Dante_Lockhart Posted January 8, 2020 Share Posted January 8, 2020 8 hours ago, dont_do_it_doug. said: How do you know this? It was all over the news. Scunthorpe player or something like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Villan4Life Posted January 8, 2020 Share Posted January 8, 2020 10 minutes ago, Dante_Lockhart said: It was all over the news. Scunthorpe player or something like that. Correct the player is Kgosi Ntlhe. 25 year old Central Defender for them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted January 8, 2020 Share Posted January 8, 2020 I just hope Suso doesnt come back from Milan with the Suso in their squad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted January 8, 2020 Share Posted January 8, 2020 1 hour ago, Dante_Lockhart said: It was all over the news. Scunthorpe player or something like that. So we know that's definitely what happened? Word for word? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cizzler Posted January 9, 2020 Share Posted January 9, 2020 Halfway through the season, and thoroughly unimpressed with his summer recruitment. I would be surprised if he still has a job if we go down. He was given one of the biggest budgets in the Premier League, and yet our best players are still the players from last season? Mings, Grealish, McGinn to an extent. I agree Mings, Hause and El Ghazi have been good signings - but not sure there was anyone on these boards who didn’t want to convert these loans into permanent deals? Hard to credit him there. Engels started well before tailing off a bit, getting injured and now can’t get into the team even though we’re playing a back three - but he’s shown some potential in my opinion. But really, would anyone sign any of Targett, Trezeguet, Nakamba, Douglas Luiz or Wesley knowing what they know now? Best part of £70m spent there. Heaton I will give him credit for. Konsa/Jota both feel very Smith influenced signings - so I feel harsh rating Jesus for. Although I would say Konsa has been generally good and Jota has been generally not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomav84 Posted January 9, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted January 9, 2020 2 minutes ago, Cizzler said: Halfway through the season, and thoroughly unimpressed with his summer recruitment. I would be surprised if he still has a job if we go down. He was given one of the biggest budgets in the Premier League, and yet our best players are still the players from last season? Mings, Grealish, McGinn to an extent. I agree Mings, Hause and El Ghazi have been good signings - but not sure there was anyone on these boards who didn’t want to convert these loans into permanent deals? Hard to credit him there. Engels started well before tailing off a bit, getting injured and now can’t get into the team even though we’re playing a back three - but he’s shown some potential in my opinion. But really, would anyone sign any of Targett, Trezeguet, Nakamba, Douglas Luiz or Wesley knowing what they know now? Best part of £70m spent there. Heaton I will give him credit for. Konsa/Jota both feel very Smith influenced signings - so I feel harsh rating Jesus for. Although I would say Konsa has been generally good and Jota has been generally not. a while back there was a tweet from one of the respected journos...cant remember who. might have been gregg evans or one of the telegraph ones...basically saying suso was responsible for the foreign signings whereas the likes of konsa, heaton, and the loans that became permanent were smith signings. if that's true he's definitely signed more duds than stars. i hear engels is still ill/injured so maybe excuse the last couple of performances otherwise i can't really find another real success aside from him. i agree, a big chunk of the blame would be at his door if we went down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted January 9, 2020 Share Posted January 9, 2020 its not that bad its a tough league, we have a new team, lots of players new to English football, if you look at the current climate its symptomatic of the clubs dip in form, confidence is low both in the players and the fans, if you look at the individual player threads around the time of their debuts and first couple of games most had glowing references, now everyone and everything is shit when in reality its not that bad, engels, luiz, nakamba etc theres a player in there definitely, just need to refind good form*, having to play a combination of them doesn't help, nakamba and luiz for example don't work as a pairing, wes will split opinions, im of the opinion that he's not great but our general play is making him look worse than he is the transfer fees aren't helping, skewing expectations, ignore the money spent, it no longer represents value to the buying club its value to the selling club if we were to go down I wouldn't personally point my finger at the new signings and say we bought badly, there's a better argument for pointing the finger at the previous regime and a manager who had "just get us up" as his remit, we should never have been in the position that we needed so many new players, same kind of thing as our previous relegation, it wasn't amavi, gueye and veretout's fault despite the "too many French player" nonsense, all good players gone on to do better things *McGinn is included in this, was awful pre injury, you can make an argument that so was mings when he got back from England duty, its not a new signings thing, heaton and jack are our only consistently good players Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hippo Posted January 9, 2020 Share Posted January 9, 2020 I think we all hoped he knew these players and seen something in them - I don't know the inner workings, but it stinks of being hoodwinked by agents. The wesley fee was outrageous for a bloke with 11 goals in a good season - Trez just appears to have nothing ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveAV1 Posted January 9, 2020 Share Posted January 9, 2020 I think one of the problems regarding fees is that we’re a little behind the times. Since we went down fees have rocketed. What we paid for Darren Bent, a proven goal scorer, now gets you a young unproven prospect such as Wesley. We've had to cover so many positions in one window and so we’ve filled the squad with largely average players or players with potential and spent around £10 million a head. Where as the likes of West Ham who have been up here for a few season and were given a stadium are paying £20 million + for their squad fillers. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted January 9, 2020 Share Posted January 9, 2020 29 minutes ago, tomav84 said: a while back there was a tweet from one of the respected journos...cant remember who. might have been gregg evans or one of the telegraph ones...basically saying suso was responsible for the foreign signings whereas the likes of konsa, heaton, and the loans that became permanent were smith signings. Gregg Evans is certainly not a respected journalist 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted January 9, 2020 Share Posted January 9, 2020 21 minutes ago, DaveAV1 said: I think one of the problems regarding fees is that we’re a little behind the times. Since we went down fees have rocketed. What we paid for Darren Bent, a proven goal scorer, now gets you a young unproven prospect such as Wesley. We've had to cover so many positions in one window and so we’ve filled the squad with largely average players or players with potential and spent around £10 million a head. Where as the likes of West Ham who have been up here for a few season and were given a stadium are paying £20 million + for their squad fillers. west ham have 5 players over the £20m mark in their team, we have 2 people can point at Wesley for £22m and slate suso all they want, west ham's striker has 6 goals to his name, is 3 years older and cost £36m there are 4 teams in the PL with a record signing lower than us, Brighton, Norwich, Burnley and Sheffield utd 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rightdm00 Posted January 9, 2020 Share Posted January 9, 2020 2 hours ago, villa4europe said: its not that bad its a tough league, we have a new team, lots of players new to English football, if you look at the current climate its symptomatic of the clubs dip in form, confidence is low both in the players and the fans, if you look at the individual player threads around the time of their debuts and first couple of games most had glowing references, now everyone and everything is shit when in reality its not that bad, engels, luiz, nakamba etc theres a player in there definitely, just need to refind good form*, having to play a combination of them doesn't help, nakamba and luiz for example don't work as a pairing, wes will split opinions, im of the opinion that he's not great but our general play is making him look worse than he is the transfer fees aren't helping, skewing expectations, ignore the money spent, it no longer represents value to the buying club its value to the selling club if we were to go down I wouldn't personally point my finger at the new signings and say we bought badly, there's a better argument for pointing the finger at the previous regime and a manager who had "just get us up" as his remit, we should never have been in the position that we needed so many new players, same kind of thing as our previous relegation, it wasn't amavi, gueye and veretout's fault despite the "too many French player" nonsense, all good players gone on to do better things *McGinn is included in this, was awful pre injury, you can make an argument that so was mings when he got back from England duty, its not a new signings thing, heaton and jack are our only consistently good players I will beat that drum anytime someone talks about our summer purchases. Our previous caretakers spent 40-50 million on players that aren't even in the squad any more. Sheffield United got Ends Stevens and George Baldock for a combined 900k. Norwich got Pukki on a free. I could go on. The time to build a team on the cheap was while we were in the Championship. The emoji Doctor pissed that all away. Leicester had six players in their starting lineup that had transfer fees of at least 20 million. They brought a striker off the bench that cost 25 million. You look at numbers like that and our 1-1 away from home looks pretty damn good. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pimlico_Villa Posted January 10, 2020 Share Posted January 10, 2020 Really starting to doubt him. Two weeks into the window and he’s done absolutely nothing, despite the dire predicament. I’m actually shocked he’s been entrusted after signing Wesley and Targett. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted January 10, 2020 Share Posted January 10, 2020 32 minutes ago, Pimlico_Villa said: Really starting to doubt him. Two weeks into the window and he’s done absolutely nothing, despite the dire predicament. I’m actually shocked he’s been entrusted after signing Wesley and Targett. 10 days he didn't start working on this window 1st jan we've signed one player, recalled 2 loans and shipped green back out what we do is determined by other teams and the player themselves, it is what it is villa fans and their nerves are a big part of our problem, if there is an expectation that we would play the reserves regardless vs Fulham (we did) will lose on sunday (realistic) then its only the Leicester game that we got away with, we have a couple more days before hitting the panic button 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted January 10, 2020 Share Posted January 10, 2020 the inability of fans to consider the fact other teams have their own concerns and real life isn't like championship manager never ceases to annoy me. Unless you have the money to blow clubs out of the water and just get on with it ( and even then it's rare ) this is not an easy time to sign players. It's like buying a house, sometimes there are long chains and you have to wait for all the deals to line up 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted January 10, 2020 Share Posted January 10, 2020 yep, it was the same at the start of the summer, screaming from the rooftop "why haven't we signed anyone" when in reality we have signed someone, in fact 5 clubs have bought someone this transfer window so far - rodwell to Sheffield utd Minamoto to liverpool vorm to spurs joao Pedro to watford so basically nothing is really happening (yet) the papers and SSN make it seem like a huge buzz of activity when in reality no one is doing much of anything take benteke for example, if we do actually want him, lyon have to sell dembele to Chelsea, Chelsea then sell batshauyi to palace, palace then loan benteke to us...what happens if Chelsea cant agree a deal with lyon and dembele goes to spurs? that's suso "doing nothing"?? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted January 10, 2020 Share Posted January 10, 2020 12 minutes ago, villa4europe said: yep, it was the same at the start of the summer, screaming from the rooftop "why haven't we signed anyone" when in reality we have signed someone, in fact 5 clubs have bought someone this transfer window so far - rodwell to Sheffield utd Minamoto to liverpool vorm to spurs joao Pedro to watford so basically nothing is really happening (yet) the papers and SSN make it seem like a huge buzz of activity when in reality no one is doing much of anything take benteke for example, if we do actually want him, lyon have to sell dembele to Chelsea, Chelsea then sell batshauyi to palace, palace then loan benteke to us...what happens if Chelsea cant agree a deal with lyon and dembele goes to spurs? that's suso "doing nothing"?? in the eyes of far too many who view things as black and white, then sadly yes. All other eventualites must kow-tow to the whims of aston villa otherwise the staff have failed. It's daft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hippo Posted January 10, 2020 Share Posted January 10, 2020 He isn't just a scout though - he is our Director of Football. So if £10m doesn't get you premiership quality - why are we still shelling out on lots of £10m players ? - Target £14m - £17m was it ? - this guys head is on the line IMO. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pimlico_Villa Posted January 10, 2020 Share Posted January 10, 2020 (edited) 46 minutes ago, villa4europe said: yep, it was the same at the start of the summer, screaming from the rooftop "why haven't we signed anyone" when in reality we have signed someone, in fact 5 clubs have bought someone this transfer window so far - rodwell to Sheffield utd Minamoto to liverpool vorm to spurs joao Pedro to watford so basically nothing is really happening (yet) the papers and SSN make it seem like a huge buzz of activity when in reality no one is doing much of anything take benteke for example, if we do actually want him, lyon have to sell dembele to Chelsea, Chelsea then sell batshauyi to palace, palace then loan benteke to us...what happens if Chelsea cant agree a deal with lyon and dembele goes to spurs? that's suso "doing nothing"?? What you don't acknowledge is the dire predicament we are in. In case you hadn't noticed, we don't have one fit senior striker and had previously gone into the season knowing we were light, given Wesley was reportedly not our first choice. Absolutely no point in using other teams as a proxy for activity as they all have proper strikers and aren't desperate. They are all looking to slightly modify and add at the margin at best, nothing fundamental. That's clearly evidenced in the signings you list. Plus, he should have been working pre-emptively prior to Jan to button signings down, especially as we already knew Wes wasn't likely to step up any time soon. We might as well just appoint Agents to do our business as they would face fewer constraints. Edited January 10, 2020 by Pimlico_Villa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted January 10, 2020 Share Posted January 10, 2020 depends what his remit is if its fed down from the top "suso find us the best winger available for £10m" if its "suso find us the best winger you can" and he goes off and finds the next mbappe for £1m and the club then cant push a deal through because the player doesn't want join or he finds the next mbappe and the selling club say "£100m please" we merely see a fraction of what he does, im sure his database and recommendations are pretty impressive, we as a club might be failing to sign players for reasons out of his control and that's before you factor in you're judging him on your own opinion, an opinion that might not be shared by smith or those at the top 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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