai - "I want Guendozi" 
Purslow - "Marseilles won't sell. They quoted £80m. So I got you Lokonga from Arsenal on loan"

19 minutes ago, thabucks said:

McKennie loan move to leeds confirmed - bullet dodged ? 

Maybe.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a report that he didn't want to come here as he was aiming higher. Now he's in a relegation battle. 

I have zero inside knowledge, but it suggests to me that it was all paper and agent talk, and therefore absolute bullshit. 

We as fans get drawn into this speculation which is why they do it about our club. We need to learn to ignore it. 

22 minutes ago, Folski said:

Ok but historically who have we actually bought in January that's done well.

2022

Digne - £25m clearly now 2nd choice left back just 12 months later, likely on a big contract and few potential suitors.

Chambers - Free also told he can go by the looks of things. (Coutiho loan)

2021

Sanson - £14m just gone on loan has had no real impact.

2020

Samatta - £8.5m managed a total of 14 games for us

Baston - Free waste of time

Drinkwater loan

2019

Kalinic - total disaster

Guilbert - I liked him but managers didn't

2018

N/A

2017

Bjarnason, Bree, Hourihan, Taylor, Hogan - mostly flops Conor did well. (You forgot Lansbury and Jacob Bedeau)

2016

Cole & Senderon

2015

Gil & Sinclair  

Thank you. Having read the last few pages, I was going to do a similar list. I've added a few in bold too.

This is a list of wasted transfer fee's and wages, many of whom got people quite excited at the time. And this is why we're in the position we are now, and not challenging. There's gotta be £100m of fees there, plus more than that in salaries and paying up contracts.

We now have a proper manager in place, who is at the peak of his powers. I trust him.

Over recent years we've had Gerrard (useless), Smith (loved him but out of his depth), Bruce, Di Matteo, Garde, Sherwood (well), Lambert (we were broke, and broke him), McLeish (FFS); Houllier (past his prime but had a plan and too little time) and O'Neill (did well but was becoming a dinosaur before our eyes). That's since 2006. 
Maybe, just maybe, it's time to run the club properly for the first time in about 2 decades. 

7 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

Be like WW3 in here if we don't sign anyone and Danjuma, Jackson and McKennie all move to Premier League this window. 

There is a not insignificant chance we won't agree a fee for Guendouzi and Dembele and wait for both until the summer. 

We would get a big FFP boost in this year's accounts of we signed nobody. Blood Duran properly. 

Probably have a riot!

But as you say, the FFP boost would be big, and it's nice to see the club do some housekeeping on our bloated squad.
People moaning that we're down to the bare bones because we've moved on our 4th choice RB, our 5th choice CB and our 6th choice CM, and probably our 4th choice LB shortly.

Of course, plus our 2nd choice (but very expensive and injury prone) CF.

We've got some very good U23s, some of whom have returned to the squad, and Emery wants first team starters. No more Samatta's and Sanson's.

This is all good.

11 hours ago, KMitch said:

Short term memories around here...  Naming players who cost peanuts and rarely played for us are hardly the worst deals...

Best:

• Sam Johnstone - Very solid keeper for us in the Championship for 1.5 seasons
• Mings - Leadership/solidity at the back sparked our 10 game win streak and playoff campaign
• Abraham - Goal machine.  Loved him here.
• Robbie Keane - Very short loan, but another goal machine and "proper man".
• Kyle Walker - Very very good for his short time here.  Solidified his case to start for Spuds the following season.
• James Milner - Class Class Class

Worst:

• Drinkwater - astronomical fee and paid a lot of wages.  He was dreadful and played a lot during his spell.  Hands down one of the worst I can remember
• Cleverly - Paid a big fee and ~40-50k/week in wages for a player completely anonymous in all but 3 of our games for us.
• Michael Bradley - 4 appearances total for a total of 100 minutes.  Not sure if Houllier actually rated him or just signed him to show Petrov/Sidwell he didn't need them anymore.  Had to have been a pretty big loan fee/wage for the time.

 

There are a million cheap loans who rarely featured for us, if at all.  Doesn't mean they're the worst...

• Andre Moreira
• Borja Baston
• Tiago Ilori
• Grant Holt
• Simon Dawkins
• Andy Marshall
• Gabor Kiraly

This guy gets it. Bednarak was an emergency loan for a 4th choice CB for 6 months. The fact we didn't need him doesn't make him the worst; it means we got lucky. 
Dawkins, Illori etc were all gambles which cost little. 

I would add Guatavo Bartelt (did he even play?) and Jermaine Jenas (3 appearances? But he does seem to have a soft spot for us in his punditry!) to the 'bad' list, as I suspect they cost us a fair bit.

17 minutes ago, allani said:

I would say that Tim will get more minutes for us (probably next season) IF we sign Guendouzi because there will be significantly less pressure on him if he came on for 15 - 30 as a sub as he'll still have two excellent midfielders alongside him / supporting him.

Next season he has to be involved. Not first choice necessarily, but as a rotation player; as a finisher, and become a starter in a couple of seasons. We need to keep the youth coming through or our finances become unsustainable. 

1 hour ago, messi11 said:

Courses for Horses. Phil Foden didn't go on loan. He got mins off the bench. 

Absolutely.

But...

Tim is 20 in the summer
In the year Foden turned 20, he got the equivalent of about 20 games worth of matches for City, including games in the CL. 

In the previous year, it was about 14 games worth for Foden. Tim got the equivalent of 4 (of which 3 was in the EFL cup) last season.

Law of averages says the 30+ matches of game time he'll play for QPR this season will be better for him than a bit of time off the bench for us. 

3 minutes ago, villaliver said:

Pointless loaning him 

Don't agree. 

We lost Carlos - we needed cover. The fact we didn't need to use him is down to a combination of not getting more injuries, or picking up suspensions. We perhaps got lucky.
If we'd done nothing and something went wrong, we'd have been playing Feeney and Revan.

You can't judge something with hindsight - we took the best option available at the time. 

1 minute ago, Mark Albrighton said:

I think it was £25m.

If you add up the minutes he has been on the pitch, it’s the equivalent of about 30 league matches. In that time he’s clocked in 13 goals and 6 assists. 

I’m not angry as such, I can see the financial argument in selling him, but I think we’re letting go one, if not the most, potent goal threats we have.

I agree. But we seem to not have the set-up and players to get the best out of him, so he becomes a financial burden who is underused.
I don't know if his injuries have caught up with him, but 3 managers don't seem to want to start him.

Re: his goals - he's got 4x penalties (3 in the PL), which I tend to discount in those stats (although, he scores them, so fair play). So about 1 in 3. Not bad. Not great.

17 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

hmmmm... i'm torn on if we should sell him or not. Depends on who we could replace him with. 

This 100%

£15m-£20m, plus the wages off our books, with 18 months left of his contract.
Too often when he plays we seem unable to get him in the game. 
I know he's our top scorer, but 3 of those are penalties, so his non-penalty output is the same as Ollie, but in fewer games and a lot less running. 
And we need to start bringing good money in, to but better players.

But without him we have Watkins, and a kid who's barely stepped foot in the country.

In Unai we Trust.

37 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

Don't like it, but I'd rather see us time wasting than concede a late goal.

I agree 100%. My point is that I'm worried it could backfire.

Take a booking and add some time to stop the opposition building up a head of steam? Absolutely. 
Take a few extra seconds, and make sure we're in shape defensively for every stoppage in play? Absolutely.
Take the piss, and give the opposition 6, 7, 8 minutes injury time whilst picking up 2 or 3 bookings a game? Not sure this won't hurt us more than it helps.

I mean - Stevenage found a way to score twice in the last few minutes. We have form!

This has become a concern for me. Emery is only 6 games in, and already we seem to have become labelled as a team who do this. Personally I hate to see it, but if we get a win, I'll not care. 

But, I think Leeds' last free kick on Friday took them longer to take than the one where Kamara got booked. It is becoming clear to me that we've now got a reputation, and the bookings and added minutes will start mounting very quickly. This will result in players missing games and us conceding at some point.

I don't think we're being smart about it. Too blatant; too often and too long. Surely there's a sweet spot somewhere?

17 hours ago, Wainy316 said:

We were absolutely flying when that article was written.  Been on a great run of form and after laying Blackburn we were sitting third and only a few points off the top.

We did then lose a crunch game with Chelsea at the end of the month and then Stoke happened...

One of those sayings which all Villa fans from the time know, and shudder about - and fans from other clubs have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
I genuinely believe this was the sliding doors moment for Lerner at Villa, and we've not yet recovered.

I suspect Unai knows more about Augustinsson than anyone on here. 
He was decent against Wolves, but in his other performances he hasn't looked the part.

If ever a manager gets what he wants - its Emery right now

1 hour ago, Tom13 said:

If we could combine the best attributes of Bert and Bailey, and then also of Watkins and Ings, we'd have two world class players I reckon

If you could combine Watkins and Haaland, or Ings and Haaland, or Traore and Haaland - that would be grand 

Not necessarily the 'best' players, but my top 5:

• McGrath - just because. Plus got a photo with him when he was flogging his book.
• Yorke - loved this guy. And his song. 
• Benteke - impact; he basically kept us up for 2 years and was a beast
• Cowans - amazing player, so talented - both feet and accuracy of pass. Plus, I met him in the pub a few years ago, and bought him a pint.
• Platt - he just became so good for club and country. Met him at Bromsgrove Rovers!

They're a bit more stalker'y that I thought!

2 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Let's crack top 10 before we start setting ourselves up for disappointment again.

We could go on a brilliant run and still not even crack top 8 due to coming from way behind ( Kenneth GIF )

Agreed.

But we have a manager who has a massive reputation, much of it built on European success. Survival is barely the start of his target for this season I suspect, and he won't see a competition like the Europa Conference League as a ball-ache; he'll see it as an opportunity and drive the players to go up a level.

5 hours ago, LondonLax said:

It looked as though Chambers had been told to man mark Son out of the game. 

I presume it was a tactical decision to see out the win. 

This 100%

Subs are there to be used tactically (even if there's an injury) - to alter the team to get the desired outcome. For the first time in a very long time - we seem to have a manager who understands this. 

19 hours ago, theboyangel said:

I'm expecting a few to leave (most likely to be on loan) to make room for 2-3 incoming players

Coutinho - permanent deal back to Brazil (will free up a lot of wages)

Sanson - loan to France to get game time, still harbour hope for him though

Guilbert - loan (with buy option) to France. Doubt he'll be here next summer. 

Archer - loan to Championship for game time only. 

Nakamba -  loan out for game time, expect him to be moved on permanently in the summer.

 

Agree with this, although Guilbert is out of contract in June, so it'll be him gone and no fee potential. 

Does Emery trust the likes of Feeney enough (and how close is Carlos to being back) to cut short the deal for Bednarak and maybe sell Chambers (who has looked awful when he's played this season).

Need to start getting fee's for players before they enter the wilderness, as we (hopefully) sign much better replacements.
 

5 minutes ago, Pez1974 said:

Boo. Emery out !

(See previous post about me having Toney as first sub).

Jeez. Now he's booked. Nightmare

Just now, troon_villan said:

Bailey on which mean Brighton will need two goals just for a draw.

Boo. Emery out !

(See previous post about me having Toney as first sub).

Kamara looking knackered?