Albrighton Going to Leicester

[Ian.]

I can see why we have let these go if that is true about their earnings. Good luck to them both.

As for reinstating the bomb squad lets just hope these players are professional enough to work hard for Lambert and do their best. I'm sure they will as they are very good professionals and not trouble makers which really makes a mockery of creating this bomb squad in the first place. I can see why we had to sell them and I can see that they did not fit into the intended system of play, I just can not see what dumping them did to help the situation in the first place. I'm not even sure whos idea it was to do this, Lambert's or from the top?
Any way I hope they all knuckle down and just get on with it and earn their keep.

[aj2k77]

On past form maybe our 2 new coaches will come from Lamberts new bomb squad? Exciting times ahead with Luna and Tonev as first team coaches.

[Mister E]

Blimey, it all sounds dreadfully amateur, and I do think we are in a very shitty place: if the Bomb squad has been defused it sends out a really weird message.
I don't have a big concern about the list of offloads, other than I think we've missed something with Helenius.

With what we are now seeing, the departure of Lerner and Lambert can't come soon enough.

[aj2k77]

Blimey, it all sounds dreadfully amateur, and I do think we are in a very shitty place: if the Bomb squad has been defused it sends out a really weird message.
I don't have a big concern about the list of offloads, other than I think we've missed something with Helenius.

With what we are now seeing, the departure of Lerner and Lambert can't come soon enough.

It's like they are so dumb it takes them a year to come to the conclusion that everyone else reached as soon as the idea was formed. They've done this numerous times now.

Don't give MON free reign to keep buying players and not using them.
Don't hire Houllier, he's going to have a heart attack.
Don't hire Mcrelegator, he will relegate us or bore us to death.
Don't form a squad of players that have done nothing wrong, with years left on their contracts, treat them like leppers, devalue them, then hope to sell them.

Everything they do is reactionary to a problem from a year previous, they have no clue.

[Hookeysmith]

An excellent summary sir

[amfy]

I don't think Albrighton has developed enough over the past few years to earn a 'bumper new deal.'   

But for the sake of a not leaving a significant gap in an already light squad, it might have been worth splitting the difference and offering him £25-28K. Then offering an increase on that if he can hold onto a regular first team place.  He might still have opted for Leicester, and if he had, good luck to him.

But it does seem a bit off that we are letting a homegrown player, and a player with decent ability and work ethic go for nowt.

How do you know this didn't happen? From Albrighton's perspective, he is not only being offered circa £10k more than the figure you suggest, he is also being offered a regular first team place I imagine, something he will be keen to have at this stage of his career.

It would have been good to get money for him, Bent & Hutton a year ago, but no-one wanted more than a loan. It is a shame that out of these 3, he is the one without any time left on his contract.

Still, with Benteke & Kozak both injured, I can maybe see the sense in giving Bent a go. I wonder if that level playing field also applies to Helenius?

[rob_bridge]

Bent being welcomed back suggests that Benteke and Kozak may not be as close to fitness as possibly first touted.

Hope he is motivated as we need him fit and firing. My concern is his best days have been over for a couple of years.

[Jimbo]

This is precisely why Lambert should have been given the boot this week. Putting his dreadful management record aside for a moment, as well as his less than sparkling transfer record and rank unpopularity with fans, if we're looking to reintegrate the bomb squad due to low transfer resources, Lambert is quite the wrong man to do it.

Why would players frozen out by him want to play for him? And why would Lambert really care if they do crack on under him, if he's going to be out the door as soon as a new owner emerges? Now that he's got a cast-iron book of excuses for his consistent failures under Randy, he can balls it up as much as he likes and say, well these are the conditions I've been working under.

Then again, Randy has backed himself into a corner. If he doesn't trust Sid and Shay to steady the ship in his interim period, then who could he get in under such uncertain conditions? He'd have to recruit a short-term interim manager, and that would cost him. And as it's now becoming apparent, he's unwilling to spend much more on us. Besides, he's loyal to Lambert for doing his bidding.

The longer this drags on, and the more we learn, the more unhinged and disconnected from reality Randy Lerner appears to be.

And here it is, as expected. The mess of others' making is being laid at the feet of the fans. Surely we wouldn't let this get any worse by NOT doing our duty and buying tickets / merchandise, would we? We couldn't be THAT fickle, could we? Well, if we don't turn up and cough up in supportive numbers while all this goes on, and the worst should happen, then it'll be our fault too, y'know.

What a mess.

[Richard E]

And here it is, as expected. The mess of others' making is being laid at the feet of the fans. Surely we wouldn't let this get any worse by NOT doing our duty and buying tickets / merchandise, would we? We couldn't be THAT fickle, could we? Well, if we don't turn up and cough up in supportive numbers while all this goes on, and the worst should happen, then it'll be our fault too, y'know.

What a mess.

I've already renewed and to be honest I'd be there whatever happened but I do slightly resent the fact that the fans' loyalty is being taken as read regardless of how far we are pushed. 

[amfy]

And here it is, as expected. The mess of others' making is being laid at the feet of the fans. Surely we wouldn't let this get any worse by NOT doing our duty and buying tickets / merchandise, would we? We couldn't be THAT fickle, could we? Well, if we don't turn up and cough up in supportive numbers while all this goes on, and the worst should happen, then it'll be our fault too, y'know.

What a mess.

I've already renewed and to be honest I'd be there whatever happened but I do slightly resent the fact that the fans' loyalty is being taken as read regardless of how far we are pushed.

The article suggests that a direct question was asked about season ticket sales. What do you think would have been a good answer?
"We're bound to lose a fair few this year. They were clearly pissed off before and they can only be thinking its going to get worse before it gets better"
It would be honest, I doubt they're under any illusions about that, but probably not that helpful.

I don't believe it is 'taking the fans loyalty for granted' to think that all you can say in this situation is speak to the fan's loyalty. I can't see that we have a lot else going for us at the moment.

[Clampy]

I'm not sure what to make of the 'Bomb Squad' news. On one hand, if we're paying them then we may as well use them but it does seem a strange turnaround of events. Bent i'm fine with but it does mean having Hutton back in the fold though.

[aj2k77]

Maybe they've finally made me lose my mind but I'd rather see Hutton try and decapitate a winger than Lowton plod along getting skinned without as much as shaking his boot at the ball or Bacuna doing his disappearing man act.

[Ron Manager]

I suppose there is something they could do to make the situation even worse. That is, sell Benteke to Peterborough for a nominal fee. When we sold Derek Dougan to the Posh in around 62 there was a feeling it would backfire on us. It did!

There is a story to come out of Villa Park and it will make uneasy reading. When Mr Lerner made his statement shouldnt he have been advised what that would do to Season Ticket renewals?. Frankly he should have kept quiet.

[aj2k77]

There is a story to come out of Villa Park and it will make uneasy reading.

Bit of ITK there Ron?

[Ads]

Albrighton going is no great loss. It is insane to think that losing a poor player in Delboy and a mediocre one in Albrighton actually frees up £40,000 per week in wages. Its staggering the level of overpayment in comparison to quality we have offered in terms of contracts. We're of course not the only club to be in that position and its possibly the biggest indictment on modern football, that all the outward investment has largely been swallowed up by poor players on high wages.

I think it's good news that the likes of Bent, N'Zogbia, Hutton etc are coming back into the fold.

For better or worse, we're paying these players a lot of money in wages and I think Bent offers more than Bowery and makes the squad stronger as a result. I don't think Hutton is very good, but if it means we are able to play Bacuna in his right position, then fair enough. He can't do any worse than Lowton.

N'Zogbia is a plus. He is very in and out, but he does have undeniable quality. With Kozak and Okore to come back we seem stronger than what finished the season.

Presumably the misfits in Luna, Tonev, Sylla, Hellenius etc are not on a great deal. But that £40,000, coupled with the wage bill to turn over ratio dropping below 69% following the extra £30 odd million we received, will hopefully make room for a Lescott and a Holtby type character. Maybe even a few more Germans to kick people in the midfield.

The situation is far from ideal. This discussion could be entirely academic in a few days, weeks or before the summer is even over, with that buzz of 2006 returning, but I don't share the pessimism.

The football wasn't great last year, but we were comfortable until a spectacular and painful collapse that saw us brush far too close with relegation, yet again. Despite that, we were safe following our good performance against Chelsea. You have to be spectacularly bad to be relegated and the perfect storm of McLeish, the current incumbents bizarre attitude towards tactics and cost cutting still hasn't seen us drop. The squad actually getting stronger by drawing everybody into the fold, by the return from injury of our best players, by the maturing of genuine prospects suggests we shouldn't go down. It is not where we want to be, but it's clear that there is nothing particularly long term about the current scenario and hopefully player recruitment reflects that. Three players, right through the spine; Lescott, a defensive midfielder, an attacking midfielder would see us comfortable and hopefully enjoying better times in the short term.