Summer transfer rumours, speculation and out-and-out b*ll*cks.

[Villafirst]

I think we can afford to buy Johnson for say 14 millions, get  Hitz on  a free transfer and buy a good midfield general for about 8 millions (or pick one up free) and increase wages bill by say 100 grand a week then see Heskey, Cuellar and Beye leave and save about 50 grand a week next season.

Then we can buy a central defender next season. I don't buy it that we are very broke and poor.

I think we can afford to buy Johnson for say 14 millions, get  Hitz on  a free transfer and buy a good midfield general for about 8 millions (or pick one up free) and increase wages bill by say 100 grand a week then see Heskey, Cuellar and Beye leave and save about 50 grand a week next season.

Then we can buy a central defender next season. I don't buy it that we are very broke and poor.

A new defender next season? ....Gary Cahill? Thanks MON for the the worst piece of selling ever!

[ozzjim]

Johnson and Hitz would do. And the club should allow McLeish to do it.

[The Walshmeister]

From VT and an intersting read. It may just explain the current situation and lack of activity;




I keep seeing a lack of understanding of our wage cost on VT, so i thought this might help clarify.

Basically, our wage bill is still too high as the generally accepted figure is that it should be a maximum of 66% of revenue.
We had a wage bill of £80m in the 2009/2010 season, which is the last set of accounts produced.
This is against a revenue of £90m, so we had a wage proportion of 88%.

Since 09/10, we have added:
Bent - 70k
Makoun - 50k
Ireland - 65k
Given - 60k
N'Zogbia - 60k (probably)
total - 305k/wk = £16m annual increase.

and we lost:
Friedel - 50k
Young - 60k
Downing - 60k
Carew - 50k
Osbourne - 5k
NRC - 30k
Davies - 40k
Sidwell - 50k
Milner - 50k
Shorey - 20k
Salifou - 5k
total - 420k/wk = £22m annual decrease.

- Pires & Walker increased our bill for the 10/11 season, but are now gone, so no change between 09/10 & 11/12.
- Delfouneso has signed a new contract, so assume £5k/wk increase in wages.
- It doesn't matter if some of the weekly wages are not 100% correct, it still shows the general picture.

This means overall for this coming season (11/12) we are currently reducing wages by £5m, taking our wage bill from £80m to £75m.
So we are still £15m short of our wage reduction target to £60m.
If we could get rid of Heskey & Beye and not add anyone else to the squad, we would reduce our wage bill by another £5m to £70m.

Since Randy & MON joined Villa, this is the increase in our wages:
06/07 - £23m
07/08 - £50m
08/09 - £50m
09/10 - £80m
10/11 - £80m (estimated)
11/12 - £75m (estimated) +£5m manager payoffs.



The only other way to overcome the wage problem is to increase our revenue from £90m. The £90m was in a season when we finished 6th, went to Wembley twice, and briefly entered Europe.

In 10/11, we gained FxPro as a sponsor for £6m, but lost around £6m from finishing 9th and no cup runs. So revenue will probably be £90m again.

In this coming season (11/12), sponsorship has increased by an additional £2m, so if we assume we finish 9th again, we may have a revenue of £92m. I don't believe the Sky television contract has changed from last year to this year.

As a comparision to the revenue from teams we would like to be competing against in the long-term (09/10 figures):
Man Utd - £286m
Arsenal - £283m (excluding non-football income)
Chelsea - £213m
Liverpool - £185m
Man City - £125m
Spurs - £119m
Villa - £90m

We are a long long way behind at the moment!

On a final note, if we continue with revenue around £90m and wages around £75m, once you take into account overheads & general running costs, we will have to sell players each year just to break-even.



EDIT: as pointed out by others - there have been pay-offs to MON, Houllier & Bham City totalling £5m(ish). So our wages will be higher for 10/11 and 11/12 than stated above.


Last edited by ender4 on Jul 27, 2011 - 02:26 PM; edited 3 times in total 

[spangley1812]

I think we can afford to buy Johnson for say 14 millions, get  Hitz on  a free transfer and buy a good midfield general for about 8 millions (or pick one up free) and increase wages bill by say 100 grand a week then see Heskey, Cuellar and Beye leave and save about 50 grand a week next season.

Then we can buy a central defender next season. I don't buy it that we are very broke and poor.

I think we can afford to buy Johnson for say 14 millions, get  Hitz on  a free transfer and buy a good midfield general for about 8 millions (or pick one up free) and increase wages bill by say 100 grand a week then see Heskey, Cuellar and Beye leave and save about 50 grand a week next season.

Then we can buy a central defender next season. I don't buy it that we are very broke and poor.

A new defender next season? ....Gary Cahill? Thanks MON for the the worst piece of selling ever!

We will never spend £18m on a centre half and Cahill wanted to leave Villa which is why he requested a transfer

[willywombat]

Excellent Walshmeister, thank you for that

[jacketspuds]

Effectively we need to gut our team and rebuild. The board know who our high earners are and what our wage budget is and it is up to AMC and PF to manage that down.

Heskey - £60k/week (3m)
Beye - £40k/week (2m)
Dunne - £55k/week (2.75m)
Warnock - £45k/week (2.25m)
Petrov - £55k/week (2.75m)

Even getting rid of those players would reduce the wage bill by £12.75m per year but we can't shift them because they've struck gold here.

We are paying CL wages to too many Championship standard players and it is killing us.

On the plus side let's hope our revenue increases with our new Sponsor vs. previous seasons.

[garyshawsknee]

The fact that we wouldve spent around 18 million on wages for Heskey and Beye makes me wanna throw up my breakfast. Especially when you consider how effective they've been on the pitch.

[Villafirst]

I think we can afford to buy Johnson for say 14 millions, get  Hitz on  a free transfer and buy a good midfield general for about 8 millions (or pick one up free) and increase wages bill by say 100 grand a week then see Heskey, Cuellar and Beye leave and save about 50 grand a week next season.

Then we can buy a central defender next season. I don't buy it that we are very broke and poor.

I think we can afford to buy Johnson for say 14 millions, get  Hitz on  a free transfer and buy a good midfield general for about 8 millions (or pick one up free) and increase wages bill by say 100 grand a week then see Heskey, Cuellar and Beye leave and save about 50 grand a week next season.

Then we can buy a central defender next season. I don't buy it that we are very broke and poor.

A new defender next season? ....Gary Cahill? Thanks MON for the the worst piece of selling ever!

We will never spend £18m on a centre half and Cahill wanted to leave Villa which is why he requested a transfer

He should've played Cahill more often - it was the lack of opportunity that forced Cahill out. Who did we get in afterwards?.......Zat Knight!! Whichever way you look at it - it was a crap piece of business and to think Cahill nearly ended up at Blose!!

[Greg N'Ash]

I think we can afford to buy Johnson for say 14 millions, get  Hitz on  a free transfer and buy a good midfield general for about 8 millions (or pick one up free) and increase wages bill by say 100 grand a week then see Heskey, Cuellar and Beye leave and save about 50 grand a week next season.

Then we can buy a central defender next season. I don't buy it that we are very broke and poor.

I think we can afford to buy Johnson for say 14 millions, get  Hitz on  a free transfer and buy a good midfield general for about 8 millions (or pick one up free) and increase wages bill by say 100 grand a week then see Heskey, Cuellar and Beye leave and save about 50 grand a week next season.

Then we can buy a central defender next season. I don't buy it that we are very broke and poor.

A new defender next season? ....Gary Cahill? Thanks MON for the the worst piece of selling ever!

We will never spend £18m on a centre half and Cahill wanted to leave Villa which is why he requested a transfer

he left because he wasn't in MON's plans. He made that quite clear in subsequent interviews. If he was, he wouldn't have been going on about "proving MON wrong"

[spangley1812]

I think we can afford to buy Johnson for say 14 millions, get  Hitz on  a free transfer and buy a good midfield general for about 8 millions (or pick one up free) and increase wages bill by say 100 grand a week then see Heskey, Cuellar and Beye leave and save about 50 grand a week next season.

Then we can buy a central defender next season. I don't buy it that we are very broke and poor.

I think we can afford to buy Johnson for say 14 millions, get  Hitz on  a free transfer and buy a good midfield general for about 8 millions (or pick one up free) and increase wages bill by say 100 grand a week then see Heskey, Cuellar and Beye leave and save about 50 grand a week next season.

Then we can buy a central defender next season. I don't buy it that we are very broke and poor.

A new defender next season? ....Gary Cahill? Thanks MON for the the worst piece of selling ever!

We will never spend £18m on a centre half and Cahill wanted to leave Villa which is why he requested a transfer

he left because he wasn't in MON's plans. He made that quite clear in subsequent interviews. If he was, he wouldn't have been going on about "proving MON wrong"

Who were the 1st choice centre halves at the time

[Clampy]

Owen Coyle has said that they've not received any offers for him. That to me says they're either over pricing him, or other managers are just not convinced.

[spangley1812]

Owen Coyle has said that they've not received any offers for him. That to me says they're either over pricing him, or other managers are just not convinced.

Good point N'Clampy if he was that good then United would have signed him instead of Smalling/Jones, this has to be the 2/3rd year that he has been linked with loads of clubs but has not moved especially when Arsenal/Liverpool are desperate for a quality centre half

[Greg N'Ash]

I think we can afford to buy Johnson for say 14 millions, get  Hitz on  a free transfer and buy a good midfield general for about 8 millions (or pick one up free) and increase wages bill by say 100 grand a week then see Heskey, Cuellar and Beye leave and save about 50 grand a week next season.

Then we can buy a central defender next season. I don't buy it that we are very broke and poor.

I think we can afford to buy Johnson for say 14 millions, get  Hitz on  a free transfer and buy a good midfield general for about 8 millions (or pick one up free) and increase wages bill by say 100 grand a week then see Heskey, Cuellar and Beye leave and save about 50 grand a week next season.

Then we can buy a central defender next season. I don't buy it that we are very broke and poor.

A new defender next season? ....Gary Cahill? Thanks MON for the the worst piece of selling ever!

We will never spend £18m on a centre half and Cahill wanted to leave Villa which is why he requested a transfer

he left because he wasn't in MON's plans. He made that quite clear in subsequent interviews. If he was, he wouldn't have been going on about "proving MON wrong"

Who were the 1st choice centre halves at the time

from memory he was 5th in line behind such talents as Knight and Davies. Personally if he hadn't got the message from that he'd have been a bit thick.

[asgpaul]

Even if we'd have to pay 50% of Beye's wages to go out on loan surely that would be worth doing???  Can't see him getting anywhere near first team, trouble is would anyone want to pay him £20k a week?? 

Always thought he'd end up back at Newcastle....if only!!

[luke25]

Owen Coyle has said that they've not received any offers for him. That to me says they're either over pricing him, or other managers are just not convinced.

Good point N'Clampy if he was that good then United would have signed him instead of Smalling/Jones, this has to be the 2/3rd year that he has been linked with loads of clubs but has not moved especially when Arsenal/Liverpool are desperate for a quality centre half

That is a very good point actually, Fergie could've signed Cahill this summer but instead chose to spend the money on a player who's had one decent season, I think Cahill is judged purely on his goals by alot of people, he's still dodgy when it comes to positioning and gets bullied easily by big centre forwards.