Third Generation Villan has submitted the following. Cheers, TGV.
So we were beaten by a much better team on the day, I accept that but was disappointed with the performance and I think that will be most fans view even though we all hoped for a famous victory.
But rather than dwell on today’s disappointment I thought I would try to give an assessment of where we are and what to look forward to.
Its five years in August since MON left us, and Randy Lerner changed his investment strategy in an attempt to get back some of his outlay during the MON years. This period of under investment in the team has shown in the quality of the team and our form and league positions since then, as they say the table does not lie after a 38 game season you are where you deserve to be.
Now it does not matter if you blame MON or Lerner or anyone else over the last 5 years the quality of the team has declined steadily until the last few months of Lamberts time, Villa were the poorest in the premiership on nearly all fronts and we were certain to go down, and when we changed to Tim Sherwood we got the bounce or lift nearly all clubs get with a new manager and managed to stay up by the skin of our teeth, as I think the bounce had worn off after the west ham game and the players thought they were safe, and luckily we were.
So we come to a cup final against one of the premier league’s top teams with the same squad as under Lambert and with the bounce gone, the result was I suspect what we all feared may be the case but all hoped would not happen and we could pull off a shock win.
Now I am not having a go at Tim Sherwood, after all he did keep us up and I think he has earned the chance to build his own side over the coming season and then we can all decide if he is a good manager or not. And seeing some of the comments coming out tonight about changing the mentality of the players and a clear out during the summer etc. gives me some optimism for the season ahead. But time will tell.
But I think we have more reasons to optimistic now, then at any time over the last 5 years.
We are told we are close to being sold and hopefully will get better investment in the team
We are still in the Premier league, and with the money from the new TV deal should be able to cement our place there over the next few years.
We have a manager who likes to play attacking football, what most of us want (to be entertained) and will take the cup competitions seriously.
And has said already he has to rebuild the team and the way we play and the mentality of the players
Which all together means we will have lots to talk about over the next few months, a transfer window where we will probably be more active this year in and out.
if we agree or not with Tim Sherwood’s deals, if we like the new owners, the amount of investment etc.
So I think most of us will be optimistic, excited and hopeful about the future, and put todays result behind us. And hopefully look back in a few years’ time and say today was the end of the wilderness years for the villa
Comments
283 responses to “Looking forward”
Very sensible comment Steve.
I’d transfer list the fucking lot of em after the SHITE performance Saturday still well & truly fucked off.
Ps how about the club paying back the fans their ticket money take it from the players wages the fans earnt it more than the players did.at least the incredible fans did their JOB
There’s also talk that our deal with Macron which had a year left was cut short and Under Armour will be the new manufacturer.
Tell me more…
Charlie Wijeratna had supposed erased the last year of our deal with Macron, and Under Armour is the supposed new manufacturer according to a few. I’ll tell you more as I hear.
Hmm, not that impressed by the Spurs Under Armour kits but very interesting.
Gregg Evans also reporting that Cissokho and Senderos are expected the be sold, while the futures of Gil, Weimann, Lowton and Kozak are uncertain.
That sounds more feasible than the Telegraph report.
I’m pretty disappointed about Cissokho, I think of our recent left backs he was by far the best. A few people on Twitter also saying that only Villa and Everton have made offers for Cleverley and he’ll make a decision in 2 weeks. I may be in a small minority, but really hope he chooses us!
I’m with you on Cleverley – but seems quite a few don’t rate him.
Yeah, don’t understand how really. He got some vital goals for us in the run in, made some great passes and was involved in great moves too. He had a fantastic understanding with Bacuna on the right.
You have to ask – where was he on Saturday? If he had made an impact on the Arsenal midfield, he would have demonstrated he is a quality player, but he was hardly in the game. I am not sure he has the quality needed, and I am convinced he does not have the commitment to Villa, he would rather be at Everton.
I’m up in the air on him. I don’t care if we sign him or we don’t, mainly depends on who we can get to replace him. Hard working midfielders aren’t hard to find. Just hope we look abroad as I don’t see a Premier League midfielder good enough currently that we can attract.
Taking cleverley on a free is a no brainer….only B6 and his sidekick oohah cant see that!
Yeah your right, 3 goals, no assists, didn’t want to sign for us in the first place….As always, you’re right. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Well, thats far better than you being wrong ALL the time zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
A fan posted on Facebook that he got Benteke’s agents number, rang him pretending to be a manager asking about Benteke. To sum it all up, Benteke wants to leave. You can watch the video yourselves and make of it what you will.
Let him go, he’s overrated anyway. For 32.5 million I’d sell him now!!! Give Sherwood 5 million and Lerner can pocket the rest. Jobs a goodun 🙂
so sell our best player for 32.5 mill and give sherwood £5m to find another striker . you on drugs !
No, I’ve been clean for about 4 years now. It’s called sarcasm. 5 mil is way to much for a league 2 striker.
4 years well done you 🙂 iv been off it 6 months and well done me:)
The club is going to have a field day regarding this.
John Percy saying we are looking to activate Trippier’s release clause of 3.5 million.
Quality player, would be a fantastic signing.
Spurs and Bournmouth our main competition it seems.
Think we’d stand a decent chance of getting him.
I’d love it if we moved for Mings as our other full back
Mings, Robertson, Schlupp if we’re sticking strictly to the English leagues for fullbacks. Sucks Taylor extended at Swansea. I’d take Davies off Spurs, he’s not been great but I think Sherwood could get him going. If we’re going all out, Cresswell’s my top choice. Best LB in the league last season for me. Trippier and Cresswell as fullbacks, Clark and whatever CB we have in front of a quality keeper. That would be incredible to see.
He’s shit….oohah told md
Move in the right direction. Far better than Hutton positionally, defensively, offensively, everything really. Would keep Lowton as cover.
Benteke has told Sky Sports he is unsure of his future and will leave it to his agent to sort out. Doesn’t look very good for us, does it?
Leave it to his agent to decide his future???? Bollox can’t he decide for himself???? He knows what he wants he’s just taking the spotlight off him if everything goes belly up he can say he wanted to stay.face facts we’ll be looking for a new striker.
Let’s say we do get over 30 million for Benteke. Randy always seems to at least us 20 million to work with. So there’s the supposed 15 million for Austin. The rumoured 3.5 million for Trippier. It surely wouldn’t cost more than 4 million to get one of Vorm/Heaton. Likewise for Tyrone Mings. We could also use 5 million for one of Bamford/Wilson. So with all that, Sherwood would still have 20 million to bring in a defender and midfielder. Of course this is all guesswork, but the point is the sale of Benteke could lead to the better development of a stronger squad.
That’s what agents are for
No I’m sure Randy will hold out for the buy out clause figure as the minimum & rightly so,anything less would be insulting the bin dippers would of whacked a 50 mil price tag around his neck like they did torrid.
Torres FUCKING spell checker
Giddy; thought Torrid was a pretty good description LOL
Spell checker got it right maybe.
I think he will go for 25m plus add ins for goals scored and a percentage of future transfer fees etc
If Sherwood priorities were to keep Benteke and Cleverly and the club can’t keep either where does that put him.
It’s very hard to keep players who don’t want to play for your club. It is looking like Benteke has played his last game, but Cleverley is just a free agent listening to offers clubs are making for him. Hopefully he chooses to stay.
Can’t believe ur love fest with cleverly. He’s a national joke ffs. Let Everton have him it’s no loss to us ffs
Love fest? I rate him and think he’s been good for us.
He’s been decent for 3 games did u not watch the other 35 seriously.
It may be his priority but if benteke wants to go he will no matter what’s offered to him. IV a feeling as well he will go for less than 32m as clubs are balking at that. Might be we get 25m for him plus extra money when he scores a certain num of goals etc.
We should offer Tekkers £75,000 to sign a new contracr, remove the current buy out clause and up it to £50 mil and guarantee him a move if we do not qualify for the Europa League!……over to you Randy, hang on, I’ve just spotted a problem with that idea!
He will get at least a £100k plus elsewhere so £75 won’t cut it. Also he is injury prone and his goals come in instalments. I say take the 32m and move on. Look at this way whether we keep him or not we will still be a bottom 6 team next season it’s not like keeping him will win us the league so just let him go.
Me too, expecting him to agree with that. If we can’t get him into Europe next season, who says we’d even get 50m for him? We wouldn’t. We’d be looking at bids of like 20m instead of 32.5m this summer. Not Lerner’s fault, he’s going to need a lot of money to get us into Europe.
I can’t get stressed over the Benteke situation. The real problem is that we have become a mediocre team that has relegation scrap as it’s club motto. What in demand footballer would come to such a club apart from mega bucks, which we can’t and won’t pay?
benteke will score loads in a decent team. He has ambition. He will leave. The same would be true of pretty much anyone of his ilk. We need to create a conveyor belt of players with potential, knowing that for a while they will move on after a couple of seasons, unless we can start competing at the right end of the table. Let’s get the best deal we can on Benteke, reinvest the money, plus some, and hopefully have a team with a bit of flair and attacking play, and a plan B for when plan A doesn’t work.
Over £30m – get rid and use the money to invest in the squad, or we may get stuck with him throwing his toys out of the pram….. And if he goes to Liverpool then he is a mug !
He said he wants CL football so if that’s true and I doubt it is it’s likely he will go to Utd or Chelsea
Chelsea I reckon,I think time to start searching don’t leave it lingering on that would really fuck me off.
Agreed, I can see him at Chelsea.
No guarantee of a starting place though,I don’t think he’ll like it one bit.fucking tough tittys
Depends he’s probably happy to be a bit part player and sit on the bench for triple wages. He wants to play for London team too
With Costa supposedly not happy living in England, I think it’s quite possible. Although they’re also linked with a 60m move for Higuain.
How about benteke to Chelsea for 32m and they give us Costa foc 🙂
I think Chelsea as he want ls to live in London and play CL. He will never be first choice if Costa is fit though
No but getting Remy in return would be a great start. 20m + Remy or so.
the phone call someone mentioned above to Kismet – benteke’s agent
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/football/video-1188532/Aston-Villa-fans-brilliant-Christian-Benteke-agent-PRANK.html
We are the new Coventry City, which for a Villa supporter who went to school in Coventry is really sad…
Weren’t there reports Cleverley pre-agreed a move to Everton in January? Would make sense that he’ll go there then.
Cleverly would be a freeby & a midfield squad player,I certainly wouldn’t bend over backwards to sign him could we do better?? yes
Course we could. There’s better free agent midfielders. MBia, De Jong (not that we could sign him), Ralf and much better AM’s is what we need (those being DM’s). Like Danny, Van Der Vaart, Yusupov, etc.
We still don’t score enough goals from midfield positions,we rely on benteke far too much with him gone we’ll need alot more sources to give us goals.
Ps I think our present midfield is piss weak & deffo need strengthening.
Fair point. Mainly need our AM’s to step it up, although it’s hard as you can’t really expect Grealish to score a lot. N’Zogbia’s gotta be replaced with someone good though, like Gil. Although he like Grealish is more a creator, not a goal scorer too. We need an Eriksen or Sigurdsson type player. Hoping Sherwood can find one.
And yeah, we need a stronger defensive midfielder, Sanchez can do that but with a huge lack of creativity in midfield he doesn’t. De Jong would be quality, or similar to him.
milner anyone?
He’s off to the bin dippers to provide crosses for benteke
He’s being offered 160k a week at Liverpool. We don’t have a chance.
How do u know that.
I’m all knowing. Thought you’d figure that out by now? 😉
Blatter’s resigning from FIFA, to stay in charge until new man appointed.
About time.
I would hope barton never plays at villa park, even in opposition, he is a chav with anger issues and money which has led him to believe he is above himself. He has committed many acts of thuggery and he is just about keeping a lid on it by sniping on twitter and wading in with unqualified opinion. Scum to me .. strong I know but thats how i feel about him.
Phillips – to me has proven he does not have the aptitude or the desire to play football. the talent maybe but he is on record as expressing his desire to stay at man city after multiple seasons of him warming a bench. he simply doesn’t care. he is about the wages and only the wages.
Austin – I would take, proven goalscorer, no one can dispute that now, 18 goals for a relegated side after season upon season of 20 goals+ in the championship for 2 clubs.
he has earned the right to continue in the premier league and we would lucky to have him I think.
He is more of an all rounder than most think.
Agree colonius hate everything that guy stands for.
here is the prank phone call on Benteke’s agent
Talks of a 2.7m bid for Weimann from Derby. Worth more, too good for the Championship, etc.
If Wilson comes from Bournemouth, and they are already planning without him, then we definitely need midfielders who can shoot straight from 18 yards. Wilson lays a lot of balls back to that position from the goal line wide of goal.
Gary Gardner ?
im starting to get worried by tims comments
“The fans want to see new faces as well. We can spend if I can justify it to the owners,
sounds like another season of limited spending unless randy sells the club.
i hope sherwood is not just another yes man like lambert but im starting to think with these sort of comments that he may be . is our budget all depending on whether benteke stays or goes .
But isn’t that comment true in any club and one interpretation would be as a message that we aren’t going to be held to ransom on transfer fees. I fear it says more about clubs seeing us with money from a Benteke transfer which always encourages a hike in fees when trying to buy. On the other hand I might be completely wrong!
Yep, if Tim states we have shedloads to spend, he will be inundated with Vulture agents trying to sell him has-beens and anyone decent will have their price doubled. He is just playing it a bit cool, however he has never dealt in a transfer market, so i do expect a certain level of hand holding, but this will be with the greatly experienced Tom Fox….. Thank the Lord fatty Faulkner has gone.
Very good point Saddened.
Express an Star say that Tim might be after Jonny Evans from Man U.
Interesting idea
And a bid for Van Persie as replacement for Benteke would be nice ! 🙂
I hope that’s a joke. Van Persie’s well past it.
It was a joke. I just put the wrong smiley face up ! 😉
Great suggestion Tekkers, lets try and re-sign Marlon Harewood too shall we?
I saw Harewood playing on TV the other week. He’s still going. Is he at Hartlepool???
Is Emile Heskey around? he’s only 37.
..inch neck
Bill , we already have the new Heskey. Isn’t that right Ooh Ahh !
Reports breaking that Cleverley has agreed to join Everton on a 5 year deal, which will be announced this week.
Oh well. I was on the side of hanging on to Cleverley but we just have to trust Tim and that he knows what he wants.
Must say, like someone else who posted earlier, mightily glad that the experienced Tom Fox is on hand to advise Tim on transfers.
Interesting times ahead 🙂
I’m a bit gutted, I really warmed to Cleverley after Sherwood came in. Felt he was vital in the way we have played under him. Hopefully he does have his targets lined up and Cleverley can be replaced, yeah. Sheesh, first Benteke and now Cleverley. What an awful week.
Not that bothered either way. After this season’s performances not really bothered about anyone leaving including Benteke provided price is right. To build a proper competitive team we need to buy 4 to 6 quality players that can hit the ground running backed up with those we keep.
Benteke has given us 3 years and we have added no players to the squad in that time that match his quality. He should be let go with our blessing but hopefully to a team outside premier league.
Looks pretty bad right now – a lot of players going out but not much talk about who will be actually replacing them.
Not surprised about Cleverley preferring Everton – geographically I think he just prefers it up there over Villa. He did his part keeping us up, but if it means we can give Gardner, Gil, or whomever a run out I welcome him leaving.
A bit of an overreaction. Doesn’t look bad at all, who cares if the media links us to anyone? All they do is think we’ll all of our players and buy Championship ones. They’re clueless.
I agree, the media knows just as much as we do – nothing. Nevertheless I don’t think that comment was overreacting.