Mattéo Guendouzi

[lexicon]

43 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

OK, substitute that with 'unlikely'. How likely is it that all of our strikers and forward players improve to levels hitherto undemonstrated in their career to address the lack of goals. 

All that assumes the goal contributions of  everyone else in the team remains unchanged. 

And all of that still puts us mid table in terms of goal scored. Assume wizard Emery extracts more wins than expected from that goal tally, which he likely will. It follows that it will perhaps have us knocking on the door of top 10ppg. Expecting anything more with this squad imo is just a pipe dream. 

It's clear as day that we would be better off signing another attacking player or two, but my impression is that you think Ings leaving has left a gaping hole in the team and tbh I don't think it has. In terms of players who can score, we've got Watkins, Bailey, Ramsey and Buendia in the first XI - there are goals there. We could do with some rotation opens and cover, though, no argument there.

In any case, I don't see the point in really looking at any of the statistics from Gerrard's tenure, as the team was performing at a level well below what they are capable of. Emery will definitely get more out of these players. 

[jim]

4 minutes ago, NoelVilla said:

What is going on? 

From what I gather @messi11 isn’t actually @villalad21 but is in fact @Tayls and @Delphinho123 occasionally masquerades as @Steero113 and is the real @villalad21.

[Delphinho123]

1 minute ago, jim said:

From what I gather @messi11 isn’t actually @villalad21 but is in fact @Tayls and @Delphinho123 occasionally masquerades as @Steero113 and is the real @villalad21.

Me and Steero are tight. Mainly because he isn’t a complete moron. 

[Steero113]

Stop besmirching my good name you bastards. 

[HKP90]

3 minutes ago, lexicon said:

It's clear as day that we would be better off signing another attacking player or two, but my impression is that you think Ings leaving has left a gaping hole in the team and tbh I don't think it has. In terms of players who can score, we've got Watkins, Bailey, Ramsey and Buendia in the first XI - there are goals there. We could do with some rotation opens and cover, though, no argument there.

In any case, I don't see the point in really looking at any of the statistics from Gerrard's tenure, as the team was performing at a level well below what they are capable of. Emery will definitely get more out of these players. 

I mean statistically it has. And I hope you are right. Just expressing concerns.

[rodders0223]

Never rated him anyway. Bring back Carlos The Rock Sanchez.

[HKP90]

6 minutes ago, lexicon said:

It's clear as day that we would be better off signing another attacking player or two, but my impression is that you think Ings leaving has left a gaping hole in the team and tbh I don't think it has. In terms of players who can score, we've got Watkins, Bailey, Ramsey and Buendia in the first XI - there are goals there. We could do with some rotation opens and cover, though, no argument there.

In any case, I don't see the point in really looking at any of the statistics from Gerrard's tenure, as the team was performing at a level well below what they are capable of. Emery will definitely get more out of these players. 

I guess I would ask though, are we expecting Ollie to score 15 this season, cos that's what we'll need for top 7. Can't see it myself.

[The Moustache of Teale]

7 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

Me and Steero are tight. Mainly because he isn’t a complete moron. 

[Made In Aston]

Could just be leaks from OM to try and put pressure on us to get a deal done this window. 

[Delphinho123]

11 minutes ago, Steero113 said:

Stop besmirching my good name you bastards. 

You should be grateful you’re mentioned in the same sentence as me you piece of…

[The_Steve]

Be patient.

[Steero113]

1 minute ago, Delphinho123 said:

You should be grateful you’re mentioned in the same sentence as me you piece of…

An honour, my good man. 

[GlobalVillan]

Still not sure why this thread is as hot as it is. No bid from the club, nothing solid coming out of anywhere and was always a very unlikely signing in this window as I said weeks ago.

Did I (genuinely) miss something? 

For me, we need to improve up top and on the wing. I'm very happy with our current midfield options so to splash out on a CM when we have other more pressing priorities would be a bit odd.

Edited January 29, 2023 by GlobalVillan

[lexicon]

6 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

I guess I would ask though, are we expecting Ollie to score 15 this season, cos that's what we'll need for top 7. Can't see it myself.

Well, no, we're expecting the team's attackers to all score goals and I don't think it's an unreasonable or unrealistic ask. 

[HKP90]

1 minute ago, lexicon said:

Well, no, we're expecting the team's attackers to all score goals and I don't think it's an unreasonable or unrealistic ask. 

Which ones? Bailey? Coutinho? Buendia? 

Again, can't see it.

Edited January 29, 2023 by HKP90

[lexicon]

12 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

Which ones? Bailey? Coutinho? Buendia? 

Again, can't see it.

And Ramsey. You can't see players who have all scored goals in their careers, scoring goals?

[HKP90]

17 minutes ago, lexicon said:

And Ramsey. You can't see players who have all scored goals in their careers, scoring goals?

 

We're about half way through the season.

So far Bailey has 4 league goals extrapolate 8 to season end.

Buendia has 3 ext. 6

Coutinho has 0. Be generous give him 1 by season end.

JJ has 2. Ext. 4. 

We are asking the above to get another 6 between them to make up for Ings (including the one I gave to Couts). That's if we want to be where we are now, which is mid table. To get 7th based on the current goal difference of the current encumbant of that position, we need another 6 goals on top of that. And that's generous, as the team in 6th and down to 9th have goal differences of between 8 and 14 better than us respectively.

So that's a best case of trying to find 12 more goals between our forward line, and worst case 19 more goals between them. 

Excluding Jhon, who has yet to play a game in the top flight. 

Yeah, I think we are light up front.

Edited January 29, 2023 by HKP90

[allani]

5 hours ago, CVByrne said:

What's so hard for people to understand about the transfer market?

We have to set a value for each player we are interested in. Price we'll pay on a transfer fee and price we'll pay in wages. We then need to accept the players available in January is smaller pool than summer and those that are available usually have premiums on them as they're probably key players on their side. So for a team to sell mid season they'll want extra. Take Sarr or Guendouzi, why would you sell them now for the same price as you would in the summer? You wouldn't

So for us we need to see if a deal can happen for a price we are willing to pay. It's nothing to do with how much money we have to spend as it's a business and we have FFP to make us pay for poor decisions and our January business in the previous 3 windows has been pretty damn poor. Do we have any player regularly in our side we signed in any of those windows? Digne maybe. 

That's before we look at players factors. Summer is better time to move as you get pre season and also there are more clubs in the market so you might get a bigger move than what's on offer in Jan. 

We've a good squad it's difficult improving it and even more difficult improving it in January 

 

 

All very sensible - however, I think that you have missed the key concerns that I (and others) have expressed about not signing players now and waiting until the summer and why paying a bit of a premium to definitely get that player now might make sense.

(1) Player A might be our main target now because we've scouted him quite well in the first half of the season.  However, other clubs in a better position than us are just starting to take notice of his performance, scout him in the second half of the season and he becomes a target for them in the summer.  This (a) increases the risk of a bidding war which could well result in the transfer fee ending up higher than it is now so any perceived "saving" we make by not signing now is lost and (b) increases the risk of another team putting together a better offer package (which might just be the promise of European competition next season) than we can.  Not buying a player now because we MIGHT get him for 20% less in the summer is a pretty big risk.  Even if we, Player A and Player As club have all agreed the terms of a deal - it would be hard to make that watertight if Club Z suddenly come in with a significantly better deal for either Player A or his existing club (or both).  Also what happens if Player A then gets a really bad injury, we'd want to be able to pull out of any deal at that point - as they say in Italy you can't have a drunk wife and a full barrel of beer / bottle of wine.

(2) Player A (not to mention Players B, C and D who we also would love to sign) is quite excited with the fact that things look rosy at Villa at the moment.  He likes the manager, he likes the talk about us challenging for the Top 8 next season, he likes the fact that we can point to the fact that our form is the 2nd best in the league since the new manager comes in, he likes the names of a couple of other players that the club are interested in signing.  However, we don't manage to get the deal across the line.  We then get a couple of small but niggling injuries to key players and our lack of squad depth hampers our form.  We have a slightly poor run (not awful) but enough to ensure that we finish 11th at the end of the season.  Comfortably clear of 12th but also comfortably distant from 7th and 8th spots.  Suddenly Players A, B, C and D start having doubts about whether the vision for us to be able to challenge the Top 8 next season is realistic.  They are still pretty keen but decide to wait it out and see whether a "better" club will come in with an offer.  Early in pre-season their name(s) are linked to teams in the Champions League (along with about 20-30 others) but their agent and / or their club convinces them that there is a chance and so they should hold off signing the Villa deal they have been offered just to see what happens as they might be able to get more money if the other club decide to go ahead.  Meanwhile Villa decide not to drop down to their next target(s) as there is enough positive noise coming from the Player(s) camp(s) to suggest that we'll do a deal at some point.  It gets to the start of the season and we go in with the same team / squad as we finished this season.  Unfortunately we end up playing 2 of the Sly 6 in our first three matches and get beaten - we get to Summer Deadline Day and we're in 14th place.  Hopes for a European challenge are not dead but they're definitely not looking brilliant.  Player A is now thinking that maybe Villa aren't the answer.  Newcastle pounce and make an offer.  Player A signs for Newcastle.  Players B, C and D look at the fact that Player A who has been linked with Villa for 8 months has decided to go elsewhere and also decide that maybe Villa isn't the best step in their career.  Meanwhile Emi and Kamara are a bit frustrated that new players haven't been added when an agent from Man Utd approaches them and asks whether they fancy some Champions League football this season....  Before you know it we'll all be saying "this year is a write-off so we should focus everything on next season" - which is pretty similar to the "this time next year we'll be millionaires" theme from Only Fools and Horses.

Obviously Scenario 2 is (if not worst case) certainly a pessimistic scenario.  It is also possible that we continue our amazing run under Emery and finish in 8th spot ahead of say Chelsea and looking like genuine contenders for a full-on European places assault next season.  In which case maybe Player A who we thought we our Number 1 target is definitely convinced but in the meantime we find out that Player H (who we didn't think we had a hope of signing in January so wasn't on our list of transfer targets) indicates that they would be interested if we made an offer.

However, not doing a deal to get the right player now IS a risk.  I think that is all I (and others) have said.  I still hope / am confident that we'll be active in this window.  I am just a bit more nervous than you that if we don't then we'll be in the situation come the summer where we are struggling to convince our Number 1 targets that they should be signing for Villa.  Whilst I think our Starting XI is pretty decent (and that players like Watkins will have a significantly better {or shall we say more productive} second half to the season than they did now that we have proper coaching and game strategies in place) - we are really exposed if we suffer injuries.  We are still massively dependent on a handful of key players - Emi, Mings, Kamara and Watkins and if any of those get injured (or more than 1) then the drop-off in quality is huge.  Do we win the Leeds or Southampton matches with Olsen in goal?  Where do the goals come from if Ollie is out?  I know most teams would also struggle if they lost their keys players (certainly anyone outside the Sly 6) but if it happens to us then it does put the project at risk for another season.  I think it is critical (if we are to properly challenge for European places next season) that we finish this season in the top half.  Hopefully, these concerns all disappear in the next few days and we can all discuss just what the future holds now that Players A and B have signed and we've taken another couple of steps down Emery's roadmap to success.

Edited January 29, 2023 by allani

[Tayls]

So are people going to be ok with no signings, or a little bit worried about the remainder of the season - in terms of finish strongly? 

Im a bit of both - I think we will be ‘fine’ and finish pretty much middle of the pack. However I would have liked Emery to bring in some more of his players so we didn’t have to change so much over the summer. Start next season strongly and all that. 

Edited January 29, 2023 by Tayls

[Vive_La_Villa]

3 hours ago, HKP90 said:

That's not true though. We sold our top scorer.

Replaced him with the next Faustino Asprilla!