VillaFaninLondon

1 minute ago, villa4europe said:

Its not though is it

If kamara and coutinho were £60m each we'd have a negative net spend and you'd be happy 

That's stupid 

Criticism of the owners is way off, it's knicker wetting 

Now you're just taking it as if we were behaving at the other end of the extreme. 

I want the club to look for good deals but I want them to improve on last season, so far we are only one player better and it's not enough. Let's ignore net spend then, why didn't they go for Palhinha who was available at a good price, or Auoar who is off to Forest, even Nunes at that price given his age and reputation would have been worth breaking our transfer record for given he would likely be worth twice that in a couple of years and instantly improve our midfield. 

I think deep down you know full well we haven't done enough, anyone can twist an argument but if you compare us to other teams we haven't done enough and that is clear for anyone to see.

3 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

No I'm saying net spend is a bad measuring stick 

We've done some good deals both in and out hence the positive net spend 

Its not a stick to beat the club with

But we haven't done nearly enough to take us from 14th, with a manager in charge who doesn't look like he knows what he's doing, to getting to 7th, 8th or 9th. 

City's owners spent 200m net for about five seasons straight to take them from midtable to competing for the league every season. Our owners are not going to achieve that but to get just to 7th or 8th we need to do much more. 

City's owners can have a positive net spend now because their squad is so good they don't need to spend money every season It's completely different from our perspective and you know full well we haven't done enough this summer to improve much on last season. There's too much blond loyalty when it needs to be called out.

11 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

Whats man city's net spend looking like this summer? 

Their owners not spending too? 

They're already miles, miles better than us. That's a stupid comparison and you know it.

9 minutes ago, MentalM said:

Spending heavily in infrastructure and academy. 

It might be deemed new additions are not available to reasonable prices, and then we would rather wait. Or simply that right now we cant use money since we are using it on other things (like the to former points)

It takes time to build a well ran club, and I have not seen one indication towards our owners are not heading the correct path. 

So we're another Southampton. Great.

22 minutes ago, daft said:

Considering peoples opinion of Gerrard, it rather looks like they are actually chasing relegation. 

All kidding aside, something is up. People don't really like when I pointed out that the owners are actually responsible for the appointment of the man they want out, and if he is as useless as people want to make out, we should be worried as to how they could let something like that slip.

That said, I don't really think we can assume they've stopped spending. Transfer deals aren't done in a vacuum, and good players are the target of many clubs. It's a limited pool. 

It also takes time, so I think we should be patient a bit longer, as most deals will probably go through in the last week of the window or thereabouts. 

I've been quick to praise the owners before but the last 2 summers are a wake up call. What really is their plan?

We had huge investment initially under Lerner remember and then he turned out to be even worse than Doug. But we at least had some success under Lerner (three top six finishes). This league requires constant investment season after season after season, you cannot stop investing otherwise you go backwards and we are still a long way off where the owners and Purslow claim we want to be. We are getting outspent by Wolves, West Ham, Newcastle, even Palace and Brentford are spending more net than us - these are all teams we are supposed to be looking to finish above so I just don't understand where this penny pinching behaviour is coming from. 

Honestly, our owners and management need to stop talking about ambition and actually acting on it. I'm sorry but we haven't done nearly enough to be competitive at the top end of the table this season and coupled with having a manager who doesn't seem up to the job I anticipate another sh*tshow of a season unless we buck up ouyr ideas ASAP.

7 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

That doesn't mean that our owners aren't spending 

Zero net spend last two summers. Fact.

6 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

as i said yesterday we got kamara and coutinho in for a combined £14m, its great business that should be applauded

instead we get "owners have stopped spending"

and thats also without looking at the circa £150k a week we pay both of those players

its bullshit

But it's not bullshit though because yes those deals may have been good ones but we have also sold Carney for 20m, Targett for 15m, Trezeguet for 4m, where is the reinvestment? Our only big money signing this summer is now out for the season. We have literally only improved on a team that finished 14th last season by one payer (Kamara) who we got on a free transfer. There is no money being spent and it was the same last summer when we reinvested less than we got for Grealish.

I don't know anything about Forest's owners but they're ploughing money in too, our owners are no better than most in this league, they don't spend any more than anyone else, and actually Forest's business looks better than ours as they are actually signing decent players unlike us when we got promoted. 

Wolves have just gone out and spent 38m on a CM that would drastically improve on either McGinn or Ramsey in the midfield. To say we cannot improve on our cM options because we are waiting for the right player to come along is what is in fact "bullshit".

Owners seemed to have stopped spending. I don't believe for a second they are chasing 7th/top half or whatever other rubbish Purslow talks about. Just looking to stay up and avoid relegation as far as I can see.

So now we can add Wolves to the list of teams that have had a better transfer window than Aston Villa.

10 hours ago, VillaChris said:

We had a good start last season, 10 points from first 6 games so that would've been 60 points over a season but we were miles off that in the end and sacked the manager five games later.

Think it's too early to be worrying about dropped points as bad as losing to Bournemouth was.

It's a tricky start but from mid September we have Southampton at home and then games v Leeds, Fulham, Forest and Brentford up to end of October so that is going to be the period Gerrard will be judged on as we need to win a few of those games to be close to top half. Or a new manager can win some of them instead.

I think I'm just really negative about Villa currently - poor transfer window, injury to new signing, owners stopped spending, etc.

Beating a decent team would make me feel a bit better. I suppose a draw is ok at Palace, it's better than losing, but I'd want to see us follow that up by beating West Ham.

19 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Yeah my other half is a Palace fan and she's actually worried about them being in a relegation battle as they really haven't signed much at all this summer and lost Gallagher who had a top season for them.

Don't think they'll drop down table that much but they'll probably be 13th/14th unless they make 2-3 good signings in next few weeks so it will just be a repeat of last year if we're not going to do much better than them.

That said I'd be o.k with 1-1 as think beating West Ham will do more for team's self esteem over next few months given we can't even get draws off them.

They're a decent team, not great and not poor, and as you say have lost a major player from last season in Gallagher. I would normally be satisfied with a point there but the problem is we are already playing catchup to where we want to be after losing to a poor Bournemouth team. I had us on 7 points from our opening 3 games and we are already a point down on that even if we beat Palace.

I tend to look forward about 4-5 games which is why I'm looking at the difficulty of each fixture (from easiest to hardest) in this order: 1) Crystal Palace, 2) West Ham, 3) Leicester, 4) Arsenal, 5) Man City

We are only on 3 points, if we are only drawing the 'easier' games on that list (Crystal Palace and maybe West Ham and Leicester) then we are going to be on around 6 points from our opening 7 fixtures. That's unless Gerrard manages to pull off wins against teams like Arsenal or City or beats Leicester away which I can't see happening. No games in this league are easy but I'm fed up how so many fans just want to accept mediocrity and then complain when we finish in a mediocre position. We really need to demand more if we're ever to achieve anything. 

If we win against CP, that makes me believe again and I haven't felt that way under Gerrard probably since March. Beating two relegated teams and a poor Everton team is not grounds to make us think he can be successful. This is the sort of fixture we have to be winning if we're to finish top 10 given we have already dropped points so early in the season so a draw for me will just be a very meh result.

12 minutes ago, Rolta said:

I was commenting on your implication we can only work on one signing at a time.

Come on man, stop trying to be clever, we aren't going to sign anyone else or we would have done it by now. 

We will sign at best a replacement for Carlos and that will be it, probably someone not close to his level and most likely a bit of a panic buy. The CM will be the same as last season, Luiz probably won't sign a new deal as that is dragging, and no new CF. How can anyone be optimistic about that.

1 minute ago, RichiBoi11 said:

Turns out Bournemotuh have signed a keeper, centre back, full back, and two midfielders, just like we have. If you think looking at their signings and ours they're on a par then frankly that's madness!

Augustinsson - Fredericks

Olsen - Neto

Kamara - Rothwell

Coutinho - Tavernier

Carlos - Senesi

Ok then pal, Carlos is now injured for the season pretty much so let's leave him out. Coutinho and Olsen were already here last season and have just had their loans made permanent so I'm not having them included as much as people will tell me I'm wrong on that (I'm not). Augustinsson is a loan and I don't think anyone knows how good he is, Sevilla didn't seem that bothered by him leaving.

Senesi is a very good signing and would have been good enough for us, as would Palhinha who went to Fulham, or Auoar who is on his way to Forest. We have missed out on players who have gone to newly promoted clubs yet still people defend the club, I'm not having it. We're literally doing nothing because we want to move players out, well fat lot of good that's doing us as now Carlos is injured we'll have to keep Hause around who should have been moved on ages ago!

People just turn a blind eye to mistakes made by the club because they're too loyal, we've had a very poor start to the season really against two poor teams who will be battling to stay up, it's obvious we need more quality in this team but now we will spend the rest of the summer trying to bring in a replacement for Carlos. We're on the road to absolutely nowhere.

5 minutes ago, Rolta said:

This is not how it works. Every window the same silly comment. As if the club aren't capable of making more than one phonecall at a time, but you know that surely.

Our moves in this window have been shameful compared to other clubs. We've probably had no better a window than f***ing Bournemouth!

1 hour ago, Nigel said:

You can tell yourself that we are better than these teams all you want, the fact is we are not currently. 

Palace have bought well to add to an already more seasoned team that finished above us...playing at their ground. 

If we get a result here its very much a positive,  not a run of the mill result.

 

I think we are marginally better than Crystal Palace yes but have a poorer manager in charge, West Ham are probably better but then they're also much better than Forest in theory and lost to them. We should have done more in this transfer window and we haven't and it makes me sick.

What you seem to be saying in bold is that last season was acceptable, we can't expect to beat teams that finished 12th because we finished lower, which is fine if you want to finish 14th at best again. And they are not more 'seasoned' than us, if that's the term you want to use, Olise, Eze, Mitchell, Guehi, Doucoure are all regulars and under 25, most of our team are in their late 20s because we have gone for the 'results needed now' approach.

My point is, if the club want to charge much higher ticket prices, expand the stadium to 50,000+, and bring in players in their late 20s for instant results, but we can't expect to beat teams finishing in the top 12, then what exactly is the point? We may as well scrap our objectives because we'll never achieve them.

God we've made a hash of this window just like the last one. Yes we are unlucky to lose Carlos for 6 months, we always seem to get bad luck, but we were naïve to think Carlos and Kamara were enough to make progress this season.

Now Carlos is injured we'll spend the rest of this window struggling to find his replacement and putting all our efforts into that, and once again leave areas that should have been fixed weeks ago untouched.

Same old mistakes season after season after season after season. We're genuinely like a lesser version of Man United in so many ways. 

7 minutes ago, duke313 said:

Is this reliable or ITK rubbish?

 

Denayer could be a decent option on a free if Carlos is out for most of the season, him and Mings could actually be a decent partnership.

It still doesn't resolve the all-important CM issue though which just seems to be ignored season after season.

57 minutes ago, Nigel said:

Behave!

I think you are grossly underestimating a good palace team. They will be fighting at the same level as us this season.

Tbh with the Carlos news and our general play atm I'd even have them as favourites. 

 

That's why we'll be lower half because if Palace is our level then we ain't gonna improve much on last season. If you're happy with that then fine, personally I'm really not as I want more from this club and clearly Purslow does as we've heard it directly from his mouth.

This and the West Ham game are where we see what Gerrard is made of. Our aim has to be 6 points, so beating Crystal Palace really is important. West Ham seem to be beating us a lot in recent times, but Forest beat them yesterday and I expect us to at least not lose that game.

Selhurst Park is a difficult place to go because of the noise etc but this is where tactically we have to get it right. He managed to last season and we came off with a win, he needs to do so again because we need to win this game we really do.

We play Southampton before the international break, that will be our 8th game of the season. We got 10 points from those games last season (if we consider Bournemouth to be the equivalent of Watford) so our aim has to be something like 11-13 points from those games. None of the next 5 are particularly easy but we have to find a way to win a couple of them just to be around midtable after the Leicester game. If we don't I can see Gerrard will come under more pressure from fans and eventually the owners.

Honestly as fans we have to start demanding more from this team. A draw will be a disappointing result at Crystal Palace and a win must be the desired outcome. That's not arrogance, that's just simple expectations from a team that wants to finish in an average position of 10th.

11 minutes ago, daft said:

The bloated squad to blame perhaps? Or maybe it really isn't compared to other teams?

Still, I assume our wage bill needs a bit of a trim. 

But I agree, we haven't really been splashing this summer, and the net effect I terms of players in the first 11 is certainly not massive now with Carlos out, possibly for the season.

According to Transfermarkt there are 9 teams with bigger squads than ours including Forest's so I'm not sure that can be used as an excuse. 

How on Earth are we expected to challenge for European football with such little improvement on paper compared to last season even if we did underperform under a rookie manager (who is still here).

The club just says one thing and means another as far as I'm concerned. If they watched either of our first two games they'll know it's going to be a long season if we continue to be inactive before August 31st.

Honestly it's crazy if Aouar goes to Forest. I said he's a player we should go for, he's available on the cheap, and would be much better than McGinn or Ramsey for games we want to control the ball. We could easily get him over newly-promoted Forest, but no we'll just sit back and do nothing like we have most of the summer.

Our transfer window hasn't even been good in reality. With Carlos now injured we've only actually improved our first team by one player compared to last season's sh*tshow. Same issues in midfield and up front. Not sure what is going on with our lack of activity but I'm 99% sure we won't bring anyone else in. Very disappointing.

I only watched the MOTD highlights but it didn't look like the win was in any way convincing. A better side than Everton would have probably won yesterday or at least got a draw given some of the chances we allowed them.

Gerrard buys himself more time but that's it. Fail to win more than one of the next five games and he'll be in trouble. We have to start beating the better teams and after yesterday's performance I am not convinced we will.

Mings needs to stay in the team, Buendia needs to play over Coutinho who looked again to have a poor game (he's worse since he signed permanently than we had him on loan despite Gerrard telling us he'd be better). Watkins-Ings I'm still not fond of but we do seem to win more when they both play. Carlos looks like he could be out for a while which is typically bad news for us.

Need to follow this up by beating Palace, I want to see some consistently good results if Gerrard wants to prove he's capable of taking this team forward.

Just now, rodders0223 said:

So after all of pre season we're back to two up top.

Clueless.

 

We should still win but there is no **** plan. 

Gerrard's the most predictable manager in the PL.

I want us to win today but God I'm so fed up with his obvious tactics.

2 minutes ago, BleedClaretAndBlue said:

Shame Doug cant get a start

Gerrard's two loverboys McGinn and Ramsey can do no wrong, he'll never drop them. Tw@t!

12 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Mings Watkins in.

Ezri Bailey out.

4312. UTV.

What a bellend. So Ramsey and McGinn both starting again. Bailey dropping out is ridiculous. Of course Coutinho starts again.

I'm actually happy with the two players he's brought in but Ings should have been the one going out the team instead of Bailey and Luiz in for Ramsey or McGinn. Buendia again misses out but of course that was going to be the case as Gerrard hates him.

If we don't win today God help Gerrard at full time.

I think today is very important for him. If he gets a win he'll buy himself more time and give people some hope. Having said that, a win today won't mean very much if he then fails to win any of the next 5 and he could still lose his job.

Fail to win today and I think it's curtains for him unless he pulls off some insane results like beating West Ham, Arsenal and Leicester. 

It's 2 wins in 12 now since winning at Leeds in March. It's 10 wins in 28 since he was appointed. He said before the season started that he was confident we would not be inconsistent this season, well he needs to stop talking a good game and actually go out and prove it on the pitch.