Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Tom_Mc9? on May 12, 2016, 10:34:07 AM
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If we'd done what every supporter hoped for and spent some money in January, would it have made a difference?
Newcastle, Norwich and Sunderland all spent various amounts of money with only one of the three staying up. We were around eight or ten points behind. Was Lerner justified or was the white flag inexcusable?
I tried to add a poll, but can't find it on my crappy phone - apologies.
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Pains me to say it, but no. I feel that the cancer in the club is too advanced - too many of this squad had downed tools and the power in the dressing room wouldn't have been overturned by the addition of two or three players. Until the likes of Guzan, Lescott, Richards and Gabby are moved on it's not much use getting new players in. We'd be down now regardless of any incoming players in this vile situation.
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Pains me to say it, but no. I feel that the cancer in the club is too advanced - too many of this squad had downed tools and the power in the dressing room wouldn't have been overturned by the addition of two or three players. Until the likes of Guzan, Lescott, Richards and Gabby are moved on it's not much use getting new players in. We'd be down now regardless of any incoming players in this vile situation.
I think you're probably right Des but it may have given us a chance
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No.
We were too far gone; the malaise too deep.
We've had three managers this season - not one of them has managed to make a modicum of improvement on their predecessor. Yes, you could argue that the managers weren't up to scratch (which they patently weren't), but with the squad they'd have to deal with, it was irrecoverable.
For me, the writing was on the wall the day we called Cisoko back. He's no worse than the other charlatans we have in the team/squad, but FFS what sort of message did that send to us as fans and his team mates? "We've lost our best player so far this season to a long term injury (Amavi), so rather than replace him properly, lets recall someone who failed abysmally here previously and hope for the best".
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Don't think it would but we'll never know. To have a chance of coming back up next season I hope whoever is the new manager is able to get rid of Richards, Agbonlahor and Lescott to make sure their influence is nowhere near the dressing room, even it means paying up their contracts.
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Absolutely correct to spend nothing, we needed 6 or 7 players to have given us any hope and that would have been 40-50m gamble.
The big mistake was last summer when we didn't buy a keeper when Sherwood had proved he had no faith in Guzan & not replacing the 32m striker with a proven player. That might have given us a chance!
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Even if we doubled our points total (17) we would still be relegated.
The problem was created last summer, keeping Sherwood and allowing all that money to be spent on sub standard players.
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It's impossible to say, but a new striker scoring 10 goals, and a decent defender and keeper MIGHT gave given us a chance.
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I think the saying 'you can't polish wet shoes' springs to mind with the current crop of wastrels that we have.
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It's strange to think now, but back in January there was a little bit of positivity about the place. We'd had our mini unbeaten run, we'd been unlucky only to get a draw against Leicester and picked up some wins (which is when you score more than the opposition).
I remember speaking to someone after the deadline shut, saying how frustrated the players like Ayew must have been, who had been working their socks off to drag us through January, probably under the assumption that he'd get some help afterwards. And then, immediately afterwards, there was the West Ham game (the 8th last game at Upton Boleyn) where we'd come flying out of the traps and were battering them...until Ayew''s frustration got the better of him. I'm certain that it was linked to the transfer window. And it meant Gabby was our only option up front...
Plus the main reason everyone else is so far ahead of us is what's happened since then. The whole one point in twelve matches thing.
Saying that, it would have been a huge risk to spend a big chunk of money (although there was obviously some available as we had the keeper that fell through), and probably not a sensible business move. Which, while understandable, is so depressing. We were probably down anyway, and knowing for so long does make it less painful. Still, I hope the mindset of the club changes with new owners.
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It's impossible to say, but a new striker scoring 10 goals, and a decent defender and keeper MIGHT gave given us a chance.
Also it would have given us a bit of momentum into next year as well. We have been by far the worst team in the league and that will take some turning round. If we'd at least been competitive in the second half of the season that turnaround would have been easier.
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Does anyone think that idiot of an owner ever intended to spend in January? regardless of our position? Sorry, but this is a convenient excuse for him (or his mom) giving up on us and letting us slip off the edge.
Where there's life there's hope and we should have had a fucking go and spent some money.
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No it wasnt worth it, those Sunderland and Norwich games totally stuffed us.
I thought at the time we were best to keep our powder dry until the Summer with Garde's consent and have a real clearout but all that went tits up.
Its reported (cough) Newcastle gambled and spunked £80 million with no relegation clauses. Im certain we too would have just thrown money away and im glad we didnt.
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Spending money doesn't have to be a complete waste, whatever happens.
Spend money - stay up - keep the players.
Spend money - go down - some players impress (e.g Townsend) and you get all or most of your money back.
We should have spent something, going down on the kind of run we are on could really set us back next season.
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I'll repeat what I posted sometime ago.
A long standing season ticket holder I go to games with wrote a long, complaining letter to the club in January.
The response was that he got the usual 'consultation' phone call from the club in early February.
During that call, the person from AVFC said that 'the best business the club did in January was NOT spending any money in the January window'.
Remember, this is when we still a little bit of hope that we might stop up so my mate was livid at the time and took it as confirmation that the club had already given up and resigned itself to going down.
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Nah - the two games away at Naaarwich and Sunderland killed us just before transfer window.
Had we avoided defeat / won in both those games we would have sewn bad seeds in their minds at an earlier stage and given ourselves a confidence boost to kick on with a couple of new recruits
We'd have still likely gone down however just not as shambolically.
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I'll repeat what I posted sometime ago.
A long standing season ticket holder I go to games with wrote a long, complaining letter to the club in January.
The response was that he got the usual 'consultation' phone call from the club in early February.
During that call, the person from AVFC said that 'the best business the club did in January was NOT spending any money in the January window'.
Remember, this is when we still a little bit of hope that we might stop up so my mate was livid at the time and took it as confirmation that the club had already given up and resigned itself to going down.
This is more or less what Hollis and Fox said at the Trust AGM in mid January. Mind you they finished off by saying "we're still not down yet you know", which was like rubbing salt into the wounds.
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Maybe maybe not. But by not investing in January it suggested that the towel had been thrown in and the remainder of the season was irrelevant. Unfortunately season ticket holders had paid hard earned cash for the remaining "void" matches. Surely the club has an obligation/ responsibility to entertain the customers/consumers............................Apologies I seem to be having some sort of breakdown, please ignore my previous comments.
*sobs on knees in dark corner of room*
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For my part, I never thought that Lerner had no intention of spending any money in the January transfer window. Have to admit though that, at the time, I didn't think there was any point in spending money because our problems go much deeper than just getting in new players.
I agree with others that the club should spend whatever it takes to get rid of all our crap/selfish players and, then also bring in appropriate replacements. If we don't I fear we can start getting our maps out for League 1 for 2017-18 season.
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Absolutely correct to spend nothing, we needed 6 or 7 players to have given us any hope and that would have been 40-50m gamble.
The big mistake was last summer when we didn't buy a keeper when Sherwood had proved he had no faith in Guzan & not replacing the 32m striker with a proven player. That might have given us a chance!
Disagree with that entirely.
A goalkeeper and a forward worthy of the name could have made a big difference to us.
We were only* 8 points off safety despite being so woeful going into Feb.
We needed to follow up that win against Norwich with a mini run -possibly winning three on the bounce at some point in the second half of the campaign. Which seems unthinkable with the current bunch of muppets, but with a different dynamic in the changing room that even two to three new faces could bring (and the likes of Lescott, Gabby, N Zog and Bacuna banished) you just never know.
I don't think it would have taken £50 million to do that. £15 million could have given us a fighting chance. The bulk of that going on a forward, then a goalkeeper and possibly a centre half on loan. We needed that whether we stayed up or went down anyway.
To do nothing, not even a loan, was disgraceful.
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The only regret is that we didn't swap Tim for Fat Sam before Sunderland got him. He would have got some decent experienced signings in January and would have kept us up. You can't say that Sunderlands squad are any better than ours they're just fitter more organised and better prepared. It would have been worth getting Allardyce in just to eliminate the 45+3s and the 90+2 calamities that became the trade mark of our season. The way we rolled over and accepted relegation at Christmas was unforgiveable at least Newcastle gave it a shot.
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I'll repeat what I posted sometime ago.
A long standing season ticket holder I go to games with wrote a long, complaining letter to the club in January.
The response was that he got the usual 'consultation' phone call from the club in early February.
During that call, the person from AVFC said that 'the best business the club did in January was NOT spending any money in the January window'.
Remember, this is when we still a little bit of hope that we might stop up so my mate was livid at the time and took it as confirmation that the club had already given up and resigned itself to going down.
out of interest, has your mate renewed/is he renewing?
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Absolutely correct to spend nothing, we needed 6 or 7 players to have given us any hope and that would have been 40-50m gamble.
The big mistake was last summer when we didn't buy a keeper when Sherwood had proved he had no faith in Guzan & not replacing the 32m striker with a proven player. That might have given us a chance!
Disagree with that entirely.
A goalkeeper and a forward worthy of the name could have made a big difference to us.
We were only* 8 points off safety despite being so woeful going into Feb.
We needed to follow up that win against Norwich with a mini run -possibly winning three on the bounce at some point in the second half of the campaign. Which seems unthinkable with the current bunch of muppets, but with a different dynamic in the changing room that even two to three new faces could bring (and the likes of Lescott, Gabby, N Zog and Bacuna banished) you just never know.
I don't think it would have taken £50 million to do that. £15 million could have given us a fighting chance. The bulk of that going on a forward, then a goalkeeper and possibly a centre half on loan. We needed that whether we stayed up or went down anyway.
To do nothing, not even a loan, was disgraceful.
You've expressed my view. And Alladyce has shown that it was possible to turn around a flagging squad with 3-4 well-placed additions.
Sadly, as others have said, the malaise is far deeper here than at Blunderland.
We really are a shambles, thanks to the fuck-uppery by Lerner and others.
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I'll repeat what I posted sometime ago.
A long standing season ticket holder I go to games with wrote a long, complaining letter to the club in January.
The response was that he got the usual 'consultation' phone call from the club in early February.
During that call, the person from AVFC said that 'the best business the club did in January was NOT spending any money in the January window'.
Remember, this is when we still a little bit of hope that we might stop up so my mate was livid at the time and took it as confirmation that the club had already given up and resigned itself to going down.
out of interest, has your mate renewed/is he renewing?
Yes. He's had his ST for over 40 years, I've had mins for over 30. We have both renewed.
I think its down to blind faith and bad habit now.
One of the other 'lads' who comes with us, ST holder for over 40 years as well has not renewed, and will not.
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We suffered the two loses to Sunderland and Norwich over Christmas, but had been unlucky to only draw with West Ham on boxing Day. Then we had a mini run of games that lasted as far as Norwich at home in early February, just after the window had closed. At this point we were showing signs of possibly achieving something, of clawing back the then eight points to safety. Talk of needing Champions League qualifying form to recover was rubbish - seven wins and a draw from the games played from then until now, albeit still a big upswing in form, to put us were Sunderland are currently would have been needed, but with three extra players in the right positions (goalkeeper, forward and centre-half) it may have been do-able.
Instead we signed no-one, surrendered the game after Norwich 6-0, Lescott said "never mind, look at my car" and the rest is, as they say, history.
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Norwich / Sunderland / Newcastle all spent only one of them survived ..us spending might have improved our pathetic haul of points but would it have saved us ...I'm no so sure
The real test is next season will we now have an advantage over Norwich and Newcastle who did spend ?
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three extra players in the right positions (goalkeeper, forward and centre-half) it may have been do-able.
Plus two full backs.
Plus a dominant central midfielder.
Plus a winger (or two).
And it might have been do-able. ;)
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Absolutely correct to spend nothing, we needed 6 or 7 players to have given us any hope and that would have been 40-50m gamble.
The big mistake was last summer when we didn't buy a keeper when Sherwood had proved he had no faith in Guzan & not replacing the 32m striker with a proven player. That might have given us a chance!
Disagree with that entirely.
A goalkeeper and a forward worthy of the name could have made a big difference to us.
We were only* 8 points off safety despite being so woeful going into Feb.
We needed to follow up that win against Norwich with a mini run -possibly winning three on the bounce at some point in the second half of the campaign. Which seems unthinkable with the current bunch of muppets, but with a different dynamic in the changing room that even two to three new faces could bring (and the likes of Lescott, Gabby, N Zog and Bacuna banished) you just never know.
I don't think it would have taken £50 million to do that. £15 million could have given us a fighting chance. The bulk of that going on a forward, then a goalkeeper and possibly a centre half on loan. We needed that whether we stayed up or went down anyway.
To do nothing, not even a loan, was disgraceful.
You've expressed my view. And Alladyce has shown that it was possible to turn around a flagging squad with 3-4 well-placed additions.
Sadly, as others have said, the malaise is far deeper here than at Blunderland.
We really are a shambles, thanks to the fuck-uppery by Lerner and others.
Gareth had it about right.
We were too far gone. I don't know about 6-7 players but we certainly needed to replace the quality we lost in the summer plus a new keeper.
£15m was nowhere near enough to keep us up - to replace Benteke's goals alone in January would cost nearly double that amount alone (see Bent + inflation).
Plus you have to factor in that Garde never really showed he was in Allardye's league for organisation and getting results with limited reesources.
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Considering the amount of potential revenue available for just remaining in the league this season, it was very bad business to allow us to drop out of it without at least taking a modest punt on staying up. If ever an example is needed to demonstrate how bad the people in charge of this club are at doing their jobs. The fckin eejits.
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Norwich / Sunderland / Newcastle all spent only one of them survived ..us spending might have improved our pathetic haul of points but would it have saved us ...I'm no so sure
We needed players in whether we went down or not.
Even if it was with a view to giving us a head start in the Championship.
They didn't have to be on ludicrous Jon Joe Shelvey-type deals either. That's the extreme end of the scale, and I don't think I have seen any Villa fan advocating that.
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I read something somewhere recently that said, 'it's easier to stay in the premier league than to get into it'.
I sincerely hope we haven't given up our place for an extended period of time.
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Wasn't Garde after the same players Allardyce got in Jan? Crucially though he went to war publicly with the charlatans in the dressing room, which maybe was music to the ears of the fans but ultimately was a high stakes gamble that didn't pay off. Betrayed inexperience maybe
In hindsight Garde was the wrong man in Jan, in hindsight keeping on Sherwood after the cup final was the wrong move.
In truth, this relegation has been staring us in the face since MON left. Sherwood postponed an almost certain relegation last term by getting the likes of Benteke, Delph, Cleverly, Grealish, even Bacuna and Gabby playing for 8-10 weeks and we fell over the line.
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Garde was dealt a very bad hand, but getting us no results in very winnable games around Christmas is what killed us. If we had got some momentum then, I always thought the club would have been more ready to back him and players more ready to join us. Since January he has done nothing to squeeze any performance out of the squad or even luck our way to the odd result. Quite how he gets such a forgiving ride from fans I just do not know. He really couldn't have done a worse job.
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Who knows? But seeing that the forward we were after did nothing for Newcastle I doubt much would have changed. It may have also been a dead weight around our necks that we'd struggle to shift next season which could have further harmed our chances of spending money in the right places.
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No but we might not have been humiliated as we have been and dismissed as the worst prem team ever
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Who knows? But seeing that the forward we were after did nothing for Newcastle I doubt much would have changed. It may have also been a dead weight around our necks that we'd struggle to shift next season which could have further harmed our chances of spending money in the right places.
In his defence he targeted Khazri from Bordeaux, who has done a good job for Sunderland, but our board wouldn't stump up the cash.
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Mate of mate's yoga instructors aunty's dog groomer stuff here but apparently someone working at some villa christmas gathering repeatedly heard Fox say 'When we go down...'.
Could be mega bollocks but I can kind of imagine Fox saying it.
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Fox went down on a dog at the groomers? why have we not been told about this before?
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Mate of mate's yoga instructors aunty's dog groomer stuff here but apparently someone working at some villa christmas gathering repeatedly heard Fox say 'When we go down...'.
Could be mega bollocks but I can kind of imagine Fox saying it.
In my dealings with Fox for the Trust he was always at pains to point out that "we haven't accepted we will go down" when we asked "in the very likely event of relegation" questions so I would be surprised if that was the case.
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I agree with what Ian Taylor said around the time and what Gareth posted earlier. Bringing in 1 or 2 wouldn't have been worth it. It needed to be at least 5 because the confidence was shot to pieces. Debuchy and the goalkeeper we were after probably wouldn't have made much difference.
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With hindsight it was still a terrible and shameful decision. We were within touching distance beginning of January which is when we should have brought in the players we spent all December looking at & sounding out. Even if we did not get promoted we should have been strengthening with an eye to a unified squad familiar with each other for the Championship.
The idea of the twats on the board slapping themselves on the back for not spending this window makes me rather angry actually.
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It wasn't back slapping. 3 deals were afoot. The goalie (kalinic?) was done and got fucked by the FA. Doumbia (who hardly got a touch for Newcastle) was on loan until seasons end with a view to permanent. Garde's boy and the funds in place even though we knew it might be a forlorn hope. Debuchy was keen as well but there was no point spending a fortune on borrowing him when the previous two went down the pan.
They might not be inspiring or have kept us up. The deals were real though and Lerner agreed to finance the lot. Completely chucking the towel in come January isn't fair as an accusation. We just shouldn't have been hoping Richard Sharpe could lead us up the breach of Badajoz in the first place.
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Unless we'd paid off, or (hahahahahaha) sold, the full squad, then bought the best from everywhere else, no. We were already well gone.
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IF we'd have spent money then we'd be in an even bigger mess now. We needed more players than we was ever going to be able to sign.
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Newcastle next season will be doing what we could have been doing. If they break even or profit with their sales then yes, maybe we should have done what they did. If, however, they have no money for player sales because other clubs are treating them as desperate sellers getting rid of a dodgy car, offering low-ball sums because they have no other choice but to accept, then we have done the more sensible thing.
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No, I think we would still have gone this time round. You can spend millions like Newcastle did but if it's spent on poor players it matters little.
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It would have made no difference. You could bring Messi in but he'd fall foul of the hideous atmosphere in the dressing room. We should have had a top to bottom sweep in the summer. The whole new board shuffle should have been done last May. Sherwood should have been sent on his way. If we'd had someone with some nous overseeing the operations they'd have seen what was coming. The transfer policy should have been changed. Riley shouldn't have been put in charge of recruitment.
But to be honest I feel this relegation is needed. Badly needed. It's the only way we can get Randy out and actually begin to rebuild. The best we could ever do under a completely disinterested Lerner is to plug every new leek that comes along, but soon you run out of limbs and digits and the leeks soon drown you. We've gone down. He's had to drop the price of the club. We've got (I fucking hope) interested parties lining up.
If this Chinese consortium does take over and bring in Comolli, that's a good start right off the bat.
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No, I think we would still have gone this time round. You can spend millions like Newcastle did but if it's spent on poor players it matters little.
And if they're brought into a really nonsensical mixture and a fractured squad, there's no cohesion. Like us it's 11 individuals and not a team. You spend money on quick fixes rather than looking at the root of your problems. It's desperate. In Randy's case he opted for the fuck all approach. Which in hindsight I'm glad he did because there was no point blowing a load more money. We wasted 50 odd million in the summer by bringing a lot of mismatched players and not integrating them together.
Townsend is very much a head down and mercurial sort of player. Not particularly a team player. So for that reason he actually worked out well for them and almost kept them up by himself, but whilst he's been more consistent for them than he was at Spurs, he's still only going to show up in 33-50% of the games. Yeah it doesn't affect him playing in a team who can't play as a team because he may do something brilliant by himself, but one player isn't enough to keep you up. Sunderland play like a team under Allardyce and ultimately that kept them up. As for Norwich, they work hard enough but lack the quality and don't have a goalscorer.
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Also wasn't nzog on his way out then changed his mind, I'm sure that had some impact on signings.
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The age of slavery has long since gone. To buy someone nowadays they have to agree to come, and only someone interested in their own bank balance would have signed for us in January.
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We were too far gone and I doubt we'd have signed someone exceptional to make the crucial difference....I would've been happy with Doumbia but he's hardly played a game for Newcastle so clearly his fitness can't be up to scratch there.
Was it really fair on Garde though? At the time I would've been just happy for him to get in a few of his own players and hopefully build a system and decent style of play to build momentum for next season but maybe then the club started to doubt whether he'd be the right man for the club.
I still think it was ridiculous though we appointed a manager and gave him nothing to spend in his first transfer window, can anyone think of another club who'd done that in recent times at premier league level?
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We were too far gone and I doubt we'd have signed someone exceptional to make the crucial difference....I would've been happy with Doumbia but he's hardly played a game for Newcastle so clearly his fitness can't be up to scratch there.
Was it really fair on Garde though? At the time I would've been just happy for him to get in a few of his own players and hopefully build a system and decent style of play to build momentum for next season but maybe then the club started to doubt whether he'd be the right man for the club.
I still think it was ridiculous though we appointed a manager and gave him nothing to spend in his first transfer window, can anyone think of another club who'd done that in recent times at premier league level?
Like Cheltenhamlion said though, it wasn't that we refused to give him anything to spend, we just didn't end up bringing in the players he wanted, for whatever reason. Like I said yesterday, I reckon we needed 5 decent players and attempting to get that many players to join a club bottom of the league would have been a big ask.
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Newcastle next season will be doing what we could have been doing. If they break even or profit with their sales then yes, maybe we should have done what they did. If, however, they have no money for player sales because other clubs are treating them as desperate sellers getting rid of a dodgy car, offering low-ball sums because they have no other choice but to accept, then we have done the more sensible thing.
To start with Townsend as a release clause so they will be making a loss on him. Reports are they they didn't insert relegation wages clauses in contracts as we did so they could find themselves in a spot of bother
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To be honest I am torn between two train of thoughts regarding January's transfer window, at the time I thought it was a sign of surrender on part of the club not to sign anyone but we were so bad and the dressing room was so toxic it would have been counter productive, plus we needed about 4-5 top players to have any hope of staying up and Randy Lerner would never have allowed that kind of spending spree...
It was probably for the best in the long run, we can clear the decks of dead wood this summer under a new manager and he can build his own team and not rely on past managers/Paddy signings...
We just have to find new owners and manager lol...
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IF we'd have spent money then we'd be in an even bigger mess now. We needed more players than we was ever going to be able to sign.
Is the right answer.
Love or loath Hollis if you like, he has (so far) done the job he was brought in to do, unlike the previous bunch of nutjobs.
Now we see if the next stage of his remit is a success, (or an abject failure like the last bunch of nutjobs!).
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As a fan it was shit, it stank, and it hurt like hell.
From a business point of view in terms of giving us the best chance of getting next season right, it was probably the right one.
To have done any sensible business in January would have required finding, as a minimum, a goalkeeper, a centre back and a striker, all of whom needed to be significantly better footballers than who they were replacing, were happy to play next season in the Championship if necessary, and had the moral fibre to at least ignore the shit going on behind the scenes, if not actually improve things.
I reckon that's a pretty small group you're looking at.