Summer transfer window 2021

[hippo]

27 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

I'm still of the opinion we should be going Nuclear with our transfer business this Summer. Good players play football good and whilst it's great to not tear up the playbook and replace a lot of players in the squad each window, the Grealish transfer changed this.

I'd still be looking to sign at least 2 starting midfielders. 2 of Sarr/Doucoure/JWP perhaps? 

We have the perfect opportunity to put together a more balanced team that doesn't rely on one player but we've not taken advantage of that opportunity yet. We have a negative net spend and a poor midfield. Work needs to be done in this area almost exclusively. We don't have a single central midfielder capable of playing in a 2 man midfield and it affects everything. Smith clearly wants to play a 4-2-3-1 but he can't. 

Totally bang on.

All the additions are decent.  But we have have lost a mega star in Jack. We seem to have brought players in who can probably help us cope. - But no go up a couple of levels. Hope Im wrong but Sarr and JWP look unlikely now  (IMO of course) 

[TRO]

37 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

I'm still of the opinion we should be going Nuclear with our transfer business this Summer. Good players play football good and whilst it's great to not tear up the playbook and replace a lot of players in the squad each window, the Grealish transfer changed this.

I'd still be looking to sign at least 2 starting midfielders. 2 of Sarr/Doucoure/JWP perhaps? 

We have the perfect opportunity to put together a more balanced team that doesn't rely on one player but we've not taken advantage of that opportunity yet. We have a negative net spend and a poor midfield. Work needs to be done in this area almost exclusively. We don't have a single central midfielder capable of playing in a 2 man midfield and it affects everything. Smith clearly wants to play a 4-2-3-1 but he can't. 

I think its so obvious and yet its not being done, so far.....I think something is not quite right here.

[the_eristic]

2 minutes ago, string28 said:

Thats one thing that worries me our passing is really poor.

It is absolutely shocking. Our best passing central midfielder is Doug, who averages total passes in the mid 40s per 90, while literally everyone else is making 35ish or fewer, and to top that off, almost none are short/medium "building" passes, they're either long balls and switches (fine if your only gameplan is GET IT TO JACK ASAP) or back to a defender who has to lump it up because their midfielders haven't moved into a better position to receive the ball back and can't do anything with it reliably anyway. Bad enough to watch, but when you start breaking down the numbers it jumps out and slaps you in the face. It's so dire, it's warmed me to the idea of someone otherwise a bit uninspiring like Harry Winks, just because he'd improve our general distribution and control of the ball so much if nothing else, which would help others play their more natural games.

[Awol]

2 minutes ago, the_eristic said:

….he'd improve our general distribution and control of the ball so much if nothing else, which would help others play their more natural games.

Gimme a J! Gimme a W! Gimme a P! 

Also, if we sign Caleb that’s surely curtains for Wesley at Villa? 

[The Fun Factory]

28 minutes ago, Laughable Chimp said:

I think its the opposite. We're the ones who may be overly-optimistic despite selling Grealish.

 

Yeah but haven't we decided that the Athletic just make things up?

[Laughable Chimp]

12 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

Yeah but haven't we decided that the Athletic just make things up?

Transfer rumours is one thing. Making up the results of a poll(presumably how they collected this data) would just be bizarre. There would be no incentive to completely fake the results and its not difficult to collect the data.

Edited August 16, 2021 by Laughable Chimp

[The Fun Factory]

1 minute ago, Laughable Chimp said:

Transfer rumours is one thing. Making up the results of a poll(presumably how they collected this data) would just be bizarre. There would be no incentive to completely fake the results and its not difficult to collect the data.

Fox News says hi

[HalfTimePost]

43 minutes ago, Laughable Chimp said:

I think its the opposite. We're the ones who may be overly-optimistic despite selling Grealish.

 

This is a ranking of saying are we hopeful or not, and given the positives of last year and the window, we should have a lot of hope of it coming good.

 The question wasn't 'do you think you'll finish in X position' which I think a balanced view of Villa fans would have us around 9th rather than 4th. 

[jacketspuds]

41 minutes ago, Laughable Chimp said:

I think its the opposite. We're the ones who may be overly-optimistic despite selling Grealish.

 

I think a lot of the optimism was based on the fact that we have signed Buendia, Ings and Bailey with the Grealish money and still have a small negative net spend.

We were terrible on Saturday, but I think that things were worse because Smith came out and said that we were happy with the squad and not expecting any more incomings. As others have said, it’s probably not true as he’s never going to come out and state that we’re after a few players still.

I certainly felt more frustration on Saturday thinking that we are going in to the season with midfield options that were more or less the same as our first season back in the PL.

Will be interesting to see the optimism once the window has closed.

[vreitti]

50 minutes ago, TRO said:

but as we were 0-3 down up to 60 minutes,playing turgid football defending like schoolboys and looking like we haven't trained at all.....I guess your comments reflected that.....sure scoring a well executed shot and a deserved penalty, will satisfy some, but the odd moments in a game will not deliver the owners targets of European Football.

Fair observations. Then again, you could likewise argue Watford scored a very lucky deflection and an equally well executed shot. We won't get into Europe playing like that though.

[villa4europe]

17 minutes ago, HalfTimePost said:

This is a ranking of saying are we hopeful or not, and given the positives of last year and the window, we should have a lot of hope of it coming good.

 The question wasn't 'do you think you'll finish in X position' which I think a balanced view of Villa fans would have us around 9th rather than 4th. 

yeah, my first thought when looking at it was "chances to do what?"

if its qualify for europe then no way did 94% of villa fans tick that box, if it was still stay up then yeah its a stupid question and im not surprised by that high number because its right

[a-k]

If we want to play 4231/433, we are looking at something like this as our "depth chart", not including kids. For 3rd year back in the Premier League I would say we have a pretty good first XI and solid backup in most areas, except in midfield, and that is regardless of how we line-up (e.g., with either or both of Watkins and Ings at the same time). I really rate Ramsey but not sure if he is quite first XI quality yet. Sanson is a bit of an unknown.

I don't believe for a second we are done in the market. We signed Buendia at ~35 mil to play with Greedlish, and seems like Bailey was incoming too with the plan that Greedlish was staying. That's ~60 mil in transfer fees spent. Considering that with the subsequent purchase of Ings and the incoming 100mil we have a negative net spend, surely there is a player or two coming in over the next two weeks. I would be surprised, in fact quite disappointed, if we didn't land a quality DM or CAM by the end of the month.

[tomav84]

2 minutes ago, a-k said:

If we want to play 4231/433, we are looking at something like this as our "depth chart", not including kids. For 3rd year back in the Premier League I would say we have a pretty good first XI and solid backup in most areas, except in midfield, and that is regardless of how we line-up (e.g., with either or both of Watkins and Ings at the same time). I really rate Ramsey but not sure if he is quite first XI quality yet. Sanson is a bit of an unknown.

I don't believe for a second we are done in the market. We signed Buendia at ~35 mil to play with Greedlish, and seems like Bailey was incoming too with the plan that Greedlish was staying. That's ~60 mil in transfer fees spent. Considering that with the subsequent purchase of Ings and the incoming 100mil we have a negative net spend, surely there is a player or two coming in over the next two weeks. I would be surprised, in fact quite disappointed, if we didn't land a quality DM or CAM by the end of the month.

we've been disappointed before by this regime...last 2 summers in fact we've wanted another striker and been let down both times. be prepared for another disappointment

not a dig at the owners etc btw, personally i think we're done in the market though

[HKP90]

56 minutes ago, TRO said:

I think its so obvious and yet its not being done, so far.....I think something is not quite right here.

Yeah, it's that no-one is going to let a good quality player go now that the season has started unless we bid massively over what they are worth. 

Why we should have done our business before now. 

[HKP90]

1 hour ago, Laughable Chimp said:

I think its the opposite. We're the ones who may be overly-optimistic despite selling Grealish.

 

I'm guessing that poll was done before the Watford match.

[Dante_Lockhart]

8 minutes ago, a-k said:

If we want to play 4231/433, we are looking at something like this as our "depth chart", not including kids. For 3rd year back in the Premier League I would say we have a pretty good first XI and solid backup in most areas, except in midfield, and that is regardless of how we line-up (e.g., with either or both of Watkins and Ings at the same time). I really rate Ramsey but not sure if he is quite first XI quality yet. Sanson is a bit of an unknown.

I don't believe for a second we are done in the market. We signed Buendia at ~35 mil to play with Greedlish, and seems like Bailey was incoming too with the plan that Greedlish was staying. That's ~60 mil in transfer fees spent. Considering that with the subsequent purchase of Ings and the incoming 100mil we have a negative net spend, surely there is a player or two coming in over the next two weeks. I would be surprised, in fact quite disappointed, if we didn't land a quality DM or CAM by the end of the month.

Personally I'd like to see McGinn push up into that AMC role and a new CM come in.

[Delphinho123]

Just now, Dante_Lockhart said:

Personally I'd like to see McGinn push up into that AMC role and a new CM come in.

Thats fine, but you then have to be prepared to bench Ings or Watkins and Traore...?

[Dante_Lockhart]

1 minute ago, Delphinho123 said:

Thats fine, but you then have to be prepared to bench Ings or Watkins and Traore...?

What a wonderful problem to have.

[HKP90]

7 minutes ago, a-k said:

If we want to play 4231/433, we are looking at something like this as our "depth chart", not including kids. For 3rd year back in the Premier League I would say we have a pretty good first XI and solid backup in most areas, except in midfield, and that is regardless of how we line-up (e.g., with either or both of Watkins and Ings at the same time). I really rate Ramsey but not sure if he is quite first XI quality yet. Sanson is a bit of an unknown.

I don't believe for a second we are done in the market. We signed Buendia at ~35 mil to play with Greedlish, and seems like Bailey was incoming too with the plan that Greedlish was staying. That's ~60 mil in transfer fees spent. Considering that with the subsequent purchase of Ings and the incoming 100mil we have a negative net spend, surely there is a player or two coming in over the next two weeks. I would be surprised, in fact quite disappointed, if we didn't land a quality DM or CAM by the end of the month.

 

Bailey on the right, and Buendia through the middle, surely?

 

[alreadyexists]

4 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

Thats fine, but you then have to be prepared to bench Ings or Watkins and Traore...?

Surely that’s just part of having a squad? It is alien to us as Villa fans but some teams have more than 11 players who are good enough to start… I think we might be getting to that situation. Or at least I hope we are. 
I think that signing a new DM is the missing piece, and once Luiz comes back I think that will add more substance to the midfield.

Edited August 16, 2021 by alreadyexists