Now it's nearly over, what next?

[Jareth]

I'd sell:

Whelan - packet of crisps

Elmo - Bobbins

Hogan - £5 mill

Lansbury - £2 mill

Mcormack - £3mill

Hogan - £5 mill

Will probably have to sell:

Chester - £9 mill

Hourihane - £7 mill

Kodjia £7 mill

That's nearly £40 mill. Don't know if players will need to be sold to keep the club running but I hope not. Am expecting an interesting Kit deal now that UA have been terminated - some sort of massive Chinese kit maker paying mucho dollar. 

 

 

 

 

[Eastie]

3 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

We paid 12m for McCormack!!

Mate they were talking about cairney going for 15m in January no way hourihane is worth 3m!

We paid less than £3m for hourihane last year - I said we’d probably get about £6m.

we paid  £12m for McCormack - whose the fools there?

cairney is far far better than hourihane - cairney and Grealish to me are comparable - apart from Grealish nobody at villa would get near £10m - Grealish should attract £15m at least .

[Eastie]

3 minutes ago, Jareth said:

I'd sell:

Whelan - packet of crisps

Elmo - Bobbins

Hogan - £5 mill

Lansbury - £2 mill

Mcormack - £3mill

Hogan - £5 mill

Will probably have to sell:

Chester - £9 mill

Hourihane - £7 mill

Kodjia £7 mill

That's nearly £40 mill. Don't know if players will need to be sold to keep the club running but I hope not. Am expecting an interesting Kit deal now that UA have been terminated - some sort of massive Chinese kit maker paying mucho dollar. 

 

 

 

 

pretty much bang on with those valuations - although Chester approaching 30  maybe would go for a bit less .

Would perhaps be better to cash in on Grealish for £15m than sell half a team for the same amount though - hoping o hare could step into jacks shoes 

Edited April 8, 2018 by Eastie

[Sadken79]

5 minutes ago, Jareth said:

I'd sell:

Whelan - packet of crisps

Elmo - Bobbins

Hogan - £5 mill

Lansbury - £2 mill

Mcormack - £3mill

Hogan - £5 mill

Will probably have to sell:

Chester - £9 mill

Hourihane - £7 mill

Kodjia £7 mill

That's nearly £40 mill. Don't know if players will need to be sold to keep the club running but I hope not. Am expecting an interesting Kit deal now that UA have been terminated - some sort of massive Chinese kit maker paying mucho dollar. 

 

 

 

 

That Chinese kit deal idea was exactly what I was thinking. 

[Eastie]

7 minutes ago, Johnnyp said:

Id hope that dean smith holds tight on the baggies job and we then make our move for him in late may. I'll get slated for this but he will get guys like tshibola playing again because we wont be bypassing midfield under smith. Grealish will leave. Cant blame him. He is a super talent but naturally he wants to play for england and he aint doing that in the championship. 

Just hope wolves don’t get Grealish 

[Jareth]

1 minute ago, Eastie said:

pretty much bang on with those valuations - although Chester approaching 30  maybe would go for a bit less .

Thanks, also managed to sell Hogan twice, that takes skill. 

[Jareth]

1 minute ago, Eastie said:

Just hope wolves don’t get Grealish 

You are sick and twisted, why would you say that? Oh god. 

[Eastie]

Just now, Jareth said:

You are sick and twisted, why would you say that? Oh god. 

Bad enough them crowing about promotion now and having millions to spend without losing our star player to them 

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

8 minutes ago, Jareth said:

I'd sell:

Whelan - packet of crisps

Elmo - Bobbins

Hogan - £5 mill

Lansbury - £2 mill

Mcormack - £3mill

Hogan - £5 mill

Will probably have to sell:

Chester - £9 mill

Hourihane - £7 mill

Kodjia £7 mill

That's nearly £40 mill. Don't know if players will need to be sold to keep the club running but I hope not. Am expecting an interesting Kit deal now that UA have been terminated - some sort of massive Chinese kit maker paying mucho dollar. 

 

 

 

 

You forgot Hogan.

[Jareth]

Just now, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

You forgot Hogan.

Sorry mate, I reckon about £5 mill. 

[villa4europe]

Theyre talking up maddison from norwich as a £25m player for the likes of west ham, jack is the face of this club, very marketable and i dont just think hes good i think his playing style and natural ability is rare, he should be looking higher than west ham, id want north of £30m just to get you around the table and i dont think anyone would pay it

[Demitri_C]

53 minutes ago, Eastie said:

We paid less than £3m for hourihane last year - I said we’d probably get about £6m.

we paid  £12m for McCormack - whose the fools there?

cairney is far far better than hourihane - cairney and Grealish to me are comparable - apart from Grealish nobody at villa would get near £10m - Grealish should attract £15m at least .

I think those should be the valuations in a realistic market but the prices have been crazy for a while now. Let's see in summer if any players are sold. It would be crazy to sell hourihane for pittance like 6m lets say we would not get anyone with that sort of money

[OutByEaster?]

I think Jareth's valuations are pretty realistic - I'd want £30m for Grealish.

[OutByEaster?]

If we're in the Championship next season, we're in for a very difficult year.

Our squad simply isn't good enough to compete next season and we're not going to have an awful lot of money to spend. If we start by looking at the defence, it's pretty clear we're not strong enough.

Goalkeepers:

• Gollini
• Steer
• Sarkic

Gollini remains something of a mystery and I'd be surprised if he actually returned. We can't afford Johnstone and I suspect he'll have an offer from the Premier league, Bunn is out of contract in the summer and won't be renewed. 

Left back:

• Taylor

We have no back up here. At all.

Right back:

• Bree
• DeLaet
• Elmohamady

We could do with Bree coming through next season, Elmohamady is defensively suspect will be 31 early next season. DeLaet is also a little mysterious and I'm not sure if he'll be back - if he is, he might be our number one.

Centre backs:

• Chester
• Jedinak
• Richards
• Suliman

Chester and change. Suliman isn't ready to start 40 championship games, Jedinak isn't really a CB and Micah is Richards.

 

So:

------------------------Gollini------------------------

Bree------Jedinak-----Chester-----Taylor

 

Take a good look at that.

I think we'd need a goalkeeper, two centre backs and a left back.

 

 

 

[tonyh29]

Bruce goes regardless

I’d try and get Eddie Howe , done a great job keeping Bournemouth up and could be ready to move onto a big club , though I think we’d struggle to get him ... the temptation would be to appoint JohnnTerry as manager , he could be inspirational if we promote younger players , big gamble though as he could be a huge flop 

I think we can get one more season out of Grealish unless a stupid offer comes in 

I’m not sure the likes of O’Hare , Davis , Green , Clark etc are good enough yet but equally id rather see them giving a go if we accept a 2 year plan and that we won’t have a lot of money .... 

i wouldn’t pay fortunes for him but I’d sign Snodgrass ,  rest of the midfield are fairly meh ( apart from Grealish ) so I’d cash in wherever possible on Adomah , Lansbury , Hourihane , Thor , whelan and Jedinak ... but we won’t get a lot for them 

see if we can convince Man U to let us have Axel for another season and pair him with Chester , promote Bree at RB , sign a LB as Taylor is pretty poor

forwards we seem to be ok with if we can get a midfield that can spot a decent run or cross a ball that beats  the first man

 

but I don’t expect any of this to happen , I suspect as we came so close they will give Bruce one more chance and it will be more whelan and Jedinak 

 

[OutByEaster?]

Into midfield where things are better, and starting with the anchor position

• Bjarnason
• Jedinak
• Whelan
• Doyle-Hayes

Jedinak and Whelan will each be 34 when the season kicks off - they've both had excellent careers, bu they've both lost a fair bit to age in my opinion. Still this is an area where we still have options and I'm a big fan of young Doyle-Hayes.

Central midfield:

• Hourihane
• Grealish
• Lansbury
• Bjarnason
• O'Hare

A position with a reasonable amount of support - two good starters and a decent back up for Hourihane in Lansbury. A lot would rest on O'Hare's shoulders if Grealish were to be injured.

Right wing:

• Adomah
• O'Hare

O'Hare isn't naturally a right winger and Adomah played this season down the left. I'm 99% sure Gil isn't coming back, which from a depth point of view is a shame.

Left wing:

• Adomah
• Green
• Grealish

Three good players - but, one is currently our only right winger, one is much better through the middle and the other one has snappy hamstrings.

 

For me, I think we need a right winger, possibly two - and I wouldn't be against another body in the middle.

 

 

 

[OutByEaster?]

Up front we're fine for depth.

• Kodjia
• Hogan
• Davis
• Hepburn-Muprhy
• McCormack

 

So overall, I think we'd need seven players to put together a squad, provided we don't lose any of the ones we have.

We're dropping a lot of money from the wage bill with the removal of Terry, Agbonlahor, Samba, Elphick, Johnstone, Snodgrass, Tuanzebe, Onomah, Bunn, Hutton and Grabban - but we'll also need to cut the wage bill to meet our new circumstances.

Given what the club has said about offering new contracts to any senior player, I'm pretty sure we're not going to get all of that money to reinvest - but there's about £15m a year in there and hopefully we'll get half of it to put on the wage bill.

Of course, that's not the only problem - we've got issues with age. At the start of next season, the following will all be 30:

• Micah Richards (30)
• Ross McCormack (32)
• Birkir Bjarnason (30)
• Ahmed Elmohamday (31)
• Mile Jedinak (34)
• Albert Adomah (30)
• Glenn Whelan (34)

And we've got Chester and Taylor who are 29 and Kodjia who will be 29 in October.

So that's eleven players we're letting go and seven reaching an age where we need to think about replacing them. It's also a squad that doesn't carry a massive amount of resale value.

So, find a GK, two centre halves, a left back, a central midfielder and two right wingers for about £10m and hopefully £20k a week each - add them to what we have, then win the Championship with it - no problem.

I think we'll need to be looking at loans again, at free agents and most likely at selling two of those striker - and I think this is a massive job that will take years to complete.If we don't go up, I think the new manager (and I do think there will be one) will need time to build a squad that's an ongoing concern.

I think we're looking at a four or five year project to get back to the top division.

The trick is to go up in May.

 

[OutByEaster?]

25 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

Bruce goes regardless

I’d try and get Eddie Howe , done a great job keeping Bournemouth up and could be ready to move onto a big club , though I think we’d struggle to get him ... the temptation would be to appoint John Terry as manager , he could be inspirational if we promote younger players , big gamble though as he could be a huge flop 

I think we've got absolutely no chance of getting Eddie Howe. We may as well be aiming for Mourinho. I agree on the temptation to appoint Terry - where I think it would be really useful is that it would give us access to Chelsea's loan list - he'd be a heck of a risk though and it's difficult to operate a long term rebuilding job with a manager who will always have one eye on another club.

27 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

i wouldn’t pay fortunes for him but I’d sign Snodgrass ,  rest of the midfield are fairly meh ( apart from Grealish ) so I’d cash in wherever possible on Adomah , Lansbury , Hourihane , Thor , whelan and Jedinak ... but we won’t get a lot for them.

I don't think we could afford Snodgrass - I reckon they'd want £8-£10m for him and I don't think that's where our budget is. I'd be very surprised to see us spend that money on one player this summer if we're in the Championship. I don't think we'll find better players than that others you've listed for the money they'd bring in - and to an extent, we're going to need every warm body we've got just to fill the shirts.

30 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

but I don’t expect any of this to happen , I suspect as we came so close they will give Bruce one more chance and it will be more whelan and Jedinak 

I'd disagree - I think Bruce will see the end of the season as a natural end to the "project" - he's had a tough year personally and I think he's much more suited to the role of the one-hit have a go at promotion with experience role than the rebuild a club from the ground up without a lot of money role. I think he'll go and I don't necessarily think we'll need to push him. Thankfully, I also don't think there is much more Whelan and Jedinak.

 

[Eastie]

Any new manager may be able to get the best from McCormack and hogan who have done little under Bruce .

 

Edited April 8, 2018 by Eastie

[OutByEaster?]

2 minutes ago, Eastie said:

Any new manager may be able to get the best from McCormack and hogan who have done little under Bruce .

McCormack is older than Agbonlahor - I think the days of getting the best out of him are gone.