January Transfer Window

[KevinGage]

Ayew had a face like a smacked arse but at least looked like he cared. 

Or was vaguely professional. Which set him apart from most of the others in 15/16.

There was a stat kicking around in the first part of 16/17 which showed Ayew had created more goalscoring opportunities than any other player in the Championship at that stage.

No surprise that he ended up back in the Prem. And that Amavi had the likes of Seville and Marseille coming in for him.

[pauliewalnuts]

re Ayew being professional - I remember him getting himself really fucking stupidly sent off somewhere in an outburst of not-professionalness.

At West Ham maybe?

[KevinGage]

I also remember him physically frogmarching Sanchez into position after the numpty went walkabout defending a corner for the upteenth time.

Whilst club captain Gabby just stood there with that stupid shit eating grin on his kisser.

I'd forgive Ayew one brainfreeze in that total dogs dinner of a team.   

[Toronto Villa]

Ayew, Veretout, Amavi, Adama and Gueye have all gone to have very good post Villa careers. I would absolutely conclude it was us and the fucking gong show we were as a club and not any of them.

[pauliewalnuts]

Ayew, Veretout, Amavi, Adama and Gueye have all gone to have very good post Villa careers. I would absolutely conclude it was us and the fucking gong show we were as a club and not any of them.

I still think Adama is shit - one trick pony, and not a very good trick, either.

[KevinGage]

The French lads were never the problem in that team.

It was the leadership group of Gabby, Richards, Lescott and Guzan combined with Sherwood's tactical aptitude that sunk our boat.

If that's your leadership group what chance do you have. Any kid breaking through at that time must have thought the path of least effort was the way to go.

[Risso]

Ayew, Veretout, Amavi, Adama and Gueye have all gone to have very good post Villa careers. I would absolutely conclude it was us and the fucking gong show we were as a club and not any of them.

I still think Adama is shit - one trick pony, and not a very good trick, either.

Me too. He's been absolutely piss poor every time I've seen the Dogheads this season.  Stands around, sprints once every five minutes or so, then stands around some more. Maybe tries a stepover every now and again.

[pauliewalnuts]

Ayew, Veretout, Amavi, Adama and Gueye have all gone to have very good post Villa careers. I would absolutely conclude it was us and the fucking gong show we were as a club and not any of them.

I still think Adama is shit - one trick pony, and not a very good trick, either.

Me too. He's been absolutely piss poor every time I've seen the Dogheads this season.  Stands around, sprints once every five minutes or so, then stands around some more. Maybe tries a stepover every now and again.

Occasionally runs really fast in a straight line, invariably out of play. Looks increasingly like Genny from the later series of Gomorrah.

[dave.woodhall]

When PWS said after his debut that the opposition would have to shoot Traore to get the ball off him, what he didn't say was that his team-mates would as well.

[pauliewalnuts]

The problem with that team was the leadership vacuum right at the top of the club, the effects of which manifested themselves as really bad appointments to run the club.

That stuff trickles down. As a club we had no sense of vision beyond empty slogans, no thinking any. more long term than the next match, an ambition (17th) which was the lowest setting of the bar it is possible to have as a PL club and morons in charge of achieving that.

The problem of the 'young and hungry' era was that it was based entirely on wishful fantasy, and a misplaced belief that if you wanted something to work out, it magically somehow would.

This was then compounded by the fact that the imbalance between experienced proven quality and children was so bad, we relied on them all delivering, which was nuts.

Same thing with the young foreign players mentioned. The level of expectation that they'd save us whilst being managed by utter clownshoes was insane.

Thank God those days are over.

[Risso]

The problem with that team was the leadership vacuum right at the top of the club, the effects of which manifested themselves as really bad appointments to run the club.

That stuff trickles down. As a club we had no sense of vision beyond empty slogans, no thinking any. more long term than the next match, an ambition (17th) which was the lowest setting of the bar it is possible to have as a PL club and morons in charge of achieving that.

The problem of the 'young and hungry' era was that it was based entirely on wishful fantasy, and a misplaced belief that if you wanted something to work out, it magically somehow would.

This was then compounded by the fact that the imbalance between experienced proven quality and children was so bad, we relied on them all delivering, which was nuts.

Same thing with the young foreign players mentioned. The level of expectation that they'd save us whilst being managed by utter clownshoes was insane.

Thank God those days are over.

Yep.  It was just a perfect storm of idiots being in charge all over the club, and then being more than the sum of their parts in idiocy. "We want to be in the Deloitte list of the 20 richest clubs in football." That might be a valid business strategy, but it's not the sort of thing most football fans need to hear about when they can see the team nosediving.

[brian green]

The problem was not the incoming players back in those days, it was the dressing room we put them in.

[Dave]

The type of player being discussed is exactly the type of player than O'Neill should have been buying and introducing to the team to supplement Barry, Carew et al - rather than Heskey and endless new defenders.

They were good players, you just couldn't expect to be able to throw half a dozen of them in a new team at once with Lescott, Gabby and a moron for a manager and assume it would all just click.

[OCD]

The club was being pulled in 2 separate directions and falling in the chasm between as a result. There was really poor leadership at the club from the top down. The structure that's in place today only highlights that more.

[pauliewalnuts]

The type of player being discussed is exactly the type of player than O'Neill should have been buying and introducing to the team to supplement Barry, Carew et al - rather than Heskey and endless new defenders.

They were good players, you just couldn't expect to be able to throw half a dozen of them in a new team at once with Lescott, Gabby and a moron for a manager and assume it would all just click.

That's exactly it.

So often in recent years our main problem has been a lack of joined-up, long term thinking.

It's why so frequently we'd fail to sell players we didn't want to hold on to, we'd just watch contracts run down at huge expense. We also never had any continuity in playing style (Houllier to failing to get Martinez to getting McLeish instead, for example). Then remember the brainlessness of the Bomb Squad? Every manager change meant burning it down and starting again because the people at the very top were so utterly clueless.

When I think back over the last ten years, there has been so much horribleness and ineptitude, I'd forgotten much of it. Remember the period of about 25 minutes which involved Mervyn King and David Bernstein, for example?

Over an entire decade of absolute fucking cluelessness.

Pretty sure we also, during the real boom years of the premier league, and even the first four years of Lerner, seemed to find a way not to grow commercial revenue at all.

We were basically inside a Money Printing Plant, with access to a printing press, and with a permit to print money, yet STILL unable to do it. Pathetic.