Summer Transfer Thread: Speculation, Lies, Absolute Cr*p and Bosman Rumours

[barrysleftfoot]

  Would'nt surprise me if we get Milner on loan next season.Can't see Citeeeh not spending in the summer, and that means Milner moving down the pecking order.

  To be frank we need players everywhere, the only ones i would definately keep are Clark, Baker, Eric, Herd, GG, etc, Bent, Ireland , N'zog.

  The rest i'm not bothered about.Given is a good goalie, but does'nt come off his line.
                                                     Warnock and Dunne......finished.
                                                     Collins.......too much baggage.
                                                     Hutton......never been accepted
                                                     Makoun.........good player, probably would keep as Irelands understudy.
                                                     Petrov.........unfortunately obvious.
                                                     Heskey......finished
                                                     Gabby.......not sure we have'nt seen the best of him

  Players like Gutherie, Kightley, Jarvis, Phillips, Huth, Fletcher, Taiwo, with a top class central midfielder would be what i would be aiming for.But not with McL at the helm

[cdbearsfan]

Bannan has been terribly misused this season.

Bannan has been his own worst enemy this season. You can make all the excuses you want for him but generally he's let himself down on the pitch, the Scotland call up really seems to have gone to his head. He has the talent but until he learns that not every pass has to be a minimum of 40 yards, the lad is a waste of space. Of all our 'kids', he's been the biggest let down this season.

Worse than Albrighton? Can't agree. I think Bannan's passes would come off a lot more in a decent team. Playing the ball into spaces where Bent (injured) and N'Zogbia/Albrighton (poor) should be is what we need in a creative midfielder.

He's not a winger though. I still think he'll come good. I'm just worried it will be after he's left and we will look on and think what might have been when he ends up at a Champions League club.

[Irish villain]

Wait for KKK to offer Spearing and Shelvey and 10 million for Bent.   

Cheeky scouse f***   .     

It would probably be accepted.

why? As much as it pains me to say it we've got good money for the players we've sold. That's one stick that you cannot beat the board with even if you want to beat them for actually selling our best players. We got 20 big ones from them for Downing, and had Sunderland not raped them for the same amount for Henderson, the Downing deal would be one of the sales of the century.

And although in hindsight it wasn't too clever the £28 million for Milner was generally reckoned to be a good deal.

Two years ago we had Milner, Downing and Young in our midfield. We haven't really replaced them (Much as I dislike Downing, he did play well for us and his performances in a villa shirt attracted attention). Ireland is the only newcomer since then that you could be remotely happy with but he's no James Milner. N'Zogbia really needs to up his game and Albrighton, if we're honest, is nowhere near the quality we had in Young and Downing.

I'm not saying we were right to sell them, or that they haven't been replaced adequately. The point is that we got top dollar for all three.

Oh I know. Well, we weren't in a position to play hard ball. Money talks. I'm just pining after the midfield we had. The decimation of our midfield has weakened our defence and cut our supply of goals. Major surgery is now needed there. We need to be tracking the next Young and the next Milner.

[Toronto Villa]

Bannan has been terribly misused this season.

Bannan has been his own worst enemy this season. You can make all the excuses you want for him but generally he's let himself down on the pitch, the Scotland call up really seems to have gone to his head. He has the talent but until he learns that not every pass has to be a minimum of 40 yards, the lad is a waste of space. Of all our 'kids', he's been the biggest let down this season.

correct. He's no longer a kid and at some point people start treating you like an adult, and have expectations that you will act like one. He's still hanging out with the wrong crowd and despite tremenfous ability hasn't dedicated himself to the mental aspects of the game. When you think you've made you proabably haven't and he hasn't got that yet. What will be most disappointing is if we get a strong manager in, and Bannan ends up like a Luke Moore cast away in lower division club until he smartens up having wasted 6 or 7 of your best years.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Mcleish has stripped the confidence out of every player and when you do that to players that lack it to beging with, or at least need reassurance more frequently their games goes to shit.

I think McLeish did a great job rebuilding Warnock's confidence. Look back to the end of the year and how everything he did was a disaster, how he was hated on here, fans never wanting to see him in a Villa shirt again. Whilst AM failed on many fronts, he did have one or two small victories.

[Toronto Villa]

Mcleish has stripped the confidence out of every player and when you do that to players that lack it to beging with, or at least need reassurance more frequently their games goes to shit.

I think McLeish did a great job rebuilding Warnock's confidence. Look back to the end of the year and how everything he did was a disaster, how he was hated on here, fans never wanting to see him in a Villa shirt again. Whilst AM failed on many fronts, he did have one or two small victories.

Sure, I'll give you that, but I think with Warnock it was down to taking him out of a defensive position into a more advanced midfield role where his mistakes wouldn't be so punishing and he is less of a liability.

[nigel]

Mcleish has stripped the confidence out of every player and when you do that to players that lack it to beging with, or at least need reassurance more frequently their games goes to shit.

I think McLeish did a great job rebuilding Warnock's confidence. Look back to the end of the year and how everything he did was a disaster, how he was hated on here, fans never wanting to see him in a Villa shirt again. Whilst AM failed on many fronts, he did have one or two small victories.

Sure, I'll give you that, but I think with Warnock it was down to taking him out of a defensive position into a more advanced midfield role where his mistakes wouldn't be so punishing and he is less of a liability.

I have to say that I reckon Warnock's been pretty good in midfield.
I actually think he's been an asset of late, making few mistakes.
IMO I didn't think he was a liability as a full back. Our midfield was constantly over run so our full backs were nearly always under pressure by facing overlapping players. He hasn't the pace to cope with that. It's little wonder his confidence was shot.
Same can be said of Heskey too, he's consistantly been one of our  best 2 or 3 performers of late.

[ozzjim]

I thought he had a good first half in both the last two, but very poor second, by becoming anonymous. I did think he had a good game in the middle against Bolton though, as should have stayed in there.

[KevinGage]

Defence I'd be looking at the likes of Ashley Williams at Swansea, Douglas at AZ, Bassong, Olsson at Blackburn and Clyne at Palarse.

Midfield we need at least two CM's.  Start with Frimpong and build from there. Maybe under a decent manager Delph might finally deliver on his promise or Gardener might be better for cutting his teeth in this dog of a campaign.  Have generally been impressed with Chris Brunt anytime I've seen him, similar to Downing in that he's a left footer who can play on the right. Not the same turn of pace as Downing though- but not as big of a wuss either. So swings and roundabouts.

If we show a bit of dash next season, we could go with three in the middle as per Rodgers at Swansea.  Delph, Frimpong and Ireland all have a decent work ethic to go with their natural ability.

Up top provides issues too -with or without Bent remaining.  With Bent, we could still do with a different option up top. Without Bent, we would realistically be looking at needing two players there. I'd start with Ya Konan at Hannover. Not an out and out goalscorer by any means, but more of an effective allround player than Gabby.

[Californian Villain]

Bannan has been terribly misused this season.

Bannan has been his own worst enemy this season. You can make all the excuses you want for him but generally he's let himself down on the pitch, the Scotland call up really seems to have gone to his head. He has the talent but until he learns that not every pass has to be a minimum of 40 yards, the lad is a waste of space. Of all our 'kids', he's been the biggest let down this season.

correct. He's no longer a kid and at some point people start treating you like an adult, and have expectations that you will act like one. He's still hanging out with the wrong crowd and despite tremenfous ability hasn't dedicated himself to the mental aspects of the game. When you think you've made you proabably haven't and he hasn't got that yet. What will be most disappointing is if we get a strong manager in, and Bannan ends up like a Luke Moore cast away in lower division club until he smartens up having wasted 6 or 7 of your best years.

Yep - an even better comparison would be Lee Hendrie.

[paul_e]

who would you sell and what spots would you be looking to fill?

GK:
Given - Keep
Guzan - Keep if possible
Siegrist - Keep

LB
Warnock - Sell
Stevens - Keep
New first choice

RB
Hutton - Sell
Lichaj - Keep
New rotation option to compete with Lichaj

CB
Collins - Keep
Baker - Keep
Clark - Keep and play in his proper position
Dunne - Sell
Cuellar - Already gone
New organiser (and captain/vice captain)

CM
Herd - Keep
Bannan - Keep
Ireland - Keep
Makoun - Keep
Gardner - Keep
Delph - Keep
Petrov - Would love to keep but doubt he'll play again so probably - Retire
New defensive option

LM/RM (keeping them together as a lot of players can play either side)
Nzogbia - Keep (but offload jan if still no improvement)
Albrighton - Keep
Holman - Keep
Carruthers - Keep (and get him a bit more time on the pitch)
New Right sided players to put pressure on Albrighton

Stirker
Bent - Keep (whatever it takes)
Gabby - Keep (but get him working on pace again as he's bulked up too much now)
Heskey - get rid
Weimann - Keep
Delfouneso - Keep (as with nzog, I'd say last chance saloon though)

So for me that's 5 players to get in with at most 6-8m coming in from sales (2-3m each for Dunne,  Warnock and Hutton seems fair to me), can get a couple more bosmans but then need 10-15m added to the incoming to make sure we can get good options for the really important purchases (CB, LB and CM).

I know I'm possibly being a little sentimental with a couple of the youngsters (delph and delf mainly) but I think we need to give them a last season to see if they cut it as this season has been a really bad one to judge most of the youngsters on.  I'm also unwilling to jettison Nzogbia just yet, there is a better player than we've seen in there, writing off a 10m investment after a year seems rushed to me.  Collins is kept against my better judgement mainly for some continuity in defence.

[nigel]

Bannan has been terribly misused this season.

Bannan has been his own worst enemy this season. You can make all the excuses you want for him but generally he's let himself down on the pitch, the Scotland call up really seems to have gone to his head. He has the talent but until he learns that not every pass has to be a minimum of 40 yards, the lad is a waste of space. Of all our 'kids', he's been the biggest let down this season.

Albrighton for me, major disappointment.
Hopefully next season he and Bannan can be back on track.

[Fernando Partridge]

Now Blackburn are down any of these could be possible players to get in
(order how i rate them)

Hoilett
Dann
Pedersen
Yakubu
Formica
Nzonzi
Olson (the one whos been  there longer!)
Rochina
Goodwillie
Dunn

And from the wolves
Knightly
Jarvis
Flecther
Doyle

[Dave]

Now Blackburn are down any of these could be possible players to get in
(order how i rate them)

Hoilett
Dann
Pedersen
Yakubu
Formica
Nzonzi
Olson (the one whos been  there longer!)
Rochina
Goodwillie
Dunn

So you think it's worth brining in the entire relegated Blackburn team?

[Fernando Partridge]

Ha no just maybe one or two !