Idrissa Gueye - now gone

[David_Nab]

Getting back quickly means having better players than almost anyone else.

I personally would not piss on most of this bunch of c***s if they were on fire, and I have the lowest possible opinion of them after this season, but some of them are easily - easily - good enough to get us out of that league.

The trick is to hang on to as many of the ones we want as we can, whilst shipping out as many of those we do not as we can.

That's how Newcastle bounced back.

This ^^

We need to keep as many of the decent players as we can like Newcastle did to bounce back

[SoccerHQ]

Let him go for 5 or 6m and then what, though?

Where does that money go, what does it get us?

There's no way we can be flogging all of our players, we are going to have to keep some of them. Gueye is easily of the quality we will need to get out of this league. He's precisely the sort we should be holding on to. There's no point flogging the likes of him and using some of the cash to buy Championship dross just because that's where we are. Unless we fancy being the new Forest or Leeds, we are going to need as many players who are close to the best in their position in that league as we can get, otherwise we might as well just give up even trying.

Well we don't know what the budget is going to be, obviously with new owners we're in a better position to keep some of the better players as suddenly the club is a more positive place to be and we can look upwards again.

I never said get rid of them all, I'd keep Okore (looks like he's off), Ayew (as his quality would make a difference down there), Gestede (just for his record at Blackburn), Adama and Amavi. I'd also get Baker and Gardner back, particularly Gardner as he's been playing week in week out for Forest and I think he could do just as good a job as Westwood who I'd move on.

You have to remember Lerner has on average been giving out 20m net budgets for the last 3-4 years so with him wanting out what makes you think he's going to give a good transfer budget to a manager, if anything it would be cut to about 10m net so that's why we have to bring some money in.

It's inevitable anyway, when a team goes down it sells players, the key is to sell a couple and then re-invest. Hull sold James Chester for about 8m to WBA, keep most of their other main players and re-invested.

Let's remember this isn't the premier league anymore. You don't need to spend 50m to be top half (or bottom as the case may be). You can be in the top 6 or close to it (SHA) by barely spending anything, Brighton are up there with a good number of free transfers and loans. Probably why we're looking at a few managers with that sort of experience I'd say....

I can't see the logic whereby you'd keep Okore (arsey, made of glass, contributed next to nothing) but move Gueye (who has probably been our best player and managed to look like he at least cared) on.

I like Okore and would much rather have him as CB next year than Baker or Clark. Put him next to a no nonsense CB who knows the division and he'd be fine. Plus he only has 1 year left on his deal and if we sell this summer we'd only get peanuts for him.

With Gana it's a bit different for a few reasons. His agent came out the second we'd been relegated and said he'd be more likely to move on. I already remember his comments when he signed for us last summer, I don't think playing in the championship is on his agenda. It's alright keeping him but what will his attitude be like, we need players who want to play for us.

He's also part of yet another hopeless Villa midfield, Westwood, Gana, Veretout, Sanchez, Gil, Grealish, Adama. You'd of thought we could've constructed a decent villa midfield out of those options and it's been a disaster yet again, ever since Milner left tbh so I'd cut my losses on most of them.

[kippaxvilla2]

Idrissa Gana Gueye set to snub Marseille as Aston Villa midfielder seeks to extend stay in England

The 26-year-old midfielder has a £7.1m release clause in his contract
Marseille ready to make fresh move after missing out last summer
Aston Villa midfielder Idrissa Gana Gueye wants to stay in the Premier League despite continued interest from Marseille.

The 26-year-old has a release clause set at £7.1million and Marseille see him as a key recruit as they plan a summer rebuild.

They wanted to sign him from Lille last summer only to be pipped by big-spending Villa and have continued to keep in contact since January.


Idrissa Gana Gueye was a rare success during a desperately disappointing season at Aston Villa Gueye is represented by Mark McKay of ExcelFoot, who helped West Ham sign Dimitri Payet from Marseille, and wants to find another club in the Premier League following Villa's relegation.

Despite, Villa's disappointing season Gueye returned some impressive individual statistics particularly with interceptions and tackles, comparing favourably with Leicester City's N'Golo Kante.

Villa plan fresh talks with Roberto Di Matteo in the next 24 hours after David Moyes ruled himself out of the running for the managerial vacancy.

[Dominic22]

That smells like another Agent planted story to me.  I must have been going to completely different games to this fella all year as I am not sure how he has been a success.  It just goes to show that statistics are not everything

[ozzjim]

I think 7.1 million back on him won't be bad business at all. He cost what, 8.5? Not a huge loss financially, looked a decent player but we need people ready for the battle and I think it is clear from the 2-3 stories already since relegation that he has told his agent to get him a move. Good luck to him, get the money and use it on a couple of energetic hard working midfielders ready for the Championship.

[passitsideways]

Yep, would be fine if we get the full release clause. Good player, would have been an asset in the Championship, but honestly, I think even Sanchez would be fine there for us: more physical battles which suits him, and his major weakness, the tendency to make fuck-ups on the ball isn't going to be punished the way it does in the PL. Use that money on a good centre-half

[olaftab]

Hang on to him at whatever cost.

[supertom]

That smells like another Agent planted story to me.  I must have been going to completely different games to this fella all year as I am not sure how he has been a success.  It just goes to show that statistics are not everything

If ever you want to disprove the importance of statistics, you could use Gana. Whilst he's been one of our better players this season he's still been mostly poor and his season as a whole rates as a 5/10 at best. He might have a few decent stats that compare to Kante, but seeing him during games is different to something written down by Opta. The two players are leagues apart in terms of quality and impact on games. Gana isn't even a drip of stray piss on Kantes boots.
Someone can trigger the release claus and we'll cash in. I don't think he'll want to stay around at all. Ayew will go too, and I'll be much more upset about that.

[Toronto Villa]

I bet if Gana won the ball and could give it more competent players he'd look a lot better and we'd have a better opinion of him. Yes Kante has been very good, but he's alos played in a very settled and confident system with players around him at the height of their game. By comparison Gana while he might have similar stats has suffered personally from the players around him being poor and in turn it has made him look worse than he probably is.

[ozzjim]

He is a strange one. He can look good, and his stats are impressive, but Kante makes blocks and interceptions and tackle in really key moments and areas, whereas Gana I think was always more on the periphery of the play. Maybe he will move and show we have missed out. Kante looks like he wants it more than Gana though.

[ozzjim]

I bet if Gana won the ball and could give it more competent players he'd look a lot better and we'd have a better opinion of him. Yes Kante has been very good, but he's alos played in a very settled and confident system with players around him at the height of their game. By comparison Gana while he might have similar stats has suffered personally from the players around him being poor and in turn it has made him look worse than he probably is.

Or better? Best of a bad bunch type scenario maybe? I like him, but think for 7.1m there are other areas of the team that need work and he wants out.

[Toronto Villa]

I bet if Gana won the ball and could give it more competent players he'd look a lot better and we'd have a better opinion of him. Yes Kante has been very good, but he's alos played in a very settled and confident system with players around him at the height of their game. By comparison Gana while he might have similar stats has suffered personally from the players around him being poor and in turn it has made him look worse than he probably is.

Or better? Best of a bad bunch type scenario maybe? I like him, but think for 7.1m there are other areas of the team that need work and he wants out.

I just think that there are players that were crushed by everything that happened last season and when they do leave we will see them approach what we thought we were getting when we signed them, but at their new club. I would throw Veretout in there for sure, Ayew is better than he showed and he was the best of all of them. What happened last season is simply mind blowing when you consider how fast everything just crumbled to the ground and the immense damage that was done. I cannot begin to imagine how poisonous it was in that dressing room, in training and then how many those players most affected by it reacted when among their friends. It would have consumed them mentally and it only got worse as the season went on.

[old man villa fan]

I bet if Gana won the ball and could give it more competent players he'd look a lot better and we'd have a better opinion of him. Yes Kante has been very good, but he's alos played in a very settled and confident system with players around him at the height of their game. By comparison Gana while he might have similar stats has suffered personally from the players around him being poor and in turn it has made him look worse than he probably is.

That was my impression too.  He breaks up play and looks to play quick one-two's and then move the play on.  Due to not having the players around him, he had a tendency to go on too far and lose the ball or make a wayward pass as no one was available for the simple ball.

[brian green]

It is only now that we can see just what the open warfare in the dressing room last season did to the performances of the players.  Whoever gets our better players, Gana included, will get much more out of them than we did.  As you say TV they crumbled at such a rate it was breathtaking.  Like many, the first hint of us falling into the void was the team put out by KMac at Spurs which was clear and open rejection of the new summer players.

[cdbearsfan]

I like Gana. The release clause seems unlikely. Why would you sign a player and have a release clause that meant he would go for less than you paid? So even if he'd been the next Patrick Vieira we would've made a loss on him... I don't think even we would be that stupid. Unless the release clause only kicks in with relegation.