Where Did It All Go Wrong....

[Damo70]

Do you think we will ever get back to challenge the top six within the next ten years after having year's of being mediocre.

Leicester are managing it.

Leicester's buying and selling of players has been consistently excellent since their title win and even in the period immediately before that. They have raked in big money for some of their title winning side and replaced them brilliantly. They appointed Ranieri and he won them the title. They chose to replace him and put Shakespeare in charge, who guided them to the Champions League quarter finals. They appointed Puel who did reasonably okay but they weren't happy enough with him so replaced him with Rodgers who has done a great job. Leicester's player and management recruitment has been excellent. A lot of the credit was given to their player recruitment guy at the time Steve Walsh but their transfer business has continued to be successful even since he left. The last time we had a successful recruitment spell like that it was appointing SGT, quickly realising our mistake with Dr Jo, then moving on successfully with BFR, Brian Little and John Gregory.

[SoccerHQ]

Do you think we will ever get back to challenge the top six within the next ten years after having year's of being mediocre.

Yes. We can do it in five no problem even if we go down. If the board get in a european renowned manager in his relative prime and also make proper commitment to sell the club's plans to 3-4 top class european players.

When we were finishing 6th regularly we had the core of Mellberg-Laursen-Petrov-Carew so that is the template for me, quality international standard players. Same in the 90s.

Since 2014 newly promoted Leicester, Burnley and Wolves have all played european football through league qualification. Sheffield United still have a small chance of doing it this season so let's not make out it's some impossible dream. As ever we seem to make it twice as hard for ourselves as other clubs in similar positions.

[SoccerHQ]

Exactly so. Things can and do change, all the time in football and not always for the better, but equally, not always for the worst. And you're never more than two or three good transfer  windows away from success or disaster.

We have a few shall we say glass empty types on this forum but I think if someone had come on here in May 2010 and said for next 5 years we'd be fighting constant relegation battles they'd have been laughed out of here. Yet it happened.

At some point we'll become reasonably good again. Frustration is we've wasted the momentum we had built last summer.

[SoccerHQ]

Do you think we will ever get back to challenge the top six within the next ten years after having year's of being mediocre.

Leicester are managing it.

Leicester's buying and selling of players has been consistently excellent since their title win and even in the period immediately before that. They have raked in big money for some of their title winning side and replaced them brilliantly. They appointed Ranieri and he won them the title. They chose to replace him and put Shakespeare in charge, who guided them to the Champions League quarter finals. They appointed Puel who did reasonably okay but they weren't happy enough with him so replaced him with Rodgers who has done a great job. Leicester's player and management recruitment has been excellent. A lot of the credit was given to their player recruitment guy at the time Steve Walsh but their transfer business has continued to be successful even since he left. The last time we had a successful recruitment spell like that it was appointing SGT, quickly realising our mistake with Dr Jo, then moving on successfully with BFR, Brian Little and John Gregory.

They actually lost their way after the title win. Signed Islam Slimani (remember him) and Musa for about 50m and both massively flopped. Also that Portugese midfielder who they signed about a minute after midnight and had to wait six months to play him, he's on loan at Monaco now (with Slimani of course).

In recent times they've been much better. Got in Ricardo Peireria who was excellent at Euro 2016 for Portugal and had CL experience. Youri Tielemans struggled at Monaco but has got his career going again. Maddison was a really good pick up from championship. They also signed Johnny Evans for 3m. He was 30 years old when they got him. With our transfer strategy would we consider a 30 year old CB who's just been relegated?

We need to start looking at that standard of players next time we're in premier league rather than looking at next Club Brugge hotshot.

[brian green]

When I was a boy the game I dreaded most was the impending hammering by Grimsby.  Liverpool were thought of like Wimbledon forty years later.  A team of brutal, classless cloggers.

[Allan C]

Abraham played his part in getting us promoted. I can't understand how anyone can see a downside to that.

Totally agree and fantastic he was too. However this thread is entitled “where did it all go wrong” the obvious downside is his goals have not been replaced. As I said earlier in the thread we effectively gave the best striker at Villa Park for many a long year and an international to boot, a free transfer. I may not be the brightest but I see using another clubs player to get us promoted with his goal input and then him leaving as a place it might have started going wrong

[Allan C]

What false position?

We got promoted largely on the goals of another clubs player. I think that’s a false position.

Who should have been promoted in our place then? Leeds(four loans)? The Stripeys (six)? Derby (five)? Or was it somehow our fault because our loans were better than theirs?

Your missing my point  not replacing him is where it all went wrong IMO  I don’t care who else loaned players and in what number it’s irrelevant. The fact is we got promoted with the goals of another teams player.

[dave.woodhall]

What false position?

We got promoted largely on the goals of another clubs player. I think that’s a false position.

Who should have been promoted in our place then? Leeds(four loans)? The Stripeys (six)? Derby (five)? Or was it somehow our fault because our loans were better than theirs?

Your missing my point  not replacing him is where it all went wrong IMO  I don’t care who else loaned players and in what number it’s irrelevant. The fact is we got promoted with the goals of another teams player.

I answered your point, then you changed it. First you said that we shouldn't have had a loan player ("false position") then that we didn't replace him. Whether we replaced him with Wesley or with Lionel Messi, the situation was still the same. Teams loan players; that's a fact of modern football. We just happened to strike the best loan deal we've ever made, and one that was better than any other club managed. As a result we got promoted within the rules of the competition we were playing in. No false position, no missed point.

[PeterWithesShin]

Not replacing him is very different to being promoted being a 'false position'. By that logic pretty much no team should be promoted as most if not all use loan players, you have to in that league.

[ChicagoLion]

Not replacing Tami was the biggest failure of our transfer strategy. I don’t think any one can argue that

[garyellis]

Not replacing Tami was the biggest failure of our transfer strategy. I don’t think any one can argue that

If and its a big if Tammy would have been wiling to sign for us if Chelsea had released him it would not have been for £22m. Probably nearer £40m than £30m! Replacing him in our first year back was a massive task and any other strategy to the fill the gap was bound to be risky. Picking up free scoring premier league strikers while filling a dozen other positions would have been a miracle.

[Allan C]

What false position?

We got promoted largely on the goals of another clubs player. I think that’s a false position.

Who should have been promoted in our place then? Leeds(four loans)? The Stripeys (six)? Derby (five)? Or was it somehow our fault because our loans were better than theirs?

Your missing my point  not replacing him is where it all went wrong IMO  I don’t care who else loaned players and in what number it’s irrelevant. The fact is we got promoted with the goals of another teams player.

I answered your point, then you changed it. First you said that we shouldn't have had a loan player ("false position") then that we didn't replace him. Whether we replaced him with Wesley or with Lionel Messi, the situation was still the same. Teams loan players; that's a fact of modern football. We just happened to strike the best loan deal we've ever made, and one that was better than any other club managed. As a result we got promoted within the rules of the competition we were playing in. No false position, no missed point.

I don’t think I said we shouldn’t have had a loan player. I said I didn’t like the loan system Because in this instance it’s left us without our best goal scorer for many a long year. We wouldn’t have got promoted without tammys goals. He wasn’t our player and therefore that’s a “false position” IMO

[dave.woodhall]

Every club in the Championship had loan players last season. Presumably they were all in false positions, or is this something that only affects the Villa?

[Allan C]

Every club in the Championship had loan players last season. Presumably they were all in false positions, or is this something that only affects the Villa?

I don’t care about the others Dave. I only care about us. What cannot be denied is we won promotion on Tammys goals. Then we lost him and we don’t look like scoring again this season. We look certs for relegation which I’ll argue that we wouldn’t be if Tammy was our number 9. Back to the name of this thread ”where did it all go wrong”  losing Tammy is high on my list. I don’t like loans for that reason. We won promotion due to another clubs player.

[Ads]

I'm not quite sure I follow. Surely you're just highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of a loan? The ability to attract a quality player you perhaps couldn't do otherwise and the risks of losing him if circumstances dictate. Chelsea being banned from signing players being such a circumstance.