Fabian Delph - Signed for Manchester City

[olaftab]

I've said it before, but I have it on pretty good authority (Man City not Villa) that Delph went because Villa wanted him off the wage bill and asked him to take the offer.

I'd take him back if we get promoted. Would walk into our midfield.

Pelligrini said there was more to that deal than was being reported, so you could be right.

Or it could just be a manager covering his player.

Frankly this is load of bollocks and as intelligent people I am surprised that you guys are peddling it. I would be height of madness to retain your position in the premier league and at the start of next season get rid of your best player just to reduce wage bill.

[old man villa fan]

I've said it before, but I have it on pretty good authority (Man City not Villa) that Delph went because Villa wanted him off the wage bill and asked him to take the offer.

I'd take him back if we get promoted. Would walk into our midfield.

Pelligrini said there was more to that deal than was being reported, so you could be right.

Or it could just be a manager covering his player.

And then we went and put Richards on it.

[passitsideways]

Everton took a punt, seeing as the price was £7.5 million. Which normally buys you 1/5 of a Bolasie in today's crazy mixed up world.

But he was rubbish for us, and if he had let the head drop at Goodison as much as he did at VP they would have bombed him out pronto.  In recent years, Benteke, Delph, Kodjia and -going back a bit further- McInally and Platt in their final seasons, all played in pretty dire Villa sides. They didn't let it detract from their own individual performances.

It could be that the 12 months he had here helped bring him up to speed with English football, and I don't doubt that a combination of better players + Koeman rather than Sherwood or Erik Black would be preferable. 

But I don't recall too many around here (or elsewhere) bemoaning his loss when he bailed at the first possible opportunity.

I thought he was wank. Weak as piss, and going forward made Westwood look like Platini.

The only player in the league to win more tackles that season was Kante. Same for interceptions. So, yeah, he let his head drop to the extent that he was only the second best ball winner in the entire league, shame on him.

He was rubbish going forward, but plenty of good defensive midfielders are.

People just believe what they want to believe.

[KevinGage]

I guess that is the difference between an Opta player (didn't Westwood feature ridiculously high in ball retention stats one season?) and judging the evidence of your own eyes game after game.

He was good for Everton last season, the bit I seen of him. Often getting the ball and setting the tempo for them.

He was rubbish for us though. He wasn't the only one that year. But he didn't stand out as a shining beacon of hope: A player that looked automatically destined for bigger and  better things.

[Diablo]

I've said it before, but I have it on pretty good authority (Man City not Villa) that Delph went because Villa wanted him off the wage bill and asked him to take the offer.

I'd take him back if we get promoted. Would walk into our midfield.

Pelligrini said there was more to that deal than was being reported, so you could be right.

Or it could just be a manager covering his player.

Frankly this is load of bollocks and as intelligent people I am surprised that you guys are peddling it. I would be height of madness to retain your position in the premier league and at the start of next season get rid of your best player just to reduce wage bill.

I think it is pretty inevitable that with such huge sums of money involved and the fact that these football clubs (businesses) want to protect their own interests and perceived public appearance (especially to their own fan/customer base) that we are generally not going to get the whole/true story. This was handled appallingly on lots of levels by the club (which considering the timing - Lerner losing interest/ being badly advised over a sustained period of time? and the mis-management running all the way down/ throughout the club) is hardly surprising. I'm not saying Delph didn't just change his mind when offered more cash but I think it would be foolhardy to just blindly take the club's official line as verbatim when it was in such a shambles (overpaid management/people out of there depth/protecting their own interests/agendas). In fact ignoring the fact that we were such a shambles even if we were being run well, I'd accept that there will normally be lots of things involved that we are not privy too, lots of the time we only get the tip of the transfer iceberg. 

[ktvillan]

I've said it before, but I have it on pretty good authority (Man City not Villa) that Delph went because Villa wanted him off the wage bill and asked him to take the offer.

I'd take him back if we get promoted. Would walk into our midfield.

Pelligrini said there was more to that deal than was being reported, so you could be right.

Or it could just be a manager covering his player.

Frankly this is load of bollocks and as intelligent people I am surprised that you guys are peddling it. I would be height of madness to retain your position in the premier league and at the start of next season get rid of your best player just to reduce wage bill.

Or perhaps the height of stupidity or incompetence.  There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Lerner and his main recruits were both.   

[Matt Collins]

I doubt that's true

They were shit owners but they weren't literally morons

[ChicagoLion]

The thing is, it’s difficult to give the Lerner regime the benefit of the doubt.

[Chinchilla Bathhouse]

Maybe I'm being naive, or I'm missing the bleeding obvious, but if Delph was sold against his wishes to get him off the wage bill then why wouldn't he make that known? Why the hell would you take all that vilification and abuse and allow your integrity to be trashed if you could simply set the record straight? Is there some gagging clause in his contract? Is it a legal issue? Is the suggestion that Villa bought his silence? If we were trying to save money then that doesn't really stack up. Unless Delph really is shallow enough to have sold his reputation for an austerity-Lerner sized purse of hush money.  Which I suppose is a possibility. As is the idea that Delph was simply a greedy, spineless, empty-headed, flip-flopping arsehole whose word was worth bugger all.

[passitsideways]

I guess that is the difference between an Opta player (didn't Westwood feature ridiculously high in ball retention stats one season?) and judging the evidence of your own eyes game after game.

He was good for Everton last season, the bit I seen of him. Often getting the ball and setting the tempo for them.

He was rubbish for us though. He wasn't the only one that year. But he didn't stand out as a shining beacon of hope: A player that looked automatically destined for bigger and  better things.

Westwood was always middling at best from a stats viewpoint, the whole argument with him was that he did all the things that the publicly-available stats didn't show. For reference, he never had a pass completion percentage (which is basically ball retention, but means little) in any one season higher than the rate Gana managed in his one season, yet being tidy on the ball was the one thing he was grudgingly given by just about everyone, while Gana was conservatively assessed as basically the worst proponent of giving the ball away that the club has ever seen.

It really isn't a matter of Opta vs real life either; for me, those stats simply confirm what I saw, which was someone who generally worked hard to win the ball back, did a very good job at it, was reliable on the ball when keeping it simple, but had no nous in the final third. Yes, people have the right to differing opinions except one side has the support of overwhelming statistical evidence.

[KevinGage]

But not first hand experience, by the sounds of it?

Not digging out any of our overseas fans, as most of them on here are knowledgeable. But that reads like a summary based purely on the stats Steve Walsh used to justify the signing.  But I am envious of anyone who didn't have to sit through game after game of that muck, truth be told.

Stats can be used creatively enough to suggest Heskey was better than Carew.  In the end, players are remembered for their impact with us. Not one attribute singled out on a spreadsheet.

NRC was also excellent at winning the ball- before he invariably tripped over his own feet and presented it back to the opposition.  Gueye wasn't that deeply flawed with the ball at his feet, but he wasn't too clever either.  When we needed leadership or someone setting the tempo in that side, we didn't get it from him.  The only one who came close that year was Ayew. Which is odd, when it comes from your mercurial forward. Rather than your DM/ CM.

It often felt like sides didn't even need to break out of third gear to beat us. We might have started bright occasionally, but when the opposition played with any pace or purpose, we melted in the centre of the park. That's not totally on Gueye but he should carry a fair proportion of the blame.

From about November onwards he looked like he just couldn't be fcuked with it.

[SoccerHQ]

Like Amavi, Gana started off well I thought. Opening day at Bournemouth and v Sunderland I thought he was superb but as KG above says as soon as he saw we were going down he just gave up.

Was it against Man. City when he did a suicidal back pass on the halfway line and just jogged back.

He has looked better for Everton (although struggling like they all are atm) but I wouldn't say it's some world beating midfield we let go.

[KevinGage]

Aye, v Sunderland at home I thought we had some player on our hands.

But that was against the worst team in the division at the time (even worse than us, somehow) and we never got another performance like that out of him again.

[passitsideways]

But not first hand experience, by the sounds of it?

Not digging out any of our overseas fans, as most of them on here are knowledgeable. But that reads like a summary based purely on the stats Steve Walsh used to justify the signing.  But I am envious of anyone who didn't have to sit through game after game of that muck, truth be told.

Stats can be used creatively enough to suggest Heskey was better than Carew.  In the end, players are remembered for their impact with us. Not one attribute singled out on a spreadsheet.

NRC was also excellent at winning the ball- before he invariably tripped over his own feet and presented it back to the opposition.  Gueye wasn't that deeply flawed with the ball at his feet, but he wasn't too clever either.  When we needed leadership or someone setting the tempo in that side, we didn't get it from him.  The only one who came close that year was Ayew. Which is odd, when it comes from your mercurial forward. Rather than your DM/ CM.

It often felt like sides didn't even need to break out of third gear to beat us. We might have started bright occasionally, but when the opposition played with any pace or purpose, we melted in the centre of the park. That's not totally on Gueye but he should carry a fair proportion of the blame.

From about November onwards he looked like he just couldn't be fcuked with it.

I watched the vast majority of games until the 6-0 against Liverpool which for me was when it was over (we had a mini unbeaten run before that which gave me a faint glimmer of hpe), so piss off about that shit. I understand people actually paid money to watch that dredge, but giving up sleep is also an investment in itself. What I personally saw was someone who worked hard to win the ball back, was happy to keep things ticking to start off with, but once he realised that there was no impetus coming from the rest of our midfield, he tried to step into that role on top of what he was already doing, and failed at it because he didn't have those additional abilities. Was he totally blameless? No, but for me, of all the blame to be assigned around, he was at the very bottom of the list. The midfield was crap, but that was more a reflection of the team as a whole - just as an example, Kante looked extremely ordinary back at the start of the season until Conte changed systems to one that suited and supported him, and all of a sudden he was back at his best.

If we had managed to hold onto most of that 2014-15 team, he and Amavi would've been the ideal additions - Amavi to replace Richardson at LB, and him as the midfield holder to support Delph and Cleverley, combining Sanchez's combativeness with Westwood's ability to keep possession. Instead, he basically came in to plug a few holes on a sinking ship when the entire hull had already been devoured by termites.

[cheltenhamlion]

We didn't push Delph out at all. The time line from when the contract talks were on that winter are important.

His agent advised against him signing a new deal. I don't blame him. At the time we were suffering the worst of Lambert, looking in a relegation scrap and he could have done a fortune in signing on fee if he went on a free.

Delph took his captaincy responsibilities seriously and didn't want to screw us over after standing by him through his injuries. It was Delph who insisted on signing against his agents wishes and who suggested a buyout clause of what we paid for him. His agent was flabbergasted that he signed the contract.

As things had been all bad news the club suggested that maybe he does an announcement they could play on the big screens to bring a feelgood factor back. Unfortunately he went a bit over the top with his comments (he talks too much).

When the Cited bid came in he was conflicted on whether to take the move. Again, unfortunately, he started talking before definitively making a decision.

He started off thinking it was the right move. Then felt bad at leaving his teammates in the lurch. And was constantly kept aware of the big changes we were making via the transfer window. So he changed his mind. And started talking about it again.

Citeh triggered his buyout clause again and offered more money. By now he was thinking he had made a mistake so changed his mind again. It is why he looked so thoroughly miserable when he signed for them.

The club didn't begrudge his move given what he did in the January but the real piss take was when he couldn't make our trip to Portugal whilst having these doubts because his wife was due to give birth (remember the Brummie daughter comments) yet was able to fuck off to Australia on their pre season tour before said child had exited the womb.

He isn't all bad and did some things he didn't have to in our favour. He was genuinely conflicted about the move. But it wouldn't have been half as bad if he had kept his trap shut.

Suggestions we pushed him out of the door are a load of nonsense though.