KentVillan Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 There's two aspects to Suso's job. One is finding good investments who will grow in value, and the other is finding players who will hit the ground running. I think he's done a pretty good job on the first objective. I doubt even the "flops" will turn out to have been a bad investment financially. Strikers are expensive, and there'll always be someone willing to spend £30m+ on Wesley, especially now he has a Brazil cap... I'm sure of that. But where we've failed resoundingly is in finding players who can perform immediately. Obviously Targett and Heaton have done fairly well, but you hardly need a scouting network to find them. Engels was a player who Smith was already familiar with. So really we haven't found a single player from overseas who has done anything useful. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hippo Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 We couldn't afford maupay @ £16m - but could buy Konsa, Trez, Jota - for more than that. Don't get the love in for the likes of Luiz, Nakamba either - sorry but the best part of that £140m summer spend isn't looking well spent. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted December 21, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted December 21, 2019 I was saying this to my son on the way home. So many of our signings look really poor. The best signings really were the ones who were here on loan last year. Even if the young and first year in English football argument washes its still bad recruitment because that's what we relied on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Humanoid Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 The spending strategy is starting to resonate the 2015-16 strategy. Too many inexperienced young "potentials" not able to get it together on the pitch. If Villa go down they wont be interested in staying, which would mean more spending and another rebuilding exercise. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharkyvilla Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 It's really tough to sign 12 players of Premier League squad quality players at about £10m each in one window. Only Wes, or at least not signing another striker, looks like a huge dropped bollock. You have to put it into context with other teams who all seem to have massively expensive duds in (or not in) their squad. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted December 21, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted December 21, 2019 21 minutes ago, KentVillan said: there'll always be someone willing to spend £30m+ on Wesley, especially now he has a Brazil cap... I'm sure of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 None of our summer signings will go on to do as well as the likes of Amavi, Veretout, Gana, Adama, and even Ayew have done, if you tried to buy just those five players now it would cost £100m plus, not saying that as criticism of Pitarch either, but if we were to go down I'm not sure if there'd be a mass exodus. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hippo Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 5 minutes ago, Humanoid said: The spending strategy is starting to resonate the 2015-16 strategy. Too many inexperienced young "potentials" not able to get it together on the pitch. If Villa go down they wont be interested in staying, which would mean more spending and another rebuilding exercise. Yep Heaton looks the best signing. - you get what you pay for Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick76 Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 I think we lack real captains. When things are going sideways, whose there to bring them back together in our first XI.. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hippo Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 1 minute ago, useless said: None of our summer signings will go on to do as well as the likes of Amavi, Veretout, Gana, Adama, and even Ayew have done, if you tried to buy just those five players now it would cost £100m plus, not saying that as criticism of Pitarch either, but if we were to go down I'm not sure if there'd be a mass exodus. Have those players done that well ? - I know vertoux had a good spell initially - but think even he is struggling now. Gana accepted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villalad21 Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 I think players like Jedinak, Whelan and Adomah could have done a decent job for us under the right coach (not Hutton though) And we could have spent those money on 3-4 players instead of a new squad. Smith was never that coach though and yeah hindsight i know. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveAV1 Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 There is definitely a problem with recruitment, certainly looking from the outside. We have stated that we are looking to buy players with future value and of course that is a laudable ambition, but it shouldn’t become a rigid policy. Sometimes the system merits breaking in order to look at the bigger picture in the short term. We must never lose sight of the main aim, which is to produce a successful football team. Ron Saunders said he believed that Peter Withe was the final piece in the jigsaw. Under our current policy we wouldn’t have signed him. I’m also concerned with recruitment decision making within the system. If we had signed Benrahma and Maupay instead of Trez and Wesley, both those players would have fitted the recruitment criteria and I’m sure we would be a better team right now. They may have cost a little more but in the long term we would get a much better return on our investment. Particularly if the main return is that we avoid relegation. I’m not privy to the going’s on within transfers and perhaps Brentford or agents were being greedy and we were trying to make a point of not being a soft touch, but looking at the bigger picture I believe it was a mistake not signing them. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OxfordVillan Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 Let’s just hope they’ve got something really good up their sleeve for January because we’re in dire need of “ready to go” quality in vital areas. If it’s a case of we have to go with what we’ve got, or we buy more potential, then we are down IMO. Start praying. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveAV1 Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 4 minutes ago, villalad21 said: I think players like Jedinak, Whelan and Adomah could have done a decent job for us under the right coach (not Hutton though) And we could have spent those money on 3-4 players instead of a new squad. Smith was never that coach though and yeah hindsight i know. 3 or 4 players we wouldn’t even have filled the squad! We’d be playing a 3-2-3 formation! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 He's surely responsible for Wesley and Trezeguet. Can't say I have any confidence in him. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 20 minutes ago, hippo said: Have those players done that well ? - I know vertoux had a good spell initially - but think even he is struggling now. Gana accepted. Are you just ignoring Adama setting up goals for Wolves every week? He's regular for a team in europa knock outs and 2 points off the top 4. He's turning into what Ashley Young was for us. I don't really get why so many on this forum like to belittle him even when he's had a very good season. He's miles better nowadays than someone like Nathan Redmond imo who's long been hyped as an England player. As for the others Veretout is a regular for Roma who will probably be in CL at end of the season so Serie A certainly suits his style more than premier league imo and Amavi has played for France and in a europa league final since leaving. Ironically Ayew probably has the weakest resume of the main ones who left, still dosen't score much for a mid table/bottom half team even though he adapted the quickest of the 15/16 intake. Now here's the thing. There is potential in the Nakamba/Luiz/Engles/Gullibert/Trez intake. However it's clear at the moment that group can't be relied on to keep us in the league. We need some short term fixes in key areas and then hopefully with a year of premier league under their belts some of them will be really good top flight players in 12 months just like the 2015 crop have proved to be for other clubs. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted December 21, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted December 21, 2019 (edited) 20 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said: He's surely responsible for Wesley and Trezeguet. Can't say I have any confidence in him. Luiz looking poor to me, Nakamba pretty average, Engels OK. He's really not brought in anyone aside from Heaton who was a no brainer who's really looked an inspired signing. Edited December 21, 2019 by sidcow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest av1 Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 1 hour ago, villalad21 said: I think players like Jedinak, Whelan and Adomah could have done a decent job for us under the right coach (not Hutton though) And we could have spent those money on 3-4 players instead of a new squad. Smith was never that coach though and yeah hindsight i know. Your posts get more silly by the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 1 hour ago, villalad21 said: I think players like Jedinak, Whelan and Adomah could have done a decent job for us under the right coach (not Hutton though) And we could have spent those money on 3-4 players instead of a new squad. Smith was never that coach though and yeah hindsight i know. 1 has no club, another bench warmer at forest and only club that wanted Whelan was Hearts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KentVillan Posted December 21, 2019 Share Posted December 21, 2019 5 hours ago, sidcow said: I know it sounds like madness, but factor in transfer market inflation, his Brazil cap, his age, the fact he can definitely dominate in a league like the Belgian league... I'm sure in a couple of years there'll be a club in a foreign league willing to risk £30m+ on Wesley, even if he's a total flop in the Premier League. I think all of our summer signings besides Heaton will continue to go up in value. If this were a big club with loads of established first team players, then our business over the summer would probably be seen as sensible long-term investment. The problem is we actually needed a load of new first-team players who could hit the ground running - and Engels and Heaton are the only ones who've done that. I'm not making excuses for Suso btw - as director of football he should have been the one warning the board about this possibility. But I don't think it's so much that we've made loads of bad signings... it's more that we're missing one or two signings (a more experienced midfielder and a more experienced striker) who could have stabilised the team in our first season up, giving the younger players more room to grow. Instead we're risking relegation, which will be a much bigger waste of money than just signing a couple of experienced pros. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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