So the final transfer window day turned out to be a bit of a damp squib in a sense.
We signed Joleon Lescott on a two-year deal, but we all knew that one was happening, didn’t we?
There was one highlight, where we signed Matija Sarkic, a young goalkeeper from Anderlecht on a three-year deal for £3 million. He’s highly regarded, but in all honesty, I find myself wondering why we need five goalkeepers, seeing as we now have Guzan, Bunn, Siegrist, Steer and Sarkic.
Perhaps Sarkic is rated more highly than I’d expect by the manager and £3 million is a fair bit of money for an eighteen year old, but would there really be a chance of Tim Sherwood putting him in the team as Guzan’s replacement?
I doubt it, but you never know. Hence I’m certainly not knocking the signing. I just find it odd…..
Especially if you consider that it seems we might not have had much more money to spend; money that I think many of us would have preferred to be spent on another striker.
There’s still talk of Berbatov coming in on loan, but I’m not sure I see the sense in that myself.
He hardly set the world on fire at Fulham did he?
Still, no doubt Sherwood has his reasons for wanting to sign him and again I’m not really going to complain.
But I do feel this is the only area where we might have missed out, as if we’d signed another striker in say, the £10 million class, I’d have rated this window as about as good as it gets.
A right back coming in would probably have been the icing on the cake, but Sherwood looks to be happy with Bacuna and Hutton, so I doubt it was ever on the cards.
Going back to the striker side of things, I do think Sherwood was after one.
I thought it might be Austin, but I was proved wrong.
I still think Sherwood wants one, but suspect the club couldn’t work a deal somewhere and it may well be that we’re keeping our powder dry, I expect ready for the winter window.
Which leads me onto the finance side of things.
I’ve often been a critic of Randy Lerner for giving managers insufficient money to do a realistic job.
While Lambert averaged a reasonable spend during his tenure, it just wasn’t enough, given the state we were in.
This time though, if you look at the headline figures, we haven’t spent much overall.
But consider the word was that we didn’t get all the Benteke money up front and I’ve realised that Lerner hasn’t been as tight on the purse strings as I expected, although we don’t know how the wage bill has been affected.
Add in that dry powder (say £10 million) and it’s actually a very decent spend.
Then add in that most of us think that Sherwood has spent the money well and this has turned out to be an excellent window.
The Beeb have just said we’ve signed Tiago Llori on loan too, which has been countered by Joe Bennett and Nathan Baker going on loan to Bournemouth and Bristol City respectively.
Another strange move, as Liverpool have let him go out so he can get regular football.
How does that work if we expect Richards and Lescott to be the main CBs, with Okore in reserve?
Still, choice is good and as I said, I think it’s been an excellent window.
Comments
92 responses to “Transfer window thoughts”
it depends how you define ‘business’. Actually, in real terms, RL has been running the business sensibly since MON left – where he failed business wise was in allowing MON too much control and not managing the spend in relation to what the club (in other words what RL) could afford for it to be sustainable in the medium to long term.
The analogy is with the banks, the crash of 2008 and the austerity that followed in an attempt to right the finances (although I’m not suggesting it’s on the same scale).
The problem is that fans don’t define business in financial terms but in comparatives with other clubs perceived to be smaller or bigger. So we’re a big club and should therefore have unlimited funds to spend so as to put us in our rightful position comparatively speaking in the PL. Sadly life doesn’t work like that and even if we found new owners it doesn’t mean automatic success and unlimited funds – ask the Blues, Sunderland, Fulham, Portsmouth etc.
I’m not totally defending RL because I think he failed to get the right sort of advice at the outset and it took a financial and playing crisis for him to get the right quality of people at senior management level but it now seems that he has a business model that can provide success for Villa………………no pressure then Tim!
Third time lucky for Lerner? Although accusations can be thrown at RLs business being his families success, I’m amazed that a businessman of his stature got it so wrong with MON and then the suicidal austerity plan. With Fox at the helm, we finally have an astute modern footballing man instead of Fatty. Even if TS isn’t a sucess, and I’m very impressed with his work so far, we have direction finally for both the short and long term. We may find Lerner owns the club for a long time to come.
I can’t see Lerner leaving the helm anytime soon,the lure of the TV money is too tempting for him.it’s wrong though to portray the clubs on the market so this is a good excuse to spending very little when him alone is reaping the financial rewards of Pl football.I suppose someone’s going to say he’s making a huge loss if so PLEASE enlighten me.
Ps make the most of the recent transfer window because unless we produce another gem to sell on 10 mil per season tops will be all that we can expect.
Don’t think I’d like to see us selling our assets if we are moving upwards and onwards, have to say I’m happy at the minute with what we’ve got, its now up to Sherwood to show us his abilities as a manager, some of our existing players must think have to step up to the mark over the next few months or else. Wonder what Delph thinking after his should I or shan’t I, think he’s made a right boo boo.
Gana is sooooooo much better than Delph.
in reply to hitchens
have to completly disagree with you about lerners ability to run a business
you say about mon running of club well 3 top 6 finnishes cup final cheating ref semi final in 4 years lost players bouma delaney laursen mellborg no fault of his yes signed duds who didnt
lerner decision to employ sick man houiller buy bent sell supply line appoint mcleish let him buy gems like given hutton zog jenas real value in that never mind ireland,when we were in dire trouble first season under lambert let him only sign sylla dawkins next winter window grant holt was answer,it got worse cole richardson and sendross landed,still it wasn t our lowest point new contracts for gabby hutton and lambert
lerners lucky his father made his money because as a business man he is just above blackburn cardiff lot
Your entitled to disagree JV but I think you’ve missed the point. He achieved financial stability and with very little investment managed to keep Villa in the PL where others (having invested substantially – QPR and Fulham spring to mind) are now in a financial mess playing in the Championship.
You are looking at it as a Villa fan – which is fair enough – not as a business where the last few years have been about survival.
Draw a conclusion in a couple of years time unless you have a crystal ball that works 🙂
What I do agree with it’s been absolute agony for the fans – no less for me than anyone else.
H60 – you mention QPR and Fulham, but I’d also add Newcastle and Sunderland.
Both are ‘big’ clubs in that they regularly attract far bigger home crowds than Villa, but both seem to be hopelessly-run, have spent a lot of cash, got through any number of managers and only just survived in the PL. Both have pretty fanatical supporters who are completely sick of what’s gone on at their clubs – the difference being that Villa fans may now just be seeing some light at the end of the tunnel…
Fair point Ardent – and in the past look at what happened to Southampton and Portsmouth – they both got Redknapped of course which didn’t help. Southampton have taken about 5 years to recover and I don’t begrudge them their success. Fair play to them for getting a decent owner and businessman who sorted the club out.
A slow Lerner? Perhaps that best describes our owner’s record. JVillan has a point about the number of mistakes Randy made. To be fair though MON had a performance driven plan, which depended on Randy being the second wealthiest owner in the Premiership. When more money elsewhere blew the transfer market prices out of Villa’s reach MON was not prepared to run a budget-conscious ship, stormed off in a huff, and was relegated to Minnows national management. Randy then swung too far the other way with his cost cutting and survived a fatal drop by one place. Was he a genuine seller? I do not believe he was, simply because I think £150M was a snip, I call it a ploy to get the fans off his back.
Houllier to Lambert was a run of panic measures. But bringing in Fox and his scouting mate from Arsenal was a real coup. It is equivalent to persuading Wenger to jump ship to Villa and may prove to be better.
Doug is like Marmite, just bringing him in to the topic provokes reactions. I think he was very shrewd in his dealings with the land around VP. The Witton Lane coup was a master-stroke, buying all the houses to demolish and moving the road over. There are people at the Bin dippers and Spurs who wished they could have done the same. Villa have the room to develop their existing ground on their own land if needed.