Summer Transfer Window 2023

[MaVilla]

9 minutes ago, Rustibrooks said:

Tiago #Pinto had practically closed the sale #Abraham at #AstonVilla . Then the English, after the injury, withdrew.
 

Pinch of salt obviously but this is interesting.

phew!

[allani]

1 hour ago, alreadyexists said:

I agree, maybe 4 at a push. But it’s a difficult balance as we need a bigger squad for more games/better competition, but integrating more than that might be difficult 

We have a manager, good coaches and a system now.  Plus we'll be targetting good players (and probably players who are happy to adjust for the team rather than expect the team to be based around them).  So the integration won't be as difficult as it could be.  Also if we buy 4 players for starting positions - that will see 4 of our current team being on the bench (rather than being sold) so if any new signing does struggle then we've got an easy fix on the bench who can just slot back in.  For example, if we sign a left-sided attacking midfielder then if they struggle to integrate - we can play Ramsey or Buendia in that role and we'd not be significantly worse off.  We are recruiting from a real position of strength this summer - most of our starting XI are in pretty good form, we are not (hopefully) having to sell any of our star players, we're not having to replace a significant number of aging players and some of our academy loanees have also been doing pretty well.  All of which means that we're much better able to integrate players more slowly and not have to throw people in at the deep end and hope that they can swim.  Plus we have Emery and his coaching team.

[alreadyexists]

34 minutes ago, allani said:

To be fair (a) we didn't have a choice but to sign 12 new players, (b) it did work because we avoided relegation and (c) FFP {plus the fact we were a newly promoted team} meant that we were having to buy out of the bargain basement rather than from the specials board.  On the whole I think we did pretty well in the bargain basement bin because those players did enough to keep us up - even if none of them left as top, top players.  We might not have made a killing from selling them but the value they delivered in terms of keeping us in the PL and not having to go back into the Championship more than covers the fact that we didn't make a "paper profit" on many of the individual transfers.

That said we don't need 12 new players this time around.  I think we'll get 3 or 4 "starters" (i.e. players mainly bought to strengthen the first XI), a couple of "prospects" (i.e. players bought to strengthen the bench / squad initially but with the hope that they then kick on and start pushing for starts) and a back-up keeper.  I think we might see a couple of the guys sent out on loan last year stay this year but that most will be given another year at (hopefully) a top of the table Championship side so that they can get regular games.  Whilst that still sound like 6 or 7 players - half of them will (hopefully!) have plenty of time to bed into the club, squad, etc before they become regular players.  We are also looking to fit players into a coherent, cohesive plan - which makes it much easier for them to know what they are supposed to be doing and hence can settle in quicker (see Moreno) AND we know that if any of those players do take time to settle in then actually the players they are coming in for can do a pretty decent job in the meantime.

I was referring to the time we bought loads of new players in summer 2015  

[IrishVilla10]

3 hours ago, HalfTimePost said:

I'd imagine it'd look something like 6 players in. GK, RB, CB, DM, AM, Striker. And then trying to balance up the investment for our 1st choices Vs players we rank in similar tiers.

We may believe Kang-In and Guendouzi are in similar 'tiers', Matteo may be our 1st choice but why spend £25m on Guendouzi when similarly-rated Kang-In is available for £15m? I'm sure we'll have a selection of players for each position we'd be happy with and we'll go through the due diligence on each of the deals that may be possible. We've shown we aren't scared to bid £30m+ for players, so if the team think £25m for a player is too much (who was only worth £10m last year), then cool. 

With our hypothetical board looking something like (using a selection of links so far)

• Mamardashvili > ??? 
• Fresneda > Dumfries > Foyth
• Pau Torres > Laporte > Bella-Kotchap
•  ̷U̷g̷a̷r̷t̷e̷ >  ̷C̷e̷b̷a̷l̷l̷o̷s̷ > Tielemens > Adams
• Guendouzi > Kang-In > Lo Celso
•  ̷A̷s̷e̷n̷s̷i̷o̷ > Joao Felix > Nico Williams > Luiz Henrique

We end up with 1 player from each of those, our squad is immeasurably better and deeper than the last 6 months, even if we don't get our 1st choices

Like all those names, just can’t see us signing a keeper of that standard. It’s either going to be an upgrade on Olsen and a similar age or someone young with potential. 

[allani]

1 hour ago, alreadyexists said:

I was referring to the time we bought loads of new players in summer 2015  

OK.  Just looking back at the players we bought in that year now.  Absolute bonkers.  I mean even now it just looks so completely random and scatter-gun.  Frightening.  I think the issue was far more that we signed some complete dog****, didn't strengthen in the right areas and ended up with such an unbalanced side it is hard to think of how you could have come up with any less chaos if you'd put an octopus in charge of transfers - rather than integration being the issue.  I mean Bunn, Sinclair, Richards and Lescott are just still genuine WTF signings.  I barely remember Crespo.  It still looks like we got a list of potential signings that someone dropped on the floor and was then picked up by someone else who went - ah OK so our top target is some guy called Idrissa oh and then our second target is a dude called Joleon, then oh Jordan (oooo we have a load of those).

The only people on that list who I would have liked to see have a real crack - Gueye, Veretout, Traore and maybe Amavi and yeah they didn't have time to integrate (and the team didn't have time to integrate with them).

Thankfully we don't have someone worse than an octopus in charge of recruitment now.

Edited June 8, 2023 by allani

[abdulaziz1]

17 minutes ago, allani said:

OK.  Just looking back at the players we bought in that year now.  Absolute bonkers.  I mean even now it just looks so completely random and scatter-gun.  Frightening.  I think the issue was far more that we signed some complete dog****, didn't strengthen in the right areas and ended up with such an unbalanced side it is hard to think of how you could have come up with any less chaos if you'd put an octopus in charge of transfers - rather than integration being the issue.  I mean Bunn, Sinclair, Richards and Lescott are just still genuine WTF signings.  I barely remember Crespo.  It still looks like we got a list of potential signings that someone dropped on the floor and was then picked up by someone else who went - ah OK so our top target is some guy called Idrissa oh and then our second target is a dude called Joleon, then oh Jordan (oooo we have a load of those).

The only people on that list who I would have liked to see have a real crack - Gueye, Veretout, Traore and maybe Amavi and yeah they didn't have time to integrate (and the team didn't have time to integrate with them).

Thankfully we don't have someone worse than an octopus in charge of recruitment now.

To be fair it was some potentially good signings, even Ayew could be added to that. The issue was is that we’ve been relying on Benteke and Delph, once they left it’s totally different. Under Smith we’ve had two teams, one with Grealish and one without. With Grealish=European form, without him=relegation form. Same was in the Championship, with Grealish=Title form, without him=Midtable at best.

With the lack of management, especially when your tactics depend on one or two players, then you’ll fall badly. The issue wasn’t getting new players, but the spine of the team leaving. 
 

Traore, Veretout, Gana, Amavi and Ayew are better than many players we had in those years. They just happen to come when our main players leaving, clueless manager who only can use tactics on one or two players.

Look at Emery now, you can’t even decide who’s our best player? You could pick 7 and argue who improved more? At the same time, you don’t see a proper star apart from Martinez who you’d think some of the big teams will come and we’re in danger of them leaving.

[duke313]

For £3m, he’d be a useful signing.

[Nigel]

8 minutes ago, duke313 said:

For £3m, he’d be a useful signing.

Good to see Leeds have learnt nothing about finance!

[paul514]

55 minutes ago, duke313 said:

For £3m, he’d be a useful signing.

too crazy to be true

[Mazrim]

5 minutes ago, paul514 said:

too crazy to be true

Nope. Because Leeds.

[John]

3 hours ago, Rustibrooks said:

Tiago #Pinto had practically closed the sale #Abraham at #AstonVilla . Then the English, after the injury, withdrew.
 

Pinch of salt obviously but this is interesting.

Potentially, even more disappointing for Tammy then. 

[Villa_Vids]

1 hour ago, Nigel said:

Good to see Leeds have learnt nothing about finance!

TBF he had an 80 per cent wage cut in his contract if they were relegated. 

[Villa_Vids]

3 hours ago, Rustibrooks said:

Tiago #Pinto had practically closed the sale #Abraham at #AstonVilla . Then the English, after the injury, withdrew.
 

Pinch of salt obviously but this is interesting.

I'm not buying that. 

[OLDVILLAIN]

The vast majority of these players that we are being linked with are Poor to be fair.

The " 25m is too much for one player" is total tosh and we will break our record this window coming.

[HalfTimePost]

I think it's fairly clear nobody thinks £25m is too much for one player for us. The same article says we are adjudging whether £60m is too much for a striker.

I don't rate Gregg, but it is simply saying the club's party line in possible negotiations - we don't want to pay the asking price.

 

[Villa_Vids]

2 minutes ago, OLDVILLAIN said:

The vast majority of these players that we are being linked with are Poor to be fair.

The " 25m is too much for one player" is total tosh and we will break our record this window coming.

It is simply agents using the Aston Villa name/brand to add gloss to their clients reputation. I also wouldn't get too hung up on transfer fees too, the more bargains - the merrier. We are living in an FFP world now, so in an ideal world we want to enhance the squad and not break our transfer record.

[Delphinho123]

12 minutes ago, Villa_Vids said:

I'm not buying that. 

And nor are we now.

[Jas10]

1 hour ago, Nigel said:

Good to see Leeds back in the Championship!

FTFY

[CVByrne]

28 minutes ago, Villa_Vids said:

I'm not buying that. 

Nobody is. Tammy makes no sense for us. We need a left footed right forward who can play centrally too if needed. 

Tammy can't play with Watkins

[TRO]

6 hours ago, alreadyexists said:

Bellingham is only 4 months older than Chuckey! I’m surprised by that

I don't see what relevance that is....its just my suspicion anyway fwiw.