Rds1983

51 minutes ago, VillaCas said:

What expertise are you imagining Hollis is bringing to the table to ensure that we sign good players?

It seems to me that the latest infrastructure (that already exists) can identify good players already - Gil, Ayew, Amavi, Veretout, Gana, Traore all seem "good players" to me? Gestede, Bunn, Lescott, Sinclair and Richards are "mooted" to have been Sherwood's choices. Iiori and Crespo were duds but didn't break the bank. We don't need a structural review, we can sign decent players already

I think you're falling hook, line and sinker for Hollis' spin - he's been told to slash costs and his first crack at placating the fans is the famous "conduct a full review" gambit. 

Sinclair was signed (on loan) before Sherwood became manager.

Apparently Galatasaray are willing to let Burak Yilmaz go for £5m and are even prepared to loan him out until the summer. He has a decent goals to game ratio so if we are only going for cheap transfers we could do worse than this.

Was there ever any official confirmation that his work permit was rejected or just the Twitter links that the Birmingham Mail picked up? 

56 minutes ago, terrytini said:

Interesting though. Should we go down..

Mr Hollis suggest we are where we are because of a lot of intagibles (well at least, undescribed so far)...and we can't boo intangibles. 

He also suggests the players we bought haven't been good enough.  Well, we can't boo players who aren't good enough, that's utterly unreasonable, it's not their fault that they aren't good enough.

He also says it wont be due to lack of money spent, so we can't boo Lerner.

He does say the last 5 years have lacked certainty and stability, but I don't really know how to boo a concept, especially the absence of one.

He says Garde is here no matter what, so even if we lose every game he will effectively be saying its not Remis fault, so we can't boo him.

So I'm not really sure whether there is anything left TO boo !

You didn't mention Doris the tea lady; do we need to boo her?

1 minute ago, avfc1982 said:

What if they stay up though? 

Speculate to accumulate and all that. Fair play to Newcastle, at least they look like they're trying to protect their Premier League status. The towel was thrown in by Lerner a long time ago. 

Id rather we were more proactive about it and Newcastle are giving themselves a good chance of staying up. However if they do go down then they will have major financial problems.

With the amount of money Newcastle have spent they will be in serious trouble if they do go down. 

10 minutes ago, Michael118 said:

Lacking confidence. Would look a lot better with an intelligent quick striker playing alongside him.

If we don't sign a striker then he might be playing alongside Gabby. 

People in the Transfer thread keep talking about Jordan Rhodes so I thought I'd look at his goals last season. He looks more mobile than Gestede but the thing that jumped out at me was the huge amount if defensive errors. This gives me a lot of hope if we can keep the core of our team and sign a mobile striker. I think that Traore and Ayew will have fun in that league.

8 minutes ago, deeps said:

Rhodes is one we should look at purely due to his record in the league below which we will be stuck in for years to come.

As I don't really know what type of player Rhodes is I thought I'd take a look at a FM15 screenshot to try and understand his playing style a bit better. Was a tad suprised to see that his strongest attribute was 'the distance he can get on his goal kicks', either he is a lot more versatile then I thought or something went wrong there. Although we do need a striker and new keeper, two for one signing?

15 minutes ago, sne said:

Their Sao Paulo kits are pretty spiffy 

 

 

Wrong thread?

2 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I have a feeling we will sign a "unknown" striker from abroad on loan if anyone comes in at all. what we would do for a dion dublin type impact striker

You after a new house?

The one position where spending money usually makes a big difference is striker. Sadly I cannot see us spending anything decent.

9 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

This sounds like under armour make kits that actually represents the values of the teams that play in them.

That being the case, our would be.......?

Falling out of the shirt drawer in to the one below.

59 minutes ago, Butterfingers said:

I do think that in modern football, it is crucial to have attack minded full backs. With the best will in the world, I don't think that Richards could sustain that role.

It's more crucial to have fullbacks that can defend and are not a complete liability. Being able to attack is useful but if they are constantly costing us goals then it's not worth it. Richards at fullback does make us more solid.

Thank you for that video. Something about this season that actually makes me smile.

I'd forgotten how ridiculously fast he looks going past people.

Once this season is over, if we are in the Championship then at least we will definitely be top of the league. Until kick off the first day that is.

34 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

True - although you can never have all the best talent from the local area (even Southampton don't manage that) we could do better. 

How positive are we that we are not getting the best potential kids and just not developing them properly to meet their potential? We have had several hyped youngsters who haven't gone on to meet the hype and we supposedly have some good kids in the academy now (Andre Green, Easah Suliman etc.)

41 minutes ago, tomaspg said:

this must be the most depressing window ive ever experienced. something HAS to happen, right?!

It's pretty quiet for all teams, not just Villa. I count maybe ten transfers of note in the entire league and nothing bigger then Shelvey at £12m.

Maybe it will all kick off final day but I'm not holding much hope.

34 minutes ago, dudevillaisnice said:

Depends on who is part of the core.

If we can keep the Jordan's maybe that gives a platform to start the rebuild.

Could we get a starting 11 of Jordan's?

7 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Depends. Are you a ginger mathematics genius with a penchant for getting your bollocks out?

My beard grows in ginger and I match one of the other two so can I get half of the £5k a week? I could do a lot with half a million pounds a year.

46 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

As explained before, he doesn't have to have had the idea for Eric Black for him to be his choice.

He could have been presented with some candidates, or had people apply for the position, gone through some sort of selection process and settle on Black.

Not everything in football is just decided off the top of somebody's head or purely done on reputation.

Garde may well have never heard of Black, but then met with him, spoken to him and decided he was the man for the job.

Like 99% of all people getting new jobs.

36 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

I'd keep gestede as well, but only because we'd be in the Championship, and only as a Plan B

Coming off the bench has does look better but I don't want him as our main striker.

To me keeping him depends on how big his wages and potential fee we could get for him are. I wouldn't be surprised if he is still here next season.

6 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Would you put it beyond them? I certainly wouldn't. 

Putting 2 + 2 together, no. Actually getting the right answer, probably not.

1 minute ago, Jareth said:

Lose:

Guzan

Nzog

Gabby

Hutton

Bacuna

Kozak

Gestede

Sinclair

 

Agree with most of that list but would probably keep Bacuna as he is a useful utility player.

44 minutes ago, weedman said:

Ugh I see some real goalkeeping experts in this and the Guzan threads, experts I'm assuming have never played in goal but figure it's piss easy and they know everything about it.

Bunn out of position for Leicesters goal?! Do me a favour, in much the same way Guzan wasn't "out of position" for the free kick (can't remember the game) he's absolutely not out of position there, it's bloody textbook.

Reading these threads I see a continuing trend, people who don't play/haven't played in goal don't know anything about goalkeeping positioning, and simply assume if the ball goes in the net from more than 20 yards away it must be the keepers fault somehow.

Guzan wasn't anywhere near as bad as claimed at the start of the season, mode recently he's gone to pot a bit and was deservedly dropped. Bunn has come in and done fine, I don't think he's the better keeper, but he's certainly the form keeper and should keep his place, he hasn't had a lot to do so it's hard to judge him too much, but he's done mostly fine with what he's had to - I do fear though that if the dropped cross had gone in or if he'd seen red for the foul on Vardy this thread would be becoming far more Guzan-esque despite him putting in the exact same performances

It's the same with most pundits.