jonjon

One of the best players we have, and probably the best young player in the Championship, very highly rated, chose to come to us (like most of our incoming players) over Premiership teams as we could guarantee him playing time, and not bench warming, all our players are for sale, but not cheap, and we are prepared to sell them on when we have developed them, that's our main source of income due to a small ground capacity, it's our built in survival policy, but this could all change when we move to our new ground next year. He's a joy to watch, and still learning, he will only get better, a future full international player? Contracted until 2021 + 1 year extension, so he won't come cheap, Dean Smith will be aware of that. If you do get him, it will be a great investment.

Well done to Dean Smith and Villa, it was a sad day when he moved on from us, but that's football for you. Having worked with both Maupay and Benrahma Dean Smith will have a good incite to know if they will fit in with Villa, out of the two I have seen week in week out at Griffin Park, Benrahma is the more gifted player of the two, considering it was his first full season he has fitted in well and expected to be even better next season, the problem with buying any striker from the championship is that Premiership defences are so much stronger than they have been used to, I think you need a little bit of experience up front, someone like Mitrovic from Fulham would be a good shout. At Brentford DS went for younger hungry players, not old has been's, he thought that was the way forward, we also didn't do loan players, why develop another teams player? when its just as easy and cheaper to develop your own, perhaps DS will look abroad like we do, we have made our first signing today, Christian Norgaard from Fiorentina for 3.5 million, never heard of him, but I'd never heard of Maupay or Benrahma either !!! Good luck in the Premiership, hope we can join you next season in our brand new stadium.

Well done Dean, so pleased for you, nice bloke and good job done, you were great for us at Brentford but destined to take over your boyhood club, glad you took your club to the promised land, also so glad you did Frank Lampard's Derby over. I think you will stay up and not do a "Fulham" and spend silly money on rubbish,l No doubt you will be back to us for a couple of players he knows well, mind you, with all the money you will have, they won't come cheap, non of our players do nowadays. Again, well done to the Villa.

That's not going to happen, he just loves playing in England, He's set his heart on the Premiership, and as a selling club we are used to losing our good players, and at £20 million + that's where he will end up, Said Benrahma is also attracting Premiership attention, so he could be another on his way. I would imagine our skillful recruitment team have Replacements targeted and ready waiting in the wings for this scenario.

That sums up your predicament nicely, and I think that is the best route to go down.

Looking at your clubs predicament as an outsider, it seems that a lot of your supporters suffer from that “Big Club” syndrome still, you are what you are, like us and the rest of them, a Championship club, nothing more nothing less. I liked Dean Smith’s brand of football, he has his faults, but it was easy on the eye, and he was good at getting the best out of young hungry players, but you could see that he would find it difficult for us to progress much further than a decent Championship club, that suited a small club like ours, and when he left not much sleep was lost, and we have now started to get back on track again. You are at the other end of the spectrum with old players that can’t be asked or bothered to change their ways, luckily most of them will be out of contract and gone soon, you will neither go up or down this season, So therefore I think he needs to stay and rebuild with younger hungry players of his choice, you must at least give him a full season with his own squad, and without any loan players, then see how it all goes and revisit the situation then, there is no point in getting rid of him now.

I will have to correct that for you, 5 of our players on Wednesday night came from the Continent and had never played in English Football before, they were Said Benraham, Neal Maupay, Kamolhelo Mokotjo, Yoann Barbet & Julian Jeanvier, the others came from Southend, Charlton, Walsall, Exeter, Hull & Liverpool, not exactly the low hanging fruit from top London Clubs. A majority of our “B” team have been sourced from the following Places: 6 from Denmark, 3 from Iceland, 3 from Sweden, 3 from the Cezech Republic, 2 from Finland, 2 from Latvia, we also have about 10 from the UK, we already have high hopes for a few of these. This is the reason we have 2 DOF’s who scour the Continent and Scandinavia to enable us to cast our net far and wide outside these shores, this is the only way we can survive as we can’t throw millions of pounds on players like you have done, in other words buy cheap, develop them and sell dear (£80 Million profit in player turnover in just 4-5 years are helping to fund our new stadium) Hopefully in time we can hang on to our best players to enable us to reach the Premiership, Who Knows? If the correct system is set up in the first place ANY club can do what we are doing

I have highlighted exactly the same problem that we suffered with him at Brentford, we had high hopes when he joined us, and he started off like a man possessed, high tempo, pressing football, easy on the eye, plenty of goals being scored, took us up to 6th position first time around, so naturally we thought he would press on the next season to greater things, but sadly no, we leaked goals, poor team selection, even poorer use of subs, we also became a little bit predictable, before he left to join you he was on a bad run with us with no win in 5. Our new man also got of to a bad start with no wins in 10, it wasn't helped by the sudden death of our technical director at the aged of 28, that left everyone at the club in shock, however Thomas Frank has tweaked and changed our system round, something Dean Smith seemed unable to do, We are now unbeaten in 10 games, and scoring freely but not leaking like a sieve at the back. We aspire to obtain PL football being the size of club we are, Villa expect, and rightly so, to be a PL club, it seemed to me your directors employed him on the back of him and his family were life long Villa supporters, that is not a good enough reason, and like you I think he is just an average manager. Looking forward to welcoming you all down to Griffin Park next Wednesday, should be an interesting game, it could be you last visit to Griffin Park, as we say goodbye to the old girl and hope to be in our new stadium sometime next season.

We were already wobbling BEFORE he left with no wins in 5 games, our new head coach has now steadied the ship with no defeats in 7 games by making a few changes to our defensive setup that DS seemed incapable of doing for you, as he did with us and Walsall before that, it's ironic that the changes we made to our defence was when Mepham was injured and not playing, But saying that Bournemouth have got themselves a very good young player who came through our B team system we run, and I think he will go to the top. DS is a good man manager and was well liked by most of us for playing good attacking football, but it seemed impossible for him to organise our defensive issues, I though that the idea of you signing JT was to sort out your defensive frailties, so whats gone wrong with that?

Dean Smith only had a 40.74% win rate with us, Mark Warburton 51.28% and Uwe Rossler 43.08%, So we actually took a step backwards with employing him, granted he got us playing a very high pressing fast game that was a joy to watch but on the other hand our defending was terrible and we leaked a lot of silly goals, I have watched Villa a few times this season and can see a mirror image of how we played. His main fault with us was his substitution policy, he either left it too late, changed the wrong players and without changing tactics, he left us for you on the back of a no win in 5 games, we continued this vein with our new Head Coach with only 2 wins in ten, However, he has now changed our defensive formation and steadied the ship and and we are unbeaten in 6 and only conceded 3 goals, and comprehensively beat Stoke on Saturday with a fantastic display. His record at Walsall was the same, good attacking football but leaking goals, so a pattern seems to be forming with you as well, it seems he is unable to cure this inherent problem, did your board not take this into consideration and not gone for someone experienced with a Big club history and culture like Villa have. Your views would be interesting to a Household with a Brentford (Me) and Villa (The Wife) supporters

June 2021, and he won't come cheap!!

That's my take on it as well, unlike you we HAVE TO SELL to survive, that's the only way for us to generate more income due to our small ground/gate receipts, with your gates you must be awash with money?

He's quick, creates chances from nothing, tireless worker, good passer of the ball, selfless at times by assisting others to score, scores with both feet, can head as well, what's not to like about his good side when playing well. On the downside he has a nasty little streak in him at times, can suffer from a rush of blood to the head when wound up by other players, has already been sent off this season, he is still young and only his 2nd season in England, perhaps it's the way they are taught to play in France, he's still learning and I think he will mature and grow up in time. I have actually met him in our club shop when he was suspended, he was very nice and polite ready to answer any questions, definitely not a Bertie Big Bo**ocks, loves signing autographs for the kids, so he's a bit of a Jekyll & Hyde, Can you imagine him and Tammy playing together, what a combination, they would destroy the Championship, the only problem is we have just slapped a £20 million price on his head, it just shows how mad the football world has gone!!!, Hope that helps you

That is Correct, DS was the head coach and only had a small say in Player Recruitment, it's all handled by a specialist team using statistics and the like, that was the reason for Mark Warburton leaving as he wanted full control over players coming in, and Brentford don't work like that anymore, the Head coach is left to concentrate on the playing side of things, there are now other clubs looking to go down the same route, as they have seen Brentford make over £50 million profit in 3/4 seasons on sales. Anyway, back to the Tammy thread, he's got a great future with whoever he signs for, a talented player indeed.

That will please the Brentford fans !!!

Our player recruitment consist of: 2 Directors of Football, Our Management Director, Head coach, and Our Owner, who supplies the funds!!, It's a complicated system driven by statistics and the like, We also have a network of scouts spread over Europe and Scandinavia, we actually tracked and followed Maupay for over a year before make a purchase, it's a system that works well for us, but might not suite others.

We play most of our game passing on the floor, rather than crosses in the air, as we are not endowed with tall target men up front, That's why Hogan is not as effective for you as he was with us.

£7 million was about right for him, it also came with a good sell on price as well.

We need to set our prices high as we can't generate income on gate receipts that you do, our ground only holds 12,000, we might do a bit better when we move into our new purpose built ground next year.

I'm afraid you won't get him then, as a club we set our price and rarely budge on it.

The only comparison between the two of them is they are about the same size, Maupay is a more skillful player, busier on the ball, aggressive, seems to find space out of nowhere, great passer of the ball, runs the channels well, quick of the mark, he can also head the ball as well, his goal return is 16 so far, considering we haven't had a very good season so far it's a great return, he has become a bit of a cult figure with us and we would all be sorry to see him go, but we have got a couple of youngsters coming through our production line via the B team who look very promising as well, our scouting and recruitment system seems to work very well for us, and makes us a few bob when we sell on.

I don't know where that journalist gets his info from, but Brentford won't be selling him for less than £15 million at least, could be asking for more as he's contracted till summer 2021, he could also turn out another Hogan when he's away from Brentford, they never seem to play the same when they leave !!!!

That's spot on, I'm a Brentford supporter married to an Aston Villa Supporter living in West London, Everything that has just been said is true, Dean Smith's team was the best I have seen in over 40 years of supporting them, fast, entertaining, fluid attacking with plenty of goals, but deary, deary me his defensive organisation left a lot to be desired, this is now his third club in charge and reading your forum it seem's very little has changed, he left us without a win in 5 games before joining you, that poor run continued for another 10 games and we were tumbling downwards like there was no tomorrow, we have now just gone 4 games over the Christmas without a defeat, and are slowly improving our defensive play with the same players under our new coach who has changed the system round, hopefully for the better, we shall see. We expect to lose a couple or more players in this window, but they won't be cheap buy's, no longer do we get turned over with derisory offers, we have to sell to survive as the income for our 12,000 capacity ground does not generate much income, unlike you who generate millions, but we made a total of £50 million PROFIT in the last 3-4 years in player sales, we buy cheap using a team of 5 including the owner, coach and DOF's using unique statistics and the like, develop them and sell for vast profit (Hogan comes to mind!!!) we don't always get it right, but nearly, take our leading goalscorer Neil Maupay, purchased for 1.5 million and now worth a fortune, we also turned down 10 million from Bournemouth in the summer for a defender, but it won't be until we are in our new stadium next season that we can start to generate more money so we don't have to sell our crown jewels, best of luck for the rest of the season.

Hi There, Brentford fan here and an armchair and TV supporter of Villa due to one of my brother being a Villa supporters as he still lives in Gravelly Hill, I "emigrated" from there 45 years ago and moved to Kew, the local team was Brentford so I started to support them, and have been ever since, interested in reading on this forum what the supporters think of our old head coach DS and your thoughts on some Brentford players that maybe coming your way, if you can believe all the speculation.