Last summer’s transfer window

[VILLA MOLE]

where is Drinkwater now ?

[SoccerHQ]

Konsa and Luiz were great picks and proving that every week now. 30m for those two is great value in these times.

Still think over time Engels and Gulibert could develop but looks like neither will get much of a chance.

Interesting it's gone along similar lines of Wyness saying you needed 3 teams to become effective top half prem team. 18 that got us up at Wembley included Green, Jedinak, Whelan and Adomah. Then we just about stayed up last year with Hourihane and Hause starting 20 + games each and now hopefully likes of Barkley, Martinez and Watkins will push us on to best season in over a decade.

[Risso]

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.

That's all fair enough.  Samatta might have worked out, might not, but didn't look completely out of place, at least initially.  Reina was a bit past it and prone to the odd brain fart, but ultimately played his part in us staying up.  Drinkwater though, the world and his dog knew he was a washed up, pisshead trouble maker, but not only did they go through with it, on having seen him train, they then decided to actually start him in the first team.  Against Man City.  All water under the bridge now thankfully, and hopefully lesson learned.

[ASHTONVILLA]

I have some sympathy for the much maligned Suso, as he clearly had a tight brief to follow and had to find a lot of players for the money. Getting so many in at once was always going to leave the manager struggling to get a team to gel.

Having said that it was still a poor window then, as it left us with an egregiously bad forward line and a midfield where any combination looked lightweight.

Luiz, Konsa and Trez all now look like very good value for the money spent, but for the first half a season all of them looked ropey. This is the problem with chucking too many inexperienced players in at once, and is what happened a few years ago with Vertout, Gana, Ayew, Traore etc many of which went on to do better elsewhere. I have a feeling Nakamba will come good (looked great for a few games when he first came in to the team last season), and whilst I don't rate Wesley I am hoping he also proves me wrong.

Where we did pay for experience it didn't really work out last season. Mings did not have a good season, and neither did Targett. Heaton looked good until injured.

Hause and El Ghazi get a lot of stick, but both were cheap and have talent. In their new role they are both back up players, and are fine for 3rd choice in their positions. Ditto Guilbert who I like.

To answer the original question, I'd say then that last year it was a bad window (but understandable given how many players we had to get in), but this year it's a good one! Having survived by the smallest of margins the business now looks much better. With a seasons experience Konsa, Mings, Targett, Trez and Luiz all look far better and very good value. Hause, Heaton, Guilbert, Nakamba and El Ghazi look like OK back up players.

This much better window, was only possible because of the last one.

[paul_e]

Interesting it's gone along similar lines of Wyness saying you needed 3 teams to become effective top half prem team. 18 that got us up at Wembley included Green, Jedinak, Whelan and Adomah. Then we just about stayed up last year with Hourihane and Hause starting 20 + games each and now hopefully likes of Barkley, Martinez and Watkins will push us on to best season in over a decade.

The reason we needed the 'stay up' team was because we made such a fucking horrible mess of the promotion team, thanks in part to Wyness. I'd have preferred to go the Newcastle and Sheff Utd (and likely Leeds) route of skipping a season in the relegation battle by having a core of the team in the championship that were good enough to step up. Having the sign half a squad in the short summer after the play offs was definitely the worst way to handle promotion (as Fulham had already shown). That aside, as I've said before I always took that line as more of a justification for us appointing Bruce and playing his agricultural bullshit when a lot of fans wanted us to start building a club style as part of the promotion push.

[Risso]

We skipped a few seasons didn't we?!

[ADVILLAFAN]

where is Drinkwater now ?

Down the pub at a guess

[SoccerHQ]

Interesting it's gone along similar lines of Wyness saying you needed 3 teams to become effective top half prem team. 18 that got us up at Wembley included Green, Jedinak, Whelan and Adomah. Then we just about stayed up last year with Hourihane and Hause starting 20 + games each and now hopefully likes of Barkley, Martinez and Watkins will push us on to best season in over a decade.

The reason we needed the 'stay up' team was because we made such a fucking horrible mess of the promotion team, thanks in part to Wyness. I'd have preferred to go the Newcastle and Sheff Utd (and likely Leeds) route of skipping a season in the relegation battle by having a core of the team in the championship that were good enough to step up. Having the sign half a squad in the short summer after the play offs was definitely the worst way to handle promotion (as Fulham had already shown). That aside, as I've said before I always took that line as more of a justification for us appointing Bruce and playing his agricultural bullshit when a lot of fans wanted us to start building a club style as part of the promotion push.

Newcastle had 15 points by end of December in their first season up and that was with world class manager and squad that got nearly 100 points when promoted so not sure they avoided the relegation battle but were safe before final day at least.

The plan under previous lot was to of course get promoted in 2018 which was messed up and then the cards collapsed. Just thinking going up then would've probably meant Snodgrass and Johnstone signed full time, Axel back on season long loan and someone like Whelan might've still been capable of premier league as he was still a regular for Stoke in 16/17. Was also talk of targeting Fellani and Javier Hernandez although given one is in CHina and the other MLS I doubt either would've made the impact required, they would've been the experienced signings anyway.

Think that team would've been of similar level to what we put together last season at a lower cost but as you said wouldn't have done us much good in long run and we'd still have had a slow death at premier league level.

It's very difficult to have a team promoted that can then finish top half consistntly in premier league which Sheffield United certainly won't be doing this season. From what I've seen from Leeds they'll stay up but will finish between 11th-14th.

Wolves done it but we know that's an abnormal situation as no other promoted club in recent times has access to what they do.

[Lastfootstamper]

Newcastle had 15 points by end of December in their first season up and that was with world class manager and squad that got nearly 100 points when promoted

Blimey, I remember that now. I'd stopped bothering to look at the PL table, and when hearing that they'd recorded their first win in November, I think, I had a look and was staggered to see that they weren't even bottom, let alone cut adrift as I'd expected. I'm not completely certain, but I've a feeling that that solitary win lifted them clear of the bottom three at the time.

[Mister E]

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.

This is a fundamental point; one articulated on here this time last year and since.
We've got fitter, the new players are properly integrated, the tactics and game-management are much-improved; and, we got off to a flyer which has undoubtedly helped confidence.
All of which will be tested when the inevitable injuries, suspensions and form-loss occur.

[paul_e]

Newcastle had 15 points by end of December in their first season up and that was with world class manager and squad that got nearly 100 points when promoted

Blimey, I remember that now. I'd stopped bothering to look at the PL table, and when hearing that they'd recorded their first win in November, I think, I had a look and was staggered to see that they weren't even bottom, let alone cut adrift as I'd expected. I'm not completely certain, but I've a feeling that that solitary win lifted them clear of the bottom three at the time.

All true, but they were never in serious danger of going down, and largely because they had a squad that was too good for the championship and just added to it. We couldn't do that and instead we rebuilt almost completely. If you look at the number of players in our current squad that we owned in the play off team it's frightening how much has changed in 15months.

Playoff 18:
Steer
Elmo
Tuanzebe - GONE
Mings - Signed
Taylor
McGinn
Hourihane
Grealish
Adomah - GONE
Tammy - GONE
El Ghazi - Signed
Whelan - GONE
Lansbury
Jedinak - GONE
Green - GONE
Kodjia - GONE
Kalinic
Hause - Signed

By next summer we could easily be in a place where McGinn and Grealish are the only players we have left from that final that we actually owned at the time. Hourihane, Lansbury, Taylor and Elmo will all be out of contract, you'd expect Kalinic will go and Steer might well feel it's time to move on. That's an insane amount of churn in 2 years and even of the 3 we signed only Mings will definitely be around for next season.

[mr underhill]

Looks like Axel had a great game for Yanited yesterday.

[itbrvilla]

Looks like Axel had a great game for Yanited yesterday.

I'm please for him (not them though).