Summer Transfer Window 2022

[Vive_La_Villa]

2 minutes ago, PaulMcGrath_5 said:

What would you do?

I don’t want to go off topic

[Rossco76]

1 hour ago, allani said:

OK so this is a massive oversimplification but bear with me.  I think a midfield like Hamann / Mascherano, Alonso and Gerrard is probably as close to being an almost ideal midfield 3 as you can get.  Pigeon-holing them into a kind of warrior, conductor and hero category is far too limited.  They were all pretty well-rounded players in their own right.  But as a trio they offer real balance - good at defending the ball, good at winning the ball back, good at retaining possession, good at passing the ball and controlling play and then obviously you have Gerrard arriving from deep and providing a real goal / attacking threat.  Now obviously they were three of the best midfielders in the world at the time so I am not suggesting that we are trying to replicate them or sign world beaters!!!  That would be crazy!

I think Kamara gives us the Hamann type player - he looks like a good tackler, but can also spot a good pass and is good on the ball meaning that he can play his way out of pressure. McGinn / JJ are our Gerrard types - pain in the **** when the opposition have the ball (probably a bit better suited to pressing higher up the pitch rather than on the edge of our area) but always looking to join the attack.  JJ is probably more of a ball carrier looking to burst past the front 3 so maybe slightly more Gerrard like.  So I think we need an Alonso type - great passer, strong at holding onto the ball and controlling the pace of the game under the press.  And I guess that last thing is the crucial part.  Luiz and McGinn are not good at resisting the press and either give the ball away cheaply or rush into trying an ambitious pass that 99% of the time ends up either out of play or with the opposition.  Luiz would be the obvious current answer in our current team - but for me there are question marks defensively and I worry about the pace that he (doesn't) inject into play in either direction.  My main issue is that Luiz and McGinn is that I don't think they complement each other very well.  If Luiz is struggling to get his passing game together then you don't give the ball to McGinn and expect him to take over.  Similarly, if McGinn is struggling to run at the opposition back line then Luiz isn't going to do that.

So I think what we need is someone between the skill-sets of Kamara and Luiz to fill the "Alonso role" if you like.  Someone whose main job will be to get the ball off Kamara and look to link with McGinn or our attacking players, but who can also control the ball, battle to get the ball back, etc.  Bit more importantly someone who can also effortlessly cover Kamara if we need to change shape slightly or if Kamara misses a couple of matches.

I can almost hear people saying "ah yeah well of course if we could sign one of the best players in the world we'd be better but it won't happen" so just to reiterate I am not proposing signing the current or the next Xabi Alonso.  I am just using those players as an example of three players who really complemented each other and provided great balance and obviously picking players that played with our current manager provides a neat symmetry.  I think we can achieve that balance at the level at which we are recruiting.  Kamara is a great first step.  Tim, JJ and AJ all have great promise.  My issue is that I don't think that any combo of McGinn, Luiz and Sanson gives us that balance.  All good players in their own right and all with a part to play across the season and certainly at times we could play with two of them on the pitch at the same time.

In terms of up front - I think ultimately we need someone who is sharper around the edge of the box, able to link up with our attacking midfielders and who has the vision to spot the runs of our fullbacks, AMs or JJ / McGinn.  Ollie just plays with his head down too much.  That player might be Archer in a season or two.  The question is can we persist with Ollie whilst we wait to find out whether we have his replacement here already?

Such a good post mate.

James Ward-Prowse?

[Peter Griffin]

27 minutes ago, VillaFaninLondon said:

The problem is, whilst we had a great start to the window, other teams that we will be hoping to compete with have now caught us up. West Ham have signed 3 players now for big money who all look like they could really improve them (and they were already finishing 7th), Newcastle throwing bids at Maddison and will surely make another 1-2 big signings before the window closes. I really thought we would have a window like Spurs have had, with 3-4 potential first team players coming in, instead it's only 2 (Kamara and Carlos), and Spurs achieved their objectives last season whilst we fell well short.

 

I don't need to say what a great job our owners have done so far, but net spend recently has been really light. We made a surplus last summer, so far this summer we have spent around 5m net, and given we play in such a strong league where everyone is spending and we want to finish 7th I really thought we would be investing more. I know we want to move more players on, but that hasn't stopped other teams investing despite having players on their books they don't want. 

 

I will be really disappointed if we don't sign another player for the first team. As we stand now we've had a decent window and probably the 8th or 9th best out of all PL teams, but I feel the top 6 and West Ham have done better and Newcastle will (once they confirm another couple of top signings which I am expecting to happen). And based on that it's very hard to say we'll finish much higher than 9th or 10th. If they want to continue saying we want to finish top 7 and get this club back into Europe, fine, but actually back that up by investing in the areas that need strengthening.

They say they want to get into Europe but they don't say it has to happen at the end of next season. We spent early so we could get our players into the Villa setup and get full preseasons and give them time to relocate etc. Other clubs have not caught up with this as they missed the boat by not signing when we did. That was obviously our strategy from the start and they delivered on it. I expect to see one more signing but that may require a departure first. I am fairly confident that the summer transfer window is exactly to plan. 

[Peter Griffin]

19 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

If the club has 40m to spend I think they should give a million or two to me. I’d do great things with that money. 

The remaining 38 million can be used to sign this great number 8 everyone is craving for or a new striker that is apparently going to score more goals than Watkins or Ings ever could. 
 

Come on Villa, pull your finger out!

Yeah, but would u agree to instalments of 500k a year for the next 4 years?

[Vive_La_Villa]

I actually think the low net spend over the past seasons is a good thing. Better players means higher wages. Club can’t go nuts like Lerner and Xia did. We all saw the consequences. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

Just now, Peter Griffin said:

Yeah, but would u agree to instalments of 500k a year for the next 4 years?

It would have to do. 

[macandally]

4 hours ago, allani said:

The thing is we signed Sanson to get us into mid-table.  I don't know why we now think that he is good enough to get us into the European fight.  He hardly set the world alight when he did play.  His best performance was probably against Man Utd and he undid most of his good work in that match by gifting them a goal with a ridiculous pass.  Even if he had got the pass right - he'd still have been putting our defence under unnecessary pressure when there were better options available.  I think he is just too similar to our other midfield options and doesn't give us the balance or the control that we need.  A

Maybe because he has already played in Europe?

How do you know we bought him in for “mid table”?  Quote please as that is just ridiculous, you don’t buy players for increments, you buy them because of their ceiling.

For me, Sanson has played a decent part of pre-season and deserves a chance

[Peter Griffin]

1 minute ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

It would have to do. 

That's why Purslow gets paid the big bucks, instantly u accept to 500k over 4 years. You should be walking out the door if he doesn't agree to 2m upfront or 600k a year. 

[Peter Griffin]

4 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I actually think the low net spend over the past seasons is a good thing. Better players means higher wages. Club can’t go nuts like Lerner and Xia did. We all saw the consequences. 

The better our financials going into next summer means the more we can spend. We are currently a 20m/30m transfer fee club, wouldn't it be nice to see that ramp up to 40m/50m

[macandally]

4 hours ago, allani said:

Exactly.  We signed a team to get us promoted / staying in the league, then we started trying to sign players to get us to mid-table and now we're starting to look at the top half / challenging Europe.  Expecting those level of players to get us into Europe is very optimistic.  My West Ham supporting mates (as the team to displace to qualify for Europe) would only take Emi from our team and put them into their starting XI.  Digne is the second player they talk about.  Cash, McGinn and JJ as subs.  That's it.

Sorry this is rubbish, you don’t invest in 22/23/24 year olds for two seasons, you do it because they have room to grow from an ability perspective.

There may be short term fixes, but the plan is more strategic than buying players for low, mid, high league hops 

[nick76]

11 minutes ago, Peter Griffin said:

The better our financials going into next summer means the more we can spend. We are currently a 20m/30m transfer fee club, wouldn't it be nice to see that ramp up to 40m/50m

Question: why can’t we do that now rather than waiting another season?  

Teams are getting further away from us, we seem to have FFP room and we have needs in the first XI.  

Purslow said they were disappointed they didn’t get Europe at the end of 20/21 season, surely they would be disappointed more if at the end of 22/23 season (two seasons further on) and more investment that they still aren’t in Europe?

Edit: I don’t believe that it’s always the case the more expensive the player is the better they are, it as more about spending the money.  The above is the narrative of quality comes with the higher expense, which we know isn’t always the case.

Edited August 3, 2022 by nick76

[paul514]

1 hour ago, TRO said:

Its your opinion, thats what the forum is for......but it seems like you slipped up today, then, by declaring it.

Being Inquisitive, I am just wondering what you do, in the meantime, waiting for him to go?

It might be a race, with the New Stand......what happens first?

Nothing I just sit here like a normal fan waiting to be proven right.

if I’m proven wrong then we have done well so it isn’t too bad a position to be in.

[Teale's 'tache]

1 minute ago, nick76 said:

Question: why can’t we do that now rather than waiting another season?  

Teams are getting further away from us, we seem to have FFP room and we have needs in the first XI.  

Purslow said they were disappointed they didn’t get Europe at the end of 20/21 season, surely they would be disappointed more if at the end of 22/23 season (two seasons further on) and more investment that they still aren’t in Europe?

 

I don't think finances are necessarily the issue, more that players who are worth £40m and up will be more inclined to demand European football. I think we've done an incredible job to attract who we have considering where we finished last season.

There's going to be an awkward stage where we are close to European football but without it won't really be able to attract the players to progress further.

Money talks of course, so it's not impossible to sign at that value right now, just improbable.

[VillaFaninLondon]

26 minutes ago, Peter Griffin said:

They say they want to get into Europe but they don't say it has to happen at the end of next season. We spent early so we could get our players into the Villa setup and get full preseasons and give them time to relocate etc. Other clubs have not caught up with this as they missed the boat by not signing when we did. That was obviously our strategy from the start and they delivered on it. I expect to see one more signing but that may require a departure first. I am fairly confident that the summer transfer window is exactly to plan. 

Purslow said in Australia it was the objective to finish 7th this season.

[Peter Griffin]

6 minutes ago, nick76 said:

Question: why can’t we do that now rather than waiting another season?  

Teams are getting further away from us, we seem to have FFP room and we have needs in the first XI.  

Purslow said they were disappointed they didn’t get Europe at the end of 20/21 season, surely they would be disappointed more if at the end of 22/23 season (two seasons further on) and more investment that they still aren’t in Europe?

Edit: I don’t believe that it’s always the case the more expensive the player is the better they are, it as more about spending the money.  The above is the narrative of quality comes with the higher expense, which we know isn’t always the case.

There are a few reason we can do it now imo. Firstly, FFP is definitely something Villa has to be carful of. We have spent a fortune since we came up and have huge annual amortisation costs to pay. We are still paying about 5m a year in amortisation each year for Wesley. Secondly, we are massively. increasing our wage bill. When we came up I think our highest earner was on 40k/50k and then we put Jack onto about 75k. Now we have multiple players on 120k+ a week. All of these costs have to be accounted for in every financial year and not just the year we sign the player. Thirdly, we need to grow the attraction of Villa for the better players to join us. Gerrard has really helped with this and we are now signing players that a lot of us did not think possible to sign. To move further up the food chain we need to build a team that is attractive to players to join. The big thing we are missing now is a top half finish in the PL. When we get that we will make ourselves more attractive and closer to the 40m/50m bracket.

What teams are getting further away from us, yes the top 6, but we simply can't compete with them yet, we need to climb a few more rungs up the ladder before we can. I don't see any team outside the top 6 that has pulled away from us. The only candidate is West Ham and I still don't think they have pulled away, we have at least maintained our gap in quality to them.

Yes Purslow was disappointed with not finishing in Europe, that doesn't mean it was an objective and it would have been really dumb if it was an objective. We are in the mix for clubs fighting for a European spot and if we don't make it it will be disappointing.

I agree that money doesn't necessarily mean a better quality player and there are loads of example of where it hasn't, however, there is no denying the correlation between higher transfer fee and a better quality player.

[MaVilla]

10 minutes ago, VillaFaninLondon said:

Purslow said in Australia it was the objective to finish 7th this season.

there is no way in a million years that this squad is finishing 7th.

If 7th is the target, we need at least 2 new signings.

If Purslow thinks this squad is capable of 7th, i am worried for him.

 

note: i admit there may be scenarios where it could get 7th, but those are outliers, on balance, or probability, this squad isnt finishing 7th.

[Peter Griffin]

11 minutes ago, VillaFaninLondon said:

Purslow said in Australia it was the objective to finish 7th this season.

Are u sure, do u have a link? At the dinner in Australian Purslow is quoted as saying the following. 

Quote

Christian Purslow was asked the question last night "and, of course, we’ve got two ambitious owners. Johan, Christian and myself share the same vision and ambition to finish as high as we can in the table. If that inevitably means we snatch a European place, fantastic, because we’ve got to reach for the stars, of course we have. But the minimum for me is we’ve got to be operating in the top-half of the league.”

That doesn't sound like the objective is to finish 7th this season

 

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villa-man-utd-purslow-24558331

[Vive_La_Villa]

1 minute ago, MaVilla said:

there is no way in a million years that this squad is finishing 7th.

If 7th is the target, we need at least 2 new signings.

If Purslow thinks this squad is capable of 7th, i am worried for him.

 

note: i admit there may be scenarios where it could get 7th, but those are outliers, on balance, or probability, this squad isnt finishing 7th.

No way in a million years but there may be scenarios where it could happen?

[MaVilla]

Just now, Vive_La_Villa said:

No way in a million years but there may be scenarios where it could happen?

come on, you know what i mean

I mean on balance, no way in a million years, but we could have the 1 in a million where we get 4th/5th/6th/7th, kind of like the 1 in a million Leicester winning the league.....

[Vive_La_Villa]

Just now, Peter Griffin said:

Are u sure, do u have a link? At the dinner in Australian Purslow is quoted as saying the following. 

That doesn't sound like the objective is to finish 7th this season

 

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villa-man-utd-purslow-24558331

Nobody has said the objective is to finish 7th. Gerrard said the minimum expected was top half.