KMitch

His move to Liverpool didn't make any sense at all. I remember reading a statistic that he won more headers than any other striker in the top 5 leagues in Europe in his last season for us, but he signed for Liverpool, who crossed the ball the least of any team in the Premier League the same season. Bigger club, champions league football, and a higher salary are why he signed for Liverpool, but it effectively destroyed his career. I also disagree with the sentiment that he was lazy. He singlehandedly kept us in the Premier League in at least one of the seasons he was playing for us. Our entire game plan revolved around Benteke and we looked completely lost if he was out of the team or having a bad performance. He got frustrated because our midfield lacked creativity and needed to try to make things happen himself, which is why he got caught offside a lot. He had a bit of arrogance about him, like knew he was our best player and handled himself accordingly. His performances backed it up, though, unlike Gabby who still thought it necessary to rub it in our faces after he hadn't scored a goal in almost a year.

Saw a Genk fan on Reddit say he's excellent all around, except for his goal kicks (overkicks long balls a lot) and 1:1 stopping ability (says if the striker is smart and tries to keep the shot low to the ground, he struggles to get down in time, as he is so tall).

Replace "Christian Purslow" in the Liverpool fans comments with "Tom Fox" and you'll have our thoughts on one of our previous CEOs who was in a similar position under Lerner. He was brought in to find a buyer for the club and tell the fans what they wanted to hear. I don't know the guy and I'm naturally a pessimist, but Purslow hasn't made a bad decision yet.

Look at it like this, boys... We have a 7 Million pound keeper incoming, 2 weeks before the window has even opened. We're not messing about. FFP isn't on the cards anymore... Purslow confirmed that we have a clean slate financially and it looks like all the needed background corporate personnel are in place. Pretty sure the new owners showed a bit of restraint this summer with signings, while they got the club finances corrected and the right people appointed. Now that the ship is steadied and the club is headed in the right direction again, I expect to see the purse strings loosen up. This is going to be the first signing of a very exciting 2019.

What a refreshing change of pace this is! We're actively moving to tie up our number one transfer window need, weeks before the window even opens. Someone needs to tell our new owners that this isn't the "Aston Vila Way" of handling things. We're supposed to flounder around haggling over the fee with the other club for weeks, then the deal will fall through, our backup options are already signed, and on deadline day, we end up panic buying someone like Shay Given on a 5 year deal...

Well... He has gotten promoted from the Championship more than any other manager. Once they go down this season, Bruce would be the ideal candidate to bring them back up. hahahaha

hahaha!!! True... Besides John O'Shea, Chris Coleman was the only one who came out of that documentary looking good. The only negative things shown against the guy were that complete nutter fan who went off on him after they were relegated and McGeady complaining to the camera crew about how Coleman didn't tell the players what he wanted them to do tactically or give feedback besides "we go again" after a loss. The thing that shocked me is that someone at McGeady's age, with his kind of footballing CV, has never played in a 4-3-3 before and said he had no idea what to do off the ball when Coleman switched to the formation halfway through the match. Honestly, though. It's becoming more and more obvious in the modern game that just being a confident charismatic ex-footballer isn't enough to be a good manager. These guys will occasionally stumble into a team where they'll have a good impact for a season or two, but as soon as things start to go pear shaped, they have no idea how to turn it around or will bail at the first opportunity.

I feel incredibly sorry for Brentford... Since Smith left, they've won once, drawn once, and lost eight... They've gone from playing some of the best football in the league to relegation candidates.

Jesus... Was I the only one who liked Cuellar? I still rate him as the best CB we've had since Laursen.

KMitch's Fool-Proof Transfer Policy (It works for me in Football Manager every season, so it should work for Villa!!!): No Transfer Fees for any player over 24 - NO EXCEPTIONS - I don't care of Messi is available for 100k, it isn't worth the massive contract they'll want Players aged 25-30 on Free Transfers only, and for only 2 year deals If Below Age 28 after that one season and they had a great season, can extend contract once by up to 3 years. If Aged 29+ after that first season, offload to the highest bidder or offer to clubs with zero fees in the worst case scenario Offer only made to players if they meet 3/4 of the following criteria: Can play more than one position competently Has a professional personality & good character off the pitch The player does not have a history of injuries Extensive scouting shows the player has a lot of room to improve If a club offers me more then 10 million more than what I value a player to be, I accept the offer without question and backfill with another prospect that I'm tracking who matches my above criteria If a player hits age 30, I try to sell as soon as I can to recoup as much money as I can for the player. The only exceptions are club icons/legends who have been at the club for 8+ years. I'll let them stay, give them a testimonial, and eventually offer them some kind of staff role, once they hang up their boots. These don't come along very often, because if someone is good enough, ManUre/Madrid/PSG all come in with a ridiculous offer for them at some point in their careers. If that happens, I'll offload them and count my millions.

Honestly, I'm not sure it was edited to make it look worse than it actually was... On deadline day, Bain was admitting to the camera crew that he was still waiting for Rodwell to make a decision, because he made a comment along the lines of "if he rips up his contract today, tomorrow after the window closes, he'll be able to sign with any other club out there". Then, the next scene, shows Bain trying to make some deals happen and promptly has a meltdown when he gets a text from Rodwell saying he's not going anywhere.

Can we sign El Ghazi permanently in January? He is starting to look like the player he was billed to be at Ajax and would be one we should be building around over the next few years (along with Grealish & McGinn). It would also free up a loan spot to bring in a GK/Defender/CDM.

I expect a few players to come in next month, but from the looks of this spreadsheet, this summer looks like it's going to demand the massive overhaul we've all wanted to see for years now... If we don't get promoted this season, I don't see any of our loan signings returning to join us permanently next season. Besides Moreira, they've all been playing very well and will have interest from Premier League clubs next season. That leaves us with our two best players (Jack & McGinn) the only ones in the squad on long-term deals and I can see us shifting many of the players in their final year of contract, because they will all have interest from both Championship and Premier League clubs. Very excited to see what Deano can do with players who will fit his system and we'll see how our Spanish-influenced scouting department will fair.

Watched a few more episodes... Everyone at the club and most of the supporters were making Jack Rodwell out to be the reason why they couldn't bring in players last season. The club stupidly signed him on a 5-year, 70k/week deal, without a relegation wage drop clause in his contract. Sunderland's CEO, Martin Bain, was pressuring him to rip up his contract and go find another club, so they can use his wage money to fit the bill on new signings. Instead, Rodwell was more than happy to show up, go through the motions and pick up his paycheck every week, exactly the same situation we've had with players like Micah Richards, so Bain throws a little temper tantrum for the cameras and slams some office doors... I've never understood that argument that our supporters have been making for the past 2 years now where Richards should just void his contract by mutual consent and walk away. Picture this... You enter in a business deal with a company like Tesla Motors or SpaceX that gives you 18.2 million over the next 5 years for doing minimal work and they realize a year into the deal that they made a terrible decision and forgot to put in a clause to pull the plug on the deal. You wouldn't see Elon Musk bitching to the media/shareholders that his company made a stupid decision with a supplier, and the supplier is the reason why his company isn't building enough cars/rockets, because the supplier is holding them to the deal both parties agreed to. Even the most dedicated "Cult of Elon Musk" supporter would be hard pressed to justify that one, so what makes football any different? The main issue was that their owner pulled the plug on investing more money into the squad for players and took a mid-table Premier League team down to League One. Jesus, I'm having Lerner/Xia PTSD by watching this series... I feel for Sunderland's supporters...

Just started watching this tonight... It strikes home with me, because Villa were in a very similar spot to Sunderland in a lot of ways... Both clubs overspent massively on shit players and fell out of the Premier League due to old fashioned club structure, clueless executive leadership, poor financial management, and a revolving door of "Jobs for the Lads" managers. Sunderland's former Chief Executive, Martin Bain, comes across more like David Brent than Brenden Rodgers does. As awful as some of our past CEOs have been over the last ~15 years, they all look like Bill Gates compared to this clown. Has a meeting with his new manager, Simon Grayson, at the start of the summer to discuss transfer targets, then brags to the camera about his transfer dealing process, something along the lines of "Transfers? All it is is a black book with a bunch of names and figures in it. I wish I could say it is more scientific than that, but it isn't." Next, he has a meeting with his Academy manager, who advises him to fill the squad out with young players who, "won't embarrass the club too much" that they can sell for profit at some point in the future. Bain agrees and says "Well, we're gonna have to tell Simon that's what we're going to do..." Then, with 4 DAYS to go in the transfer window, he has a meeting with his scouting department to talk about targets for the first time. I repeat, 4 DAYS to go until the window shuts, and he has his first meeting with his scouting staff... It becomes painfully obvious that nobody is talking to one other in the Sunderland org... The scouting department doesn't know the transfer or wage budgets, because with 4 DAYS to go in the window, the CEO hasn't given them that information, and Bain spends most of the meeting bashing his scouting team for giving him a list of unrealistic targets. I've been in meetings in my career where executives have a meeting with one of their senior managers who they don't particularly like, and derail the entire meeting to berate that manager about every minor detail they see. I 100% got the same vibe from this meeting. You feel for their chief scout who admits that they did the best with the information they had at hand... The biggest thing that stuck out to me was the manager was not involved in the meeting to talk about transfer targets with the scouting team and the CEO. Reminds me of the Sherwood/Reid/Fox issues we heard about after the fact at our own club. Reily Reid was playing football manager '16 and finding wonderkids for us to sign, while Sherwood was phoning up every past it English player he could think of. Fox wanted to keep them both happy and tried to split the difference. Honestly, just from 2 episodes alone, you could see why Sunderland were in the shit and didn't do **** all to turn their situation around last summer. For all his talk about "investing in youth" and "young and hungry" players, they end up signing Marc Wilson & Callum McManaman on frees and Jonny Williams on loan. There was a huge scramble to try to sign Ross McCormack in the last 15 minutes of the transfer window, then the deal fell through because the two clubs were on two different pages for terms. I feel for the Sunderland fans, I really do, and with them the best for their season in League One. The parallels between our two clubs over the past 10 years or so have been uncanny. We could easily be in the third division with them if NSEW didn't come in and rescue us from the brink this summer. I'm so happy that we finally have the right owners, executive, backroom staff, and manager in place to make Villa the successful club it should be. For the first time in a long time, I don't have doubts about the future of our club and that we're finally on the right path to success.

Jimmy Milner really is the exception to the rule, though. He's still a top Premier League talent and his fitness levels are incredible for a professional footballer. To be honest, he could probably continue to play at a high level until he is almost 40. I watched some preseason fitness test videos Liverpool put out this summer on YouTube. One of the first things they had them all do was a lactate threshold test where they were drawing some bloodwork in-between running intense sprints and long distances laps. The cameraman asked Klopp who his money was on to last the longest out of the squad and he immediately replied "Milner" without a thought and then added a cheeky smile to boot. Players started dropping out left and right, but a 32 year old Milner continued to lead the pack and even did extra laps after he was the last man standing in the squad. The guy is a machine. He's been playing in the Premier League since he was 16 (soon to be over half his lifetime) and doesn't look like he's slowing down anytime soon. Re-signing a 38 year old John Terry was something most of us wanted to happen again this season, but asking us if we should re-sign Whelan, Jedi, Elmo, or even Sir Alan of Hutton next season? You'd hear some grumbles. My point is that Age does not matter for a world class player.

I thought he just passed out the bibs and put out the cones? lol

TBH, Chelsea's strikers haven't impressed at all this season. Giroud & Morata have been hot garbage in Sarri's system and they would arguably be destroying teams ever more so if they had a better forward to lead the line. Tammy would have no problem breaking into the Chelsea first team next season, if Daddy Abramovic is still looking at selling the club and doesn't want to keep dumping massive funds into the club. If they decide against buying an expensive forward, they'll use Tammy next season. If they decide to let him go, we'll probably be the first team in line to get him.

Why would they go nuts? Spurs have a great set up from their Chairman on down. Their fans have always been a bit delusional over the years, but you'll be hard pressed to find someone around here who won't admit that Spurs are a joy to watch at times.

I can see that.... Also similar in the way they worked their way up through the lower leagues.

My January Priority List: Goalkeeper DM CB/LB Cover I don't hate on our defense as much as some do around here, especially when it comes to Neil Taylor. That said, we need to bring in someone who can fill in at CB/LB on rotation. Goalkeeper and a DM for Smith's System are a priority, though. Hourihane isn't going to cut it for the whole season.

The Championship Table since Smith took over. We're 2nd and keep in mind, 5 of those 8 games were against the other teams around us at the top of the table. Brilliant stuff.

He's an intelligent player who needs a run of games to get sharp again. Once he gets his confidence back, he'll start to be as consistent of a threat as Bolasie has been lately. He needs to keep starting over Kodja.

Absolutely demolished the 3rd placed team in the league... Boro only allowed 10 goals in 19 games before today... We comfortably put three past them and should have had a penalty on top of it. Besides their one shot, which Nyland nearly bottled, they didn't look a threat at all. Deano had us playing patiently against a Pulis side who you know without even looking at their previous game footage are going to put 10 men behind the ball at home and try to score off set pieces. We took our time, kept the ball, and looked for opportunities when they opened up. Brilliant tactics by the man who just "put out the cones and passed out the bibs" at Brentford. UTV! Long Live Dean Smith!

Deano is doing a phenomenal job so far. 13 points in 7 games against 6 top half teams & Bolton while averaging over 2 goals scored a game is a massive improvement over how we were playing under Bruce. We're 3 points off the playoffs and 9 points off 1st, with ~60% of the season to play still. If we keep this same pace, we'll have a great chance to catch Norwich without even changing anything in January. If we pick up a new keeper and defensive midfielder who can complement McGinn's energy and tenacity, we are definitely title favorites. As disappointing as it was to not come away from that game with all 3 points today, it was definitely one of the most entertaining games I've seen in years. Give me 5-5 games over 1-0 Bruceball specials any day.