Summer Transfer Window 2019 (closed)

[Mazrim]

Another favorite is "waiting until January'. See how you get on. Then, after 5 months of suffering, and another month because nothing happens until all the posturing is finished at the of January, you pay way over the odds for the players the elite have left you with.

All because you tried to get Wesley and  Jota to gel with Hutton and Whelan due to sone curious notion that you can only buy x players at a time.

[Vive_La_Villa]

I think not signing this number of players and keeping some the players released would have been a much bigger risk.

[Zatman]

1 hour ago, New_Hope said:

Struggling to see what's not to like!

Micah and Gardner are irreplaceable

[Vive_La_Villa]

After the initial excitement of promotion had calmed down I looked at the squad and though we’re f**ked aren’t we!?

Two months on and if you told me the squad looked as strong as it does now on paper I would never have believed you. Yes there are a massive amount of unknowns but when’s the last time we’ve been this prepared for a season with 2 weeks to go? I think we’d have to go back to Brian Little times. 

Well done to the club. 

Edit: I do think the window closing before the season starts helps clubs conduct their business earlier.

Edited August 1, 2019 by Vive_La_Villa

[thunderball]

2 hours ago, useless said:

I saw a cat under a parked car today, some traffic was coming so I thought I better not walk past in case I startle it, and it runs out into the road, so I waited until it was quiet, then walked past, and the cat did run out from under the car, so good job i had that quick thinking. On the way back the cat was back under the car fast asleep on it's back, and just as I walked past opened it's eyes and meowed, as if to say thank you.

Woah, deep man:  Is the CAT Steve Bruce, and the act of walking past is smuggling in a cabbage and throwing it at Steve Bruce....somehow?

Edited August 1, 2019 by thunderball

[DaveAV1]

2 hours ago, Genie said:

I did mention it. I'd have not released so many, and signed around 5 or 6 players who can go straight into the first team. Held back some funds to strengthen again in January.

January is a sellers market. The only people buying are generally teams who are desperate. Brian Little said something about it in his book. He basically said you’re buying from a weak position in January. You can get injuries and occasionally good buying opportunities arise in January, but on the whole it’s not a great time to buy. 

I don’t believe there are many, if any, players that we released who are better or even as good as players that we now have in the squad. Most were at the end of contracts that probably weren’t even particularly good value for the club. I think that some of the players that we have kept have been kept to some extent for continuity sake. Although the window hasn’t slammed shut yet and so there could still be more departures. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

2 hours ago, Genie said:

Why is it negative?

I just said my view is that its risky and I'd have personally taken a less risky approach. It's just an opinion. 

 

It’s all about opinions but I personally think we’ve taken one of the least riskiest approaches we could.

The alternative could have been signing more players with Premier League appearances. Would have maybe have been a more cautious approach although probably even more costly.

Giving any of the players we released a new contract wasn’t really an option. They couldn’t even cut it in the Championship, never mind the Premier League.

[VillaChris]

1 hour ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I think we had to bring in 12 players. Our squad was just way to weak.  Watford signed 19 the year they got promoted and had a good season. So it’s not unheard of. 

My cocern is the quality of a lot of the players we have signed. They may turn out to be superb in this league or they may just flop.  There’s just so many unknowns and I see parallel to the year we went down. I sense similar excitement.

But that’s the risk we’ve taken and I’m glad we have taken that risk. I also trust the club and owners and based on season ticket sale it looks like the fans do to.

The main issue was we pretty much lost 7 players out of our 18 involved in play off final. 4 of the loans (although of course we've signed Mings and AEG) and then released Albert, Whelan and Jedinak.

Just making 3-4 signings and then with injuries and suspenions racking up we'd have had to give starts to likes of Bjarni, Lansbury and Davis. If that happened we'd be struggling to break the 17 point season.

We had to sign 8-9. Maybe double figues is a little overkill, we'll see how DS juggles all the new players in due course.

[Kiwivillan]

18 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

It’s all about opinions but I personally think we’ve taken one of the least riskiest approaches we could.

The alternative could have been signing more players with Premier League appearances. Would have maybe have been a more cautious approach although probably even more costly.

Giving any of the players we released a new contract wasn’t really an option. They couldn’t even cut it in the Championship, never mind the Premier League.

The "you need premier league experience if promoted to premier league" is a load of wank and has been debunked in articles using recent clubs as examples

[MotoMkali]

2 hours ago, Genie said:

By Genie, you mean the approach most managers take in the Summer. Incidentally Big Sam said similar didn't he. Ah he's probably shit and a dinosaur so forget that one 

I didn't know big Sam had a burner account. It does explain a lot though

[MotoMkali]

1 hour ago, hippo said:

I totally get @Genie point. 

But I really don't think we had an option. The only player I would have maybe kept on would have been Whelan.

We could not keep AT and TA - most of the others weren't even in the team towards the end of the season. What loans we could make permanent we did - we haven't really sold anyone who cut it last season.

My hope is that if DS can whip a team of players he didn't choose into a promotion winning team - then hopefully a team of his own selections will be good enough for a least 4th bottom (personally I think we will do much better than that)

 

Not to be rude or anything but I would not have kept whelan. He was one of our main reasons for Conceding last year. He was so slow that when he closed a player Down they could easily pass around him with 2 players and they would have a clear line at our defense. Plus he had 2 or 3 crap balls in him per game which could screw us over. Nakamba and Luiz are both superior options and if hourihanes been working on his positioning then he would preferred as well. 

[Okonokos]

3 hours ago, Genie said:

I'm struggling to find another way to say it.

BRINGING IN 12 OR MORE PLAYERS IN 1 WINDOW IS VERY RISKY IN MY OPINION.

Bringing in lots of first team players at once, more than other clubs tend to do brings with it it's own challenges. I've mentioned it about 4 times. It's not a reflection of player A versus player B. My view is that it would have been better to keep some of last years Play Off winning squad to minimise the size of the rebuild for 6 or 12 months. Then phased some of the players in during the January window. 

 

Mate, look at the list of players we released. Some of them can barely walk, let alone be anywhere near premier League standard.

If we had gone with that calibre of player for our squad next season we'd do a Derby from 07/08.

[Vive_La_Villa]

Great show on Villa on BBC radio today.  @Genie  Smith talks about the reasons for so many signings. Might be worth a listen.

Edited August 2, 2019 by Vive_La_Villa

[KMitch]

12 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Great show on Villa on BBC radio today.  @Genie  Smith talks about the treasons for so many signings. Might be worth a listen.

Treasons you say?  I want someone's head on a pike outside of BMH, right now!

[Kiwivillan]

31 minutes ago, MotoMkali said:

Not to be rude or anything but I would not have kept whelan. He was one of our main reasons for Conceding last year. He was so slow that when he closed a player Down they could easily pass around him with 2 players and they would have a clear line at our defense. Plus he had 2 or 3 crap balls in him per game which could screw us over. 

I wouldn't have kept him but that's all a load of crap. He was instrumental in the march to play offs. Played 90 mins in 7 of the 10 unbeaten. His pass accuracy was over 90% in several games which is almost unheard of. The dud back pass from Grealish he wasn't expecting in the semi is not grounds for disrespecting the great part he played in our promotion

Edited August 2, 2019 by Kiwivillan

[Enda]

I don’t agree with @Genie but he’s been treated far too harshly here.

[LondonLax]

I agree effectively signing a whole new team after promotion is a risk. The optimal situation would be to finish top of the league, keep the core of that squad together and add a handful of genuine quality to the mix. A bit like Newcastle's path a few seasons back. 

We did not have that option unfortunately and I believe the current strategy is the best possible approach we could have taken, given the hand we were dealt. 

If you look at the list posted earlier:

Signing fewer (but I assume more expensive) players on the right column would require keeping more players from the left column.  Of those players on the left I think we have kept everyone we would have liked to with the exception of for Abraham and Tuanzebe (who we can assume were not available to sign).

I think relying on more players from the list on the left (presumably Adomah, Whelan and De Laet? I can't see who else we'd be considering?) would have left us exposed at times during the season.

Whilst we have spread our transfer spend more widely than would be ideal under the perfect promotion scenario I think it has been necessary. In addition many of the players who have come in have previous links to either the manager or other players in the squad giving them the best hope of integration.   

[Kiwivillan]

17 minutes ago, Enda said:

I don’t agree with @Genie but he’s been treated far too harshly here.

Saying beef up with signings in January was probably the stupidest comment but I chose not to respond to that out of restraint

[Enda]

25 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

Saying beef up with signings in January was probably the stupidest comment but I chose not to respond to that out of restraint

It’s not stupid to say we should hold back 10 million in reserve in case Wesley completely flops or Targett breaks his leg. It’s a legitimate argument, even if you and I may strongly disagree with it.

Yer even proving my point.

 

[Kiwivillan]

8 minutes ago, Enda said:

It’s not stupid to say we should hold back 10 million in reserve in case Wesley completely flops or Targett breaks his leg. It’s a legitimate argument, even if you and I may strongly disagree with it.

Yer even proving my point.

 

Very rarely do good deals get done in January. I would say Mings but loans are completely different to permanent transfers. Obviously my last post I was engaging in rhetoric