January 2016 - Transfer Rumours, Speculation & Suggestions

[ozzjim]

I think he has got to take some of the blame too thinking about it this morning, but there are plenty more mitigating factors that have been against Garde, than have been against the board this window.

The results - I think there are 3-4 results since he came where he has been desperately unlucky and 3-4 where he got it wrong.

West Ham at home, we were the better team quite comfortably when Sanchez got injured. They score while we were not back into proper shape and then we were chasing the game, but even after scoring we had the chances to win the game and did not take them. A game where Garde could rightly say a decent striker we are 2 points better off

Norwich away - coming so fast after West Ham, Okore and Lescott just can't do 2 games that close. The defence was split to bits and we lost comfortably. The loss of Sanchez was huge though.

Sunderland away he got it wrong not putting Okore back in with Lescott and should take the blame for that result. To not have Sanchez and Westwood for that one meant our midfield was wide open too. Guzan was awful.

Since then we have been solid and found some consistency, but he proved again against City that if you stray from the back 4 you lose it. It is perfectly arguable that we would have got all 3 points against Albion and Leicester with a decent striker and now be on 17 looking up.

The toughest card he has been dealt is how thin the squad is. Sanchez getting injured hurt us no end. Kozak and Gestede being injured together is a huge blow. We should have found 2-3 loans just to give some cover at least.

[paul_e]

Has any other big club surrendered so meekly?

I can recall in fairly recent history Man Citeh, Leeds and Newcastle all going down, but even they took it to the last game of the season.

I haven't been entirely convinced by Garde, but he has been stitched up here.

Our current league position would be a barrier to bringing some players in, no question.  But even in the state that we currently find ourselves, Aston Villa would still represent career progression for about 90 per cent of the world's professional players.  Be that players who want to be part of a big club rebuilding in the championship or even those who just want a few months in England to put themselves in the shop window.

And out of that lot, are we to really believe that an upgrade on Westwood or Gestede doesn't exist? If so, the game is in a worse state than I thought.

bold bit - it's true but then it's also true that 89.999% of the worlds professional players would either not be good enough to improve us or wouldn't be wanted by the manager or won't have been scouted by the club at all.  All things considered if we went into this window with a list of 10-11 players in your 90% that Garde had identified as wanting to talk to I wouldn't be surprised.  It's then an easy guess that 4-5 of those were at clubs who didn't want to sell/loan them in January so that leaves 5-6 who we could even speak to, we know that we had long discussions with 2, had an offer on the table for another who decided to wait it out for a better offer and had at least inquired about a 4th, so that's not far off what I'd expect in the situation we found ourselves.

I'm not making excuses for the board I'm just pointing out that players having been scouted and judged good enough by the scouts to be presented as options for Garde and Garde seeing enough to want to talk to them plays a huge part in the process and seems to be completely ignored by the 'Bamford/Afobe/Whoever was available we should have got him' thought process.  To shorten that, just because you think a player would've improved us it doesn't mean the manager agrees, to then slate the board for not backing the manager by bidding for a player he didn't want is just wrong.

Yes, we can all indulge in flights of fantasy where we think 'x player would improve us, so we should sign him.' 

The whole thing gets exacerbated when that player then moves for a fee that should (normally) be within our budget, or to a club historically weaker than us.

So I wouldn't hold the lack of bids for Afobe or whoever else against the board if they weren't even on Garde's radar.

But he strikes me as sharp on the uptake, so  I can't imagine he felt it was Doumbia or nobody.

bold bit, again that's the point really, seeing other clubs sign players and thinking "he'd have been a good signing" should never be confused with "we'd have him if the board weren't idiots" which has been the reaction by some on here.

The Doumbia thing, I guess that depends on how close he thought we were.  If he was convinced that he'd got his man then why would he look elsewhere?

[KevinGage]

The nature of these deals means that -unless the squad is so strong it is nigh on impossible to improve upon it- there should be a plan B, C, D.

The very fact that Garde says himself he spent a lot of time trying to persuade the player should highlight that the deal was always in the balance.

So not having a backup -if that was his call- is reckless.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I think it is unlikely he would want to chance going in to the remainder of the campaign with Kozak and Gestede as his only front options.

The exact workings of our transfer committee will be a mystery for the ages, but, going on Sherwood's explanation (I'm aware of the immediate problem with that) he said he would highlight positions that needed strengthening, would make recommendations for individual players and then the committee would find others for the same positions.

If they couldn't get target A, they would move to B, C and so on. 

[David_Nab]

The nature of these deals means that -unless the squad is so strong it is nigh on impossible to improve upon it- there should be a plan B, C, D.

The very fact that Garde says himself he spent a lot of time trying to persuade the player should highlight that the deal was always in the balance.

So not having a backup -if that was his call- is reckless.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I think it is unlikely he would want to chance going in to the remainder of the campaign with Kozak and Gestede as his only front options.

The exact workings of our transfer committee will be a mystery for the ages, but, going on Sherwood's explanation (I'm aware of the immediate problem with that) he said he would highlight positions that needed strengthening, would make recommendations for individual players and then the committee would find others for the same positions.

If they couldn't get target A, they would move to B, C and so on. 

Our issue was we were an unattractive option so we had to wait and see what happened with other deals , Doumbia for instance if Newcastle had gotten Remy or Berahino then we likely would of gotten him.The lack of moment in the market in general worked against us.
I listed to an interview with Remi and he is under the impression Doumbia was offered more money by us but chose the safer option

Also Remi in recent weeks has said after winning and some decent draws that he regrets we couldn't of got results like that earlier as it clearly effected our spending and appeal to players.That said given how weak we are to find literally no one to improve us is not acceptable

[ozzjim]

Robinho on a free anyone?

[cdbearsfan]

Our squad's full, isn't it? Senderos wasn't named in the twenty-five so releasing him hasn't freed up a place.

[godzvilla]

When all is said and done, when the tears have been spilled and masses of money spent ( by some !) 2 of the 6 Clubs above us will be relegated, assuming we do go down, and that is a cast iron fact.
All 4 Clubs directly above us have spent big, if any of those go down, will their big name signings want to stay and play in the Championship?, will the Managers who bought those players still be in charge ?, will there be more cash available to sustain a challenge in this 'very difficult to get out of ' Division?.
Whether or not our 'non-spending' was part of a long term financial strategy, remains to be seen, but, sadly I fear that our Board of incompetents has delivered a psychological ' coup de gras' to any survival aspirations we may have had,while hanging out to twist in the wind, the one person to come out of this with any honour ( RG).
..............Godzvilla!
14...West Brom... ..23/ 28          
15...Swansea ........23 / 25      
16...Bournemouth. .23/ 25
17...Norwich...........23 / 23
18...Newcastle   ......23 / 21
19...Sunderland   ......23 / 19
20...Aston Villa.......23 / 13

[ozzjim]

Our squad's full, isn't it? Senderos wasn't named in the twenty-five so releasing him hasn't freed up a place.

Cole was though.  And Nzogbia was.  Gardner might have been too. Possibly Bennett

[aj2k77]

Cole, Gardner, Ilori, Crespo and Steer were all in the 25 man squad. So we haven't even bothered to fill that up.

[clash city rocker]

Top quality strikers cost vast amounts of money and are as rare as rocking horse shit but you can't tell me that we couldn't have got in a better keeper or right back than we already have.

[ozzjim]

Or a more dynamic midfielder than Westwood

[tomd2103]

Top quality strikers cost vast amounts of money and are as rare as rocking horse shit but you can't tell me that we couldn't have got in a better keeper or right back than we already have.

Time will tell if he can continue his current form, but I think missing out on Afobe was a big one, especially as we were linked with him in the summer.  Keeper is a real mystery though.  It seems like we have only had one target in each of the two windows and have just given up on the idea when they haven't come off. 

[cdbearsfan]

Cole, Gardner, Ilori, Crespo and Steer were all in the 25 man squad. So we haven't even bothered to fill that up.

Thanks. So we could sign Robinho then...

[eamonn]

Well Robinho started the ball rolling for Man Sheikhy's rise. Maybe Pep will be manager of us come 2024.

[mr underhill]

yes, after decades in the vanguard of world club football he chose to see out his twilight years in the Conference