Ahmed Elmohamady

[StewieGriffin]

2 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

The only thing is I thought Bruce was targeting players who can handle playing for big clubs. I wouldn't call Hull and Sunderland big clubs 

Perhaps not, but they expected to get promoted which is a type of pressure that some of our players clearly struggle with

[Lerner's Driver]

37 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

I'm amazed that after 5 years these posts still exist. This mocking of negativity is actually mocking of being bang on the money as everyone who has been negative about this club in recent years has been proven to be 100% correct, yet they're mocked as though they are insane. 

The unrealistic opinions have been the positive everything is going to be fine posts over the last few years. 

 

Our fortunes have to change at some point and we have arrested the slide, so some would argue perfectly reasonably, that some progress has already been made. Whether it's enough progress is of course debatable, but progress of sorts it is. By this definition, to predict a trend of 'continuous failure' would be inaccurate.

Secondly, was it not the opinion of several vociferously anti Bruce posters that citing his previous record was irrelevant? If so, perhaps the same rule should be applied to his critics. They correctly predicted failure in the past, but that is surely no basis for assuming your success again now because now is now with a whole new set of experiences and accumulated knowledge.

Moral of the story: nobody can be certain so why not retain an open mind and dare I say it, even a little positivity?

[praisedmambo]

I think saying the negativity has been proven to be correct is a bit of Bull. For example, people were moaning about Houllier being a clown. People were moaning about Lambert being a clown when he has probably had the hardest job out of all the Villa managers of the last decade—keeping us up on absolutely no investment. It's obvious too that we'd all love to go back to the Houllier clown season again. If anything I'd argue that the negative people, moaning at specific managers, have been shown up—the club was in a far worse state than they were letting on and the kind of incessant blame directed towards the managers, making out that our decline was all down to the managers has been proven to be bullshit. Also see reactions to certain players: Benteke and so on. We don't need to go on. 

Anyway, if you throw enough shit some of it lands in the right place. That doesn't mean people know what they're talking about. We've appointed every different type of manager going —foreign random, Championship up and coming, super experienced—and the only consistent thing is that on villa talk the manager threads get absolutely overrun with people repeating themselves. 

Edited July 18, 2017 by praisedmambo

[Demitri_C]

53 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

They are bigger clubs than Barnsley, Bristol City, and Brentford though no? (Where we have gotten some of our last set from)

They've been in the Premier League.

Yeah and the players have all struggled with the expectation from those clubs. Hull is  a pretty small club despite their premier league status last season. I just hope Elmo is not from the same mould. We dont need anymore wimps, we needs warriors proud to play in front of us not the scared type like elphick 

[Vive_La_Villa]

1 hour ago, DCJonah said:

I'm amazed that after 5 years these posts still exist. This mocking of negativity is actually mocking of being bang on the money as everyone who has been negative about this club in recent years has been proven to be 100% correct, yet they're mocked as though they are insane. 

The unrealistic opinions have been the positive everything is going to be fine posts over the last few years. 

 

I see your point but I bet you many fans that are moaning about this signing were over the moon with all our young French signings and Adama. I know I was and look how that turned out. 

Sometimes you just need boring sensible signings. 

[KHV]

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

We don't.

If we were buying a player who could ONLY play right back and would be 4th choice it'd be mental.

But we're not.

I have never seen him play anywhere else other than fullback/wing back. We already have 3 of those. Where else does he play? 

[mattjpa]

18 hours ago, One For The Road said:

Well, we will see. I just think it shows zero ambition and proves how skint we are.

It proves nothing of the sort. Merely that we are at the limit for FFP and are also trying to build a sustainable business model with a squad that has alreadyreceived heavy investment over the past couple of transfer windows and now needs to develop as a unit. Dont let the facts get in the way of everyone losing their shit though!  

[Vive_La_Villa]

5 minutes ago, KHV said:

I have never seen him play anywhere else other than fullback/wing back. We already have 3 of those. Where else does he play? 

This has been said so many times but here we go again. Hutton is shit. Bree is still very young and is still potential.. De Laat needs to come back slowly after a very bad injury. 

[One For The Road]

6 minutes ago, mattjpa said:

It proves nothing of the sort. Merely that we are at the limit for FFP and are also trying to build a sustainable business model with a squad that has alreadyreceived heavy investment over the past couple of transfer windows and now needs to develop as a unit. Dont let the facts get in the way of everyone losing their shit though!  

It proves that we are unable to spend money due to tossing it up the wall in January. Now we are effectively skint as we can't buy anyone decent. Not that I'd trust Bruce with any more money anyway as either he buys players with the wrong character or he doesn't know how to get the most out of them. 

[Eastie]

3 minutes ago, One For The Road said:

It proves that we are unable to spend money due to tossing it up the wall in January. Now we are effectively skint as we can't buy anyone decent. Not that I'd trust Bruce with any more money anyway as either he buys players with the wrong character or he doesn't know how to get the most out of them. 

Think most of the money pissed up the wall was last summer rather than January - the jury is out on hogan maybe from January but the likes of Taylor , lansbury and hourihane should blossom ,  but mccormack, tishbola , elphick and gollini equal £20m plus of signings that have flopped.

Edited July 18, 2017 by Eastie

[Vive_La_Villa]

5 minutes ago, One For The Road said:

It proves that we are unable to spend money due to tossing it up the wall in January. Now we are effectively skint as we can't buy anyone decent. Not that I'd trust Bruce with any more money anyway as either he buys players with the wrong character or he doesn't know how to get the most out of them. 

We got the biggest squad in the world. Lord only knows what our wage bill is. Even if there is money available should we seriously be blowing more of it on big big fees before shifting players! 

[Michael118]

14 minutes ago, KHV said:

I have never seen him play anywhere else other than fullback/wing back. We already have 3 of those. Where else does he play? 

Actually he'll be our 7th player who can play at RB.

Hutton, Bree, De Laet, Bacuna, Richards, Chester, Elmohamady.

[mattjpa]

4 minutes ago, One For The Road said:

It proves that we are unable to spend money due to tossing it up the wall in January. Now we are effectively skint as we can't buy anyone decent. Not that I'd trust Bruce with any more money anyway as either he buys players with the wrong character or he doesn't know how to get the most out of them. 

Tossing it up the wall? Really? Hourihane and Lansbury were bought for peanuts and are EXACTLY what we need - quality players. Taylor has been absolutely flawless, Bree, Hogan and Bjarnesson all suffered injuries and have not been able to get going yet but ive seen nothing in any of them that makes me want to write them off just yet. Most of those players are still very young as well. 

My point still stands as well - being skint is completely different to being "effectively skint" as you call it. I have complete faith that if we are in 2/3 place in january and Bruce highlighted a 10m player who became available, would drop a league and would all but guarantee us going up automatically, Dr X would sign them as promotion would negate FFP (I think?!)

[Gillz]

1 hour ago, Michael118 said:

When I said "a level above the Championship" I meant in terms of ability.

Potential is subjective but there is also skill involved in picking the right players.

I didn't dismiss that some of the players we signed could play in the Premier League. In the main though I think we've signed Championship quality players and the money could have been spent a lot more wisely elsewhere.

Whilst it is important, I think the time needed to build and develop a team is overemphasized. I'd say the most important factor in building a squad for long term success is having the right players and manager in place. If it was done right there is no reason we couldn't have been promoted last season when you consider how much money we spent compared to other clubs.

I think we are agreeing on a lot of things here, and i deffo concur with you that with the money we spent last year we should have gone back up (although i blame that more on the managerial choices rather then the player recruitment tbh). I actually think our player recruitment last year was pretty good at the time. most of this forum was delighted with the signings of RMac, RDL, Jedi, CH, Adomah, elphick etc at the time of purchase.

In contrast this signing is a relatively cheap, less risky pick. I dont think he's going to be the saviour of Aston Villa, but i've certainly seen a lot worse in the last few years....and with the reported price just £1m, who would you suggest signing instead?

[DCJonah]

1 hour ago, Lerner's Driver said:

Our fortunes have to change at some point and we have arrested the slide, so some would argue perfectly reasonably, that some progress has already been made. Whether it's enough progress is of course debatable, but progress of sorts it is. By this definition, to predict a trend of 'continuous failure' would be inaccurate.

Secondly, was it not the opinion of several vociferously anti Bruce posters that citing his previous record was irrelevant? If so, perhaps the same rule should be applied to his critics. They correctly predicted failure in the past, but that is surely no basis for assuming your success again now because now is now with a whole new set of experiences and accumulated knowledge.

Moral of the story: nobody can be certain so why not retain an open mind and dare I say it, even a little positivity?

Exactly, but it seems that if you dare not so positivity about all things you're mocked and your opinion is treated as though it's insane. 

 

[One For The Road]

41 minutes ago, mattjpa said:

Tossing it up the wall? Really? 

Yes. Really. Or was finishing 13th the plan? Ok, you will say it takes time to gel. Fair enough then. Let's see if that happens. Nothing I am seeing suggests so and I doubt our wage bill is conducive to a midtable Championship club either. 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2017 by One For The Road

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, KHV said:

I have never seen him play anywhere else other than fullback/wing back. We already have 3 of those. Where else does he play? 

He's a winger originally.

And we don't have 3 "fullback/wingbacks". We have 3 fullbacks.

One of whom hasn't yet recovered from a very big injury, one of whom is too young and one of whom is Alan Hutton. None of these play wing back.

 

Elmohamady, imo, will provide competition for Hutton, cover for Adomah and the option to use a back 3 because he's actually used to the system.

 

It's a sensible signing. No it's not our highest priority, but signings aren't made in order of priority.

[DCJonah]

 If this guy is signed as a squad player it's not really an issue. I worry that like thor, this is someone who Bruce will see as a regular. 

[bannedfromHandV]

3 hours ago, Eastie said:

Disagree with this - Sunderland have spent far more of the last 40 years outside the top flight than villa and I think have only finished once in the top 6 in the last 50 years .

gate wise we may be similar but that's about all , the last 50 years villa have been a long way ahead of Sunderland in almost every department . 

As of 2013 we were 5th in the total games played in the top division and Sunderland were 10th.

Their stadium is bigger than ours but historically I think the two clubs have averaged roughly the same kind of gates and therefore, you can assume we have similar size followings, you could argue we have a little more foreign appeal.

Overall, in terms of honours won we're 5th on the list and again they're 10th, we've won a lot more but in terms of rankings it's relatively close.

Hence, I believe the two clubs to be similar in stature over the course of their respective histories, of course in terms of Premier League only we're miles ahead but football did exist prior to 1992, despite what Sky might say

[Stevo985]

53 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

 If this guy is signed as a squad player it's not really an issue. I worry that like thor, this is someone who Bruce will see as a regular. 

I think it's someone who COULD be a regular.

I think it's entirely possible that he'll show himself to be a far more competent right back than Hutton.