January 2016 - Transfer Rumours, Speculation & Suggestions

[saunders_heroes]

Norwich going for Naismith from Everton. This is exactly the type of player we should be going in for when you're in a relegation battle.

An attacker who averages around five goals per season? I think we've got plenty of those.

He's a fighter. I'd have him in our team over any of our strikers at the moment.

[brian green]

Could not agree more Stuart. I said exactly that when posters were lining up to slag off Nathan Baker and deny him a contract extension. Nathan Baker will make us a tidy profit when sold to a desperate club wanting to kick their way out of trouble. January is the time to sell, not to buy.

[Villa in Denmark]

I like Jamie Vardy.

I like that he's a common as muck lad who is having an amazing three years. The racist thing, in a world where everything you do canbe caught on camera, you're not allowed to make mistakes it seems.

His movement was very good on Saturday, and the attempted lob over Bunn was class. He caused us a lot of problems, I had no idea how quick he was.

Or as an alternative, don't come out with that kind of shit to start with.

That'd be my view as well, so Vardy isn't racist he's just had the bad luck of being filmed being racist? Sorry but that's nonsense.

You see this is what I mean. Once it's filmed, or written down on the Internet,  that's it. An opinion of that person is formed. Nobody is perfect, except people on the Internet and take the moral high ground.

No you're right no one is perfect. But not everyone uses a person's ethnicity as part of a first retort in that sort of altercation.
The guy had obviously been annoying him, so why not focus on that? Then there's no problem.

I can't think of a situation where I'd throw up someone's race or nationality, unless it was something where the use was definitely understood as jovial. E.g. "Bloody Norwegian design engineers" to one of my colleagues in Bergen.

I have however known plenty of people whose first resort is like Vardy's. If you challenge them, their first response is almost inevitably along the lines of, "I 'ay racist. Chinky Joe / Paki Sam is my best mate."

Or to differentiate it between another old school situation.

Getting caught having a couple of beers the night before the game would be stupid, unprofessional and make you look like a dick.

Getting caught in a verbal altercation with someone where the first thing you do is raise the other person's ethnicity makes you look like a racist.

The first one would maybe raise questions as to whether you've got an alcohol problem.

The second one will raise questions about your views towards people of a non white European background. 

Or us it all OK because he plays with Okazaki?

[eamonn]

Yeah, Naismith is more streetwise than Weimann. There's no shame in being kept out by the attackers Everton have, I think he's a decent signing.

[cheltenhamlion]

Could not agree more Stuart. I said exactly that when posters were lining up to slag off Nathan Baker and deny him a contract extension. Nathan Baker will make us a tidy profit when sold to a desperate club wanting to kick their way out of trouble. January is the time to sell, not to buy.

And whilst I can understand some demanding we buy our way out of trouble, it is exactly the reason why I wouldn't blow any chance of coming straight back on the "forlorn hope".

You never know, it might come off. It's a fucking high stakes gamble if it doesn't though. Particularly if your planning suggests a cake walk next season for X investment.

[QuintonVilla]

Naismith is like a slightly better version of Jonathon Walters. He'll score goals in the Championship though if they go down.

[glasses]

It's not ok, it's never ok, and I agree with mostly what you're saying VID. I'm not condoning it at all. Just saying that a throwaway comment captured in the heat of a disagreement doesn't always tell the story of a person.

[Dave]

Norwich going for Naismith from Everton. This is exactly the type of player we should be going in for when you're in a relegation battle.

An attacker who averages around five goals per season? I think we've got plenty of those.

He's a fighter. I'd have him in our team over any of our strikers at the moment.

I'd have Ayew ahead of him as either a wide-forward (where they are both more comfortable) or as a centre-forward. Because Ayew is both a "fighter" and a decent goalscorer as well.

If we're spending £9m on a new forward, Steven Naismith is miles down the list of where it would be best spent, regardless of whether it might by a tiny upgrade on Sinclair or Gestede.

[Goldie.7]

Sinclair can keep the bench warm. I don't like the idea of us selling him to our main rivals for the drop.

Tough shit if you're ready to quit us Scotty, maybe when you get another sniff don't keep running down blind alleys trying to dazzle up three players when a simple pass is on!!

[aev]

£8.5m?

The world has truly gone mad.

[oswald funkletrumpet]

And here is another thing on our shocking management of squad values. This time of year you can prey on the desperate. So....

Why was auxiliary right back Reo Coker not sold for 5 million in in a January window? Why were the MON bomb squad not loaned out for half a season at a million a pop?

The most annoying thing about how our financial plight crippled us (and the speed the changes were made at are very much at Lerner's door), how the profligacy of MON could have been checked with those sort of moves, how everyone used Lerner's bank account as a slush fund and carte blanche to be sloppy or downright negligent when it came to appropriate organisation/structure/efficiency, the fact it was all so bloody avoidable, is what really sticks in my craw.

No wider plan, no building, just short term fix after short term sodding fix. That is how we have ended up where we are.

the short termism point is exactly right, joe cole, richardson, senderos and lescott most recently

we need to look at the way we do everything from ticket prices to have 40k in the ground every week, to a complete overhaul of the academy, to loaning our youngsters out at the right time, to teaching players how to take corners the list is endless buj with the right people we can do it

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Sinclair can keep the bench warm. I don't like the idea of us selling him to our main rivals for the drop.

Tough shit if you're ready to quit us Scotty, maybe when you get another sniff don't keep running down blind alleys trying to dazzle up three players when a simple pass is on!!

I love the idea of selling him to Swansea. As you say, he'll only be warming the bench here. Far better to put a passenger in the Swansea side. It'd be like playing with 10 men.

[saunders_heroes]

Norwich going for Naismith from Everton. This is exactly the type of player we should be going in for when you're in a relegation battle.

An attacker who averages around five goals per season? I think we've got plenty of those.

He's a fighter. I'd have him in our team over any of our strikers at the moment.

I'd have Ayew ahead of him as either a wide-forward (where they are both more comfortable) or as a centre-forward. Because Ayew is both a "fighter" and a decent goalscorer as well.

If we're spending £9m on a new forward, Steven Naismith is miles down the list of where it would be best spent, regardless of whether it might by a tiny upgrade on Sinclair or Gestede.

I'm not calling for Naismith to replace Ayew, I want him to play with him. We're desperate to stay in this league, and if that means paying over the odds in January then so be it. Needs must and all that.

[oswald funkletrumpet]

Norwich going for Naismith from Everton. This is exactly the type of player we should be going in for when you're in a relegation battle.

He would take one look at our league position and think no thanks. That's the reality of being so far adrift in this window.

He's going to Norwich for crying out loud. Offer him a relegation get out clause and get him in. Have we forgotten that we're a big club? I know the chairman has but I didn't think the fans had.

how is a relegation clause going to help us?

come to villa and if it goes tits up you can bugger off for less money than we paid for you?

[Dave]

I would too, Dave. However, that's not to say that that person would think better of it in the cold light of day, when not in an argument, and realise what they said was out of order, but because it's documented or recorded, it becomes a stick to beat you with.

It's a cautionary tale. If he's a figure in the public eye, then maybe he should be a bit more careful about the words that he uses. Or be more careful to not start arguments in casinos in the first place. Maybe the whole experience means that he's taken stock of what he thinks is appropriate or not and has become a better person because of it?

I don't think that what he did or said was the worst crime in the world - but nor is somebody thinking that you're a racist bell-end the worst punishment.