A selling club.

[Villa'Zawg]

I didn't include Davies, Shorey and L Young as they are listed as having been purchased more than 3 weeks before the transfer deadline, I missed Cuellar.

All clubs buy players in the final weeks of the transfer window, we naturally notice it more with Villa but I don't think we are much different to other similar clubs. A quick glance at Liverpool, Spurs and Man City transfer shows similar numbers of late transfers.

Apologies about Shorey, as he was a rushed transfer because of Bouma I instinctively though he was a late signing, but apparently it was 7th August when he signed. I didn't mention Luke though. Davies most certainly was bought at the end of august, it's just that he only officially became a permanent villa player until the next summer.

I know that late transfers are not just a villa phenomena, but I would only suggest that the percentage of signings that happened in, say, August, during O'Neill's tenure would be higher than the league average (and believe me, while I like to skive off work as much as possible I have no intention of trying to work out the different percentages!).

I'm not going to do the percentages either but the number signed in Aug since the 06/07 season (and the first few days of September for some clubs) are Everton 9, Liverpool 11, Man City 15, Tottenham 10.

[MoetVillan]

Every club out there is a selling club.  And, every player has his price.  And when a club comes in with stupid money, you probably have to be stupid to turn it down.  If you get a reputation as being a high class team, who sells, I think the price you get for players increases above their market worth, see Spurs, so lets take it as an advantage.  No other team would have bought Milner at that price, and the price they probably would have valued him (Chelsea, Manure) would have been closer to our valuation and easier to say no, as we all know he has the potential to keep improving.  Liverpool will move faster into a selling club in the near future, Torres, Gerard et all will only take mediocre seasons for so long.  They are champions league players, surrounded by average players.  Our squad quality is higher, and I think we have players in Agbonlahor, Downing, Ireland, Young, Warnock and Cuellar who are Champions league class.  The other guys are close to it.  Im not saying we could win it, but im confident that on our pomp we could compete.  Just a few players away from it, and a big guy, that can tackle and pass for 90 minutes in midfield would help

[KevinGage]

I was specifically referring to players we bought and we've bought 7 players in the last 3 weeks of the summer transfer window according to Soccerbase.com. I'm guessing you're including loan deals and free agents, which I would imagine usually occur at the end of or after transfer windows for most deals. I suppose if I'd been including all deals I'd have just said majority of players rather vast majority. Are you happy enough with that?

Davies (while a loan signing to begin with that was just for tax reasons, wasn't it?)
Milner
Warnock
Dunne
Collins
Cuellar
Knight
Carson
Petrov (granted, the first season shouldn't really count)
Shorey
Salifou


There's also quite a number of players just outside the 3 weeks as well. All in all I believe that his reputation for late dealings is reasonably accurate, as while the transfer deadline is the end of august / early september, the season starts well before that. I think most people would agree that it is pretty important for new signings to have had some pre-season to get familiar with a new club, and in a lot of cases, O'Neill's tardiness did not allow that. In fact, even when things were all rosy, this was a constant source of frustration.

Carew, Ash and Maloney were signed pretty late in Jan 2007 as well.

I think it can be said with a fair degree of accuracy that MON conducted the majority of his business late in the window. It was a consistent theme during his time here, so one has to assume it was his preferred way of operating. Either because he wanted the initial few weeks of the season to make the final call as to whether what he had on the books was good enough to carry on with, or to drive the price down.

As to why we didn't get the usual one or two players in before the standard end of August rush, the last few summers we have needed a fair few bodies in.  This summer it was widely accepted that we needed just two or possibly three players in total (incl Milner's replacement). MON gambled that he'd be able to do this at the tail end of August. As we now know, that didn't happen.

[sfx412]

Who is suggesting he ONLY bought late on, anyway? I'm not, but I am suggesting he bought late on more than not and I'd have expected him to do again this summer had he stayed and faced the music.

He didn't buy late on more than not. He also didn't buy Ireland.

Interesting you know something no one else does? I doubt it. Regardless, the point was we didn't buy anyone, early on, did you not see that. Fact is we did.
Secondly, the question asked was how do we know Mon would not have bought players late on as he often did. He didn't because he turned coat and went, so we did not get any players other than Ireland.

[Ger Regan]

Interesting you know something no one else does? I doubt it. Regardless, the point was we didn't buy anyone, early on, did you not see that. Fact is we did.

Am I the only one that is seriously struggling to understand what the hell he is trying to say here?

[KevinGage]

Personally I don't care what the missing Bee Gee thinks re the status of our club.
It's a shame he has a national platform to vomit out his nonsense, but as he speaks of most clubs outside of his limited knowledge base with similar contempt his credibility is generally worth the square root of phuck all.




Still, nice hair.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

I hate the way Lawro says 'At the Moment'
Comes out as 'at the mowwwwwment'

[KevinGage]

Just look at that face Fletch, that cheeky smile.

What's not to like?

[garyshawsknee]

Personally I don't care what the missing Bee Gee thinks re the status of our club.
It's a shame he has a national platform to vomit out his nonsense, but as he speaks of most clubs outside of his limited knowledge base with similar contempt his credibility is generally worth the square root of phuck all.




Still, nice hair.

 Like a camper version of Matthew Kelly....if thats possible.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

Just look at that face Fletch, that cheeky smile.

What's not to like?

It's a face i'd kick until my foot got cramp.

[joe_c]

Just look at that face Fletch, that cheeky smile.

What's not to like?

It's a face i'd kick until my foot got cramp.

FOOTCRAMP FOOTCRAMP FOOTCRAMP FOOTFOOTFOOTCRAMP FOOTFOOTFOOTCRAMP

[TheSandman]

To be utterly frank there are people on this forum who's opinions I value more than the likes of Lawro.

The best thing to do here is just to ignore them, get on with our business and indeed prove them wrong. How? By continuing to improve and exceeding expectations as a club. If we win games and sign good players then they end up sounding like clowns.

[adrenachrome]

Interesting you know something no one else does? I doubt it. Regardless, the point was we didn't buy anyone, early on, did you not see that. Fact is we did.

Am I the only one that is seriously struggling to understand what the hell he is trying to say here?

You might well be the the only one trying to understand.

[Monty]

To be utterly frank there are people on this forum who's opinions I value more than the likes of Lawro.

I value damn near everybody on here's opinions more than Lawro's. Even Malcolm and the Gnasher have made more good points than him in recent times.

[sfx412]

To be utterly frank there are people on this forum who's opinions I value more than the likes of Lawro.

I value damn near everybody on here's opinions more than Lawro's. Even Malcolm and the Gnasher have made more good points than him in recent times.

Thanks
Thing is he's a pundit on a well watched show so his opinion, wrong as it is, is believed.
Sadly.

I wondered on Saturday what would be said by those on the Sky panel, especially considering Thommo's involvement and I must have missed it.
Were they deliberately playing down their comments, perhaps.