I thought it was about time we moved on from the Man city game and our somewhat disappointing end to the season and looked at better things.
So after getting Boubacar Kamara (on a free) in really early and Phillipe Coutinho (£17 million) even earlier, the club have just announced that we’ve now signed Diego Carlos from Sevilla for a rumoured £26 million.
Even better is the fact that AC Milan were also interested, but frankly couldn’t compete with what we’re supposed to have offered him in wages.
When you consider that Carlos’ supposed value on Transfermkrt is £40 million plus that looks excellent business on the face of it. The Spanish club have to comply with some FFP type rule by the end of June and we’ve obviously used it as something to beat the club down with and then offering the Brazilian defender no doubt sky high wages has obviously swung the deal. We all know how a player can sway a move if he really wants it.
It’s the same with Kamara. I’d love to know what we’re paying him, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s currently our highest paid player. £200K a week, or £40 million total, over a four year deal is pretty good business for example and hopefully he hasn’t even cost that much, which makes it an even better deal!
I’ve pretty much said all this in the replies section in the previous thread, so I kind of shot my foot in the foot there, but oh well, this is worth a new subject, I think.
I’m guessing we’ve probably committed to a £60 million spend for this season alone.
Are we spending the Grealish money, I wonder?
If so, we’ve bought an attacking mid, a defensive mid and now a defender. While I think I said previously that I thought we need 5-6 players in (or at least thought it), I think the most popular opinion from what I’d read was around four new players required.
Top players, I mean.
Squad players would be replacements for all those that will go.
So I’m guessing we are going to spend another £40 million on a striker or maybe another two cheaper players.
That’s without wages, by the way.
There’s lots of variables of course, as we could get good money for Ings, if he goes.
But whatever, it’s highly encouraging isn’t it?
We’re doing our business really quickly and even if we pause now, we’ll have players in that will do the whole pre-season. That can only be a good thing, although in all honesty, I don’t think it’s such a big deal. Almost everyone else does though, so I have to go with that, I guess.
What else is also impressing me is how this time, those that are usually totally speculating seem to be very on the ball.
I guess it makes a pleasant change from hearing the usual clickbaiters getting it totally wrong.
I’m also guessing that us paying wages that are blowing top clubs out of the water is hard to keep quiet.
I have previously voiced my concerns that we may be ending up with a “bomb squad mk11”, but I suppose what we’re doing is the right way to go if we really want to compete and get better.
You have to speculate to accumulate and I have to be appreciative of what our generous owners are doing.
UTV!
Citeh – it seems – have agreed a £45m deal to buy Phillips from Leeds.
Do they actually need him or is it more about preventing any other EPL side from acquiring him?
How do Villa expect to compete against sides owned by Sovereign Funds however hard they try to argue they’re not state backed.
Is there an imbalance in the EPL with the wealth of Sovereign funds – it will be interesting to see how Newcastle develop – prove he point!
So is an ambition to be the ‘best of the rest’ a pragmatic view or a defeatist position?
Mate I love my football and the history of of it and contrary to popular opinion it didn’t start in 1992.
There’s nothing new in this, the wonderful bin dippers were at this game back in the 80″s.
I don’t know if you know this but prior to 81 gate receipts were shared creating a level playing field due to one William McGregor. The guy understood the the need for equality to make the game competitive but in this concept, in this age of greed has sadly fallen from grace.
So we end up with the have and have nots, a television frenzy of beer, fast food and gambling add with a match getting in the way.
Actually, RSS you beat me to it regarding the Scousers; I too remember the late 70’s and early 80’s when Liverpool were renowned for spending (in those days-) big money on players who were starting to make a mark with their previous clubs, and then shoving them into the Liverpool reserve team for a couple of seasons.
Some of those eventually made it into the 1st team at Anfield, but most were just there to keep them out of any opposition teams. I also recall that Chelsea were doing the same in Jose’s early stint there – they ended up with so many players out on loan in lower/ foreign leagues that they eventually had to curtail that policy.
I guess some of the fault is with the players themselves; they’d rather pick up a big pay-cheque every week for sitting in somebody’s reserve team, or playing well below their potential in a lower league than actually trying to help their original clubs compete at a high level.
There’s now’t new under the sun…
In the case of Phillips I am thankful for Citeh removing this player from our wish list. I think his appearances for England showed him up to be a player who makes up for a lack of skill with a surfeit of aggression. Citeh need a thug, but whereas Kompany had the football press fooled for almost his entire career, Phillips is just too obvious already.
Blimey, OLL, I really rated Kompany.
Philips though, I’ve not been convinced about, although I think we need a thug too.
McGinn is the nearest we have, but I’d like to see us improve on him (while still keeping him!).
I’d spunk the whole budget on a top notch hardman with some skill.
I bloody hated Roy Keane, but so admired him as a player.
He is exactly what Aston Villa are missing, imo.
Badger. According to the latest rumours Tomas Soucek has failed to get a pay rise at West Ham, so there is your ideal candidate. I would bite your arm off faster than Suarez if he was available.
Spot on OLL but would he move to a team not in Europe or is all about the money? Reported Villa, Newcastle and Everton interested.
If it’s money then you’d think Newcastle are favourites,
OLL, you’re spot-on here, I think.
Philips was one of the biggest thugs in Bielsa’s Leeds teams over the last few years, and he fitted-in well with the rest of the over-physical, ‘athletic’ war-horses Bielsa liked to play, but he’s looked far less effective even in a pretty boring England set-up.
If Citeh have spent £45m on that, they’re welcome to it; he’ll end up playing half a dozen hgames a season and spending a fair amount of the remaining time serving suspensions…
If we need a ‘thug’ of our own, find someone much more subtle & ‘professional’ about it!
Is Vinnie Jones still available? 🙂
Rory Wilson having medical at Villa.
16 year old from Rangers who scored 49 goals in all competitions last season.
Obviously Gerrard must know all about him and, I assume, has played a major role in persuading Wilson to sign for Villa.
We need to keep on feeding the best youngsters into the Academy.
Great news with further developments in relation to expanding Villa Park and its role in the community.
I was very interested with the intention to expand at a later date to 60,000. The filling in of the corner at Trinity is excellent.
Reading between the lines, there is talk of a 3rd tier being added. Does this mean the Doug Ellis stand will be changed. I hope so and then it can be renamed – never been happy with Doug naming a stand after himself. Maybe it could be come the Ron Saunders Stand!
Very much agreed.
However, when I read the pieces in the B’ham Mail / B’ham Live, it seemed to me that they were going to do some additional work on the Trinity Road stand – and that ‘sounded’ like possibly preparation for an extra tier there?
It can’t come quickly enough as far as I’m concerned – the North Stand has been a bit embarrasing for years, although I do remember when it opened back in 1980 it seemed like ‘the future’…
The Ron Saunders Stand
The William McGregor Stand
The Hughes – Price- Matthews – Scattergood Stand
Even the F***ing “Bosko Balaban Stand” rather than the Doug Ellis anything.
Agreed.
I’ll never get away from “the first director to pay himself” tag and it says it all for me.
The old cliche – ‘he (knew) the cost of everything and the value of nothing’ – said to me about Deadly by a certain Digby Jones.
I think if they renamed it the Ruth Ellis stand we’d be happier!
This is a good (a little lengthy) read on MOMS putting the media’s transfer stories into click bait perspective.
https://www.myoldmansaid.com/john-mcginn-bad-attitude-and-insider-transfer-links/
That’s why Hitch I’ve not bought a paper for 20 odd years I don’t believe pundits comments and some supposedly sports editor raking up untruthful opinion. Seeing and believe with your own eyes is much nearer to the truth I say.
As expected Kalinic has signed on a permanent deal with Hadjuk Split.
I suspect we earned two loan fees over the last two seasons.
We seem to forever bring in players who we don’t really need (or particularly want -) and then spend a long time trying to get somebody else to take them off our hands!
I know that most transfers are a ‘gamble’, but even with that, the various people at Villa who have been responsible for a lot of transfers in the last 3-4 years seem to have sometimes just thrown money at the wall.
Smacks of panic buys Ardent.
What did we pay for Kalinic – £5.4m from Gent and probably got at the most £1 – £2m back and avoided paying his wages for a couple of years.
He made a total of 7 appearances for Villa (all in the Championship) and managed to concede 8 goals in his first three games.
If it was a gamble then we got cleaned out!
Bosko Balaban has a competitor 🙂
Eric Djemba-Djemba
Watching U19 WC Final.
What is it about England teams in finals. U19’s sleep walking in the game.
Is it arrogance, lack of drive or over confidence?
England U19’s playing absolute rubbish – must be part of our DNA 🙂
Israel take the lead and it’s totally deserved.
England have been a disgrace.
They must have learnt everything from their peers 🙂
England U19’s are so poor it’s embarrassing
All three Villa players now on.
Missed the equaliser as was busy 🙂
You cannot do that I was interested Hitch.
England improved massively after half time – we’ll they couldn’t have been any worse :-).
Goals for Chukweumeka and Ramsey sealed the win but all the hard work done by others.
Didn’t watch but at least we won the euros in some form lol… now I just want villa to make a signing so its worth coming on here to talk about villa again haha