Summer Transfer Window 2022

[Kiwivillan]

2 hours ago, NeilS said:

I might “get myself arrested” if we sign Gomez.

Thank you. Appreciate someone getting the reference. Saw them in Auckland, NZ in Nov 2019 and was great gig and thankful after all the ones was planning on seeing before Covid hit

[allani]

On 15/02/2022 at 23:32, VillaChris said:

Would take Ndidi if Leicester don't want him anymore, think he'd be better fit than Bissouma.

Why not both?  Ndidi, Bissouma & JJ v McGinn, Luiz & JJ?

[PerryBarrPet]

2 minutes ago, allani said:

Why not both?  Ndidi, Bissouma & JJ v McGinn, Luiz & JJ?

No contest but what chance of this happening?

[allani]

20 hours ago, TRO said:

I was surprised a defensive midfielder, did not come in, in January.

I have to confess, it does seem hard to get one, for a variety of possible reasons.

I am perplexed how Brighton and Leicester, can get Bissouma and Ndidi, so easily from their previous clubs.....are they so  much better at spotting defensive talent?

Well Brighton are not in that position by choice.  They can't sign players for £40 million so they have to try and find bargains elsewhere.  If it is a straight choice between a £50 million player who has proved they can compete in the PL compared to a £5 million player who might - the pressure on "bigger" clubs is to try and buy the "safe" option.  Also with lower expectations at Brighton there is also more time / less pressure to make an immediate impact.  Say Villa decide / fail to sign Bissouma in the summer and instead buy a youngster from the French / Italian second division that none of us have heard of.  Two indifferent games and half our fans would be writing the player off and slagging off the recruitment team.  We bought a whole load of good players from France a few seasons back and got rid of them all as failures - most of whom went on to play at a higher level.  Just look at how many people dismissed someone who was a starter for Juventus because they were not "good enough" to play for us.  Leicester are in Europe and that has a lot of pulling power.

[allani]

10 hours ago, Zatman said:

Luiz and Sanson will do better elsewhere though like Veretout and Gana

Is that not bad management decisions. If Sanson goes then surely Lange must go too. Not saying either are bad at the job but at this stage arent great investments

Sanson was signed at a particular point in time when he probably was a better alternative than we currently had.  He's just missed out mainly through injury.  If he was signed for a 2 year "window" to help us go from relegation battle to mid-table then he is at the point where we would naturally be looking to upgrade on him anyway.  We can't buy Top 6 level players at the moment without an element of risk (an Emi who is second choice, a Coutinho who hasn't sparked) - so we have been looking for players who can make us an established PL team (Cash, Sanson, Luiz, McGinn, Watkins, Ings, etc).  If we want to make the next step we will need to improve on those players again.  So I would expect us to sign Top 8 level players.  Then (if that works) in 2, 3, 4 years time they will need upgrading in order to get to the next level.  I don't see that being bad management.  It is only bad management if we make a massive loss on those players or we fail to make forward progress.  We were unlucky with Sanson with injury in that he probably missed out on the time when he was most likely to make an impact / stake a claim for his position.  The emergence of JJ has probably surprised many and he is now clearly way ahead of Sanson.  I don't think that is a recruitment issue.  Indeed I would say that almost all of our signings in the last 2 - 3 years have made sense.  I can't think of too many out and out failures.  Ings has probably been the closest disappointment but we definitely needed a second CF and I don't actually think he has been any worse than Ollie this season.

[allani]

10 hours ago, Zatman said:

Gerrard wants us as a stepping stone

To be honest if there is a single person at the club at the moment who doesn't see us as a potential stepping stone I would either call them a liar or a liability.  A liability in that if 13th place in the Premier League is the height of their ambition then they are not likely to drive us forward to where we want to be.  A liar in that if Liverpool, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, etc came calling tomorrow then they would (or at least should) be packing their bags quicker than it takes to say "where do I sign?".

[PerryBarrPet]

1 minute ago, allani said:

Sanson was signed at a particular point in time when he probably was a better alternative than we currently had.  He's just missed out mainly through injury.  If he was signed for a 2 year "window" to help us go from relegation battle to mid-table then he is at the point where we would naturally be looking to upgrade on him anyway.  We can't buy Top 6 level players at the moment without an element of risk (an Emi who is second choice, a Coutinho who hasn't sparked) - so we have been looking for players who can make us an established PL team (Cash, Sanson, Luiz, McGinn, Watkins, Ings, etc).  If we want to make the next step we will need to improve on those players again.  So I would expect us to sign Top 8 level players.  Then (if that works) in 2, 3, 4 years time they will need upgrading in order to get to the next level.  I don't see that being bad management.  It is only bad management if we make a massive loss on those players or we fail to make forward progress.  We were unlucky with Sanson with injury in that he probably missed out on the time when he was most likely to make an impact / stake a claim for his position.  The emergence of JJ has probably surprised many and he is now clearly way ahead of Sanson.  I don't think that is a recruitment issue.  Indeed I would say that almost all of our signings in the last 2 - 3 years have made sense.  I can't think of too many out and out failures.  Ings has probably been the closest disappointment but we definitely needed a second CF and I don't actually think he has been any worse than Ollie this season.

Agree with all of this. We now have to see how the plan unfolds - hopefully for the better.

[VillaParkAvenue]

15 minutes ago, allani said:

Sanson was signed at a particular point in time when he probably was a better alternative than we currently had.  He's just missed out mainly through injury.  If he was signed for a 2 year "window" to help us go from relegation battle to mid-table then he is at the point where we would naturally be looking to upgrade on him anyway.  We can't buy Top 6 level players at the moment without an element of risk (an Emi who is second choice, a Coutinho who hasn't sparked) - so we have been looking for players who can make us an established PL team (Cash, Sanson, Luiz, McGinn, Watkins, Ings, etc).  If we want to make the next step we will need to improve on those players again.  So I would expect us to sign Top 8 level players.  Then (if that works) in 2, 3, 4 years time they will need upgrading in order to get to the next level.  I don't see that being bad management.  It is only bad management if we make a massive loss on those players or we fail to make forward progress.  We were unlucky with Sanson with injury in that he probably missed out on the time when he was most likely to make an impact / stake a claim for his position.  The emergence of JJ has probably surprised many and he is now clearly way ahead of Sanson.  I don't think that is a recruitment issue.  Indeed I would say that almost all of our signings in the last 2 - 3 years have made sense.  I can't think of too many out and out failures.  Ings has probably been the closest disappointment but we definitely needed a second CF and I don't actually think he has been any worse than Ollie this season.

The aim is of course to gradually improve the squad. But I don’t think we’ll ever be able to buy those top 8 players from within the league. If we want top players, we will have to develop them ourselves or buy talent who haven’t yet come to England.

[allani]

1 minute ago, PerryBarrPet said:

Agree with all of this. We now have to see how the plan unfolds - hopefully for the better.

Even if we don't progress up the league as we would like - what I think I like about the plan is that even if it doesn't work we shouldn't be heading to an awful place.  For example, Targett was a good signing when he joined.  He's taken us probably as far as he can.  I suspect that if we sell him in the summer that we will make a transfer profit.  However, the success of his transfer should also take into consideration that he has helped move us from a team battling relegation to a team that should really be finishing mid-table.  So in that regard he would be a double win - moved us forward, sold at a profit.  I personally think that Digne is probably the best left-back outside the Sly 6 who we signed for under market value.  If we had to sell him in the summer we would easily make our money back.  Even Young makes sense.  We needed a back-up LB who could fill in for injury / suspension and he's done a pretty decent job.  I think his experience off the pitch has probably also been invaluable for the youngsters and I hope that he joins us as a full-time coach.  So just using 1 position as an example, I think the plan is clear.  In 2/3 seasons we have gone from having a starting LB worth about £3.50 to probably the best in that position outside the top 6-8 clubs whilst probably maintaining a positive cash value in the position (if we make £8 million profit on Targett then we have at least 2 more years of Digne before his value would drop by more than we made on Targett).

[PerryBarrPet]

15 minutes ago, allani said:

Even if we don't progress up the league as we would like - what I think I like about the plan is that even if it doesn't work we shouldn't be heading to an awful place.  For example, Targett was a good signing when he joined.  He's taken us probably as far as he can.  I suspect that if we sell him in the summer that we will make a transfer profit.  However, the success of his transfer should also take into consideration that he has helped move us from a team battling relegation to a team that should really be finishing mid-table.  So in that regard he would be a double win - moved us forward, sold at a profit.  I personally think that Digne is probably the best left-back outside the Sly 6 who we signed for under market value.  If we had to sell him in the summer we would easily make our money back.  Even Young makes sense.  We needed a back-up LB who could fill in for injury / suspension and he's done a pretty decent job.  I think his experience off the pitch has probably also been invaluable for the youngsters and I hope that he joins us as a full-time coach.  So just using 1 position as an example, I think the plan is clear.  In 2/3 seasons we have gone from having a starting LB worth about £3.50 to probably the best in that position outside the top 6-8 clubs whilst probably maintaining a positive cash value in the position (if we make £8 million profit on Targett then we have at least 2 more years of Digne before his value would drop by more than we made on Targett).

This does appear to be the plan Villa is generally following and if it is I think it very sensible. Perhaps part of the thinking behind bringing in Gerrard is how he can help in attracting better players. We won’t get everyone we go for - some want CL football immediately, others are interested but their clubs want silly money to sell - but we will bring in sufficient to move us forward quickly.

[Awol]

1 hour ago, allani said:

Why not both?  Ndidi, Bissouma & JJ v McGinn, Luiz & JJ?

Cheick Doucoure and Bissouma. Probably get them both for under £50m, instead of £75m+ for Nididi and Bissouma.

[allani]

1 minute ago, VillaParkAvenue said:

The aim is of course to gradually improve the squad. But I don’t think we’ll ever be able to buy those top 8 players from within the league. If we want top players, we will have to develop them ourselves or buy talent who haven’t yet come to England.

VillaTalk will go into meltdown if that is the case.  It was bad enough when we were linked to a possible deal involving a Uruguayan international who was a regular starter for Juventus.  Can you imagine what will happen if we sign a 19 year old from Lecce that none of us have ever heard of.  Unfortunately most of us want / expect us to find a £60 million player for £1.50 from a European league who is SO good that they can automatically adjust to playing in the PL and at the same time fill a role that almost 99.9% of fans blame as being the position we've lacked for 15 years and that has continuously held us back from meeting our potential.  Our fans are not looking at potential success in 5 years time - we want almost instantaneous success.  I am the same.  The fans of at least 10-12 other English clubs are exactly the same.  I freely admit to saying that JJ should have been sent out on loan this season to develop and I now look like an idiot as he has potentially jumped to being the top of my midfield 3 list.  JJ had the benefit of being "one of our own" and enough people on here having seen him in the junior teams to at least say "he'll make it".  But it took him a good 30-35 matches to convince most people.  A £5m signing from a lower league in France / Italy / Spain / Germany just will not get that same adjustment time in a role that we all see as being so critical.  Cases in point - Ings (joint second top scorer in the PL over the past 2 seasons, written off by many before he even kicked a ball for us as "not being what we need"), Sanson (CL player from France dismissed as not good enough), Bertie (CL player / international dismissed as too inconsistent), AEG / Trez are solid players from the likes of the Dutch / Belgian league but not good enough for where we want to be.  This "unknown exceptional talent for no money" just does not exist.  For every player that you identify to say that isn't true there will be 50 or 100 players of a similar positions / stature who were bought by other clubs at a similar time for the same amount of money that did not work.  The idea that we can sign an unknown prospect who will suddenly transform us into a Top 8 team is poppycock.  Brighton don't seriously expect to finish in the Top 8.  Realistically they are happy to be in the PL.  So if they sign someone for £5m who doesn't work out and they avoid relegation then they are (mainly) happy.  Some Villa fans are in meltdown about this season when we are realistically 8 points from safety with 15 matches left of the season, 2 points off 10th with a game in hand (although Leicester have an extra game in hand), 10 points clear of the relegation zone (with a game in hand).  If we ONLY sign 4 unproven talents from overseas in the summer, they will have about 3 matches to prove the rest of the world wrong (at most) before fans start calling for the head of the manager, Lange or the board.  Seriously, this is the best we have been run for probably 40 / 50 seasons and many people are incredibly vocal and negative.  We could sign Mason Mount tomorrow and half this message board would be dismissing it as a mistake.

[grobs]

We need a starting defensive midfielder, striker and centre half. If we can do that and get rid of a couple of fringe / useless players don’t see why we can’t really push on next season. 

[allani]

6 minutes ago, PerryBarrPet said:

This does appear to be the plan Villa is generally following and if it is I think it very sensible. Perhaps part of the thinking behind bringing in Gerrard is how he can help in attracting better players. We won’t get everyone we go for - some want CL football immediately, others are interested but their clubs want silly money to sell - but we will bring in sufficient to move us forward quickly.

I agree.  Without European football to offer we needed something extra to "sell" the vision.  I think we are a run well club with wealthy and committed owners and so financially I think we can match the market rate for most players we are looking at.  However, the challenge will be that after the last 10 years many of those will be more familiar with names like, Spurs, Everton, Leicester, etc than Villa.  Newcastle will be able to throw stupid money around and not care about how much money they waste in the process (something that our owners - thankfully - seem VERY reluctant to do, they clearly expect there to be a proper business case for almost every signing we have made).  So we need something.  Gerrard is part of that.  I think the full-time signing of Coutinho along with Emi is a part too.  The question will be whether Gerrard is a big enough draw outside of the immediate (and now quite small) circle of people he played with or trained at Liverpool (assuming that there is a big jump from Rangers to the PL in terms of playing staff).  Is he enough, along with the vision we are selling, to persuade players aiming to finish Top 8 that we will be there next season?  This is part of the reason why I think this season is really important.  If we can finish 10th then the jump to 7th - 8th looks possible (even if we finish 11th by a couple of points max).  It is much harder if we finish 13th / 14th / 15th.  Especially if Newcastle and Everton do avoid the drop.  They will probably be operating in a similar market for signings over the summer and so we need to make sure that we look a better prospect than them as well as a good alternative to the likes of Wolves, Spurs, Arsenal, Leicester, West Ham.

[VillaParkAvenue]

47 minutes ago, allani said:

Even if we don't progress up the league as we would like - what I think I like about the plan is that even if it doesn't work we shouldn't be heading to an awful place.  For example, Targett was a good signing when he joined.  He's taken us probably as far as he can.  I suspect that if we sell him in the summer that we will make a transfer profit.  However, the success of his transfer should also take into consideration that he has helped move us from a team battling relegation to a team that should really be finishing mid-table.  So in that regard he would be a double win - moved us forward, sold at a profit.  I personally think that Digne is probably the best left-back outside the Sly 6 who we signed for under market value.  If we had to sell him in the summer we would easily make our money back.  Even Young makes sense.  We needed a back-up LB who could fill in for injury / suspension and he's done a pretty decent job.  I think his experience off the pitch has probably also been invaluable for the youngsters and I hope that he joins us as a full-time coach.  So just using 1 position as an example, I think the plan is clear.  In 2/3 seasons we have gone from having a starting LB worth about £3.50 to probably the best in that position outside the top 6-8 clubs whilst probably maintaining a positive cash value in the position (if we make £8 million profit on Targett then we have at least 2 more years of Digne before his value would drop by more than we made on Targett).

To clarify, I’m not saying Villa should buy a bunch of totally unknown 19 year olds for £1m each. I’m saying our only realistic chance of signing top players is to sign them from abroad. Players who have stood out in France, Germany or Holland. They will probably cost a lot in most cases.

Top players who are already established in England are very rarely available to us. Either the owning club won’t sell to a direct rival or, if the player is running down his contract to be able to pick his dream club, he’s unlikely to choose Villa.

Buying standout players from other PL clubs is very difficult unless you’re Man City. Digne was a lucky exception with the Rafa situation.

[allani]

1 minute ago, VillaParkAvenue said:

To clarify, I’m not saying Villa should buy a bunch of totally unknown 19 year olds for £1m each. I’m saying our only realistic chance of signing top players is to sign them from abroad. Players who have stood out in France, Germany or Holland. They will probably cost a lot in most cases.

Top players who are already established in England are very rarely available to us. Either the owning club won’t sell to a direct rival or, if the player is running down his contract to be able to pick his dream club, he’s unlikely to choose Villa.

Buying standout players from other PL clubs is very difficult unless you’re Man City. Digne was a lucky exception with the Rafa situation.

OK.  Sorry for the random diatribe in my previous response then!  Yes - I do think that the likes of a Bailey style transfer is our most likely option of signing players who might be Top 6 / Top 8 quality - because the draw of the Premier League is almost as big as Europe (CL excluded).  But it does still pose a risk in that there are plenty of players who have excelled in other league (even France, Germany, Spain and Italy) who have struggled in the Premier League.  This is probably even more the case in our problematic midfield where in many other leagues you do generally get a bit more time before some lunatic dives in at you at 400 mph.

[VillaParkAvenue]

18 minutes ago, allani said:

The question will be whether Gerrard is a big enough draw outside of the immediate (and now quite small) circle of people he played with or trained at Liverpool (assuming that there is a big jump from Rangers to the PL in terms of playing staff). 

Gerrard is probably still a pretty big draw but that could be short-lived. The pull factor of playing for a legendary midfielder will disappear if he doesn’t improve Villa before the summer.

[duke313]

7 minutes ago, allani said:

OK.  Sorry for the random diatribe in my previous response then!  Yes - I do think that the likes of a Bailey style transfer is our most likely option of signing players who might be Top 6 / Top 8 quality - because the draw of the Premier League is almost as big as Europe (CL excluded).  But it does still pose a risk in that there are plenty of players who have excelled in other league (even France, Germany, Spain and Italy) who have struggled in the Premier League.  This is probably even more the case in our problematic midfield where in many other leagues you do generally get a bit more time before some lunatic dives in at you at 400 mph.

Any transfer poses a risk, even buying established players from other PL teams (Benteke to Liverpool being an example).  But as pointed out buying players from top 8 PL teams probably won't happen, so our only option is to poach players from lower PL teams for a premium or shop abroad. 

[Rightdm00]

2 hours ago, PerryBarrPet said:

Not necessarily. The major fault with some of our players is inconsistency. On a good day we should win but who knows which version will turn up? This is why we need better players - regular high level performance.

A whole host of teams above us in the standings have been plagued by inconsistency. Leicester, Tottenham, United just to name a few. All have better players but struggle to consistently perform. Good managers set up their teams to consistently perform. 

[NeilS]

2 hours ago, Kiwivillan said:

Thank you. Appreciate someone getting the reference. Saw them in Auckland, NZ in Nov 2019 and was great gig and thankful after all the ones was planning on seeing before Covid hit

No worries, I used to love listening to the first three albums they were on all the time and I can imagine they would be a good live act. I must admit I haven't listened to any of their stuff recently, although I am now going to look them up again on one of the streaming services.