Winter transfer, gossip, speculation and usual butter ollocks thread

[Dante Lavelli]

Straw poll - would you accept Piatek on the 30 January for £30m or Murray tomorrow?
Decent players are unlikely to move at this point in the window so we will have to wait, I fear, to get decent quality.

[SoccerHQ]

Straw poll - would you accept Piatek on the 30 January for £30m or Murray tomorrow?
Decent players are unlikely to move at this point in the window so we will have to wait, I fear, to get decent quality.

Piatek.

Glenn Murray couldn't play v Brighton if we signed him on loan this week.

[SoccerHQ]

Quite simply, if we dont get 2 attacking players in this week ready for the Brighton/Watford games then we deserve to go down. Its utterly negligent its got to this point

Not sure even that will be enough.

It will. Yesterday we missed an outlet, El Ghazi tried on his own but isn’t really that type of player and certainly not the quality against Man City.

My concern remains defensive midfield, team selection and tactics.

We have still won two premier league games very recently with all those issues. We need more in the final third though than the zero senior strikers available so we simply must do something this week.

[eamonn]

Remi Garde spent £130 million less than Dean Smith has already.  Even Josef Venglos was allowed to buy Ivo Stas.

We drew 0-0 at home to City under Remi Garde!

The inflatable snakes kept Citeh at bay.

[Toronto Villa]

Dean's post match comments don't make me overly optimistic we're signing anyone.

I know. Just listened. Now incredibly concerned.

I thought the same, and even worse, he was clearly labelling Suso as the man recruiting.....I think he’s a bit pissed off he’s not got whole say on transfers anyway...... maybe it wasn’t him who wanted Wesley and some others either ?

So he is morphing into a Paul Sherwood? Talks utter bollocks, and had no say in the players recruited.

[Mossie Hennebry]

If Smith is being hung out to dry, Garde-stylee, he needs to resign to preserve his reputation.

FWIW, I don't want this and I hope the mgmt and admin teams are beavering away in the background to get players in and be successful.

[Dante Lavelli]

Dean's post match comments don't make me overly optimistic we're signing anyone.

I know. Just listened. Now incredibly concerned.

I thought the same, and even worse, he was clearly labelling Suso as the man recruiting.....I think he’s a bit pissed off he’s not got whole say on transfers anyway...... maybe it wasn’t him who wanted Wesley and some others either ?

So he is morphing into a Paul Sherwood? Talks utter bollocks, and had no say in the players recruited.

I’d be a bit disappointed in Smith if he is passing the buck.  He is head coach so knew what he was signing up to.  Not to mention it is also how he operated at Brentford.

[Risso]

I think that when Smith first came in, he was obviously never going to turn down the opportunity to move from a small club like Brentford to be at Villa, so was grateful for the chance and accepted the head coach/Sporting Director set up.  Now thing are going badly, and I reckon he feels that he's taking all the flak, firstly for most of the players who weren't his choice, and secondly for not doing any decent business in January so far.  Hence all the peevish "Sporting Director" comments.

[Toronto Villa]

Don’t fucking kid yourself. He was involved in all player recruitment decisions. There’s lots on record where they all sat as a group and decided the path forward. He hasn’t improved the players we’ve bought. We’ve chopped and changed the one system he knows for the great majority of the season with the exception of playing the one CF we bought who’s now done. He stumbled upon a 3 CB formation for Burnley. I’m sure he didn’t want to do it, but we got the win and it worked again at Leicester. He then sends us out to play anti possession, deep defensive against one the top teams in the world and we got battered.

The answer to the majority of your issues is in the mirror Dean. You’ve been backed very well and paid well to do your job.

[robbo1874]

Who would want to join this shambles for the right reasons?

[SoccerHQ]

Who would want to join this shambles for the right reasons?

Darren Bent and Robbie Keane both did in similar circumstances. Both played decent parts in keeping us up those seasons.

[SoccerHQ]

LA Galaxy signing Javier Hernandez for 7m from Sevilla.

Probably agreed he wants to go there but shows not all decent strikers will cost 40m this window.

[ASHTONVILLA]

LA Galaxy signing Javier Hernandez for 7m from Sevilla.

Probably agreed he wants to go there but shows not all decent strikers will cost 40m this window.

Good player and a snip at that price.

[eamonn]

Is that Chicarito?  How did he do at Sevilla?  Seemed like he was going off the boil at West Ham. Maybe he's got an eye on retirement.

[Toronto Villa]

He’ll do well in MLS. Plenty of goals to be had. It’s where once good players go for one more very good pay day.