Aston Villa's ludicrous £50m transfer spree ripped to shreds

[AVH87]

I've always thought he's one of the better and more articulate pundits, seems any time anybody says anything critical of Villa they immediately become a 'twat' and aren't qualified to comment. There's no disputing the fact we've spent a ridiculous amount of money and aren't actually any good.

Exactly. The manager is important in getting the best out of the players, but we aren't going to go from a team who average around a point a game to suddenly showing Top 2 form in my opinion. After spending £50m, you'd have to say that means it's been spent pretty badly if you don't even have one of the best two teams at the second level.

[Axl Rose]

I like Gollini, despite his mistakes. He reminds of De Gea, and how he started at Man Utd. I'm cinvinced he'll be a great signing. Bunn should be nowhere near our squad. Steer should be back up, unless he's still at Huddersfield? I'm too lazy to check.

[Bottom Right 89]

It's a game of opinions and I usually agree with Danny Murphy but my view is we haven't overspent on anyone, our squad was badly in need of recruits to overhaul the majority of last seasons first team. If we've had to pay more than others to attract top players to sign for the worst team in the league so be it, we had to. The only summer signing I am dubious of so far is Jedinak the rest are bedding in nicely and I've no doubt McCormack and Kodjia will get amongst the goals this season.

[Pat McMahon]

I've always thought he's one of the better and more articulate pundits, seems any time anybody says anything critical of Villa they immediately become a 'twat' and aren't qualified to comment. There's no disputing the fact we've spent a ridiculous amount of money and aren't actually any good.

I'm pretty much with you here. He is no harder on the team than I am.

I bumped into a Bristol city fan a couple of weeks back and asked him about Kodjia. He said they could not believe the fee, reckons he is worth half of it. Says he will score 12-15 goals but isn't a patch on Abrahams.

[ChicagoLion]

I think we have panick bought a team twice now and it has not worked out.
We are showing as a club all the signs of desperation that has humbled previously first tier teams like Wednesday and Leeds, a merry go round of players and managers.
Next will be changes of ownership unless someone gets this club by the scruff of the Neck and drags it back to some semlence of order.

[Matt Collins]

The transfer kitty wasn't rubbished on transfer deadline day and I don't think most of us saw the sheer fuckwittery of RDM's team tactics panning out quite the way they did.

Bellends like Murphy, Savage and Cascarino are talking clichés. "For me...", "I'll tell you what", "solid, well organised", "he'll be disappointed with that", "at this level" yadda yadda.

Bore off.

You can't put Murphy and savage on the same category

Savage can barely put together a logical chain of thought. I don't get all of the comments about Murphy. He's clearly an intelligent guy who understands the game. Bellend or not in person

[villan from luton]

I have only read the last few posts so apologise if I am echoing other comments. I think the keeper will come good and was pleased with all the defenders when signed, shame about the right back. As for the forwards, I was a little surprised as not sure what tactics were wanted, but not bad players.

[Steve67]

The new signings, including Jedinak, will come good. They need a better  manager to get the best out of them. McCormack and Kodjia are class players. We need to add a couple more to the squad but we are definitely good enough for the top six.

[sickbeggar]

He has a point about some of the signings, but no manager have ever spent 50m  and got a 100% success rate, and it was/is very early days. At least give them a season

[ozzjim]

He has a point about some of the signings, but no manager have ever spent 50m  and got a 100% success rate, and it was/is very early days. At least give them a season

It is way too easy to be critical, but we rebuilt an entire squad. I think we bought a striker too many and are 2 midfielders too light, but we have a squad big enough and with enough attacking ability to win a lot of games on the bounce if we get the balance right.

[passitsideways]

I think individually, each signing is just about fair enough, give or take an overpay of a couple or million or so on a few - Jedinak, Chester, McCormack, Kodjia (though Bristol City fans claiming just how much we were mugged off for Kodjia is just about the clearest case of sour grapes you'll ever see.)

Rather, the problem to me is, looking at it now, that whoever was in charge of spending the money didn't take a very holistic view of things, in that we ended up being short at least a couple of genuinely capable midfielders. Everybody on this board was in furious agreement that aside from some competent defenders, consigning Westwood and Gardner to being backups at best was a priority, yet that clearly didn't end up being the case. I mean, I presume there were attitude reasons behind loaning out Veretout and Sanchez, but doing so without then replacing them adequately still baffles me.

[brian green]

Agree passitsideways.  At their worst, and they did have bad games, Veretout and Sanchez are better than Westwood and Gardner.

[Tony Erdington]

I've always thought he's one of the better and more articulate pundits, seems any time anybody says anything critical of Villa they immediately become a 'twat' and aren't qualified to comment. There's no disputing the fact we've spent a ridiculous amount of money and aren't actually any good.

I'm pretty much with you here. He is no harder on the team than I am.

I bumped into a Bristol city fan a couple of weeks back and asked him about Kodjia. He said they could not believe the fee, reckons he is worth half of it. Says he will score 12-15 goals but isn't a patch on Abrahams.

No No , he's still a twat lol, speak against AVFC at your peril murphy.

[tim]

...we haven't overspent on anyone, our squad was badly in need of recruits to overhaul the majority of last seasons first team...

Yep - if we had a decent team in the first place, then that would have been a fairly ridiculous amount to spend, but we didn't. Our team at the time was below what is required, so although it was a lot to spend, it was almost necessity rather than luxury.

[Matt Collins]

I do like the look of kodjia,  but we did spend £12m+ on a striker to play number 9 who wasn't first choice number  9 for Bristol city (behind Abraham)