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

[PaulMcGrathsNo5Shirt]

There really is no secret to football, the best teams have the best players. I'm struggling to see 3 teams worse than us. Unless Lerner finds some money we're relying on luck and Lambert's managerial ability.

Lerner really does have a responsibility to find more money. If I go to school and a kid I'm teaching doesn't have a pen I have to give him a pen, it doesn't matter that I gave that same kid a pen last week. It doesn't matter that I had a load of pens last week and I have none now, I'll be expected to find that kid a pen. It comes with the job. So does owning a football club, whilst Lerner is the owner of Villa he has the responsibility of funding it properly.

[MonsXI]

Calling him a 'fucking knob' is a mixture of the two.

He made a bizarre accusation for no reason whatsoever, I would class that as the behaviour of a "fucking knob"

It's not though is it? When someone vents spleen on here you're immediately at them with the name calling and personal abuse, as if they're somehow a lesser supporter than you for being down in the dumps.

Show me one example, I know for certain i don't think im a better fan than anyone so im putting it down to your mis interpretation of my posts.

[Stu]

Calling him a 'fucking knob' is a mixture of the two.

He made a bizarre accusation for no reason whatsoever, I would class that as the behaviour of a "fucking knob"

It's not though is it? When someone vents spleen on here you're immediately at them with the name calling and personal abuse, as if they're somehow a lesser supporter than you for being down in the dumps.

Show me one example, I know for certain i don't think im a better fan than anyone so im putting it down to your mis interpretation of my posts.

Well you've already claimed someone to be an 'internet attention seeker' in this thread alone. Why don't you cut that shit out and debate properly? It's that aggressive stance that makes your posts read 'better fan than you'.

[dave.woodhall]

Pack it in both of you.

[Stu]

Fair enough.

[curiousorange]

Hesitate to ask, but has anyone got any speculation, lies, absolute crap or a Bosman rumour?

[Greg N'Ash]

Hesitate to ask, but has anyone got any speculation, lies, absolute crap or a Bosman rumour?

heh. Think you know the answer to that one already.

[Stu]

Hesitate to ask, but has anyone got any speculation, lies, absolute crap or a Bosman rumour?

I've heard a whisper that Joe Kinnear is being lined up if we get rid of Lambert...

[Dante Lavelli]

I think it is somewhere between the two Greg.   I think he is an introvert so that whatever his feelings are they will never be revealed.   I think he was very badly knocked back by the O'Neill exit.   I get the feeling that he cannot get his head round the way we regard sport, especially football and what he expected it to be like.   English football is steak tartare and he was expecting a Wendy's burger.   Neither does he get the tribal bit, the ferocious pride and love of the supporters for a shitty corner of the industrial west midlands.

When he bought the club I think he expected the fans to be like the cheering crowds of english people on The Mall waving to the Queen he had seen on american television.

I also suspect that he does not like one on one confrontation and likes the eyeball to eyeball stuff to be done by his employees.   That is where the lack of football genes in Paul Faulkner has let him down.

My son Damon and I spent most of the day on Thursday talking about this issue and we concluded that Randy Lerner is like a jig saw puzzle with a lot of the pieces missing, my metaphor but pretty much what we agreed on.

I like that analogy Brian.  What err puzzles me is that Randy and Faulkner are presumably intelligent people, so they should be able to identify that there "are pieces missing" therefore one of them should have the balls to rectify this situation.  For example do you think they both believe that there is enough football intelligence in the upper echelons of the club?  Or more to the point that the decision making over the last few years (on a football level) has been of the standard they expect.

[MonsXI]

Pack it in both of you.

Ok.

I would like to apologise to anyone if they believe me to have been aggressive, anyone that knows me will know I'm not I will address my posting style.

[PeterWithesShin]

Hesitate to ask, but has anyone got any speculation, lies, absolute crap or a Bosman rumour?

I've heard a whisper that Joe Kinnear is being lined up if we get rid of Lambert...

I'm hoping for Roy Kinnear.

[thick_mike]

There really is no secret to football, the best teams have the best players.

There was some research done a few years ago that concluded that the best indicator of success in the Premier League was the wage bill. More wages = more success. Simple.

We have (understandably) reduced the wage bill...

[VinnieChase84]

Soccer Saturday are currently highlighting how its obvious that PL is not getting 'any help' and has 'no money' to spend!
Jesus fucking Christ.
We are a LAUGHING STOCK

[old man villa fan]

I can understand the point of not throwing a massive amount of money at it now, if it leaves the club with a considerable wages bill for years and those players are a short term fix and do not fit into how the club wants to develop moving forward.

I cannot understand how we seem to lack innovative thinking in transfers.  I would have thought that the obvious answer would be short term loans that do not tie us up financially for years to come.  Football across Europe is in a bit of a financial mess.  Added to the fact that players in Europe seem quite happy to move around and the clubs themselves seem to not have an issue with it either, unlike in England where we think the ways of 30 years ago should still hold strong.  There are many players around Europe that are in the final year of their contract.  Together with the fact that the PL is where the money is (other than with the elite clubs in Spain, Italy, Germany etc).  Surely we could attract a few, even if it is only putting them in the shop window for a move to another club in the summer.  Paying their club, say, £1.5m for the loan and the player £100k per week would cost about £3m per player.  At those rates you would get a quality player and two or three would get what we require for less than £10m.  It would be £10m dead money but to stay in the PL, it would be a sound investment.  Come the summer we could then get back to looking at the long term strategy.

One alternative is to do little and take a massive gamble which looks to be odds against succeeding as it looks at the present.  The other is to do little and accept going out of the PL and look to ensure we come back in one season with a stronger squad, although this would not be easy.  The new finance deal is for 3 years, so we would be losing out one year in exchange for a parachute payment (they are talking about this going up from £16m to £25m) provided that we come straight back up.  Again, this is a big risk and we could go the other way.  Another question is whether it is easy to develop a stronger squad for the future by staying in the PL and struggling or going down and building from there with more confidence.

[Dante Lavelli]

I can understand the point of not throwing a massive amount of money at it now, if it leaves the club with a considerable wages bill for years and those players are a short term fix and do not fit into how the club wants to develop moving forward.

I cannot understand how we seem to lack innovative thinking in transfers.  I would have thought that the obvious answer would be short term loans that do not tie us up financially for years to come.  Football across Europe is in a bit of a financial mess.  Added to the fact that players in Europe seem quite happy to move around and the clubs themselves seem to not have an issue with it either, unlike in England where we think the ways of 30 years ago should still hold strong.  There are many players around Europe that are in the final year of their contract.  Together with the fact that the PL is where the money is (other than with the elite clubs in Spain, Italy, Germany etc).  Surely we could attract a few, even if it is only putting them in the shop window for a move to another club in the summer.  Paying their club, say, £1.5m for the loan and the player £100k per week would cost about £3m per player.  At those rates you would get a quality player and two or three would get what we require for less than £10m.  It would be £10m dead money but to stay in the PL, it would be a sound investment.  Come the summer we could then get back to looking at the long term strategy.

One alternative is to do little and take a massive gamble which looks to be odds against succeeding as it looks at the present.  The other is to do little and accept going out of the PL and look to ensure we come back in one season with a stronger squad, although this would not be easy.  The new finance deal is for 3 years, so we would be losing out one year in exchange for a parachute payment (they are talking about this going up from £16m to £25m) provided that we come straight back up.  Again, this is a big risk and we could go the other way.  Another question is whether it is easy to develop a stronger squad for the future by staying in the PL and struggling or going down and building from there with more confidence.

That's a great post.

The silver lining to the very grey cloud is that this group of young players could really develop if we went down.  They'd be a year older/stronger/wiser and you'd hope that they'd develop a bit of a winning mentality.  That's not saying I'd want it to happen but you've got to look for the positives and as Newcastle showed taking a step back can make you stronger.