Jesus Garcia Pitarch

[Tomaszk]

3 hours ago, VillaJ100 said:

If we'd have got the points our performances warranted early in the season we'd be knocking around with about 9 more points. This shitish run would therefore be worrying but as we'd only need another 3 wins we'd be OK. As it is we f'ed up early on and are paying for it now. 

100%

That's where having Wes learning to play football while in the 1st XI has very nearly killed us.

We should have got loads more points this season and would have if we had a striker who knew where to be and how to hold the ball.

The worst and most expensive of a terrible bunch.

[screwdriver]

1 hour ago, KevinRichardsonsMoustache said:

These men are 'old football': the sorts of managers who talk about players 'looking right', having 'hunger', being 'up for it', etc etc.

Unfortunately for DS, I don't think he speaks like these men. Maybe that's a bad thing?

Smith said  "Drinkwater has hunger in his eyes" thats why he signed him.

 

hungry eyes by eric carmen

Edited January 13, 2020 by screwdriver
refs

[lapal_fan]

26 minutes ago, screwdriver said:

Smith said  "Drinkwater has hunger in his eyes" thats why he signed him.

 

hungry eyes by eric carmen

 

[Delphinho123]

2 hours ago, lapal_fan said:

But that's the thing isn't it?  Proven players probably wouldn't have wanted to have come, unless we offered huge wages, on top of huge transfer fees (£20m doesn't buy you a proven striker anymore) - so we gambled.  Did we buy the right player in Wesley?  Maybe not, but Smith said "I saw a hunger in him to succeed and I liked that" - so Smith saw something in him he wanted to work with. 

As we've said, the biggest regret is not getting someone around 30 (who isn't Drinkwater), with a lot of senior appearances for a team in the top tier.  But I saw hardly anyone complaining on Sept 1st at our transfer dealings, me included. 

It's all hindsight, and I guarantee you, in another 12-18 months, most of the "flops" will be our best players, because they'll have settled. 

We're just watching the transition.  The players we really need to improve on are players like Taylor, who you know won't get any better, or Hourihane, who's physical attributes means he's not going to become any better. 

Players like Trez, El Ghazi, Konsa, Hause and McGinn will become better players with time.  What their ceilings are is another question. 

I don't want to watch them transition into good players if it means we get relegated and actually lose our good players - Mings, Grealish etc.

Gamble or no gamble, you can't escape the fact that we have bought some very poor players regardless of what they may or may not turn out to do in the game. Buying players with potential is fine, I get that, but why the hell aren't we complimenting them with players that we know are going to hit the ground running and can play in the Premier League. 
 

[lapal_fan]

5 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

I don't want to watch them transition into good players if it means we get relegated and actually lose our good players - Mings, Grealish etc.

Gamble or no gamble, you can't escape the fact that we have bought some very poor players regardless of what they may or may not turn out to do in the game. Buying players with potential is fine, I get that, but why the hell aren't we complimenting them with players that we know are going to hit the ground running and can play in the Premier League. 
 

Because they cost a lot of money and we can't afford it..?

Or, if they are out of contract or nearing the end of their contract then maybe we can't afford their wages?

Or they might look at Villa and think "A team that finished 5th in the championship, 15 points behind the automatics... might be relegated and that would damage my reputation?"

Or the players who are good enough, their agents might have deals lined up for other teams already? 

It looks like we had the TV money to spend, we spent all of it on quantity, plus making a couple of loans permenent for £30m, plus Wesley, who cost £23m.  Then we bought in another 7 or 8 players to fill gaps left by players like Hutton, Jedi, Whelan, Elphick, Tammy etc. 

The management team had a strict policy of buying younger players, or they had a strict policy on wages and experienced players wouldn't have fit into it? 

Maybe some of those reasons are why we purchased who we did.

Again though, and I'm not picking on you here, but what would you have done in the summer?  What would you have done approaching January?  Wesley and Heaton got injured in January.  I get you'd want another striker (anyway), but who?  

[Delphinho123]

2 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

Because they cost a lot of money and we can't afford it..?

Or, if they are out of contract or nearing the end of their contract then maybe we can't afford their wages?

Or they might look at Villa and think "A team that finished 5th in the championship, 15 points behind the automatics... might be relegated and that would damage my reputation?"

Or the players who are good enough, their agents might have deals lined up for other teams already? 

It looks like we had the TV money to spend, we spent all of it on quantity, plus making a couple of loans permenent for £30m, plus Wesley, who cost £23m.  Then we bought in another 7 or 8 players to fill gaps left by players like Hutton, Jedi, Whelan, Elphick, Tammy etc. 

The management team had a strict policy of buying younger players, or they had a strict policy on wages and experienced players wouldn't have fit into it? 

Maybe some of those reasons are why we purchased who we did.

Again though, and I'm not picking on you here, but what would you have done in the summer?  What would you have done approaching January?  Wesley and Heaton got injured in January.  I get you'd want another striker (anyway), but who?  

You honestly speak as if the 4/5 players we signed who I don't rate - Nakamba, Luiz, Wesley, Trezeguet - were the only players in the world we could have signed due to agents, wages etc. 

Are you honestly saying we couldn't have spent the combined 55m-60m (based on reports) on better players than those listed above? 

What would I have done in the summer? I'm a land surveyor mate, I don't get time to watch hours and hours of world football, flying here there and everywhere scouting players. Whilst we disagree on our opinions, please don't turn this into a 'well who would you have signed then' debate. I'm not paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to make these decisions. Just because I don't know who we could have signed in their place, it doesn't mean those players aren't out there. 

I'm a fan and I don't think our summer transfer business was very good at all. Out of the hundreds of players to choose from around the world and the money at our disposal, I think we've done a fairly bad job of assembling a competitive squad. That is pretty much summed up by the fact we're no better than we were last year. In fact, we're probably worse. 

[lapal_fan]

10 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

You honestly speak as if the 4/5 players we signed who I don't rate - Nakamba, Luiz, Wesley, Trezeguet - were the only players in the world we could have signed due to agents, wages etc. 

Are you honestly saying we couldn't have spent the combined 55m-60m (based on reports) on better players than those listed above? 

What would I have done in the summer? I'm a land surveyor mate, I don't get time to watch hours and hours of world football, flying here there and everywhere scouting players. Whilst we disagree on our opinions, please don't turn this into a 'well who would you have signed then' debate. I'm not paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to make these decisions. Just because I don't know who we could have signed in their place, it doesn't mean those players aren't out there. 

I'm a fan and I don't think our summer transfer business was very good at all. Out of the hundreds of players to choose from around the world and the money at our disposal, I think we've done a fairly bad job of assembling a competitive squad. That is pretty much summed up by the fact we're no better than we were last year. In fact, we're probably worse. 

I was genuinely curious as to who/what you'd have signed/done - nothing facetious

I don't disagree at all either, there are thousands of players we could have signed, and I'm guessing here, but they would have probably presented us with the same risk had we bought them, instead of who we did sign., if you get it. 

If you have an £8-10m budget for a CDM (Nakamba), instead of signing Nakamba, who statistically was very good last year and Brugge fans adored him (calling him Kante etc), then to me, at the time in the summer, he represented a good buy on the evidence.  I imagine his wages are fairly low too (although that's a guess).  

Trez - a winger signed for £10-12m (was it?), he looked pretty good, was a fairly experienced international and I'm sure Elmo probably gave him a decent reference.  But he came from a pretty weak league, but he's got some pace and some technical skills.  Again, on paper and his highlights he looked okay, and with Smith in charge, you'd back him to get better, not worse. 

I completely understand people saying "x, y & z are pants" - but my question is, with what we know about how much we spent, what could have been done so differently that we'd be like Sheff Utd for example?  Because that would be much more preferable! 

Edited January 13, 2020 by lapal_fan

[Dr_Pangloss]

3 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

I was genuinely curious as to who/what you'd have signed/done - nothing facetious

I don't disagree at all either, there are thousands of players we could have signed, and I'm guessing here, but they would have probably presented us with the same risk had we bought them, instead of who we did sign., if you get it. 

If you have an £8-10m budget for a CDM (Nakamba), instead of signing Nakamba, who statistically was very good last year and Brugge fans adored him (calling him Kante etc), then to me, at the time in the summer, he represented a good buy on the evidence.  I imagine his wages are fairly low too (although that's a guess).  

Trez - a winger signed for £10-12m (was it?), he looked pretty good, was a fairly experienced international and I'm sure Elmo probably gave him a decent reference.  But he came from a pretty weak league, but he's got some pace and some technical skills.  Again, on paper and his highlights he looked okay, and with Smith in charge, you'd back him to get better, not worse. 

I completely understand people saying "x, y & z are pants" - but my question is, with what we know about how much we spent, what could have been done so differently that we'd be like Sheff Utd for example?  Because that would be much more preferable! 

Personally given funds and what we spent I'd have gone for:

Maupay instead of Wesley

Billing instead of Luiz

Saint-Maximin instead of Trez (he cost more but can put in some of the savings from signing Maupay instead of Wesley)

Would have also tried harder to sign Kalvin Phillips. I wouldn't have spent £17m on Targett either.

[Delphinho123]

8 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

I was genuinely curious as to who/what you'd have signed/done - nothing facetious

I don't disagree at all either, there are thousands of players we could have signed, and I'm guessing here, but they would have probably presented us with the same risk had we bought them, instead of who we did sign., if you get it. 

If you have an £8-10m budget for a CDM (Nakamba), instead of signing Nakamba, who statistically was very good last year and Brugge fans adored him (calling him Kante etc), then to me, at the time in the summer, he represented a good buy on the evidence.  I imagine his wages are fairly low too (although that's a guess).  

Trez - a winger signed for £10-12m (was it?), he looked pretty good, was a fairly experienced international and I'm sure Elmo probably gave him a decent reference.  But he came from a pretty weak league, but he's got some pace and some technical skills.  Again, on paper and his highlights he looked okay, and with Smith in charge, you'd back him to get better, not worse. 

I completely understand people saying "x, y & z are pants" - but my question is, with what we know about how much we spent, what could have been done so differently that we'd be like Sheff Utd for example?  Because that would be much more preferable! 

Just on the point in bold, I think where we have gone massively wrong is signing players that lack physicality and bottle. We look so powderpuff and I don't see the likes of Trezeguet, Luiz or Nakamba being up for the fight. Sheff Utd seemed to have assembled a squad of players with a decent amount of ability but most of all, who fight for each other and the shirt. 

Perhaps we underestimated the physical side of things in the Premier League. Even the likes of Targett and Konsa aren't the kind of players that are going to kick the opposition. 

We miss a nasty streak. We are an absolute dream to play against. 

[Graham t]

26 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

You honestly speak as if the 4/5 players we signed who I don't rate - Nakamba, Luiz, Wesley, Trezeguet - were the only players in the world we could have signed due to agents, wages etc. 

Are you honestly saying we couldn't have spent the combined 55m-60m (based on reports) on better players than those listed above? 

What would I have done in the summer? I'm a land surveyor mate, I don't get time to watch hours and hours of world football, flying here there and everywhere scouting players. Whilst we disagree on our opinions, please don't turn this into a 'well who would you have signed then' debate. I'm not paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to make these decisions. Just because I don't know who we could have signed in their place, it doesn't mean those players aren't out there. 

I'm a fan and I don't think our summer transfer business was very good at all. Out of the hundreds of players to choose from around the world and the money at our disposal, I think we've done a fairly bad job of assembling a competitive squad. That is pretty much summed up by the fact we're no better than we were last year. In fact, we're probably worse. 

Spot on, an accurate appraisal on our recruitment cock ups ( for which nobody in particular seems responsible for).....

[lapal_fan]

5 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

Just on the point in bold, I think where we have gone massively wrong is signing players that lack physicality and bottle. We look so powderpuff and I don't see the likes of Trezeguet, Luiz or Nakamba being up for the fight. Sheff Utd seemed to have assembled a squad of players with a decent amount of ability but most of all, who fight for each other and the shirt. 

Perhaps we underestimated the physical side of things in the Premier League. Even the likes of Targett and Konsa aren't the kind of players that are going to kick the opposition. 

We miss a nasty streak. We are an absolute dream to play against. 

We've always been too nice.  The only time we had any spike to us was when we were last any good in 07-09 and people didn't like playing us.  

I agree we absolutely lack any physicality.

I wonder how much influence Sheff Utd have in having such a settled side and just introducing a couple of players in the summer?  You're right that they fight for each other, but I wonder if their team knows about their weaknesses, then they themselves can address it whilst we're essentially feeling it out?  Just a thought.  

Someone like Sissoko at Spurs would be good for the physical side, he's a quick strong guy, but his football isn't great..  Lucky for him he has Eriksen calibre players around him though, so he can sort of get away with it. 

[lapal_fan]

I think we can actually identify what we're missing better than we could in the summer. 

We now know we lack bite and aggression.  We lack pace in central areas and we can't retain possession when the going gets a bit tough.  CM's and a striker I imagine will be our priority.  

I think sacking any management staff now puts us back on square 1.  Let's see what this window and the summer bring, whatever league that may be. 

[Delphinho123]

It's almost a pre-requisite for me that any signing we make in January needs to be 6ft+, strong and fast. Yes, they need to be able to play football to an extent but we need a couple of big, nasty b****** in the side to allow the likes of Grealish, Luiz (to an extent), el Ghazi (to an extent) and Mcginn to showcase more of their attacking talents without fear they need to work so hard defensively to stop other teams running through us.

Someone mentioned Sissoko in an earlier post. A poor man's sissoko would be perfect for the central midfield spot alongside Luiz/Drinkwater. 

We definitely need some new faces in Jan otherwise I think we'll go down. 

[Eastie]

Was painfully obvious from October that we were short on the striker department - here we are mid jan and playing big games without a striker at all -really disappointed that Suso hasn’t lined someone up before now -poor stuff 

[avfc1982am]

3 hours ago, Delphinho123 said:

It's almost a pre-requisite for me that any signing we make in January needs to be 6ft+, strong and fast. Yes, they need to be able to play football to an extent but we need a couple of big, nasty b****** in the side to allow the likes of Grealish, Luiz (to an extent), el Ghazi (to an extent) and Mcginn to showcase more of their attacking talents without fear they need to work so hard defensively to stop other teams running through us.

Someone mentioned Sissoko in an earlier post. A poor man's sissoko would be perfect for the central midfield spot alongside Luiz/Drinkwater. 

We definitely need some new faces in Jan otherwise I think we'll go down. 

I think your overall post is pretty spot on. The bold though imo has been our biggest failure in regards to the summer transfers. We have not addressed the lack of pace and physical strength we needed this season especially in midfield for a potential relegation scrap. We already had flair and creativity with, Jack, John, Ghazi. We needed much more pace than we had especially down the flanks so elmo and taylor were not needed. We also really needed nastiness in the centre to allow the creative players to play to their strengths. We never win headers in the midfield, never bully, never move quick enough or play quick enough. We are without a shadow of a doubt slow and feeble in midfield. My biggest fear now is losing Jack because he is doing too much to compensate for everyone else.

[Eastie]

Tick tock Suso ffs

[GingerCollins29]

Just curious, did Dean's brentfird team have any big tall b*stards in it? Or were they weak as piss also

[Bugzy1991]

4 hours ago, Delphinho123 said:

You honestly speak as if the 4/5 players we signed who I don't rate - Nakamba, Luiz, Wesley, Trezeguet - were the only players in the world we could have signed due to agents, wages etc. 

Are you honestly saying we couldn't have spent the combined 55m-60m (based on reports) on better players than those listed above? 

Probably not tbh? You got the benefit of having hindsight when judging our signings now. The only one you can probably complain about it is wesley signing. And even with hindsight I think the Wesley signing was a good gamble. However, it was not fine going into season with only one striker.

We were all happy to sign nakamba + Luiz. And at the time we thought they would be physical. There's certainly many times this year where nakamba has been physical. We all thought Luiz would be also.

You're just as likely to find as many duds for the price we paid for trez than getting someone who's decent. I remember when signing Tre everyone thought he was this rapid machine who would just knock the ball past a player and run onto it.

Transfer market has so much luck involved in it.

Edited January 13, 2020 by Bugzy1991

[Delphinho123]

46 minutes ago, Bugzy1991 said:

Probably not tbh? You got the benefit of having hindsight when judging our signings now. The only one you can probably complain about it is wesley signing. And even with hindsight I think the Wesley signing was a good gamble. However, it was not fine going into season with only one striker.

We were all happy to sign nakamba + Luiz. And at the time we thought they would be physical. There's certainly many times this year where nakamba has been physical. We all thought Luiz would be also.

You're just as likely to find as many duds for the price we paid for trez than getting someone who's decent. I remember when signing Tre everyone thought he was this rapid machine who would just knock the ball past a player and run onto it.

Transfer market has so much luck involved in it.

The harder you work, the luckier you get. We scouter poorly and we have been left with a very average squad of players that would struggle in the championship.

 

[Tomaszk]

1 hour ago, GingerCollins29 said:

Just curious, did Dean's brentfird team have any big tall b*stards in it? Or were they weak as piss also

They were all tiddlers yes.

Infuriating watching them pop up round us for 90 mins and send us home with a bum smacking.