KMitch

I always liked Westwood. He was a bargain signing which turned out well for us. I never understood the flack he got from a lot of fans. He always worked hard on the pitch for us, but I guess it was because he wasn't a hard tackler or a goal scoring threat. Someone in his mold would thrive in the DM position in Deano's set up.

Even on a budget, if we scout, recruit, and develop our young players properly with the right manager at the helm, promotion is incredibly realistic in a few seasons. I understand the frustrations everyone has with being in the Championship, but we don't even have a stable foundation to build upon right now. Getting to the Premier League won't mean **** all if we keep throwing money at the wrong players. It's going to take some time to right the squad/wage bill and start integrating our academy graduates into 1st team rotation. Sustainable Promotion within 3 years needs to be the board's goal. Once we've built a solid financial platform, we'll pull away from the bottom half of the Premier League because of the size and revenue generated by us being a much larger club than the Bournmouths/Burnleys of the Premier League. Without money, even clubs like Southampton, who have famously recruited well over the past 10 seasons, are struggling to survive in the Premier League. We have traditionally had money, but spent it on awful players/managers without a sustainable plan for the future. You can't just have money anymore. You need to be well run and rich to consistently charge up the Premier League table.

The Penney rumors started this week after someone posted an old article on the AVFC subReddit from October about us "monitoring" Penney. Then the Twitter brigade started up... But you're right, he's extended his contract and this 100% isn't happening. hahaha

McCarthy would be an excellent stop-gap for our midfield problems this season. Grealish/McGinn/McCarthy would be an ideal combo for Smith's system.

He's the only left back in the squad... His backup is Hutton, and we all saw how that worked out for us. He is a key player for us, only because we look so much weaker without him in the side.

Three things that are causing us to lose right now... Tactics - We played a deep line in a team which "defended first" under Bruce. Smith wants us to play a high line, high press, attacking brand of football, which is almost as much of a flip in the opposite direction you can go. Squad depth (or lack of it) - On paper, we have the best strikers and attacking midfielders in the league, but as we've all seen so far this season, that isn't the case. Tammy & Jack are fantastic players, but all the other attacking players in our team are inconsistent and are probably overrated. At the other end of the pitch, our defensive depth is a joke and we should never have sent Elphick & De Laet out on loan. Fitness/Age - Smith's system requires a lot of effort and running from the players to close down the ball and press the opposition into making a mistake. We did this for the first month or so, then key players got injured (Jack, Axel, & Taylor) and our lack of depth in key positions burnt our players out. They've looked exhausted in the past two games. I don't think we have a young enough team at the moment to play this style of football for an entire season. Now, this leads Smith to make a key decision here: Does he change the system he has been drip-feeding our players for the past two months and revert back to Bruceball to try to scrape points while resting our players? Does he write off the season and blood the youth, who will go missing and make a lot of mistakes in games? Does he persist with his style but tone down the intensity of training, to try to keep our players fresh for games, and wait for key players to come back into the side over the next 2 months? I honestly think the 3rd choice is the best option at this point in time. We can still make the playoffs this season, Grealish is due back in 3 games, and we still have a couple of weeks left to get a few players in this window. As much as I don't think it's likely for us to get promoted this season, it's still possible if we put together a good run of wins in the last couple of months. Most of us were writing off last season in October until we went on the run which led us to the playoff final. If it becomes apparent that we're out of the running for the playoffs, I think it will be time to blood the U23s and get them exposure to playing regularly, to see who is an option for next season in the Championship. Until that moment, I still want us to try and play the strongest possible team to attack and win.

Wasn't that the point of FFP? To make an "even playing field" for Championship clubs? Clubs without money massively outnumber clubs with money in the EFL, so obviously the rules will be in their favor if it's put to a vote. Clubs like Brentford, who are well run and have a good scouting system, will end up profiting under FFP, while clubs like ours, who are a clown-car circus, end up getting screwed twice by our bad decisions.

According to WhoScored, he looks like a utility midfielder who has played several different roles this season for them. Mostly at AMC, though. lol

I got blasted on here yesterday for saying that he was an AMC... Makes me wonder just how much "other" football we all watch. hahaha

Why pass 3 times, when you can just hoof it! It's much more efficient...

Yeah, and all Smith did was pass out the training bibs and put out the cones at Brentford... We really don't know anything at all about what is happening behind closed doors. For all we know, JT could be heavily involved but takes some days off, like most people do at their day jobs.

Fair enough. Most Brentford fans really rate Sawyers too and from looking at the positions he's played in this season, he seems to be more of a "utility" central midfielder than their main creative source. He can fill that role, as well as the others in Deano's system (DM/Deep-Lying Creative, Box-to-Box, & Attacking/Forward Creative). I'd rather have him on the bench next season filling in for Grealish/McGinn/New DM.

I'm hesitant about Sawyers... For being a creative player, he hasn't created a whole lot. Only 6 goals and 15 assists in 111 league games over 2.5 seasons for Brentford, who play free-flowing attacking football.

Let 6 goals go past him in his first two games, but I think he's still looked solid. He's made some incredible saves and you get the impression that if Nyland had been in goal during our last two games, we would have conceded more. It's early days, but it's looking more and more likely that our keeper issues from the front half of the season are a thing of the past.

It didn't help that some of his own teammates were getting on him for those early mistakes. Awful debut, but I'm not writing him off any time soon. As some have stated, Tuanzebe looked like shit for many games under Bruce, before he started to look like he actually played football before.

This is exactly why I'm sticking by Smith for another two seasons. This squad is garbage, through and through. We're kidding ourselves to think that this team is going to make the playoffs because just about all of them won't be here next season. Deano is also going to make mistakes. He isn't the finished article as a manager, which is why he is here at Villa Park instead of at a Premier League club chasing Champions League football. Plus, he's one of us and he has shown glimpses of how he wants us to play so far, so we owe him that much. In his post match pressers, he says exactly what I'm feeling about the game. He took responsibility for that loss, and IMO, he needs to shoulder the blame for those awful substitutions. It's time to learn from our mistakes and try to kick on, but I'm afraid our players need to do the same. Someone besides McGinn needs to stand up and hold themselves accountable.

Interesting comments from Deano about young Hause. Called him a "project" and says he has proven to be more than capable at the Championship level and can get a lot better. Says that the key attribute we're looking for in new players is the ability to learn and he believes Hause personifies this.

Sorry, buddy. You have to take off those Claret & Blue tinted glasses for a minute. Nobody in their right mind will pay 40 mil for Jacky boy. People called Leicester crazy for buying James Maddison from Norwich for 25 mil last summer and he's looking like a better player than Grealish is. I like Jack, but if the owners can get 40 mil for him this summer, we would be stupid to turn the offer down. That one transfer buys us 3 seasons of FFP losses in the Championship and can be used to bankroll the club back into the Premier League.

Dude, that happens with every single transfer. First, the two clubs agree to a fee, then the buying club has permission from the selling club to negotiate a contract with the player. The player can refuse the contract and the move. This has nothing to do with the original discussion about putting in fixed fees in loan agreements with the two clubs.

Been reading a lot about FFP rules in the Championship today... http://www.financialfairplay.co.uk/financial-fair-play-explained.php This is a good explanation of the rules. In a nutshell: Assuming the loss limits don't increase this next assessment, we'll be in the first category. The club cannot make more than a combined loss of £39 over a period covering the past 3 years from the assessment.

No, not necessarily. First option is different from a fixed future transfer fee. Contracts are written all kinds of different ways, it depends on what the two clubs agree to.

Didn't the Blose have a transfer embargo in place against them for failure to comply with FFP rules? There was talk about them getting deducted points this season as a result of ignoring the embargo and signing a player in August, but that seems to have gone away all together. After those stories broke, no action ended up being taken against that club for violating the restrictions placed on them by the EFL. Sounds like FFP is a joke.

Is he better than Hutton at Left Back? I honestly think that Taylor hasn't been bad at LB under Smith. He's had some solid performances already, but we've looked dreadful with Hutton filling in for him this past month. If this loan is to just provide cover for Taylor, I'm for it. We can sign a long term left back this summer.

I wish him the best. Good luck, Rushie! Bag some goals this season.

Honestly, I'm hoping that Purslow/Suso/Smith are planning on just getting us through this season to the summer before we start the massive rebuild. I think we tried to get our first choice targets done quickly, but if the price isn't right, we aren't going to be baited into overspending this window. If we get promoted, great! We'll sign a higher caliber of player this summer. If not, we'll still replace the players out of contract with better signings. If this summer rolls around and we're still penny-pinching, I'll start to get worried. I'm confident that this isn't the case, though.