Here we are then and where it might normally be a fairly exciting day for us Villa fans, I’ll be quite surprised if much happens at all.
One player we definitely won’t see coming in is Pierre-Michel Lasogga, the 25-year-old Hamburg striker, who has gone to Leeds.
I never thought there was anything in that one anyway, as I’m fairly convinced only McCormack’s leaving would enable us to get anyone else in.
And on that front, it depends which media source you read, but apparently Ross is either definitely not going to Sunderland, as Steve Bruce doesn’t want to loan him to a Championship rival, or a deal might still be on, if Sunderland offer enough of a percentage of his wages. I don’t see a loan deal happening at all to Sunderland.
The Rangers link doesn’t make any sense at all, as they don’t have a pot to do the proverbial in and are a club in financial turmoil.
That said, just as I said Sinclair would prove a hit in Scotland, just imagine how McCormack might do?
I still don’t see it happening.
Tommy Elphick won’t be leaving either, after Sunderland offered to loan him from us, a deal we refused. Sunderland then offered £1 million and I guess we quite rightly told them to eff off.
I believe Sunderland have the best part of a £100 million parachute payment to come, so I don’t quite understand why they’re being so tight?
It seems to me that no-one wants to go to the Mackems though, so they might have to raise the ante and things could change.
And nothing has been said (as far as I can see) about Gardner.
He’s apparently got a few clubs interested, but none are big enough to be able to cough up the required poke to make a deal worth it, it would seem.
It appears Villa are digging their heels in somewhat and we’re not willing to let other clubs walk all over us, as they have done previously.
Good.
It could all come down to a last-minute battle of nerves, especially on Sunderland’s part, which still leaves us with some interest, I suppose.
but I’m not convinced we’ll see anything happen.
I won’t even mention the likes of Micah Richards.
I just wonder if what we’ve got is going to prove adequate?
badger
we have about 27/8 senior players never mind likes green davies its mental our wage bill must be criminal for championship side
You won’t see me arguing that point, JV.
The only good point about that is that it gives you more money to amortise/ write down every year.
I wonder if that’s what it’s about?
right add up wages for
hutton richards gardner gabby mccormak plus ones outon loan which we will be making up gollina tisc gill would say comes to over 300 thousand a week 15m a year for players adding nothing to the cause
But we all know this.
What concerns me more is that we’ve added to that with old players, who if they don’t work out, will make the situation worse, imo.
Perhaps the Doc is forcing us into accepting that we have no choice but to go with the kids?
I don’t know.
But the post is aimed at getting us to talk about the deadline and not how we waste money; something we’ve done for years.
Isn’t talking about wasting money, the whole reason nothing is happening on deadline day? We’ve failed to get rid of players, therefore no one comes in. As well as all the giant wages we’ve allowed into the team of aging players, means we won’t sign anyone either.
Yes, fair play, I suppose it is.
But I was thinking more that it’s not new news, us wasting money, is it?
On second thoughts, carry on 🙂
Trust me, I know the argument of wasted money is boring. But we’ve wasted money, a lot of money, under Xia already. And he’s only been here for 3 transfer windows. But lets be realistic here, and I mean realistic.
We’ve signed Elphick, Gollini, Tshibola, McCormack, Jedinak, De Laet, Kodjia, Adomah, Johnstone, Lansbury, Bjarnason, Bree, Hourihane, Taylor, Hogan, Bedeau, Terry, Johnstone (2), Elmo, Whelan, Samba, Snodgrass.
Now tell me out of all of those players, would you really have signed them given the chance and I don’t know, what, 80m? 120m probably including wages? Would you really have went out and signed most of them? Sadly for the most part I think our fans would have. But then 5 games into every one of them playing the same fans turned on those players so, that doesn’t say much. I fully backed Gollini, Jedinak, Kodjia, Hourihane, Hogan. That’s about the extent of who I wanted from that list. Bjarnason maybe because he looked good for Iceland. Putting that altogether though, that’s already a lot of wasted money. And are any of them going to do well in the premier league under Bruce if he takes us up? Probably Kodjia, but that’s about it.
I’m not saying none of them could make it though. Hourihane would do well at Burnley, as would Jedinak and maybe De Laet and Adomah. As I think they fit the system of Dyche’s. But really if we were a Premier League side right now. We’d be dead. And think of the kind of signings Bruce would make as a premier league manager. Would they really be far off from who’ve we signed now? Probably not.
In my defence of supporting Bruce, I’ve always said he would probably have to go after a few games, if we were to get promoted.
His job, for me, is to get us up.
And that’s it, where he gets a few games to either put us near the top of the Prem or get sacked with a big fat pay-off, that he’ll have well earned.
That just takes us back to the other thread and I’m not sure who it was, but they claimed we’d have to sign a whole new team. So why is Bruce allowed to spend so much money on a new squad if he is here just to get us up again? When very few of the players he signed are even close to premier league material and bar like Terry, aren’t on short contracts to be let go. Nor will we likely make a profit on any of them.
Sadly I don’t think Xia honestly got him in to get us up and then let him go.
It’s been a relatively boring deadline day overall. We weren’t going to sign anyone unless it was a striker and as you said, McCormack would’ve had to leave.
Are we good enough though? Remains to be seen how Kodjia comes back and see if he can make save Bruce’s Villa career again. Like he did in February. We sit 18th after 5 in which you’d assume wasn’t the hardest start we could’ve gotten. We’ve already conceded 9 goals, which one would’ve assumed Whelan and Terry were brought in to shore up. Hopefully Grealish and Kodjia come back firing, because we know we need it.
I actually thought it was a tough start, Andrew, but predicted points to come after the first 5 or 6 games.
I still think we could have done with a couple in and the lop-sidedness of our FB’s still surprises me.
But we do have options (even if it means De Laet playing LB), where the overall squad definitely won’t be able to be used as any excuse.
I was talking to a Derby fan today and over the last few seasons, he thought their squad was really strong. Yet it got them nowhere.
I’m not sure what to make of that, except a good squad means little in this league. I suspect it’s a smaller main core that is what really counts.
You seem to like your stats, so I wonder if you might be interested in looking at if there’s a correlation in how many games promoted team’s players play?
We seem to have a major problem with injuries, is my point and I wonder if that holds us back?
Newcastle used a total of 31 players last season. 16 of those appeared in 25 games or more. Then it takes a drastic turn where the 17th most played player played 15.
Huddersfield played 25 players overall, 12 played 24 games or more, 10 of those playing 37 or more.
Brighton played 28 players overall, 15 played 24 games or more, 13 with 31 games or more.
We played a total of 35 players last season, 11 played 26 or more games, but unlike the rest of the teams, only 1 player managed over 40 games, which was Chester. 9 managed 30 games or more.
Though you could argue Hourihane, Johnstone, Taylor, Hogan and Lansbury came in January and Hogan got injured. As did Bjarnasson.
I’m not even sure it’s down to players getting injured looking at the numbers of appearances per number of making the squad. Lansbury played in 18 games out of 19 times of making the squad, Hourihane 17 in 18, Bjarnasson 8 in 8, Hogan 13 in 13. Johnstone 21 in 21. Other than Elphick, Bree and Tshibola, our newly acquired squad played almost every game they could. So honestly that comes down to the manager.
Blimey, that was quick!
Or maybe there is something in continuity and players playing more games?
Hard to say, but it seems so.
Thanks for that 🙂
Its an impossible job shifting the likes of Richards, Elphick or Mccormack permanently. Nobody in this league can pay them the money we do and because of that they will be reluctant to move.
Nevertheless we’ve not helped ourselves by wasting more money on the likes of Terry, Whelan and Samba, all past their best. Imagine even if we scraped promotion via the play offs somehow (hypothetically as I can confidently say there is 0% chance with Bruce), we’d need an entire new squad virtually to even have half a chance of competing. This is why Bruce is such a shocking manager, no thought has gone into the long term planning at all.
The most concerning bit is how quickly the money is trickling down the PL now though. Watching small bottom half teams like Bournemouth bidding 30m for players like Demarai Gray, who isnt even a regular at Leicester. Its frightening how wide that gap between those with the PL money and those who don’t could grow. A long term stint in this league will end all hope regardless of what Dr Tony tweets.
Shows what I know 🙂
Gardner has gone to Barnsley on loan.
Another one no one will buy off us permanently. Likely one of the lower waged players we have, but goes to show how fast his hype died.
bruce gave gardner new contract last december taking him from 5 thous a week to 25 thousand then went out and signed 7 more midfielders,how stupid is the doc
Leicester had a bid of 30m for Gray, and they rejected it. Drinkwater is going to Chelsea for 35-40m… Yeah.. Neither of them would get into a top 6 team in any of the other 4 big leagues and those price tags would be about a quarter of what they are.
Why oh why do teams insist on signing English players for so much when they produce so little?
thats just an average price for average players now andrew
Andrew, because fans expect English players to play in the English leagues?
It’s a global game indeed.
But many of us don’t care much for it, the way it’s gone, I’d suggest.
Pretty much why many ask for us to play our kids?
That’s just it Badger. You’d expect it, and they do, and largely why they don’t go abroad because they’ll get paid horrid wages. But Drinkwater has officially gone for the same amount of Vidal or Pjanic has. And guess what? Those are 2 of the top 5 best center mid’s in the world. Drinkwater isn’t even in the top 5 in the league.
That’s my whole point though. It’s a global game, and we need to start acting like it as a club.
I think the squad is adequate. Not sure Bruce is though. Terry, Chester, Jedinak, Onomah, Hourihane and Kodjia all good players. Not a bad core. If not top 6 in 5 games time though maybe get Allardyce in?
So you go from what horrid British manager to another. What does going from Bruce to Allardyce do exactly? They’re basically the same manager, maybe Allardyce is slightly better. Haven’t you had enough of the same old same old yet of British managers or should we just go down the list of every one of them and then letting them go as they fail one by one, because that’s about the extend of the British manager. Bar currently Rodgers and he’s doing it in literally a 1 team league, not one of them is an actual success. Unless you count managing in the top two leagues of England.
And Neil Taylor and Snodgrass are both good players.
taylor
3 swansea manager didnt rate him last season and i tend to agree on this season showing
snodgrass blamed bilic for his poor showing last season maybe he should look in mirror
The transfer money has gone mental in the prem. £30 million and upwards for average players is just ludicrous. Good players now around £100 million. What is going on?? Meanwhile, due to rules being “fair” we cannot even spend 50p or we will get our wrists slapped by the man.
I am actually close to despair with the state of football. It breaks my heart to see how our Villa has been systematically destroyed over the last number of years until we were a slithering mess and a laughing stock. It still makes my blood boil when I recall Jeff Steling and the rest of the sky pundits openly laughing at our plight during the season we went down.
I just hope Bruce can get this team working together and get us towards the top six so we have a chance at promotion. But this is a tough league. I started taking an interest in the championship the year I realised we were getting relegated and I saw what a fight it was between the top 12 or so teams. Oh crap I thought; this is what we have to battle through! It is a long hard slog in this league and all to easy for it to become a permanent home.
UTV.
Well, that’s it.
Unless we’ve managed to wangle some more time, in the way that certain clubs do.
Gardner out and nowt in, then.
Pretty much as I expected, then.
Young goalie, Matija Sarkic has gone to Wigan, on loan.
Good move if he gets playing time. Surprised that, usually send our young stars to the conference and then sell them or let them go for free (see Siegrist). So hopefully we actually care for Sarkic.
It was a poor window overall, but it could be worse, could be Sunderland who signed Marc Wilson, Callum McManaman and Jonny Williams. So I guess we can be thankful we’re not Sunderland fans.
Right then! I know it’s been a bit doom and gloom on here recently, but out of general curiosity who do we reckon was our signing of the window? For me it’s Snodgrass. I know some feel we have more than enough on the right, but Snodgrass is real quality. Could still be playing in the prem, I think. Buzzing with him!
My views on the ins and outs:
Onomah.- Pick of the bunch. His movement creates space, which is what we don’t get from the rest of the team. 7/10
Terry – Stupidly expensive wages, will be torn apart pace wise and his constant visits to Chelsea show a lack of commitment -we should not be a retirement home 1/10
Whelan – can’t last more than 1 half so will be a pointless signing. 2/10
Elmohamady – Decent crosser but overall doesnt offer enough at both end of the pitch to justify a starting role. Okay as backup /squad player 6/10
Samba – usless greedy mercenary and unbelievably slow. Absolute madness from Bruce letting Baker go for this lump. 0/10
Johnstone – I rate Steer higher, but he has done okay so far. Would rather we developed our own player, not Man Utd’s – 5/10
Snodgrass…. will wait and see. As a so called “proven” player at this level, he has to hit the ground running.
Blues signing Jota has eclipsed all of our deals though, he destroyed us last season at Brentford. Stunned they managed to pull that one off
fair assessment and agree on ratings
I think we’ve got a good team. Johnstone is a good keeper. Elmo, Bree and Hutton can all do a job at Rb. Terry and Chester have been fine apart from Cardiff. Now they will get protection from Jedinak and Whelan. Taylor is a good left back for me. Across the front you’ve got Snodgrass Onomah/ Hourihane and Green supporting Davis and then Kodjia will be back. Maybe Ross McCormack will get a chance now. He is a class player at this level.
Brentford haven’t got any players left so we’ll beat them. Beat Boro at Home, draw at Barnsley. We’ll then have 12 Pts from 8 games and be jostling for a playoff place. Not saying we are brilliant but we can scrape the playoffs. Winning at Wembley would be great way to go up 😀😀😀
Agree Onomah has been stand out so far. Im excited by snodgrass really hoping he does hit the ground running. Elmo i dont really rate, in my opinion starting him is like starting with 10.5 players just like when we start with gabby. His crossing was woeful agaisnt Bristol. For me id have Bree (rb) Terry, Chester (cb) Clark(lb)…Green (left) Hourihane, Onomah and Jedinak (middle) Snodgrass (right) and kodjia up top.
Either line up shows we’ve got a decent first XI. Snodgrass is a very good player. Onward and upwards.
100% very decent. Just need the players to ‘click’ get that understanding. But for that to happen we need to be injury free and have the same starting 11 as often as possible. Both of those have been an issue so far this season.
We have more than enough players, we need to get them playing to a system. Actually the gaping hole may just have been filled with Snodgrass at right winger. We have had a gap and a weeping sore caused by it in the shape of Hutton. Having developed a right winger called Albrighton we decided he wasn’t good enough and flogged him – wonder where he went and how he got on?! Ever since managers have kidded themselves that a slow and poor right back defensively might be worth keeping in the team because he can get forward and sling in a cross. Then he can’t get back and defend. Two errors for the price of one. Even worse since the strikers we have are much better at converting proper crosses from the right – but not Huttons lofted diagonals. Instead we have given them service from Gabby and Amavi on the left.
I think that there is one thing standing between us recently and becoming a good team. It is getting our midfield to dominate that area.
I see that Four Four Two magazine have rated John Terry as the worst signing of the transfer window, a little bit harsh in my opinion, surely it should be Samba. Selling Baker to make room for Samba alone should be a sackable offence, an idiotic decision.
As for Steve Bruce’s love child Elmo, I remember listening to a Hull City match on radio 5 a couple of seasons ago, the co-commentator said if he could learn to cross the ball he wouldn’t be a bad player, looks like he’s still not had those lessons!
Terry on 70k a week could of got 2 decent plays and kept baker for that. Signing Terry has Gibbs one of the most pointless signings in our history we don’t need him he’s just a vanity project for Dr X and Bruce
Of course he was. Xia did it for business reasons. Instead of getting two good players on 30k wages he got Terry who will sell shirts abroad as well as get love in England. It’ll make people in America and Asia want to watch Villa, because he’s that big name. It could ruin our chances of getting promoted, as well as the awful signing of Samba, but Xia was never going to pass up the option of signing Terry and obviously Bruce wasn’t.
But why risk promotion signing him as Dr X would get more money from promotion. He would have to sell a lot of bloody shirts to get anywhere near that.
Overall, I think a decent window for us. Think selling Baker was madness though. We will be in trouble if Chester gets injured.
Hopefully we will play something like this against Brentford:
Johnstone
Bree Chester Terry Taylor
Onomah Whelan
Snodgrass Hourihane Green
Davis (or Hogan)
Pretty solid line up if you think we have Jedinak, Grealish and Kodjia still to come in and all the youngsters coming up….
60k Villa Park ?….will look daft half full.
We haven’t done much that makes sense in a while.
Very true
5k will get away fans and we can get 40 plus with a decent team even now. So looking to attach another 15k e.g. Armchair supporter who won’t go any more because team is shite and football is boring