Aston Villa and how not to buy £5m+ players

[tomd2103]

Darren Bent did keep us up that year...

Bent was quality when he came and was a first choice striker for England at that time (for all that is worth now!!).

[Mister E]

Darren Bent did keep us up that year...

And was a bargain compared to the other big money striker that window - £35m Andy Carroll to Liverpool.

£20m or so of which they got back from West Ham.

The return that we got from Derby when Bent was moved on was rather less.

Which may be something to do with the age of each player when transferred; as well as our ineptitude in managing Bent.

[paul_e]

Darren Bent did keep us up that year...

And was a bargain compared to the other big money striker that window - £35m Andy Carroll to Liverpool.

£20m or so of which they got back from West Ham.

The return that we got from Derby when Bent was moved on was rather less.

Which may be something to do with the age of each player when transferred; as well as our ineptitude in managing Bent.

Or more accurately it's to do with him getting 2-3 injuries that he never really recovered from with us.  Remember it's only in the last 3-4 months that's he's started to look capable at this level let alone in the premier league.  I think Kozak would've been ok without the injuries as well and I think the comment about Gueye is bizarre, he looks comfortably good enough to be a top half of the premier league player, it just took him time to get used to the pace of the league so we didn't get the benefit.  Finally I think it's a bit too early to write off Tshibola, I'm still willing to give him a couple of years to develop, If we'd written other young players off after 6 months I can think of plenty who would have gone on to prove us wrong.

[Simon Page]

So Carroll ended up being £15m net (£13m if the loan fee was additional) for 1 goal in about 8. Bent was £18m for 1 in three. The reporting of the Bent signing really pisses me off. He turned out to be an excellent buy for us but is mythologised as desperate overpayment, while the real stupidity was going on 80 miles up the road. We have enough crap buys not to pretend Bent was one of them.

[Nastylee]

The only problem with Bent is that he was 2-3 years too late. Imagine him when we had a good midfield instead of Heskey!

[olaftab]

Does Chelsea or man U or Man City have an equivalent list at £10m or £15m or £20m? There is no doubt that we've not excelled in recent years in our player acquisition and the list above also puts to bed in my opinion any notion that Randy didn't provide funds to his managers. The problem has always been how we spent it and who the manager then was who failed to put the pieces together. But in truth a lot of clubs will have a "fuck me did we really waste that much money on those players" list. Not just us.

There is no doubt that those 3 have wasted possibly a quarter of a billion or more each however they have had considerable success in the process where as we have morphed into a struggling second division club.

[LeeB]

So Carroll ended up being £15m net (£13m if the loan fee was additional) for 1 goal in about 8. Bent was £18m for 1 in three. The reporting of the Bent signing really pisses me off. He turned out to be an excellent buy for us but is mythologised as desperate overpayment, while the real stupidity was going on 80 miles up the road. We have enough crap buys not to pretend Bent was one of them.

We're all going on about Bent and Carroll, and forgetting this was the same window Chelsea paid Liverpool £50m for Torres.

[Simon Page]

Good point. £50m for about 1 in 5. Mind you, his goal in the semi against Barcelona did much to earn about £40m for winning the big cup. And to think people claimed there was a recession going on back then.

[Gareth]

I'd challenge a few of those comments, if Bent was a panic buy it worked, failure was selling his supply line that summer!  Gueye is proving a bargain for Everton & could well be playing Champions League next year & at the time we thought we were getting a bargain with Ireland! Not sure any of us could have foreseen the sulk that he went on because he had been made to leave Man City

[Dave]

Not sure any of us could have foreseen the sulk that he went on because he had been made to leave Man City

There were quite a lot of people who called it correctly at the time.

I wasn't one of them, but some people definitely predicted how it would go.

[LeeB]

Not sure any of us could have foreseen the sulk that he went on because he had been made to leave Man City

There were quite a lot of people who called it correctly at the time.

I wasn't one of them, but some people definitely predicted how it would go.

I was, the little shitehawk.