Transfer Speculation / Gossip

[Ron Manager]

We are supposed to showing an interest in Danny Batth. Lambert planning a 5mil bid. Could mean Ron's off somewhere. Could mean nothing at all.

[David_Nab]

Apparently Jed Steer has gone on loan to Doncaster for 3 months

[LeeB]

We are supposed to showing an interest in Danny Batth. Lambert planning a 5mil bid. Could mean Ron's off somewhere. Could mean nothing at all.

Replacing Ron with a Third Division centre half? That would be throwing the baby out with the batthwater...

[RussellC]

http://www.expressandstar.com/sport/wolverhampton-wanderers-fc/2014/08/01/hands-off-danny-batth-wolves-warn-rivals/

[paul_e]

You don't have to sell a player for their value to be higher, the key is what would it take a club to offer for us to consider making the sale, that's where the values of the likes of Vlaar and Benteke become relevant.

Aside from thatyou can't just use our finishing place in the league as the measure of how well Lambert has spent, it's just not that simple.  If Benteke and Kozak hadn't both got long term injuries we'd probably have finished higher in the league, would that make Tonev a better purchase? Man City won the league but you'd still say they didn't buy particularly well last summer (or the summer before really).

Finishing place is a pretty decent measure of squad strength, though, and our squad looks - to me - like a bottom six squad.

Also worth pointing out that every club has injuries, we're never going to have a season when that doesn't happen to us. What happened when we lost our best player wasn't pretty, no, but the flip side of that is that it exposed the deep lack of quality in the squad.

We could have finished higher last season, yes - if he'd bought the midfielders we clearly need, if he'd got in better options at centre half, if he hadn't bought two absolute planks of left backs, if lots of things.

We didn't, though, and that was the third desperately poor season on the bounce. The squad was poor when Lambert came here, that's true, and the first of those three years wasn't down to him as he wasn't here, but although Vlaar and Benteke have been good signings, the rest of them really haven't been good enough.

Not only in terms of signings, but the management of the squad was abysmal - what an absurd situation developed around the bomb squad, for example. Poor, poor management, I'm afraid.

The squad is nothing like good enough, it is a world away from the squads of clubs we were competing with in recent memory (not just the monied clubs, but take a look at Everton), and that is down in large part to the signings Lambert has made.

Every team gets injuries, not many teams have 2 players ruled out for the seasn by the start of september and then lose their main striker and his primary backup for a big chunk of the season.  The reality is we were never out of the top 6 for most injuries at any point in the season, the only other side with the same consistent problems all season was Arsenal.  Every club gets injuries, but we've had some horrific luck with them in the last few years, 14 first team players out for 2 games in Houllier's season was a low but we got to 10 at one point last season as well.

I've given my opinion on the bomb squad before but to reiterate every club has players who clearly aren't going to get a game and who don't have much training with the main squad, the main difference is most clubs don't have people in the media wanting to paint them as a club in crisis and don't get given such an easy to use soundbite by one of those players.

Last season we spent a lot of time looking likely to finish 10-12 in the league, it was only a late collapse that stopped that being the case. I think that would've been a fair position, yes the football was uninspiring but that's not what's being debated.

I think a lot of the problem is that we analyse the weaknesses of our players and make a bigger deal of them than we do for players at other clubs.

[mr underhill]

no approach for Batth from anyone apparently.

[LeeB]

no approach for Batth from anyone apparently.

Smelly bastards.

[mr underhill]

yes, what a shower

[CJ]

I'd imagine if we were really interested we'd be able to force it through without tapping him up

[RussellC]

I've given my opinion on the bomb squad before but to reiterate every club has players who clearly aren't going to get a game and who don't have much training with the main squad, the main difference is most clubs don't have people in the media wanting to paint them as a club in crisis and don't get given such an easy to use soundbite by one of those players.

I'm sorry, but I can't think of one other club who have a situation comparable to the bomb-squad. Yes, other clubs have players who are made to train away from the first-team squad for various reasons, but not in the numbers that we did, and purely because we want them removing from the wage-bill.

[Jockey Randall]

Lambert pulled the plug on that one apparently.

[pauliewalnuts]

Benteke played for us in 26 league games last season, it's not as if he hardly figured.

Not too sure about a late collapse - in the second half of the season, we won 5 out of 19 matches, drew 3 and lost the rest - 18 points from 57. That's not a lot of points over a long period of time, not just a poor run-in.

I'd also say that looking like we were going to finish 12th or so is one thing, but "only" a late collapse messing it up - the season is played over 38 games, we didn't have the squad to handle it.

I agree, there are teams who have players they don't want to use - but in our case I'd argue we might have considered using those players rather than ostracising them because we paid them too much (as Lambert confirmed over Hutton). We were paying them anyway. To then see one of them ending up acting as temporary assistant manager at the end of the season just added another chunk of the surreal to it all.

The main problem we had last year was the paucity of options in midfield, and that's an area of the park that Lambert hasn't even got near addressing properly at any point - not even now, with the addition of a 33 year old who hasn't done anything for years and is made of glass.

[RussellC]

Lambert pulled the plug on that one apparently.

This joke's going to run and run isn't it?

[LeeB]

Lambert pulled the plug on that one apparently.

This joke's going to run and run isn't it?

Like a soap opera.

[MONCABA]

Sky sports news Villa sign Bertrand on season long loan. Am I missing something or what?