Our strategy

[PaulMcGrathsNo5Shirt]

Crouch
Palacios
Barton
Wright Phillips
Dann
Upson
DJ Campbell

All players that have moved during August to clubs that you would consider to be lesser clubs that would have improved our squad. I'm not suggesting their characters or abilities are ever going to be the greatest players in the world but would have improved our squad nonetheless.

To lose the players we have, and bring in the players we have it shows we are consolidating on survival. Not enough to bring in the masses of missing fans. (Ifear for our club)

[bertlambshank]

Crouch
Palacios
Barton
Wright Phillips
Dann
Upson
DJ Campbell

All players that have moved during August to clubs that you would consider to be lesser clubs that would have improved our squad. I'm not suggesting their characters or abilities are ever going to be the greatest players in the world but would have improved our squad nonetheless.

To lose the players we have, and bring in the players we have it shows we are consolidating on survival. Not enough to bring in the masses of missing fans. (Ifear for our club)

I would of feared more if we would have brought in that load of shit.

[PaulMcGrathsNo5Shirt]

Crouch
Palacios
Barton
Wright Phillips
Dann
Upson
DJ Campbell

All players that have moved during August to clubs that you would consider to be lesser clubs that would have improved our squad. I'm not suggesting their characters or abilities are ever going to be the greatest players in the world but would have improved our squad nonetheless.

To lose the players we have, and bring in the players we have it shows we are consolidating on survival. Not enough to bring in the masses of missing fans. (Ifear for our club)

I would of feared more if we would have brought in that load of shit.

As I said, not necessarily my choices but in terms of upgrading our squad

Crouch - better than Heskey
Palacios - better than Sweatrov
Wright Phillips - Not as good as Young/Downing clearly but would have been a reasonable replacement
Barton - can't stand the bloke, but better than Jenas!

[curiousorange]

I would have liked Villa to have signed Palacios but not fussed either way about any of the others - it's simply squad strength that's a concern for me.

However, the overall strategy is a puzzler. It seems as if it can go one of two ways - either the spending years are completely over, or this is a fallow period to allow for dead wood to be gotten rid of, wages to be be bought under control and for the club to stay afloat during yet another batshit crazy time in the world of British football economics before we start properly spending again. As much as I admire the latter approach, I fear it's the former.

[Chooch]

I aint been this depressed with whats going on with the club this O'Dreary was in charge.

[Vanilla]

I aint been this depressed with whats going on with the club this O'Dreary was in charge.

You're depressed now. Hate to see how you feel come January.

[JJ-AV]

They might have a more interesting and occasionally entertaining season than we will though. It's not like we will get a trophy for finishing above them or anything important.

Look at last season we had a horrible season with few genuinely enjoyable games and they enjoyed inflicting some outright thrashings on teams as well as a fantastic 4-4 draw with Arsenal. They will certainly have enjoyed that more than we did finishing 9th rather than 12th or wherever.

And if just one of those young players proves to be good their investment of a few million will be returned a few times over. I doubt ours on Alan Hutton will.

Precisely. They were a newly promoted team and look what they've done with the Carroll money.

One or two of those comes really good and they'll make a profit again which they can reinvest further. It's the only way clubs in that position can bridge the gap.

Instead we plod along signing reserves from the clubs above us on slightly less wages than the players they replaced, that's our scheme of balancing the finances to challenge? It makes no sense.

[ktvillan]

Looks like panic selling to reduce the wage bill was our strategy all along.  A more controlled process would have made more sense and mitigated the risk of a season battling the drop.  However our clueless leaders have opted for the knee-jerk approach, bathwater, baby and bath all out the door.  The culmination of 5 years of brainless mismanagement (perhaps the Nasher was right all along and Ellis is still pulling the strings).   Hopefully it will be a hiatus to get costs under control and give us a solid cost base to start again.  All well and good as long as we  aren't relegated.   But for me the whole episode shows up what Brown's fans have been saying for years, that Randy's is fucking useless at running a sporting insitution.

[Billy Walker]

Looks like panic selling to reduce the wage bill was our strategy all along.  A more controlled process would have made more sense and mitigated the risk of a season battling the drop.  However our clueless leaders have opted for the knee-jerk approach, bathwater, baby and bath all out the door.  The culmination of 5 years of brainless mismanagement (perhaps the Nasher was right all along and Ellis is still pulling the strings).   Hopefully it will be a hiatus to get costs under control and give us a solid cost base to start again.  All well and good as long as we  aren't relegated.   But for me the whole episode shows up what Brown's fans have been saying for years, that Randy's is fucking useless at running a sporting insitution.

I wonder if Doug offered Randy the advice to approach our cost cutting in this way because it certainly reminds me of the '84-'86 era.  Having said that, I do think we are in a stronger position than then, thankfully.  We have some good youngsters coming through and a manager who is far more battle hardened than Graham Turner.  It ain't going to be pretty but we'll get through it this time.

[itbrvilla]

I listen to an interesting programme on 5 live - Called something like ' 5Live sports special - Scouting for Goals'  was very interesting and talked about the role of scouts and how its organised at clubs.  Worth a listen as I think its on iTunes.  Made me wonder if we have anything in place at all.

[john robsons sideburns]

Crouch
Palacios
Barton
Wright Phillips
Dann
Upson
DJ Campbell

All players that have moved during August to clubs that you would consider to be lesser clubs that would have improved our squad. I'm not suggesting their characters or abilities are ever going to be the greatest players in the world but would have improved our squad nonetheless.

To lose the players we have, and bring in the players we have it shows we are consolidating on survival. Not enough to bring in the masses of missing fans. (Ifear for our club)

I'd have been seriously miffed if we'd bought any of that lot apart from Dann.  We've had Crouch once, and he was mediocre for us then, he's not the answer.  Palacios is steady, but £8mill?  You're having a laugh, I'd struggle to pay half of that for him, another Tottenham reserve teamer.

I'd much prefer we do what Villa have traditionally done, cherry pick the best players from those teams below us......Ashley Young, Mark Draper, Stewart Downing, Earl Barrett, Garry Parker, James Milner, Andy Townsend to name but a few,.......pick some promising youngsters from lower leagues........David Platt, Fabian Delph, Shaun Teale, Tony Morley..........and mould them with a couple of headline signings.  I see no future in us buying up reserves team players from the so called 'Big 6', these players will always be on big wages and very few of these players are 'hungry' enough.  They are all probably millionaires and motivation when joining a mid table side like us must be very limited.

I'd like to have seen us signing two of the likes of the lad McCarthy at Wigan, Odemwingie at Baggies, Dann at Blues, Hoilet at Blackburn, Dempsey at Fulham, Adam at Blackpool

Mix them in with a couple of promising youngsters and lower league players like Brady at Hull, Maynard at Bristol City, Faurlin at QPR, Sigurdssen or Kebe at Reading, McGugan at Forest, Ings at Bournemouth, etc...

One or two of those will at least double their transfer value whilst with us, and therefore pay for any flops, they'd be hungry players, keen to learn and impress, and form a real affinity with the Villa, well at least until Man City or United come knocking!

[not3bad]

I'd much prefer we do what Villa have traditionally done, cherry pick the best players from those teams below us......Ashley Young, Mark Draper, Stewart Downing, Earl Barrett, Garry Parker, James Milner, Andy Townsend to name but a few,.......pick some promising youngsters from lower leagues........David Platt, Fabian Delph, Shaun Teale, Tony Morley..........and mould them with a couple of headline signings.  I see no future in us buying up reserves team players from the so called 'Big 6', these players will always be on big wages and very few of these players are 'hungry' enough.  They are all probably millionaires and motivation when joining a mid table side like us must be very limited.

I agree with this, though it would be nice if we spotted a bargain or two from abroad.

[Concrete John]

I think, or at least hope, that the strategy at the moment is along these lines:-

Randy bought the club and invested in the playing side, but overestimated how fast the turnover would grow.  That, alongside seeing a lot of money going to players who weren't contributing, made him decide to try and cut things back so he could start again with a better idea of how the turnover would evolve and a sharper focus on where the money was going and what we were getting for it.

So I'm hoping it's a case of wiping the slate clean and then starting again, but we're presently still in the wiping part of the process.

[Lee]

What is it?

To get straight to your question, JJ, I honestly think the strategy goes no further than to recoup financial losses and stay in the Premier League

Can I have a free scarf with that on? Perhaps I should suggest it to the General in his Thread.

Oh....

[Sexual Ealing]

They might have a more interesting and occasionally entertaining season than we will though. It's not like we will get a trophy for finishing above them or anything important.

Look at last season we had a horrible season with few genuinely enjoyable games and they enjoyed inflicting some outright thrashings on teams as well as a fantastic 4-4 draw with Arsenal. They will certainly have enjoyed that more than we did finishing 9th rather than 12th or wherever.

And if just one of those young players proves to be good their investment of a few million will be returned a few times over. I doubt ours on Alan Hutton will.

I seem to remember some 4-4 draws and spankings of teams - as well as a cup run or two and doing well in  the league - under a certain weird bespectacled Irishman.

I also remember that none of it stopped people whingeing about the team on here.