Brentford v Aston Villa post match thread.

[Marlon From Bearwood]

We’ll need £100million, at least, to sort out the current shower masquerading as our squad.
I don’t think we’ll be allowed to spend that so can’t see us going up for a while.
As it currently stands we’re a mid table Championship side at best with only a few sellable players.
Tough times ahead.

No Championship teams ever spend anything like that amount. Huddersfield got promoted after spending about £3m.

Having a proper plan and being organised is far more important than ££ in the Championship. As the last two years have shown us.

[mr underhill]

You mean no Championship club other than us? Tot up all the money spent since relegation and it won't be far off that sum.

[paul_e]

We’ll need £100million, at least, to sort out the current shower masquerading as our squad.
I don’t think we’ll be allowed to spend that so can’t see us going up for a while.
As it currently stands we’re a mid table Championship side at best with only a few sellable players.
Tough times ahead.

That's a crazy figure. Norwich finished 14th last season and are now top 2 having spent 5m in the summer on new players. Leeds spent 11m and are also flying.

I'd say somewhere between 15-20m spread across the squad this summer for us, IF spent well.

But some are saying we need to get rid of nearly 20 players, because they're all "shit" and/or "old". I'm not sure the Norwich or Leeds manager needs that kind of rebuild in order for them to compete with the mighty Brentford.

Assuming other clubs won't want to pay much for shit/old players, and we need better quality for Smith to charge us to promotion, that number of replacements are going to cost a pretty penny.

"Getting rid" includes: Bunn, Steer, Hutton, Richards, Jedi, Whelan, Elphick and potentially all the loanees. That's 13 players right there. Most people think Grealish will go and If we can move on 3-4 of Taylor, Elmo, Hourihane, Lansbury, Bjarnson, Hogan, McCormack and Kodjia then I doubt anyone would stand in their way.

If that were to happen we'd have a fuckton of wages freed up and (mostly from Grealish) about £50m in our pocket (on top of whatever we had anyway). Personally I'd throw about £10-15m on getting Mings, a left back and a defensive midfielder. We'd then need to replace Jack, El Ghazi and Abraham, which would cost a bit more, probably £20-25m.  Once we've got those I'd look at signing young players to have a year with the U23s and sometimes fill the bench and then getting a few loans to fill out the squad. I reckon, if Grealish leaves, we'd have almost no net spend to fix things, if he doesn't we'd be £15-20m but get another season with the best player in the league, hopefully in a team that fits his style much better.

[sirlordbaltimore]

We’ll need £100million, at least, to sort out the current shower masquerading as our squad.

Absolute nonsense. It's throwing stupid money at it that's got us in this mess as far as i can see.

[AVH87]

I'd say somewhere between 15-20m spread across the squad this summer for us, IF spent well.

And that will buy you how many players?
Sorry, but I think you're wrong...very wrong

OK despite at least 3 teams going up in recent years having spent 10m or less and starting from the sort of league position we are now, we have no chance.

You probably haven't even heard of the likes of Buendia, one of the league's best players this season.

[clash city rocker]

The problem isn't so much how much we have to spend but more the amount of players we need to bring in. Can we realistically expect to make 8/9 quality signings this summer.

[oldhill_avfc]

So change in players used or system?

It's tough, to change the system you have, in my opinion, 2 options: 442 or 352

The former is a bad idea because we're already weak in central midfield and struggle to get our wide players to track back, this adds more emphasis on both of those weaknesses.
The latter is tough because we have no one who could be a competent Left Wing back. On the right you might get away with Elmo or Adomah but they're 2 of the players who been is god awful form since Christmas so making them responsible for that entire side of the pitch is risky in itself.

For the players we've loaned out the people who could offer something in midfield and that's where we really need improvement. As I've said a few times personally I'd be looking to get Grealish and Tuanzene in for Whelan and Hourihane asap and that alone would be a massive improvement in there.

We could easily go with a variant of 4-4-2.

Abraham and Kodija (I know!) in the centre.  McGinn, Hourihane, BB and Whelan in midfield.

[paul_e]

So change in players used or system?

It's tough, to change the system you have, in my opinion, 2 options: 442 or 352

The former is a bad idea because we're already weak in central midfield and struggle to get our wide players to track back, this adds more emphasis on both of those weaknesses.
The latter is tough because we have no one who could be a competent Left Wing back. On the right you might get away with Elmo or Adomah but they're 2 of the players who been is god awful form since Christmas so making them responsible for that entire side of the pitch is risky in itself.

For the players we've loaned out the people who could offer something in midfield and that's where we really need improvement. As I've said a few times personally I'd be looking to get Grealish and Tuanzene in for Whelan and Hourihane asap and that alone would be a massive improvement in there.

We could easily go with a variant of 4-4-2.

Abraham and Kodija (I know!) in the centre.  McGinn, Hourihane, BB and Whelan in midfield.

but then who protects the full backs and how do you fit McGinn, Hourihane and BB in when they all seem to prefer playing on the left side of the midfield. I could live with:

Tuanzebe Whelan/Carroll Mcginn
                  Grealish
         Abraham Kodjia/Davis

When everyone is fit that could work with McGinn and Tuanzebe supporting the fullbacks in defence but that's not going to help with what we have right now. All three of those forwards are decent at going wide so we could push them out to have starting positions against the fullbacks and Let Jack be a sort of false 9 drifting in to occupy the centre backs. Would be a good way to pin full backs deeper.

[old man villa fan]

You are not going to win games unless you compete in the middle of the park.  If you keep on giving the ball away, you are inviting pressure on to you with the most likely outcome being that you concede goals.  To compete in the middle of the park, you need energy and have quickness over a short distance.  We do not have that and I do not see any fit players in the squad that can change that.  For years, our passing has been atrocious and ball control no better.  For years, we have relied on individuals, rather than playing as a team.  Too much money to spend has encouraged this approach.

The owners decided that the Club needed to be rebuilt on the playing side from top to bottom and looked for a coach to do this over a period of time, not a short term dash for promotion.  To lose faith in that approach due to unrest from supporters wanting instant success would be a disaster for the Club and would see us remaining in the wilderness for years to come.  We have a limited squad that has shown to be weak when injuries to certain positions have occurred.  We need to see out this season and start again in the summer.

As supporters, we should be recognising the reality of the situation, rather than ignoring things like, losing your best player through injury, spent very little on buying players in the last 18 months (the most expensive squad in this division was assembled more than 2 years ago and those players have either failed to deliver or aged), have had a constant churn of loan players over the last 2 years with no consistency etc., etc.  I am not going to support change in management until this guy has been given the chance to do what he was brought in to do.  I could understand the need to change Remi Garde because of the mismatch with the players and the pressure of the PL but not going the same way with Dean Smith.

[Legion]

I personally thought Remi Garde was hard done by.

[brian green]

So do I. 

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

Remi Garde was written off along with our Premier League membership when he was given nothing in that transfer window.

[Legion]

Correct. The way he was treated was disgraceful.

[Allan C]

So do I.

Me too

[olaftab]

Moi aussi.