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”
I like the links to Trippier. Think he looks a great player…still gutted we missed out on Creswell after all the links to him before he went to West Ham. Hopefully Sherwood is better at picking out fullbacks than Lamberk was!
Im looking at it this way, if they want to go, let them, can we say we had a football team over the last decade? sorry but that team needs to go, give me player’s that play to win, play for the shirt, players for us fans, that performance last week takes some beating as players loving their job or gives a fuck about Villa, its going to be a long time before I forgive what they did for the club. Cleverly can go , they all can, start with players that love to win.
If we want a team full of passion and commitment then the first priority is that the player must want to play for Aston Villa.
My concern is more who’s coming in than going out, we need a total refurb imo over to you Tim do this cus at present we’ll remain a struggling team.I’m resigned to losing benteke as for the rest couldn’t give a flying fuck,I’m pessimistic already for next season & I’m going to need a hell of alot of convincing to think otherwise.yes the darksides finally got me.
Cleverley would have chosen Everton because they gave him a better pay deal……thanks again Randy! Its worrying me that I’m starting to become completely negative about Villa for the first time in my life…..Fuck off Lerner!
MATE I’m obviously not alone about my feelings.
Langford trust me we’ve had a lucky escape on this one. I also think he prefers Everton simply as they are nearer Manchester. Don’t think this has much to do with money as they don’t pay big wages either.
i would have liked for Cleverley to stay but would never have offered him a five year deal.
Not on half a dozen good games and 3 goals.
Everton are bonkers offering him that. An Everton St holder told me they are totally underwhelmed with TC going there and none of them wang him especially for 5 years ! And we think we have problems lol
OohAh for once I agree. I would have liked Cleverley to stay but only if he wanted to play for us. He can go and join his mate Martinez (who I dislike intensely) as money is clearly more important than playing for the Villa – will just shed a tear. We need more commitment like Delph.
*not shed a tear!
Agreed Hitchins
Possibly he wants to be re United with Martinez ?????
That’s true Oohah, its the pull of the city that’s made him join, what’s this city got? no competition in them err scum, Aston looking like a tip, Birmingham councilors couldn’t give a reception if we won, Leicester getting more attention lately.
Oohah, I dont think its a ‘lucky escape’ as he would have cost nothing! I cant forgive the club for Saturday’s performance. Sherwood is talking about rebuilding the club with the Benteke money. That tells me that the £32 mil is the most he will get….my bet is that he wont even get all of that. WTF, poxy little clubs like Stoke, West Ham, Swansea, Southampton, Leicester showing more ambition than us! The club is dieing a very slow and painful death!
@Langford Bit premature surely?
Let’s at least wait until we lose a few games. As for me I’m utterly confident we’ll be great next season and we’ll be involved in no relegation battles for the next few years.
Well no point in worrying until you have to, why spoil a (hopefully) nice summer?
Anyway IMHO it might be more important that the team (whoever they are) play as a team and play with spirit than looking at the individual components.
UTV
i have already read it on a few websites about our limited spending again this summer unless benteke goes .after the last few seasons i cant see randy suddenly opening up the wallet and spending big. pray for a buy out . pray like a catholic priest caught with his dick in the alter boy , pray like a muslim caught with his phone full of beheading videos, pray pray pray and then pray some more :/
I know IV always said Benteke will go but a lot depends on who comes in for him. I don’t think his heart is really in Liverpool plus the bin dippers don’t rate him anyway and think he’s another ballotelli for twice the price! The only northern club I think he would go to is Utd for obvious reasons. I think he has always wanted to play for a London club and Cheksea are only ones likely to bid for him. But with euros coming up he will want to be first choice but would be not much more than a back up for Costa.
So the Villa rescue Cleverley’s and he repays us by f()king off to Everton……… You just have to love the loyalty in todays football players !
I think Sir Tim will have a mass clear out this summer and all I can say is good riddance to bad rubbish!
Sorry should have said Cleverley’s career
The fucking cheek of it all,Aston Villa have sent a letter to renew our seats now,if we don’t we will loose the seat we have.. They did this last year ,took no notice then they rang, told them when I see something happening in the club I’ll buy. Langford your right they want our money to buy players mate.
I dont understand your frustrations Bill, there is lots going on at the Club….. They are selling all the players !!!!
Gosh Saddened never looked at it like that, you think I should ring them and say I will have the 4 seats don’t matter if we get nobody ? I’m going to do that in 3 months time.
Tell them to do one Bill. There will be thousands of seats to choose from I only know 2 out of 20ish St holders I know renew so far and that’s only because seats have been in her family for millions of years! Dosnt look like Lerner is selling and with the imminent departure of benteke and Sherwood having circa £10m to spend it will be exactly the same next season. Totally pointless
Fucking hell oohah. I am starting to agree in most of the things your saying….who would ever of thought that. What a shit 7 days we have had. Never thought I would feel this negative about our great club. I wont be attending any games at VP next season….not one, unless Sherwood is given ALL the Benteke money plus at LEAST £30 mil on top. The club are taking the piss, year after year! In life, I never let anyone take the piss more than once! After last Saturday’s disaster where the fuck is our so called saviour Tom Fox…..he’s slowly turning into yet another PR disaster. Why dont the club state that we ARE ambitious to move on significantly after 4 barren years of cost-cutting and poor entertainmeng. FFS, give us some hope at the very least!
pray langford PRAY .. im hoping he sells cause there is know way he is going to spend £30m on top of what he gets for benteke. we will be lucky if sherwood gets the benteke money to spend. i hope im wrong I would love to come on here at the end of the summer and say well done randy your a fecking hero . long live the lerner . im a praying , im a praying 🙂
That’s worrying agreeing with me it shows your losing it Langford lol :-). Agree though we need to spend £40-50 m on players or next season is simply not worth turning up for. We all know without wholesale changes we will yet again be a bottom 4 team. Tom Fox is just another yes man though probably a small upgrade on PF.
“Worth the entrance money just to see him play”
Over the years the above phrase applied to a string of Villans. Hitchens, Aitken, Little, Gray, Psycho, Gidman, Morley, Withe, Mortimer, McGrath, Daley, Saunders, Atkinson, Cowans, Laursen, Mellborg, I am sure you can add several more.
Of today’s squad – how many would you give that accolade to? I am sorry to say that only Grealish inspires me, for the rest I could not be bothered if they go tomorrow. So I am not getting worried by the exit of Benteke and Cleverley, and I will be pleased to see the back of most of the others. I think to myself if Tim assembles a squad at random, could they be any worse? I doubt it.
A lot of links today saying we are interested in Robertson. This rumour started a week or 2 ago, we might be interested but can’t see us paying the 10 million. But if we got him, Trippier on the right, Austin up front. A decent centre back and midfielder. It wouldn’t look too bad, would it?
It should be said as a reminder Sherwood has zero experience in the transfer market, so no one knows how well he can spend. He could be great, could be awful, but nerve-racking all the same.
I put my faith in Sherwood to take in the right players, as for benteke I would not except anything less than 35 mil. We hold the ace card 2years left on his contract, Sherwood and Fox are not stupid . As for that diabolical preformance on Saturday and seasons we had put that behind us . Starting fresh this summer with a new team and Sherwood to lead us. I HOPE WE HAVE MONEY TO SPEND.
Its NOT sherwood thats going to fuck this up, its dear old Randy……look out for yet another new manager this time next year! I guess we will be back to ‘Lambert mark one’…..the young, hungry and cheap poundland route,. Without ALL the Benteke money, plus at LEAST £30 mil on top we are well and truly shafted again!
Domingo…..I’m still praying mate……..but the almighty Randolph never listens to my prayers!
Gregg Evans has confirmed our interest in Robertson and said he is a target and that Hull will want double what they paid for, which was just under 3 million.
Sounds in our price range but I’m sure he’ll be 1 amongst a huge list of players that we’ll be linked with so until it’s a done deal I ain’t holding my breath.
I’m just worried that our transfer budget depends solely on the Benteke sale.
Lerner has always given 20M + sales.
That’s what I’m saying. And rather than spending that on quality, Lambert chose to spend it on getting bodies in.
Which given the clubs curse with injuries I agreed with Lambert’s strategy. I was hoping Sherwood would build on the current squad rather than gut it.
The cancer has to be removed otherwise it’s going to be terminal.
Lerner gave a total of £39 million over the 3 seasons Lambert had with us……13 mil per season on average….you get about 70% of ONE decent player for that!
I understand stopping the rot and changing the attitude of the changing room, but you have to admit there is an argument after this past season we didn’t have enough players in defense due to injury – yet it appears we are offloading most of our back line if rumors are to believed. I’m not arguing for starters but most of those in the current squad could be used as 2nd – 3rd options. If Sherwood is able to replace all those who are leaving I have no problem seeing a purge but given the past few season I will be shocked if we start the season with the depth we need.
As for transfer money, Lambert was known for not using all of the available money, but if you go back to GH Lerner has always backed his managers with at least 20M + sales. GH spent more because he probably knew Young and Milner would be sold, but NOT INCLUDING loan fees… GH – 32M, AMC – 18M, PL – 24M / 17M / 11M
Not as easy as we would hope but i’m assuming the Sherwood clear out would include he most of the following and what do we think we would get in fees and save on wages before we look to spend…
OUT
Brad Guzan 2m £25,000
Joe Bennett 1.5m £15,000
Ron Vlaar 0m £45,000
Andreas Weimann 2m £25,000
Joe Cole 0m £25,000
Philippe Senderos 0m £25,000
Chris Herd 0m £10,000
Darren Bent 0m £60,000
Christian Benteke 30m £60,000
Alan Hutton 1m £30,000
Aly Cissokho 1.5m £20,000
Charles N’Zogbia 1m £40,000
Matthew Lowton 2m £15,000
Enda Stevens 0m £5,000
Nathan Baker 3m £10,000
Yacouba Sylla 0.25m £10,000
Alexander Tonev 1.25m £10,000
Nicholas Helenius 0m £10,000
Antonio Luna 1m £10,000
46.5m £450,000
Appreciate people like N’Zogbia would be hard to get rid of, and some people may want to keep Baker and N’Zogbia – but lets be fair we can do better and think we should – theyve proven they arent that good!
On the problem with Baker. But lets say we start Clark and Okore. Who better than Baker will we get to replace him on the bench? Baker’s been class when he’s played this season.
JB – I’d forgotten we still employ some of that shower. My lord there is some work to be done this summer. When Benteke goes (I wish I still thought he might stay), I’d happily replace him with Charlie Austin (is Kozak still alive?) – then we simply need a gk, a left back, a right back, etc etc etc, some one who can cross, someone who can score from midfield, someone tough in midfield……….I hope Tim knows what he’s doing and that Randy let’s him do it.
And as for Cleverley, I’m sad because I thought he could have been really good under Sherwood, but in reality he probably never wanted to be here, and no one is bigger than this club.
I’m assuming people aren’t queuing up to sign Vlaar or Agbonlahor? Wishful thinking perhaps.
I’d say he’s good as gone the big question mark for how much???? Knowing our Yankee miser we’ll be lucky to get half the fee yet again I’m not holding my breath.
Charlie Austin has refused to comment on his QPR future and said he just wants to focus on the next two weeks and after that what will be, will be amid being linked with a move to Villa.
Could mean anything, but if he does end up signing. And we get Robertson, that would certainly make this summer light up a bit.
Throw in Heaton and Trippier and we’ll have to get the suntan lotion out!!
Townsend to Villa is doing the rounds, some say it’s a done deal, others saying he’s in advanced talks. Probably some itk bollocks, but talks of incoming players are certainly heating up.
Another rumour heating up is apparently 2 agents of 2 different players were at Bodymoor Heath. People are now saying that one of those was definitely Townsend. Some people suggesting the other is Trippier, but this looks more like wishful thinking to me.
Thought Townsend was at ITV as a pundit albeit a shite one!
Nice one OohAh; you do have a sense of humour after all. Good player for us though – could do with him now.
Great thing about the transfer window; all speculation! Will TS produce the curved ball in transfer terms – or perhaps not!
I don’t get the comments about TS ‘not being experienced in the transfer market’. His job is to identify the players he wants to improve the side – it’s Tom Fox’s job to negotiate the deals and he us certainly an experienced player. Thank heaven we’re not still relying on Fatty!
Just reporting the rumours as I see them lads, don’t shoot the messenger! 😛
Read that, Townsend would be an awful signing. Even Sherwood said he does something well one in ten times, so I don’t think he’d take him. Then again he is better than Sinclair and N’Zogbia, still an awful player though, especially at the money Levy wants for his awful players.
I see just about everyone is jumping on the ‘knock Villa’ bandwagon after the FA Cup Final. Add to that the doom and gloom on here and it’s enough to drive one to drink.
Even the optimists Giddy, Bill and Langford have joined the doomsayers of OohAh and his followers.
It seems just about everyone knows that RL is going to screw the club, TS will be a failure (having never operated in the transfer market) and Tom Fox is not the guy we thought he was.
Well guys I don’t need all this negativity so I’m off – hope you all survive the summer.
I haven’t got my followers though lol. There’s not much to be positive about its been a horrible season that has been sugar coated due to good cup run.
we can only go by what has happened the last few years . lerner has cut the spend , cut the wages and still we stand tall and proud , we are aston villa . we deserve better than what has been delivered . if you cant stand the heat then leave the kitchen . i pray tim sherwood can deliver us to the promised land ! until then VILLA TILL I DIE.
Sorry you feel that way Hitch, I speak as I see,, you pay money to see shite games Hitch and say nothing, I don’t , I know it will take time with the new man and I’ll give him that, but the club has to come clean with fans and spell out their intentions and not leave it to guess work, asking fans to pay with still same players ? No thanks, Sherwood, Fox , stand up and tell us fans what are you doing about the shite team we have. I’m waiting before I pay you good money.
Im not negative H60, Tim Sherwoods average points per game for the Villa is 1.3, give him the full season that would equate to 49 points (10th place).
We stayed up and got to the final of the FA Cup, imagine having a bet on that in January.
Randy or the new owners have to spend, I am confident it will not be the same as the last few years.
UTV
10th place whoopee something to look forward to mid table mediocrity. I’d rather fight relegation at least there’s something to play for
I will hold you to that ooh ahh – this contradicts a lot of what have said before but in the spirit of a fresh summer – let’s see where you go
I don’t know about others, but I’d spend 6m on Robertson. Really impressed me as a player at Hull, good defender, likes to bomb down the pitch like Sherwood likes. Better than Cissokho defensively and better than any of them attack wise. He and Trippier would be great. Would be a great start for under 10m for the duo. I say keep Lowton, can cover both sides and he really isn’t that bad.
Like the Robertson and Trippier links, solid full backs who like to get forward and entertain the crowd and this would surely be encouraged under Sherwoods remit. Combined £10-£12m would be good. Replace Bennett/Cissokho/Hutton/Lowton – leave Richardson (experience) and Bacuna as back Ups and may get £6m or so back and likely savings in wages.
Losing Vlaar i’d like to see Virgil van Dijk come in from Celtic for £8m-10m, good quality centre back who can play the ball out the back – his and Okores pace would benefit the higher line seen under Sherwood recently.
With the above back 4, really do need a combative defensive midfielder – an addition to Delph, Westwood and Sanchez needed – i like Sanchez and think he gets undone by the lack of movement ahead of him in trying to keep the ball and move it out from the back area. A fairly ambitious choice, but not out of the question if we paid decent wages (they’ll always go for money) is Stefan Reinartz who was although may not now be out of contract this summer. Against Arsenal especially, the lack of power and in particular pace in midfield which was constantly skipped past hurt us and he would help in this respect and can play center half when they are all crocked as happened this season.For free would be quality.
Don’t line the Townsend link, feels fairly MON esque of Sherwood going after purely English players and ignoring some flair form abroad such as Gil. Plus we have Sinclair who is somewhat similar. I think Gardner will get more chances but would like a goalscoring midfielder and striker to replace Benteke. I’d go Austin for £12m or so and chance on Bolaisie at £16-£17m – a double act for the Benteke fee which would get me off my seat at VP.
With a bit of cash left i’d try and fliog Guzan for a couple fo mill and get Heaon or Timo Horn for £6-8m. Overall £20m net spend, wages depends on how many freeloaders we get rid of but Vlaar, Bent etc equals good savings