Summer transfer, gossip, speculation and the usual butter ollocks thread

[Pat Mustard]

Not signing a couple of forwards going into those first 2 games is a mistake. It may not be costly, but they will have had 9 weeks.

And you can spend a lot of money while still penny pinching that cost you later down the line. O'Neill was brilliant at it. Not pay the money one year, then over pay for the same player a year later.

Penny pinching is when you have the money but choose not to spend it. Last year we spent as much as we could/were allowed to in building a team that could just about stay up, this year whatever we spend has to improve the team. It might mean that we miss out on someone who turns out to be worth more down the line, but equally could mean we don’t spend a fortune on someone who turns out to be useless.

That is more about good the scouting is and your confidence in those targets. A million or 2 over the odds when you are paying over £20 million is not going be the difference between signing a good or useless player.

The problem isn’t when the teams are one or two million apart in their valuation - generally a compromise would be reached in those circumstances. The problem is if we rate a player at £20 million, but the other side want £30 million. That is the difference between us being able to sign another player we need and not, and also landing ourselves with an expensive mistake we can’t get rid of.

[SheffieldVillain]

Wolves spending 35m on some teenager. He is from Portugal which is a surprise.

I wonder who his agent is?

[kippaxvilla2]

£35m!  That is bonkers.  He’s played about a dozen games.

[Big Ming]

you can accuse the Villa recruitment staff and owners of a few things if you look hard enough
 but being penny pinching is not one of them

How so? We could’ve signed Watkins and Benrhama last pre season for a considerably lower price if it wasn’t for penny pinching.

Could have signed Watkins from Exeter and saved a bundle if anyone at the club paid any attention to H&V.

Same with Wilson in his Coventry days.

[exigo]

Wondering whether some of our bids are just to try and push the price up that our rivals for league placing will have to pay. Diangana and Wilson costing Albion and Newcastle a few more quid won't do us any harm.

[Diablo]

If Bournemouth accept our bid that's £37m spent on two players. I'll eat my hat if we don't spend £100m.

Out of curiosity what kind of hat are we talking about?

I don't own a hat so I'm guessing either a nacho hat or one I nick off Tony Pulis.

Haha! Ace! I can see getting hold of Tony Pulis' hat in the current climate turning into Mission Impossible 7. How closely do you resemble Tom Cruise? You could be onto a good earner.

[sickbeggar]

End of the day you can never guarantee a striker will work out whatever their pedigree, but if i had 100m to spend (or 85m after cash) , I'd be looking in france, germany, Italy, Spain at established strikers for smaller teams or reserve strikers at big clubs with a goalscoring record, or even players at big clubs in smaller leagues who score regularly in the CL or Internationally. Now i realise after  just coming up those sort of players weren't on so we ended up taking a punt at Wesley, but they should be available this summer. The fact that we're looking at championship strikers hints to me that there is no 100m available and never was.

[N'ZMAV]

£35m!  That is bonkers.  He’s played about a dozen games.

he broke all the scoring records at youth level apparently...

Bit like Vassell, Agbonlahor and the Moore brothers did....

It doesn't always go that well....

[Risso]

Wondering whether some of our bids are just to try and push the price up that our rivals for league placing will have to pay. Diangana and Wilson costing Albion and Newcastle a few more quid won't do us any harm.

It will if we go into the season with our current squad.  Newcastle having £2m less won't really help us if we're still choosing between Samatta and Davis.

[Russ aka Big Nose]

Clearly none of know what is happening let alone have any clue as to what the motivation is of those involved in recruitment. So it comes down to opinions and some will be glass half full etc.

No issue, but I'm always puzzled by people who 'insist' we get on and sign x or y and when it doesn't happen early enough it is then determined it must be because the club is penny-pinching or people
are incompetent or both.

My take is that we will know all we want to about Watkins, Benrahma and Henry at Brentford and Wilson at Bournemouth. We also have the resources to do the deal when we want. If I'm right does anyone realistically think the recruitment team are sat on their hands or clueless?

So I suspect they are not the first choice or we hope to do a number of deals and presently the deal for any of these doesn't fit, i.e. pay over the odds for Watkins and it's not possible to get in another target or if we still have a chance for Tammy and if we do that deal we will need to adjust the other recruits we get in.

I imagine it is a constantly changing situation with lots moving parts.

Patience might be rewarded or we might miss out. For me it is a delicate judgement call and only those involved will have any real understanding of the position - though to consider the present lack of deals to be down to incompetence or penny-pinching is bizarre. UTV.

[N'ZMAV]

how about we sign Benrahma, Watkins and Rico Henry from Brentford - and we could exchange Davis, Lansbury, Neil Taylor, Elmo, Hause and Nyland - plus £30mil

[Joshua Fineman]

I’m confused as to why we are bidding for Wilson if he doesn’t want to come here, it’s slightly embarrassing if he goes elsewhere for a million less.

Where has it been said he doesn’t want to come to us?  If so, maybe it’s just a stalking horse for Watkins/ A.N other?

[exigo]

Wondering whether some of our bids are just to try and push the price up that our rivals for league placing will have to pay. Diangana and Wilson costing Albion and Newcastle a few more quid won't do us any harm.

It will if we go into the season with our current squad.  Newcastle having £2m less won't really help us if we're still choosing between Samatta and Davis.

Which we won't be. Watkins is literally on his way to sort terms out now.

[sickbeggar]

Clearly none of know what is happening let alone have any clue as to what the motivation is of those involved in recruitment. So it comes down to opinions and some will be glass half full etc.

No issue, but I'm always puzzled by people who 'insist' we get on and sign x or y and when it doesn't happen early enough it is then determined it must be because the club is penny-pinching or people
are incompetent or both.

My take is that we will know all we want to about Watkins, Benrahma and Henry at Brentford and Wilson at Bournemouth. We also have the resources to do the deal when we want. If I'm right does anyone realistically think the recruitment team are sat on their hands or clueless?

So I suspect they are not the first choice or we hope to do a number of deals and presently the deal for any of these doesn't fit, i.e. pay over the odds for Watkins and it's not possible to get in another target or if we still have a chance for Tammy and if we do that deal we will need to adjust the other recruits we get in.

I imagine it is a constantly changing situation with lots moving parts.

Patience might be rewarded or we might miss out. For me it is a delicate judgement call and only those involved will have any real understanding of the position - though to consider the present lack of deals to be down to incompetence or penny-pinching is bizarre. UTV.

I think you could be right that there's a big transfer UTR and other deals are dependant on it. Certainly we've been very quiet in links other than forwards. What worries me is the Grealish situation. Man U are notorious for only doing 1 deal at a time, and from what I've heard they still really want him but are pursuing the Sancho transfer first. My doomsday scenario is we get into late September, and then they make their move, and we're left with accepting it, or keeping a potentially very unhappy player.

[Diablo]

Wondering whether some of our bids are just to try and push the price up that our rivals for league placing will have to pay. Diangana and Wilson costing Albion and Newcastle a few more quid won't do us any harm.

It will if we go into the season with our current squad.  Newcastle having £2m less won't really help us if we're still choosing between Samatta and Davis.

Which we won't be. Watkins is literally on his way to sort terms out now.

Great news if true. Source?