January Transfer Window

[Des Little]

Hogan basically has the games between now and Jan to show some kind of reason why he should stay. One goal in 11 months for a £12m striker is outrageously bad.

[Toronto Villa]

Hogan basically has the games between now and Jan to show some kind of reason why he should stay. One goal in 11 months for a £12m striker is outrageously bad.

It is. Of course the manager could help by not belting the ball up to him as if he was a 6’2 target man. I’d put money on him going somewhere else and finding the net again if they played the ball through to him. My concern is his confidence is just shot with us.

[Clampy]

Hogan basically has the games between now and Jan to show some kind of reason why he should stay. One goal in 11 months for a £12m striker is outrageously bad.

If you count the league cup goals, he has 4.

[john e]

Hogan basically has the games between now and Jan to show some kind of reason why he should stay. One goal in 11 months for a £12m striker is outrageously bad.

in fairness that statistic is right up there with Gabbys record and we keep giving him new contracts

[Tayls_7]

Hogan basically has the games between now and Jan to show some kind of reason why he should stay. One goal in 11 months for a £12m striker is outrageously bad.

in fairness that statistic is right up there with Gabbys record and we keep giving him new contracts

To be fair Gabby has had numerous seasons to prove his shitness. Scott needs to be given at least another lucrative contract to be the kind of professional we've come to expect.

[ChicagoLion]

Scott Hogan is not going any where.our FFP situation will not allow it.
Based on the price of 10 mil over 4:5 years he will still be on the books at 7.8 mil.
We would be lucky to get 3.8 mil for him so that’s a 4 mil write off + the difference between what we pay him and what we and a new club will pay him.
if that differential is 10 k a week that’s another 1.8mil .
It looks like 5.8 mil hit if we sell January2018.

[mr underhill]

yet another entry into our almost unrivaled rope a dope hall of shame.

[brian green]

Mr U, I agree one hundred percent but in football just like the wider world you get what you are prepared to accept.  If we continue to make excuses for mind boggling wastes of money there are incompetents at the club who will continue to waste mind boggling amounts of money.  Cue new contract for Agbonlahor.

[ROBBO]

Natural finishers never lose the ability if the service is there, I feel sorry for him yes he gets a huge income but professional pride comes in to it, I hope he gets the chance to show he can deliver but I fear the way we set up doesn't work for him.

[Abbeyfealeavfc]

I still think there are goals in Hogan if played correctly (injuries aside). Bruce is not playing to his strengths or the strengths of any of our strikers. We have only started one game this season without a recognised striker, yet they have only scored 4 goals between them and we're nearly half way through the season. I believe he brought Kodjia back too early for his own short term gain (to keep his job at a time it was looking perilous). This is a guy whose marquee signing in the summer was a defender, yet he ignored the strikers position. He put all his faith in a striker recovering from a broken bone, another who has had a difficult start to his Villa career and is lacking in confidence and goals. A rookie 19 year old who has done a great job in difficult circumstances and finally a striker who stopped playing for the Villa 3+ years ago. (Obviously regarding Gates Mac, he had already discounted him before a ball had been kicked). To add insult to injury he plays a system which doesn't suit any of them. It's good that's he's thinking about a striker in January, but for me it's too little too late re auto promotion and if he doesn't play to their strengths, what's the point?

[Clampy]

I still think there are goals in Hogan if played correctly (injuries aside). Bruce is not playing to his strengths or the strengths of any of our strikers. We have only started one game this season without a recognised striker, yet they have only scored 4 goals between them and we're nearly half way through the season. I believe he brought Kodjia back too early for his own short term gain (to keep his job at a time it was looking perilous). This is a guy whose marquee signing in the summer was a defender, yet he ignored the strikers position. He put all his faith in a striker recovering from a broken bone, another who has had a difficult start to his Villa career and is lacking in confidence and goals. A rookie 19 year old who has done a great job in difficult circumstances and finally a striker who stopped playing for the Villa 3+ years ago. (Obviously regarding Gates Mac, he had already discounted him before a ball had been kicked). To add insult to injury he plays a system which doesn't suit any of them. It's good that's he's thinking about a striker in January, but for me it's too little too late re auto promotion and if he doesn't play to their strengths, what's the point?

The only thing I would say in regards to Kodjia is that he got injured on international duty, not with us.

[Small Rodent]

Natural finishers never lose the ability if the service is there, I feel sorry for him yes he gets a huge income but professional pride comes in to it, I hope he gets the chance to show he can deliver but I fear the way we set up doesn't work for him.

I agree. Adomah has been scoring goals which, because of our injured strikers, have come from a different type of delivery (not crosses). Hopefully, if they can keep this sort of delivery to Hogan, then he can score; through-balls etc.

[sickbeggar]

Hogan is just a victim of his manager's inability to adapt. Every manager has a favoured way of playing, but equally,  any manager arriving at a club knows they may not have the players to do it or injuries may rob you of them. The good managers can adapt their style to make use of what's available, while our guy just plods on playing the same way with an ever decreasing selection of players to choose from. I can forgive Bruce for buying someone who doesn't suit the team, but writing off 10m because you refuse to change your style when we have very little other option is extreme folly.

[ChicagoLion]

Mr U, I agree one hundred percent but in football just like the wider world you get what you are prepared to accept.  If we continue to make excuses for mind boggling wastes of money there are incompetents at the club who will continue to waste mind boggling amounts of money.  Cue new contract for Agbonlahor.

And why we find ourselves only dreaming of being where Wolves are instead of fighting it out with them for the Title.

[paul_e]

The worst thing about the situation with Hogan is the complete lack of awareness from Bruce over it - http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2017/12/21/steve-bruce-has-a-theory-behind-why-scott-hogan-has-struggled-at/page/1/

"I think it’s hard, no disrespect to Brentford, or Barnsley, but this is different to those clubs where there’s no real expectation,” he said.

“Staying in the division is probably the expectation, with that they can flourish.

“But when you come to Aston Villa you are under the pump, under the cosh, under the spotlight straight away.

“There’s big demands.

“That’s what playing for this club is, big club, big expectations - that becomes difficult for people, two or three have found it difficult.

“But we’ve seen with Hourihane, how he’s picked up and done well, but we hope Scotty can do that too.”

So nothing to do with us punting balls at his head from 60 yards away then?

On top of that, He talks about the pressure of expectations there but this is from a guy who called fans hysterical for having high expectations of him.