The Paul Lambert thread - poll reset after our capitulation to Hull

[supertom]

I can't see us spending much in the summer. They were probably hoping to sell Benteke for £25m.

Maybe we'll spend £10m, and it'll be more of the same next season.

I would guess a new manager will get a reasonable amount to spend. Lambert got almost 20 million in his first window and made a lot of signings.
I would hope with Ireland gone, Bent, Given and Hutton not far off going (hopefully in the summer) 20-25 mill wouldn't be out of the question.
3-4 signings and a new manager with some sort of tactical nous could see us having a comfortable season. I would take that.

[Concrete John]

I can't see us spending much in the summer. They were probably hoping to sell Benteke for £25m.

Maybe we'll spend £10m, and it'll be more of the same next season.

I can't see any reason why summer 2014 will see half the spending of the last two summers before it?

[pauliewalnuts]

It doesn't matter if we spent 10 or 20 or 30m if we are going to - for reasons of wage bill, which is the bit they always go on about - have to spend it on lower wage players. That's pretty much what we did last summer and it made next to no difference.

We need to work on the quality, not just the quantity.

Players who might mature in two or three seasons time are not enough - we don't have that much time, this policy will effectively ruin us well before that.

We need at the very least three or four players who are better than what we have at the moment. And they don't all need to be strikers, either, Lambert.

[Ads]

With £50,000 to £65,000 off the wage bill in Ireland, then you can surely pick up at least two, possibly three good players and be no worse off.

[pauliewalnuts]

With £50,000 to £65,000 off the wage bill in Ireland, then you can surely pick up at least two, possibly three good players and be no worse off.

That assumes that what they want to do is reuse the money freed up from that salary.

Ireland has been at Stoke since September. Since then we've borrowed Grant Holt.

The fact these players are bomb-squadded shows that the club desperately want them off the wage bill. I would hope it wouldn't be like this, but why would they then go and lift the wage bill by whatever amount they manage to free up?

[Ads]

With £50,000 to £65,000 off the wage bill in Ireland, then you can surely pick up at least two, possibly three good players and be no worse off.

That assumes that what they want to do is reuse the money freed up from that salary.

Ireland has been at Stoke since September. Since then we've borrowed Grant Holt.

The fact these players are bomb-squadded shows that the club desperately want them off the wage bill. I would hope it wouldn't be like this, but why would they then go and lift the wage bill by whatever amount they manage to free up?

Income has dramatically increased though. They were happy enough to sign the players in the first place and presumably the issue lies with them having contributed little, rather than simply being at the club.

If Hutton was playing week in and week out and also happened to be a good player, then I don't think wages would be an issue, more than we have little room for any more quality on top of that within the budget. Of course, Hutton is garbage and costing us a fortune.

[bob]

I can't see us spending much in the summer. They were probably hoping to sell Benteke for £25m.

Maybe we'll spend £10m, and it'll be more of the same next season.

I can't see any reason why summer 2014 will see half the spending of the last two summers before it?

Did we spend £20m last summer?

[Lee]

The club (well, Paul Faulkner) has spoken.

http://bit.ly/1ihxu6A

Load of bollocks - what he is really saying is that 'Ticket sales for the Southampton game are really slow, get your arses in gear buy a ticket and get behind the lads''

There is nothing he can say, really, he's on to a loser and soon he starts to say something. I would have thought that empty statements like that are probably more trouble than they are worth.

All they need to do is beat Southampton at home on Saturday. Nothing else matters right now.

Reading that statement just, I came to the same conclusion. The words "shallow" and "empty" sprang to mind. 

One thing that they cannot ask for anymore is the fans backing. For nearly 2 years, they have unprecedented support, at least in recent times anyway. The issues are that they have repeatedly took it for granted.

[pauliewalnuts]

Income hasn't dramatically increased, though - look at the recently released set of figures. The television money goes up next year, but I suspect that'll be seen as a way to reduce losses rather than to improve the squad.

Wages are the biggest issue, I know it is subjective to a degree, but I really don't see how anyone can doubt this - they've talked about almost nothing else for two years now. So has the manager, they've made no attempt to hide this. The signings he has made all reflect this.

The fact Hutton is shit doesn't really come in to it - the bomb squadded players are also the top earners. The ones the club is desperate to get rid of. That's no coincidence.

I'm happy to wait and see what happens in the summer, but I think anyone expecting a dramatic reversal of policy is going to be disappointed.

[bob]

I can't see us spending much in the summer. They were probably hoping to sell Benteke for £25m.

Maybe we'll spend £10m, and it'll be more of the same next season.

I would guess a new manager will get a reasonable amount to spend. Lambert got almost 20 million in his first window and made a lot of signings.
I would hope with Ireland gone, Bent, Given and Hutton not far off going (hopefully in the summer) 20-25 mill wouldn't be out of the question.
3-4 signings and a new manager with some sort of tactical nous could see us having a comfortable season. I would take that.

A lot of hoping and guessing, though, isn't it?

I hope all that is going to happen, but I think that Randy is in ultra budget mode and looking to sell. I don't think he wants to put £25m in, however much we've saved over the last few years.

If we did get a new manager, which I don't think we will, then you need to account for the money that will cost to sort out, and I think it would be less likely we would spend that kind of money.

Remember what this board is like when it comes to decision making. Whatever we think might be the best thing for AVFC, they are likely to do the exact opposite.

[Lee]

We need 6 or seven players of Premiership quality, just to stand still next season (providing the unthinkable doesn't happen)

[Eckybloke]

I've tried writing a coherent defence of a fellow Scot but I can't.

Injuries haven't helped but that's why you have a squad.  I don't think we'll be relegated, but fuck me it's the apathy throughout the club as a whole that's the most draining.  I think Lambert, the coaches, the players and the style of play is an embodiment of the culture at Villa rather than the cause of it.

[supertom]

I can't see us spending much in the summer. They were probably hoping to sell Benteke for £25m.

Maybe we'll spend £10m, and it'll be more of the same next season.

I can't see any reason why summer 2014 will see half the spending of the last two summers before it?

Did we spend £20m last summer?

It depends on what sources you believe for each individual player. It's been suggested, IIRC, by Lambert than many of his signings were actually cheaper than reported or first suggested. Tony Moons price has been touted as anywhere between 1(or under)-3 mill. Bacuna from half a mill to over a mill.

I'd say we spent probably 15-20 in the summer. Not much but not chicken feed either. There was some suggestion that more might have been available had Lambert wanted it. We had been linked on off to 1-2 reasonably big money midfielders which didn't come off. That we signed Kozak on the final day for 7 million didn't necessarily mean we used the budget he may have had aside for a midfielder.

Again it boils down to the quantity over quality argument. Of the cheapy punts, only Bacuna has really paid off. Could we have saved 4-5 mill by just using our academy as opposed to signing the likes of Moon, the not so mighty Gladiator, Tonnev(shots off target)? Probably.

[David_Nab]

In hindsight now certainly a case that using the acadamy with quality players was a better option that the cheap imports he has tried.

[Eckybloke]

In hindsight now certainly a case that using the acadamy with quality players was a better option that the cheap imports he has tried.

This time last year though, we were pleased at how well Sylla was settling in and playing.  Which is why we were happy with Tony Moon, Tonev and Helenius.