Any long time viewers of the site will know my position regarding the transfer windows.
I hate the speculation because the vast majority of it is utter rubbish.
That said, I know some of you love it, so I’m happy to talk about it.
Me, I’ll just remain very sceptical until it has been confirmed that a player has signed.
A typical example of what I believe is utter tosh, is a link I’ve seen to Charlie Austin, the Southampton striker.
There was me thinking he was an attacking midfielder. Did he get pushed up front some time back?
Whatever, he’s 29 and apparently on £70k a week, with two years left to run on his contract.
A cursory glance at the Premier league table tells me Southampton finshed 16th in the season just gone, which is surely at least where we’d hope to finish this season.
So, if he’s deemed not good enough for Southampton, why on earth does anyone think we’d want him?. And on those wages, when it’s blatantly obvious that we have FFP issues, now that it seems we’re under a soft transfer embargo?
For info, this is where a club agrees not to do any deals, after a request from the EFL. This would explain why the Jota and Hause deals were delayed.
But it now seems that the embargo has been lifted, as the latest news is that we’ve taken up our option to sign Hause and the Jota deal has been confirmed by Dean Smith himself.
Which is interesting, because it means that if we were under an embargo, something has happened very, very recently to allow the EFL to lift it.
I wonder what?
Or is it just that we had other irons in the fire and wanted to hold fire?
Jesus, even I’m being sucked into the speculation game now.
Anyway, while the Jota deal makes sense because Smith knows him, the Austin deal just doesn’t, in any way. At all.
Simply put, if we sign 5% of the players we’ve been linked with, the media will have done very well and better than usual.
I can’t remember the actual reason why windows were introduced, but logic tells me it was to prevent clubs reinforcing when they suffered a particular weakness, which gave the bigger clubs another advantage.
But since when have the powers that be been bothered about that?
Or maybe it was to stop “tapping-up” and undermining rival clubs at important times?
Yes, that doesn’t happen any more, does it?
I dont know, part of me wishes we could go back to the old system, as I detest reading pure guesswork.
Our owners said they meant business. it doesn’t look like they are messing around does it. I’m waiting for full on confirmation, but I wonder who will be the next transfer in?
Pat57 is right that Moraes wasn’t on the list. It just goes to show that a vast majority of media stories are just lazy speculation.
News broken on Villa website. We have signed Moraes.
Never heard of him but I am excited. I am sure more is to come.
UTV
It’s even on Midlands today, WoW,
That’s a massive statement of intent. We need to sort a number of areas to survive (and thrive) in the Prem. Ultimately, you need a good defence and GK, and a striker who takes his chances. Clearly, we are looking for a top GK. Hause and Mings, a decent LB and hopefully Guilbert plus another CB to add to the others (inc Chester) would get us most of the way there. Midfield is good but a DM is a must (Philips would be a good addition – young, energetic, strong and decent with the ball). A top striker is a must in the Prem. Abrahams misses too many good chances. It wouldn’t surprise me if Smith recognises that he isn’t good enough (yet) and may not even be pursuing him. We need someone else there as well though.
A bit rambling but hey ho. I hope Moraes is worth what we paid. Hard to tell from Youtube, and the Belgian league isn’t strong, despite the number of fantastic players they have produced.
The owners are clearly intending to ensure we stay up now we are there. Roll on next season!
Will the signing of Moreas mean that there is little chance of Abraham coming back? A shame if it’s the case because I thought he embraced our club with style and kept us in games almost single handed before Grealish came back from injury.
We should still be looking at other striking options, would be foolish to go into the new season with one striker, Kodjia and Davis aren’t PL quality, personally I hope we go in for Maupay.
I agree that we need another striker but I’d prefer Stuani from La Liga. He’s 32, very experienced and a great striker. He’d be a great back up for a couple of seasons.
Pretty sure Barcelona are in for him
Yes I’ve heard that too but he might fancy a go at the Prem. He also knows that he’d only get a few minutes here and there at Barca at most.
Welbeck is available on a free, he’d be worth a punt as he can also play left wing and proven at PL level.
I’m really gobsmacked by the move for Moraes and how Villa managed to keep it all quiet. I’m not sure it’s worth reading the rumours in the papers anymore because they clearly haven’t got a clue as to what’s really going on.
Looking forward to confirmation of Mings’ and Hause’s permanent deals and the possibility of Butland and Philips joining us.
I’m sure that there will be more surprises too.