Transfer Speculation / Gossip

[dave.woodhall]

There are other reasons for that, not least the inconsistent managerial policy.

True, but I do honestly believe that our transfer- policy (or lack of one) is our major downfall.

In the current game I think our peers are (or at least should be) Tottenham and Everton. I genuinely believe that it's been the consistency of their transfer strategies that have kept them both comfortably above us in recent times. They both get cherry-picked by the Top Clubs, as we do, but sensibly re-invest instead of going into meltdown when this happens.

Their buying is also very balanced. They don't go through summers of buying just kids, or just experienced pros, or just unknown foreign players, like we do.

I agree totally - we go from one extreme to the other in everything. Darren Bent, for example, has to have the team built around him yet he's had three managers all with different philosophies.

[Villafirst]

Senderos or Lescott?

At this stage of their careers, not a great deal of difference . 

The only positive is Senderos is 29 and Lescott is 31.

[glasses]

FWIW

Albion fan I work with who hears a lot of things at the club gets the feeling it's smoke in mirrors re Lescott.

[pauliewalnuts]

There are other reasons for that, not least the inconsistent managerial policy.

True, but I do honestly believe that our transfer- policy (or lack of one) is our major downfall.

In the current game I think our peers are (or at least should be) Tottenham and Everton. I genuinely believe that it's been the consistency of their transfer strategies that have kept them both comfortably above us in recent times. They both get cherry-picked by the Top Clubs, as we do, but sensibly re-invest instead of going into meltdown when this happens.

Their buying is also very balanced. They don't go through summers of buying just kids, or just experienced pros, or just unknown foreign players, like we do.

I agree totally - we go from one extreme to the other in everything. Darren Bent, for example, has to have the team built around him yet he's had three managers all with different philosophies.

The real point at which we screwed this up was the McLeish appointment.

The Houllier year hadn't been much fun (although it was like 24 hours in the Playboy mansion with endless women and booze compared to the last couple), but if we had had someone with a glimmer of football nous making decisions at that point, they'd have realised we had the chance to bring in some continuity and build on the positives of that year.

Instead we got the absolute opposite.

I think the thing that gets missed about the McLeish appointment is that, really, all that Blues stuff is a sideshow, as is - in some ways - his poor record, the real stupid mistake was the fact that we did the one thing which sent us straight back to square one - different manager with a totally different style, threw away the work done.

Doing that meant that the Houllier year just became an expensive mistake which set us back, when we could have used it as a springboard and, who knows, built on it to get back to being top six challengers rather than sinking into the abyss.

[RussellC]

There are other reasons for that, not least the inconsistent managerial policy.

True, but I do honestly believe that our transfer- policy (or lack of one) is our major downfall.

In the current game I think our peers are (or at least should be) Tottenham and Everton. I genuinely believe that it's been the consistency of their transfer strategies that have kept them both comfortably above us in recent times. They both get cherry-picked by the Top Clubs, as we do, but sensibly re-invest instead of going into meltdown when this happens.

Their buying is also very balanced. They don't go through summers of buying just kids, or just experienced pros, or just unknown foreign players, like we do.

They also understand that players aren't just "single use" objects that walk away for nothing once you're done with them, too.

We have done an awful job of protecting the value of the squad, managing contracts effectively, over the last eight years.

Exactly. The bomb-squad debacle is just purely embarrassing, but even going back to MON's reign the number of expensive and highly paid players that were not played and allowed to leave for free (Sidwell, NRC, Davies, etc) is absolutely frightening.

Historically there are load more examples of this. Collymore, Curcic, Alpay, to name but a few. For every "good signing" we've made (in the full sense) I reckon there are probably at least 3 abject failures.

[dave.woodhall]

One summer of Houllier and things could have been so different.

[ROBBO]

McCleish appontment still has me buggered, apart from willing to work on a shoestring for me the appointment lost the last little bit of faith i had that the powers that be new anything about running a football club.

[ROBBO]

One summer of Houllier and things could have been so different.

Agree with this, if he had bought his targets to the club things would have been very different, still think he was a very good manager.

[RussellC]

One summer of Houllier and things could have been so different.

We went from a possible midfield of Bradley, Makoun and Cabeye to Chris Herd and Jermaine Jenas in the blink of an eye. I'll never forget (or forgive) him for playing Heskey and hutton as wingers away at Spurs and then looking to shut-up-shop at 2-0 down.

Hmmm, maybe things aren't that bad as it stands...

[Toronto Villa]

One summer of Houllier and things could have been so different.

Agree entirely, and even if he couldn't much longer the next bloke should have been of the same type. Disastrously it wasn't. Who knows, very hypothetically speaking but had Houllier gone another year and stepped away, the next bloke in could very well have been Martinez given the timing of everything. How very, very different things would have looked.

[pauliewalnuts]

I'll never forget (or forgive) him for playing Heskey and hutton as wingers away at Spurs and then looking to shut-up-shop at 2-0 down.

This will sound like hyperbole, but I genuinely believe it, the way he set us up so negatively at Spurs made me more embarrassed to be a Villa fan than I have ever been before. I've seen plenty of shit Villa sides and terrible results, but the way we didn't even pretend we were going to try in that match was just humiliating.

[pauliewalnuts]

One summer of Houllier and things could have been so different.

Agree entirely, and even if he couldn't much longer the next bloke should have been of the same type. Disastrously it wasn't. Who knows, very hypothetically speaking but had Houllier gone another year and stepped away, the next bloke in could very well have been Martinez given the timing of everything. How very, very different things would have looked.

The irony is, at the time when Martinez was mentioned, a lot of us - most of us, in fact - were extremely underwhelmed.

In our defence, if you'd told us who was going to get the job at the time of that Martinez link, I genuinely don't think a single person on here would have believed it.

[Chris Smith]

One summer of Houllier and things could have been so different.

Looking back it seems Houllier's illness was a convenience. They were unwilling to fund his plans so getting rid of him and bringing in a bloke willing to do as he was told made the cuts easier and gave them a convenient scapegoat.

[sirlordbaltimore]

Curtis Davies has to go down as one of the more barmy transfer sages.

He looked decent but nowhere near 10m worth at the time. But instead of keeping him and letting him develop we sold for some ridiculously low fee (not to mention that whole, we wont play him because of a wage increase clause true or not) and now he's started to look a quality defender again and valued around 8m

Shit for brains decision once again

[QBVILLA]

Well I couldn't stand Houllier so won't be looking back at his season with any fondness. The fact he was replaced by McLeish was the equivalent of being kicked when you were down.