Lucas Digne

[Phil Silvers]

Just now, Zatman said:

Habib Beye was loved and highly rated by Newcastle fans. Similar to Digne and Everton fans

No comparison at all. 

[Icarium]

14 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Yeah not sure why we are suddenly selling him ffs.

Why not convince him to stay and fight for his place?

Injuries? We do this with every position.

He's good enough to be here.

 

13 hours ago, Delphinho123 said:

Yeh. ‘Great’. Will struggle to make the bench when everybody is fit. 

 

9 hours ago, Vancvillan said:

Spending $25m to bring in a proven and experienced player to compete with a 26 year-old who only has one great season of PL football makes sense.

That's what we did with Danny Ings.

Glad to see us follow the same idea here.

 

8 hours ago, skarroki said:

If we go from having Targett and Young / Ramsey / El Ghazi / whoever is fit to Digne and Coutinho down that left hand side of the pitch we've had an absolutely sublime window 

Its like we have been bad for so long recently some people think having quality players on the bench isn't allowed or something, glad there are people who feel differently on here

[zab6359]

12 minutes ago, Zatman said:

NSWE havent but as I said I just feel the club/Purslow have panicked since the summer and completely changed policy which I am not enjoying. 

It reminds me now of the horrors of the quick fixes of the MON era, Digne could easily be another Habib Beye and here for a bumper deal we wont be able to move

I don't think they have panicked they have just realised purely buying young players won't work. 

[gwi1890]

10 minutes ago, Zatman said:

NSWE havent but as I said I just feel the club/Purslow have panicked since the summer and completely changed policy which I am not enjoying. 

It reminds me now of the horrors of the quick fixes of the MON era, Digne could easily be another Habib Beye and here for a bumper deal we wont be able to move

Coutinho, Luca Dinge and Danny Ings Compare that to Habib Beye, Marlon Harwood and Mustaffa Salifou, I think the one of the problems Mon faced was he couldn’t get names the like Coutinho and Dinge through the door

[VillaFaninLondon]

The worry over the age of these signings is fair, but we have the 6th youngest squad in the PL at 25.5 years: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/altersschnitt/wettbewerb/GB1

 

14 players of the squad of 24 is 26 or younger. Only one player is over 30 (Young) and he'll be gone in the summer.

 

MON did go down the short term route which ruined us, but that's because he was buying bang average players. He failed in attracting top players like Sneijder. 

 

I still would like us to buy young players but a mix of a few high quality older players in no bad thing if they are better than what we have. 

[markc]

7 minutes ago, useless said:

Why are our fans so obssessed with comparing us to Everton? It's not just this latest 'doing an Everton' thing either, I've never understood it, I'm sure their fans don't constantly go on about how they're similar to us.

Also signing a few players in their later twenties isn't doing an Everton, especially Martinez and Mings were the only players before that that we had in the squad in their late twenties, even now Ashley Young is the only player we've got in his thirties. Not sure why people are talking as if signing players in their lates twenties is really uncommon, and that it's only Everton that have done it.

And of course our wages are going to go up, that will be a natural consequence of trying to reach the next level, we aren't just going to magically get to where our owners want by not paying the money it will take to get there, Everton are one example of team that tried it and failed, just because they did so, doesn't mean to say we will.

This is progress, a couple of seasons ago we were  'doing a Fulham' 

[The Fun Factory]

Don't understand why we have changed our transfer policy and now buying over 25's with increasing regularity.  Especially if Gerrard wants to play  a pressing game.

[Rolta]

2 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Habib Beye was loved and highly rated by Newcastle fans. Similar to Digne and Everton fans

Wow, that's really clutching at straws.

 

 

[Dante_Lockhart]

2 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

Don't understand why we have changed our transfer policy and now buying over 25's with increasing regularity.  Especially if Gerrard wants to play  a pressing game.

"You don't win anything with kids"

[The Fun Factory]

Just now, Dante_Lockhart said:

"You don't win anything with kids"

Then why invest millions in our youth set up?

[Dante_Lockhart]

6 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Habib Beye was loved and highly rated by Newcastle fans. Similar to Digne and Everton fans

[lexicon]

2 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

Don't understand why we have changed our transfer policy and now buying over 25's with increasing regularity.  Especially if Gerrard wants to play  a pressing game.

You definitely need a name change

[Dante_Lockhart]

Just now, The Fun Factory said:

Then why invest millions in our youth set up?

So you have a good compliment of youth and experience giving you a, dare I say, well rounded squad?

So when you have youth come through who are good you can sell them for money, giving the club a boost in fortune?

[Delphinho123]

6 minutes ago, Icarium said:

 

 

 

Its like we have been bad for so long recently some people think having quality players on the bench isn't allowed or something, glad there are people who feel differently on here

I think we'll have enough quality on the bench without having Trezeguet, Traore and El Ghazi on it. 

Honestly, right now, Buendia, Coutinho, Bailey and Chukwuemeka should be the 4 no.10's we focus on. I don't see a future here for the others.

[useless]

We haven't changed our transfer policy, we've signed three players in their later twenties, one of those is only on loan and is an exceptional circumstance anyway. We've got one of the youngest squads in the league, a bulk of which is made up of academy players, adding some experience here and there isn't going to hurt us. Average age of the squad will also get younger as move on the likes of El Ghazi and Trezeguet and repalce them with academy players.

We've also just signed Buendia and Bailey, both in their early to mid twenties.

 

[Icarium]

1 minute ago, Delphinho123 said:

I think we'll have enough quality on the bench without having Trezeguet, Traore and El Ghazi on it. 

Honestly, right now, Buendia, Coutinho, Bailey and Chukwuemeka should be the 4 no.10's we focus on. I don't see a future here for the others.

True enough, but there is no guarantee coutinho stays beyond the end of the season, and traore is more of a wide player than a 10, never hurts to have someone who can change the shape if needed

[Zatman]

9 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

Don't understand why we have changed our transfer policy and now buying over 25's with increasing regularity.  Especially if Gerrard wants to play  a pressing game.

We should have waited until the summer and signed Hickey who could be our starting full back for the next 10-12 years

[jackbauer24]

You can't afford to go slow anymore. Building with a young team is lovely and all in fantasy land but realistically you need four or five top quality youth players in the first team for that to work.

Have a handful that pull us up to 10th, 9th, 8th etc and the good players in the squad get impatient and go looking for that top 4/6 challenge. Then the promising players and outstanding individuals get picked off by bigger teams anyway and the club stagnate, financially sound but not really moving forward, always building for the future.

Or you go full force. You get to the top by outspending, within FFP, all those around you and gambling it works. If it doesn't, you quit or go again and again until it does.

If and when it does, then you have different problems. You get decimated by big teams who come and take all your big stars (a little like Leicester) and you rebuild wisely or you invest badly and plummet back to midtable. Or you keep spending and spending to become that big club.

Then, and only then, can you start signing young cheap players for the future because you can send them out on loan and cherry pick the ones who make the cut. Man City have a few decent homegrown players because they have a thousand youngsters on loan while their multimillion pound players bring them success.

If there has been a change in the transfer strategy I hope its because, rightly or wrong, they've realised you can't always build for the future. We need the success first which is slightly ridiculous scenario but it's how football works now.

Brentford are admirable but unsuccessful. Man City etc are vultures but successful.

You have to choose what you want Villa to be and that's modern football in my opinion.

[Mic09]

3 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

Don't understand why we have changed our transfer policy and now buying over 25's with increasing regularity.  Especially if Gerrard wants to play  a pressing game.

I really don't get this discussion.

I'd imagine there are many examples of fitter, faster 32 year old footballers than 28/29 year olds.

I would like for someone to show me a statistical correlation between how good a footballer is on average at age of 27 Vs 29 in order to criticize Digne because he is in his late 20s.

Now, I get that if you are 33 you are not a footballing spring chicken. But Digne isnt 33, and he is a defender - which on average are longer lasting.

If he plays for us and he is a pensioner walking on stick on the left flank, fine. But I see no evidence to suggest this at this point.

And that's before we even get into the discussion of experience and game knowledge - isn't that worth something? Is 19 year old, speedy as heck Archer likely to get past Digne on the training ground much?

[The_Steve]

Digne brings so much quality and any young LB we bring in will benefit immensely come the summer time. Sometimes things just fall into place and you take the quality available rather than just hope a young player hits the ground running. It’s a no brainer.