Summer 2015 - Transfer Rumours, Speculation & Suggestions

[Villa in Denmark]

so it's now sell to buy according to Tim. That limits us severely.

Is that down to financial restrictions or just sheer numbers of players I wonder. Hopefully it's just the latter as our net spend is minimal.

why do you care so much about net spend? We already had this discussion. Because by bleating on about it I imagine you would you would be happier if we spent an extra 3-4m per player we signed to take our net spend to around a number you can accept. It's not about how much you spend but where you spend it. I would much rather do what we have done then say buy domestically at a significant premium. Is that so difficult to accept that we have bought well at what appears to be good prices?

Completely agree.

In a year where we've had a massive windfall, compared to what we might normally have raised in incoming fees, net spend is a useless marker.

A better question is, would we have spent an extra £0.5 - 1.0M per player to increase the net spend by £5 - 10M, or done the same business if the Benteke buy out clause had only been say £25M?

My gut answer is yes.

Some people are wondering how we're going to get all these new players to "gel", "bed in" or whatever Lawrensonesque euphemism for form a team you wish to use, yet at the same time clamour for one or two more signings.  That doesn't make sense, as the second point makes the first point worse.

For what it's worth, I think we've just about  reached the limit of how many players can sensibly be integrated into the squad, and the only exception to that would be if we found Amavi's right footed doppelganger somewhere for upto around the £10M mark.

[Toronto Villa]

And that is an entirely different discussion than to keep banging on about net spend. It's about correctly investing in improving the squad and based on need it should vary year to year. What we need to get away from is what we did this summer and make wholesale changes and get to a point where we are incrementally adding to improve. That inevitably should mean some players go and others come in who are better. But what will be critical is we just don't spend to satisfy some artificial number, that we get the best deal possible for players we sell and those we buy.

[brian green]

I agree with that Paulie but I think our present staff have gone a long way to showing the owner that money spent on players need not and must not be a MON squander. I will eat my hat if the players brought in in this window collectively do not show a big profit. Lerner has never had a really shrewd bunch of cookies working for him. He has got one now.

[paul_e]

For me the other thing is that it's difficult for a club with our wage bill and recent finishes to spend £70m, we can do what we've done and reach a point where our wage bill can't (by ffp restrictions) have anything more added to it without removing wages through sales.  On top of that I agree with ViD, any further additions now really need to be thought about because we have got nearly half a squad to 'bed in'.

[ozzjim]

I think it is much more a squad and wages thing than a transfer fee issue.

Get NZogbia, Richardson and Senderos out, I would imagine the best part of 100k would be freed in wages etc.

[PaulWinch again]

We absolutely must spend good money on another striker.

[silhillvilla]

And that is an entirely different discussion than to keep banging on about net spend. It's about correctly investing in improving the squad and based on need it should vary year to year. What we need to get away from is what we did this summer and make wholesale changes and get to a point where we are incrementally adding to improve. That inevitably should mean some players go and others come in who are better. But what will be critical is we just don't spend to satisfy some artificial number, that we get the best deal possible for players we sell and those we buy.

Do I really have to explain this again. Spend is important. If we buy 10 average players or 7 better ones or even say 5 really good ones with £40m it's an important differential.
So far we are at more or less net £0.
We still lack proven quality, you could argue £8m on Ayew was not wise when another £5m gets you Austin who is proven . Etc etc .

[Toronto Villa]

And that is an entirely different discussion than to keep banging on about net spend. It's about correctly investing in improving the squad and based on need it should vary year to year. What we need to get away from is what we did this summer and make wholesale changes and get to a point where we are incrementally adding to improve. That inevitably should mean some players go and others come in who are better. But what will be critical is we just don't spend to satisfy some artificial number, that we get the best deal possible for players we sell and those we buy.

Do I really have to explain this again. Spend is important. If we but 10 average players or 7 better ones or even say 5 really good ones with £40m it's important.
So far we are at more or less net £0.
We still lack proven quality, you could argue £8m on Ayew was not wise when another £5m gets you Austin who is proven . Etc etc .

You've completely missed the point. Spend is utterly irrelevant if what you've spent it on doesn't work. MON was the King of Net Spend and look where it got us. You are having such difficulty in understanding this aren't you? We need to buy players that improve us and not be obsessed on what they cost and what kind of net spend it derives.

[silhillvilla]

The point you are  totally missing TV is quality is generally more costly. Great we've signed 10 players but are they going to improve us ? We've quickly spent the £40m we received on sales on lots of unproven players (other than Micah who is proven class).
It's obvious already we are still short on at the minimum a "Charlie Austin" type and a quality RB (Bacuna really is not a RB) .
I don't think it would be unreasonable to expect a net spend of +£25m and in that respect I say get Austin and a proper RB plus lescott ASAP.

[villabear]

Desperately need a goal scorer.  Charlie Austin for me.

[silhillvilla]

Desperately need a goal scorer.  Charlie Austin for me.

He scored another 2 today.
Really is a no brainer.

[Toronto Villa]

The point you are  totally missing TV is quality is generally more costly. Great we've signed 10 players but are they going to improve us ? We've quickly spent the £40m we received on sales on lots of unproven players (other than Micah who is proven class).
It's obvious already we are still short on at the minimum a "Charlie Austin" type and a quality RB (Bacuna really is not a RB) .
I don't think it would be unreasonable to expect a net spend of +£25m and in that respect I say get Austin and a proper RB plus lescott ASAP.

Quality doesn't always correlate to what you pay. There's loads of example of that. Astute buying is way more important as Swansea have proved. Don't you think there is a reason why no team has lashed out £15m on Austin. If it was that easy he'd be in the PL already. I'm not denying at all that we need some additions but it has nothing to do with what we will pay for them. It's whether they bring value and can they make an impact quickly as Traore showed he can today for a fraction of what we could have paid for Townsend as an example.

[richard moore]

We absolutely must spend good money on another striker.

I agree totally. We are going to have big problems if we don't, relying on Gestede and pretty much nothing else.

[KRS]

Gestede - limited ability with the ball at his feet and needs quality crosses to score with his head (which we don't have).
Ayew - question marks over ability and confidence (too early to judge).
Gabby - no ability or brain.
Kozak - doesn't appear to be in TS plans.

...it is as clear as day that we need a goal scorer.

[silhillvilla]

The point you are  totally missing TV is quality is generally more costly. Great we've signed 10 players but are they going to improve us ? We've quickly spent the £40m we received on sales on lots of unproven players (other than Micah who is proven class).
It's obvious already we are still short on at the minimum a "Charlie Austin" type and a quality RB (Bacuna really is not a RB) .
I don't think it would be unreasonable to expect a net spend of +£25m and in that respect I say get Austin and a proper RB plus lescott ASAP.

Quality doesn't always correlate to what you pay. There's loads of example of that. Astute buying is way more important as Swansea have proved. Don't you think there is a reason why no team has lashed out £15m on Austin. If it was that easy he'd be in the PL already. I'm not denying at all that we need some additions but it has nothing to do with what we will pay for them. It's whether they bring value and can they make an impact quickly as Traore showed he can today for a fraction of what we could have paid for Townsend as an example.

Traore cost £8m didn't he though with a barca fail safe buy back clause (no issue with me ) he wasn't exactly cheap