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

[Sexual Ealing]

Konsa never looked a dud to me - for a kid of his age he looked like he had massive potential all season.

Watkins has all the attributes to make a good fist of the Prem too. Swift I don't have a clue, looks tidy enough on the ball.

I agree though, Poch was interested we should be ruthless and get him in.

When Pitarch leaked his side of the falling out with Purslow he mentioned possible replacements for DS that he'd suggested, which included Chris Hughton. Purslow was apparently keener on Gerrard or Terry. Pochettino is available, but not to us.

[ASHTONVILLA]

Konsa never looked a dud to me - for a kid of his age he looked like he had massive potential all season.

Watkins has all the attributes to make a good fist of the Prem too. Swift I don't have a clue, looks tidy enough on the ball.

I agree though, Poch was interested we should be ruthless and get him in.

When Pitarch leaked his side of the falling out with Purslow he mentioned possible replacements for DS that he'd suggested, which included Chris Hughton. Purslow was apparently keener on Gerrard or Terry. Pochettino is available, but not to us.

If that is true, they should be giving Purslow a P45 too.

[Monty]

Given the way in which managers are fired these days, and given the reasons for which they're fired, if Dave's projected conversation is accurate then no club would have any manager anymore at all. Instead, it's not uncommon for some managers to even go back to a club that sacked them earlier that same season. That's the world we live in, and if we'd let Dean go I'm not sure it would've hamstrung us at all - indeed, a harsher sacking is how Saints ended up with Pochettino to begin with.

[dave.woodhall]

Remind me again - how often has a club sacked a successful manager because a better one suddenly became available, and improved?

[johnc]

If Everton can get Ancelotti, we could get Pocchettino.

Barcelona couldn't get him last week (due to his love of neighbours Espanyol) so that's one point we have going for us. Sadly, in his case, it's probably our only attractive point right now. When we are in a position/need to bring in a top international coach, I hope we still have the money to spend. It's an expensive game now in the top half of the PL.

I would say Poch is PSG bound. I dont think Barca would take him due to Espanyol past

[ktvillan]

And how exactly has that worked out for Spurs?

Well let's just say 10 years ago we were arguably in a stronger position and better place than Spurs.  Since then we've largely gone in opposite directions, our journey includes several seasons circling the plughole, a relegation,  three seasons out of the PL and another relegation battle.  Theirs includes several top 4 finishes and thus several CL campaigns including a CL final.  I'd say their policy has been significantly more successful than ours, as has Liverpool's in removing Hodgson and then Rogers when they decided they could and should do better. 

[Monty]

Remind me again - how often has a club sacked a successful manager because a better one suddenly became available, and improved?

Depends how you define successful, but these days? Happens everywhere. Brighton are doing ok, Southampton built their modern success (if you like) on doing just that. Also Pearson did pretty well at Leicester but I think his successor also did okay.

In any case, I would argue that the team virtually never looked like more than the sum of their parts last year and frequently seemed less, and we stayed up by nothing. I'd say there's room for improvement.

[ktvillan]

Remind me again - how often has a club sacked a successful manager because a better one suddenly became available, and improved?

Probably not that often but it does happen and it depends on how you define success -  if you rate avoiding the drop as success then you could say Leicester sacking Pearson, who successfully kept them up, and hiring Ranieri who then won the league with them.  Similarly with Southampton sacking Adkins who kept them up for Pochettino.   Rogers got Liverpool to second place, as well as anyone had done with them since 1990 but still went and sought out someone better.

[SheffieldVillain]

Remind me again - how often has a club sacked a successful manager because a better one suddenly became available, and improved?

Probably not that often but it does happen and it depends on how you define success -  if you rate avoiding the drop as success then you could say Leicester sacking Pearson, who successfully kept them up, and hiring Ranieri who then won the league with them.  Similarly with Southampton sacking Adkins who kept them up for Pochettino.   Rogers got Liverpool to second place, as well as anyone had done with them since 1990 but still went and sought out someone better.

Pearson was sacked because he had fallen out with the board and been involved in several high profile incidents, not because they thought his results weren't up to it.

Rodgers was sacked because Liverpool were 10th in the league and had won only 4 in the last 11 games  i.e. not meeting his objectives. They didn't sack him while they were in 2nd place because they thought Klopp could go one better.

In neither case were they sacked because the board thought they were doing what had been asked of them but someone better might be available, but because they were being a headcase (Pearson) and not meeting their objectives that season (Rodgers).

The only one I can think of is the Southampton one you mentioned where they got rid of Adkins and appointed Pocchetino. And even that at the time was a massive gamble as I doubt any of us had heard of Pocchetino then.

[dave.woodhall]

Remind me again - how often has a club sacked a successful manager because a better one suddenly became available, and improved?

Probably not that often but it does happen and it depends on how you define success -  if you rate avoiding the drop as success then you could say Leicester sacking Pearson, who successfully kept them up, and hiring Ranieri who then won the league with them.  Similarly with Southampton sacking Adkins who kept them up for Pochettino.   Rogers got Liverpool to second place, as well as anyone had done with them since 1990 but still went and sought out someone better.

Pearson was sacked because he had fallen out with the board and been involved in several high profile incidents, not because they thought his results weren't up to it.

Rodgers was sacked because Liverpool were 10th in the league and had won only 4 in the last 11 games  i.e. not meeting his objectives. They didn't sack him while they were in 2nd place because they thought Klopp could go one better.

In neither case were they sacked because the board thought they were doing what had been asked of them but someone better might be available, but because they were being a headcase (Pearson) and not meeting their objectives that season (Rodgers).

The only one I can think of is the Southampton one you mentioned where they got rid of Adkins and appointed Pocchetino. And even that at the time was a massive gamble as I doubt any of us had heard of Pocchetino then.

You beat me to it, although I would add that avoiding relegation last season definitely was success because it was our aim at the start. This time next year will be a completely different thing but please spare me the "We need to be ruthless" stuff. This is Aston, not Wall Street, and we are not Gordon Gekko. 

[Risso]

You beat me to it, although I would add that avoiding relegation last season definitely was success because it was our aim at the start. This time next year will be a completely different thing but please spare me the "We need to be ruthless" stuff. This is Aston, not Wall Street, and we are not Gordon Gekko. 

There's a little bit of defining terms to suit your argument in there in my very humble opinion.  Whose target was just avoiding relegation, because it certainly wasn't Purslow's or Pitarch's.

[dave.woodhall]

You beat me to it, although I would add that avoiding relegation last season definitely was success because it was our aim at the start. This time next year will be a completely different thing but please spare me the "We need to be ruthless" stuff. This is Aston, not Wall Street, and we are not Gordon Gekko. 

There's a little bit of defining terms to suit your argument in there in my very humble opinion.  Whose target was just avoiding relegation, because it certainly wasn't Purslow's or Pitarch's.

It was pretty much the definition on here, and I daresay that if either of them had said so publicly they'd have been slaughtered.

[john e]

I’ve always said our expectations should be higher

I’ve no problem going with Smith next season I’m talking about in general

When we thought Smith might go at times last season people on here were calling out for fat Sam or Dyche
that’s the problem we settle for the average the mediocre or whoever has just had a good season and the timing suits

Id love us to start acting our size
said before we are the biggest by miles in the Midlands
third richest owners when combined in the country
large fan base

yet we are just making up the numbers at the moment and nothing suggests we believe we are capable of anything else
Well Leicester, Spurs , Man City did for various reasons


we should find our own reason and aim for that top 6 and not keep doing ourselves down thinking no one will ever want to come to pitiful Villa either players or managers

does my head in

[Clampy]

You beat me to it, although I would add that avoiding relegation last season definitely was success because it was our aim at the start. This time next year will be a completely different thing but please spare me the "We need to be ruthless" stuff. This is Aston, not Wall Street, and we are not Gordon Gekko. 

There's a little bit of defining terms to suit your argument in there in my very humble opinion.  Whose target was just avoiding relegation, because it certainly wasn't Purslow's or Pitarch's.

It was pretty much the definition on here, and I daresay that if either of them had said so publicly they'd have been slaughtered.

I think most people on here would have took finishing 17th in our first season back. OK, so we made hard work of it but we did it.

[RamboandBruno]

People are knocking me for saying that IF our targets don't want to sign for us because of Smith that he should be replaced.

If we are start this season with this squad it is entirely possible with our start that we will be bottom 3 heading into December. How many games do people think the board would give smith to turn it around with a 3rd of the season gone?

My follow up point about a new manager trying to rebuild in January is also totally valid. We can all love smith as much as we want but the football has been crap! He does not know what formation he wants to play and he can't attract his targets (supposedly).
Add to that we have one of the best players in the country shoe horned into the left wing position because that's the only option because we have mo other effective wingers.
I'm indifferent to Smith and have zero loyalty to him. He is going to be a flash in the pan of this club and he will be long gone by the time i meet my maker so why shouldn't I be more concerned with my club than some bloke who has had 2 extremely lucky end of season runs one to get us up and one to stay up. Nobody here can tell me it was his tactics that got us up and not the fact Jack came back from injury like a man possessed.

Anyway this is the transfer thread and a lot of what I have just said is hypothetical as was in my first post.
 I want us to be decisive and go get players ready for the first team not squad players and nothing we have been linked with seems to have any legs.
If we end up with another season of random players for all over Europe I will be worried. We need 2 more star players to go with Jack to kick on and 1 absolutely has to be a striker and 1 a winger. Until we have a solid link or an itsotp I'm going to remain concerned.

I'll leave you to continue sniping at posts you don't agree with. Enjoy

As someone’s already pointed out the whole premise of this is flawed as we haven’t, as far as any of us know, missed out on targets yet.
Secondly this isn’t the Smith thread so I’m loathe to get into the whole debate of, he had no influence on us getting up or staying up, but everything to do with our struggles, one eyed to the extreme!

In fact the whole thing is ridiculous beyond words.