This has been one of Villa’s busiest transfer window in the past 5 years or more. 13 players have arrived to Aston Villa this season costing the club roughly £53.55 million. That is more than the average that was spent per team during the transfer window of roughly £40 million. In fact the 13 arrivals could even make their own first team 11.
Bunn
Ilori-Richards-Lescott-Amavi
Traore-Gueye-Veretout-Sinclair
Ayew-Gestede
That is a pretty strong team, the defence has been improved the most as it consists a good mix of experience and youth. Whilst Sherwood has also strengthened the wingers at the club and the midfield is composed of a lot of potential. The strike force created has yet to start firing. It’s rather young and has little to none Premier League experience unfortunately.
Now let’s look at the players that have left Aston Villa. 13 players have left Aston Villa with an additional 6 players leaving Aston Villa on loan. This is the starting 11 that we have lost:
Benteke-Bent
Tonev——-Weimann
Delph-Sylla
Luna-Baker-Vlaar-Lowton
Given
This team looks significantly weaker than the team that has come in. The majority of the side look as though they could play in the Championship let alone the Premier League. Obviously, from the new arrivals, keeping Benteke and Delph would’ve strengthened the side above. But Benteke’s funds were crucial for the creation of the team above.
What I’m trying to get at is that Sherwood has built a good team. Whether or not all those transfer were administrated by Sherwood is a different story, but the players that have been brought in takes Aston Villa to the next level. As much as I hate the ‘transition’ word, I feel as though Sherwood won’t get the best out of each player until the beginning of next season. Only 5 of the 13 players that have arrived have played in the Premier League, the rest will need time to transition and adapt to the Premier League. The average age of players brought in stands at 25. Adama Traore being the youngest at 19 and Lescott the oldest at 33. In short, this has been on the of most exciting transfer windows to date and it will be exciting to see who flourishes in the new team and who struggles
Balloteke was well worth the sacrifice. Apart from the fact we could have got more for Delph, we won’t miss him at all.
Really interesting way of looking at the new signings and a good illustration of some of the dross we’ve shipped out. Just need to keep everyone (squad and fans) during the transition period. I feel the future is bright.
Meant – keep everyone happy
According to the piece in the Birmingham Mail, Sherwood is adamant that he had the ‘final say’ in ALL of the transfers, and will take responsibility for the results.
With the exception of Benteke, I don’t think any of the players who’ve gone will be missed at all; in fact many of them do, as you say, look like Championship players.
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/stats-aston-villas-new-pair-9983418?
Interesting article in Mail about Gana and Amavi
The stats confirm what I already thought. If the rest of the signings can match Amavi and Gana then we will have a team that could beat anyone.
Honestly think that this break is a real bonus. Tim has had 4 games to look at his new squad and now 2 weeks to work with them.
Can’t wait for the Leicester match to see what happens
UTV
These players are just in their very early 20’s – and with plenty of league experience abroad already they could be amazing.
Don’t you almost want to fast forward six months??!!
Life’s too short…!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-34143281
Oh no! Watch out Badger!…But seriously, what a pointless act…(a bit like Lambert looking for another managerial post)…
Heh, thanks for the concern 🙂
That’s a good post, Adam, as even though we all knew Sherwood had improved things, when you put it in black and white, it becomes blindingly obvious.
It’s also obvious how poor our squad was and why we played the same players week in, week out.
I was gutted about Benteke going, but feel the players we’ve got in have definitely improved us.
Even though we haven’t had a stunning start and have some tough games coming up, I don’t think for one minute we’ll struggle in the same way we have done recently.
I expected him to go but was gutted at his destination…Champions League football my arse.
Ilori given the No 2 shirt – should we read anything into that?
Hopefully right back perhaps????
And it might explain how he can be expected to get regular playing time.
It is a very exciting time to be a Villan. When I heard TS say he needed a new team to eradicate the losing mentality, I agreed with him but hardly expected him to follow it through.
Well he has. Thank you TS!
It would be really optimistic to expect none of them will flop, younger players do so more often and foreigners more often. The task now is to find a style to play to their strengths and disguise their weaknesses. This can only be by trial and error, so we will have to be patient.
It is goodbye to the automatic pick, though, so TS may shuffle out players who fail to perform quickly which is good.
Thought I’d give my two cents regarding Ilori. He is a great prospect, highly regarded, especially after his U21 displays. He has a great ability to read the play and has great technical ability. The main concern for him is his injury issues. The main reason of his limited game time over the past couple of seasons while on loan at Granada and Bordeaux is due to injury. Otherwise he was great for both, when he could get himself on the pitch.
The positive is it seems he is fully fit right now and has such huge potential. Potentially as much potential as anyone in our squad right now, which is a great thought. If he can stay fit and not be injury prone, we will have one he’ll of a bargain if said potential end of season loan buy option is true.
A lot of bin dippers are up in arms about him going to us especially with buy option.
If he’s any good by the time the January window comes can’t we snap him up????if he is as good as the scousers think can’t see them selling him.
Yeah a lot of their fans are not happy they have basically let him go if we want him. Hope he is the final piece of the puzzle to our defensive woes. But as I said, needs to stay injury free.
An article about Ilori domination of Kane in the U21s.
http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2015/09/02/encouragement-for-aston-villa-tiago-ilori-dominated-harry-kane-t/
I’m really looking forward to seeing what Veretout can do. Of all the players we signed, he seemed to have the most suitors across Europe. If he can step up like Amavi and Gana have, we will have some side.
Think we will get a result at Leicester.
I agree benno I also believe we’ll get something at Leicester,we should by then have traore & grealish back.UTV
Giddy I’m like a kid again about Villa, have that impatience feeling and wanting to kick off again as soon as we can, I think we are on the way back and happy days to come, even my 9 and 12 year olds are asking me if they can go to Villa park soon, I’ve said we will take them knowing no disappointing times.
@Bill
Feel exactly the same but I’ll still be a little nervous until we get to 40 points. Hope we do it relatively quickly so I can relax towards the end of the season, the last few seasons have been very hard on my nerves!
Can’t wait to see how they play with Jack, Traore and Gil all available. Might also see the best of Gestede and Ayew then as they should be getting a much better quality service.
UTV
Pat57 , nerve racking this ,yes team now looks good ,we will be back on top one day mark my words, utv .
Speaking to my bin dipping liverpool mates up here on merseyside they really rate Iloris and are slating Rodgers for letting him go .