Last summer’s transfer window

[paul_e]

I dont think Hause has been too bad, the whole 'playing out from the back' doesn't suit him too much but he's quick and strong in the air. We'd make a profit if we sold him on.

I think there's two arguments.  He's not completely awful and we'd make a profit if we sold him on, but do I want him playing in defence for us in the new and improved Aston Villa?  Not one bit.

Ard we going to get a better player for £3m who is happy to play at most 7-8 games a year? In a year or 2 revan and bridge might be able to provide the same cover but for now he's a decent 4th choice.

[rob_bridge]

el ghazi was £4.5m and hause was £3m. they are decent squad players.

i also thought wesley was having his most effective game away at burnley as well. look forward to seeing him back.

like the rest of the defence, targett has played better in empty stadiums. i imagine a combination of being able to better communicate with each other, listen to instructions from the bench, and not having to put up with crap from braying idiots in the crowd.

Yes at least we didn't stump £25m on sub who isn't very good. Those prices aren't too bad just think they aren't good enough to be anything other than bit part players if we are to be serious about top half. We wouldn't lose money on them. We may on Marvellous.

[robbo1874]

Sorry to take this off topic a bit, but I think the best of business this window was Martinez. Your keeper for me is the most important position in your side. This guy looks to be on a par with Bozzie. Maybe a bit better as his distribution is better. Absolute quality signing.

[Risso]

Sorry to take this off topic a bit, but I think the best of business this window was Martinez. Your keeper for me is the most important position in your side. This guy looks to be on a par with Bozzie. Maybe a bit better as his distribution is better. Absolute quality signing.

In terms of the upgrade, I completely agree.

[chrisw1]

The question wasn't really whether they would or would not evolve into decent signings it's whether they were what they needed at that time.  For me the answer in a lot of the cases was no and we very nearly paid for it by relegation.  The reality is without the freakishness of the lockdown we would have.

I agree with Risso, the main failure was going into the season so light up front.  It was utter madness relying on Wesley as our only viable option and I still think Maupay would have been a far better choice.  Wesley may ultimately turn out to be a world beater, but we didn't really have the luxury of time to ease him in and find that out. 

Trez is turning into a decent player and Luiz is just outstanding, but again they were big gambles and both started very slowly.  I think Benrahma & Philips would have been better choices in terms of hitting the ground running (I appreciate there's a cost issue here) 

Obviously all's well that ends well and I'm delighted with how some of the players have now kicked on.  But I'm not going to sit here and say I think it was a great summers business when really it was a huge gambe that save for the lockdown would have cost us our place in the PL.

[Mister E]

el ghazi was £4.5m and hause was £3m. they are decent squad players.
i also thought wesley was having his most effective game away at burnley as well. look forward to seeing him back.
like the rest of the defence, targett has played better in empty stadiums. i imagine a combination of being able to better communicate with each other, listen to instructions from the bench, and not having to put up with crap from braying idiots in the crowd.

You make some good points.
I also wonder whether the overall improvement in quality in the first XI will drag up the quality of others in the squad: we know, for example, that AEG has talent - he's demonstrated goalscoring, anticipation and dribbling in the past - and maybe he will be a more confident and effective player with the new experience he's having now.

[Hookeysmith]

Everytime i watch Mings and Konsa recently i think how we discussed how we might of over paid for both of them (£25 inc add ons and £14 respectively)

And then i think

Dias @ £62m
Mustafi @ £35m

and (Stop laughing)

McGuire @ £80m 

Boy did we find some bargains

[Ian.]

Those fees for Hause and AEG are so low that’s comparable to fees in the 90’s!

[Risso]

Ard we going to get a better player for £3m who is happy to play at most 7-8 games a year? In a year or 2 revan and bridge might be able to provide the same cover but for now he's a decent 4th choice.

Can't see him getting a game at all this season, barring a horrendous injury list.  I'd say he's 5th choice behind Engels and Elmo the utility centre back.  He's not the worst we've ever had by a long way, and he played his part in us getting up when came on in the play off final, he's just not up to the standard we've set so far this season.

[paul_e]

The question wasn't really whether they would or would not evolve into decent signings it's whether they were what they needed at that time.  For me the answer in a lot of the cases was no and we very nearly paid for it by relegation.  The reality is without the freakishness of the lockdown we would have.

I agree with Risso, the main failure was going into the season so light up front.  It was utter madness relying on Wesley as our only viable option and I still think Maupay would have been a far better choice.  Wesley may ultimately turn out to be a world beater, but we didn't really have the luxury of time to ease him in and find that out. 

Trez is turning into a decent player and Luiz is just outstanding, but again they were big gambles and both started very slowly.  I think Benrahma & Philips would have been better choices in terms of hitting the ground running (I appreciate there's a cost issue here) 

Obviously all's well that ends well and I'm delighted with how some of the players have now kicked on.  But I'm not going to sit here and say I think it was a great summers business when really it was a huge gambe that save for the lockdown would have cost us our place in the PL.

As you say Benrahma for trez is a non-starter, he'd have been more the double the price we paid and we spent, by all accounts, almost every penny we were allowed to by FFP rules. Phillips though is bizarre, he had no more experience than Luiz, was more expensive and, on the evidence this season, is nothing like as good a player.

There were 2 major problems last season, no cover for Wesley was first, I don't think we've repeated that this season because I think Davis is decent cover for the next couple of months and then Wesley will be back and we'll have more than enough. The second was a coaching issue more than the signings, we weren't as fit as we needed to be to play how we wanted and we were tactically naive. Between those 2 we dropped a huge number of points late in games this season we've already picked up 4 points with late winners, it's a huge turnaround and isn't solely due to new signings, the whole attitude of the club is better because we now 'know' we belong.

[Risso]

Weird how things turn out.  There's no proof of course, but without Covid, Smith would almost certainly have been potted after the Chelsea game, we'd probably have gone down and we'd all now be hoping that Jack never plays for England as a Man U player!

[chrisw1]

I agree Luiz looks better than Philips now.  But he started very slowly and despite the odd flash of excellence made a lot of costly mistakes.  It wasn't really until after lockdown that he excelled.  I just feel Philips would have settled into the team better and been far more productive more quickly, which frankly in our precarious position is what we needed.  Like I said all's well that ends well, but we got very, very lucky.

[LeeB]

Yes we got 'lucky', but we made it count unlike others, and we had by far the hardest task of any team, given the signings required (a legacy of the previous incumbants) and the short time frame afforded post play of final win.

[Risso]

The question wasn't really whether they would or would not evolve into decent signings it's whether they were what they needed at that time.  For me the answer in a lot of the cases was no and we very nearly paid for it by relegation.  The reality is without the freakishness of the lockdown we would have.

I agree with Risso, the main failure was going into the season so light up front.  It was utter madness relying on Wesley as our only viable option and I still think Maupay would have been a far better choice.  Wesley may ultimately turn out to be a world beater, but we didn't really have the luxury of time to ease him in and find that out. 

Trez is turning into a decent player and Luiz is just outstanding, but again they were big gambles and both started very slowly.  I think Benrahma & Philips would have been better choices in terms of hitting the ground running (I appreciate there's a cost issue here) 

Obviously all's well that ends well and I'm delighted with how some of the players have now kicked on.  But I'm not going to sit here and say I think it was a great summers business when really it was a huge gambe that save for the lockdown would have cost us our place in the PL.

As you say Benrahma for trez is a non-starter, he'd have been more the double the price we paid and we spent, by all accounts, almost every penny we were allowed to by FFP rules. Phillips though is bizarre, he had no more experience than Luiz, was more expensive and, on the evidence this season, is nothing like as good a player.

There were 2 major problems last season, no cover for Wesley was first, I don't think we've repeated that this season because I think Davis is decent cover for the next couple of months and then Wesley will be back and we'll have more than enough. The second was a coaching issue more than the signings, we weren't as fit as we needed to be to play how we wanted and we were tactically naive. Between those 2 we dropped a huge number of points late in games this season we've already picked up 4 points with late winners, it's a huge turnaround and isn't solely due to new signings, the whole attitude of the club is better because we now 'know' we belong.

The biggest mistake wasn't in the summer, it was in January with the signing of Drinkwater.  Some signings don't work out for whatever reason, but not many actually contribute to the team being a good 20% worse.  He was astonishingly awful, and it wasn't as if it wasn't completely predictable from the outset.  Having someone that shit, and a really unlikeable character to boot in the camp was probably the worst bit of business we've done.  Happy to chalk it down to Suso though!

[paul_e]

The question wasn't really whether they would or would not evolve into decent signings it's whether they were what they needed at that time.  For me the answer in a lot of the cases was no and we very nearly paid for it by relegation.  The reality is without the freakishness of the lockdown we would have.

I agree with Risso, the main failure was going into the season so light up front.  It was utter madness relying on Wesley as our only viable option and I still think Maupay would have been a far better choice.  Wesley may ultimately turn out to be a world beater, but we didn't really have the luxury of time to ease him in and find that out. 

Trez is turning into a decent player and Luiz is just outstanding, but again they were big gambles and both started very slowly.  I think Benrahma & Philips would have been better choices in terms of hitting the ground running (I appreciate there's a cost issue here) 

Obviously all's well that ends well and I'm delighted with how some of the players have now kicked on.  But I'm not going to sit here and say I think it was a great summers business when really it was a huge gambe that save for the lockdown would have cost us our place in the PL.

As you say Benrahma for trez is a non-starter, he'd have been more the double the price we paid and we spent, by all accounts, almost every penny we were allowed to by FFP rules. Phillips though is bizarre, he had no more experience than Luiz, was more expensive and, on the evidence this season, is nothing like as good a player.

There were 2 major problems last season, no cover for Wesley was first, I don't think we've repeated that this season because I think Davis is decent cover for the next couple of months and then Wesley will be back and we'll have more than enough. The second was a coaching issue more than the signings, we weren't as fit as we needed to be to play how we wanted and we were tactically naive. Between those 2 we dropped a huge number of points late in games this season we've already picked up 4 points with late winners, it's a huge turnaround and isn't solely due to new signings, the whole attitude of the club is better because we now 'know' we belong.

The biggest mistake wasn't in the summer, it was in January with the signing of Drinkwater.  Some signings don't work out for whatever reason, but not many actually contribute to the team being a good 20% worse.  He was astonishingly awful, and it wasn't as if it wasn't completely predictable from the outset.  Having someone that shit, and a really unlikeable character to boot in the camp was probably the worst bit of business we've done.  Happy to chalk it down to Suso though!

I suspect all of our January plans were ruined in the space of about 25minutes against Burnley. Before that game I think they'd probably pooled all the money available on adding another body in midfield and then picking up a loanee striker (Giroud was being linked and I'm sure there was a story a month or so back that backed it up). Losing Wes and Heaton meant a complete rethink with a half scouted Samatta, a gamble on Reina being capable of a swansong and then 2 wild punts to replace kodjia and give us the extra midfielder. None of that excuses Drinkwater being so unfit that we should never have gone through with it but I think it is why the window felt like such a mess.