Summer Transfer Thread and Gustavo Cisneros Type Rumours.

[fredm]

Put a good solid defensive player in midfield which would release McGinn so he could play with more freedom especially in attack and the whole manner of performance from the team would move up a notch.

[sickbeggar]

Can only see 1 player coming in, maybe. Think you're kidding yourselves thinking two will come in. Doesn't really matter about the whole FFP thing, you either run a club as a viable concern or you go the whole ManCity hog and maybe it blows up in your face like Lerner. I've not seen any indication NSWE are going to run us like  that.  The vast majority of the spend was getting us in the PL and keeping us there.

[Percy McCarthy]

Can only see 1 player coming in, maybe. Think you're kidding yourselves thinking two will come in. Doesn't really matter about the whole FFP thing, you either run a club as a viable concern or you go the whole ManCity hog and maybe it blows up in your face like Lerner. I've not seen any indication NSWE are going to run us like  that.  The vast majority of the spend was getting us in the PL and keeping us there.

How much did we spend to get promoted?

[richtheholtender]

Some people need to get some perspective. Three years ago we were on the brink of extinction.

God help us if we lose today.

And eight months ago we were on the brink of the Champions League. With decent investment we could have competed at that level again, but seem to have given up.

Also, let's nor forget they built up the expectation by stating where they want us to be. They stated Europe, to get there we need to continuously improve and to improve we need to spend money. We're grateful but we didn't ask them to do it and we certainly did set the bench mark of Europe, they did that.

We didn't ask them to put the money in? Christ, you're turning into one of those fans you see on Arsenal TV.

Hardly. It's a fact. Unless you sent the email on our behalf

[Clampy]

Some people need to get some perspective. Three years ago we were on the brink of extinction.

God help us if we lose today.

And eight months ago we were on the brink of the Champions League. With decent investment we could have competed at that level again, but seem to have given up.

Also, let's nor forget they built up the expectation by stating where they want us to be. They stated Europe, to get there we need to continuously improve and to improve we need to spend money. We're grateful but we didn't ask them to do it and we certainly did set the bench mark of Europe, they did that.

We didn't ask them to put the money in? Christ, you're turning into one of those fans you see on Arsenal TV.

Hardly. It's a fact. Unless you sent the email on our behalf

Well, at least your grateful. That's a start I suppose.

[sickbeggar]

Can only see 1 player coming in, maybe. Think you're kidding yourselves thinking two will come in. Doesn't really matter about the whole FFP thing, you either run a club as a viable concern or you go the whole ManCity hog and maybe it blows up in your face like Lerner. I've not seen any indication NSWE are going to run us like  that.  The vast majority of the spend was getting us in the PL and keeping us there.

How much did we spend to get promoted?

Doesn't matter. Overall we're about 200m down including this summer I think. If someone has the grand total i'd be interested but it's not small change by any measure.

[richtheholtender]

Some people need to get some perspective. Three years ago we were on the brink of extinction.

God help us if we lose today.

And eight months ago we were on the brink of the Champions League. With decent investment we could have competed at that level again, but seem to have given up.

Also, let's nor forget they built up the expectation by stating where they want us to be. They stated Europe, to get there we need to continuously improve and to improve we need to spend money. We're grateful but we didn't ask them to do it and we certainly did set the bench mark of Europe, they did that.

We didn't ask them to put the money in? Christ, you're turning into one of those fans you see on Arsenal TV.

Hardly. It's a fact. Unless you sent the email on our behalf

Well, at least your grateful. That's a start I suppose.

Very much so. They saved us from going out of business but I do believe if it wasn't them if would have been someone else. Maybe somebody better maybe somebody worse we will never know. All I am saying is don't sell us dreams of champions league then after getting so far down the road sell the best player and then have a more than healthy profitable window (stand to be corrected). Club run like that don't achieve a thing, or rarely do and its all very similar to how we've been run over the last 25 years

[Pat Mustard]

I've read some posters quoting Leicester as an example of how it should be done - but they were a completely anomaly.  An utterly one-off event in the modern game.  Trying to 'do a Leicester' isn't a plan when you have mega bucks owners who keep saying that our ambition is CL football. 

We need to spend.  Massively. More than the money we've spent already. 

I don’t think people are using their league win as an example, more how they sign players often ahead of when they’re needed.  They’ve sold Maguire, Kante, Mahrez, Chillwell over the years and arguably still grown as a club.  They’re about to expand their stadium whilst still winning trophies too.  It’s impressive what they’ve done.

It is impressive, no doubt - and they actually won the feckin league!  But to challenge, consistently year in year out, takes an outlay we all think is there to, errr, lay out.  WITH Grealish we needed to go nuts to get into 'the club'. Without him we need to spend even more than before.  So if we are going into this season without buying a top quality midfielder or two, I will reserve my judgement as to just how ambitious we actually are.  I know some on here will think that overly harsh, but it is the way I feel.

I sometimes think some fans are just a bit uncomfortable with the Villa breaking out of our current mould as an also ran. 

 

I don’t think those of us who think a bit of caution is a good idea don’t want to see us challenging at the top. It’s just that we’ve seen what pissing fortunes up against the wall can lead to over the last ten years, and so maybe we are a bit more circumspect about wanting everything right now.

[Monty]

No-one is ungrateful to NSWE, Christ knows where we'd be without them. The question now is simply about the team and the aims. I don't think you need to follow the example of the yabba-dabba-downer in thinking of relegation without further investment, but as things stand the team does look quite imbalanced, albeit certainly deeper than last season. If we do want to progress up the table, either more players are needed through the door or the ones already here will have to show some qualities we haven't seen yet (of these Doug seems to me the most likely) - or the manager will have to get more out of them, via coaching, tactics or both. I think that's all we're saying.

[Clark W Griswold]

I think we should always be grateful to the owners for where they've bought us to this point but football is a lot different to a lot of businesses and industries in that you're dealing with a lot of peoples hopes and ambitions for what is the main or sometimes only hobby in life, it's a big deal to them to see success. If you're posturing and suggesting one thing in words and we're seeing another thing in actuality it's going to piss people off and you should watch what message you're giving if you're not going to follow through on it. Just at this moment in time, for the first time it's looking a bit like that. The message should be something like 'we intend to get the club back to the premier league and through a combination of good management and use of resources we will take the club as far as possible thereafter'. Fans will be happy enough with that and it keeps expectations more in check.
I'm still clinging onto the possiblility that what they've been saying is genuine and the vibe coming from the club this week/weekend is a bluff with more strengthening on the way, but every time Smith has said in the past that 'i'm happy with the squad' we've finished for that window.

[richtheholtender]

I think we should always be grateful to the owners for where they've bought us to this point but football is a lot different to a lot of businesses and industries in that you're dealing with a lot of peoples hopes and ambitions for what is the main or sometimes only hobby in life, it's a big deal to them to see success. If you're posturing and suggesting one thing in words and we're seeing another thing in actuality it's going to piss people off and you should watch what message you're giving if you're not going to follow through on it. Just at this moment in time, for the first time it's looking a bit like that. The message should be something like 'we intend to get the club back to the premier league and through a combination of good management and use of resources we will take the club as far as possible thereafter'. Fans will be happy enough with that and it keeps expectations more in check.
I'm still clinging onto the possiblility that what they've been saying is genuine and the vibe coming from the club this week/weekend is a bluff and more strengthening is on the way, but every time Smith has said in the past that 'i'm happy with the squad' we've finished for that window.

This

[Clampy]

Someone else said this but one thing we don't want to be doing is adding 5-6 players every transfer window either.

[N'ZMAV]

Someone else said this but one thing we don't want to be doing is adding 5-6 players every transfer window either.

we will have to do that until we've got 20 players capable of performing at a very good level - we've not even got 10 at the moment that do it consistently.

[sickbeggar]

Someone else said this but one thing we don't want to be doing is adding 5-6 players every transfer window either.

Aye. MON syndrome. Forget about the 1st team but gives us a CL sized squad.

[Clark W Griswold]

In theory, that makes sense of course but the first summer we needed a new squad for the two reasons that we got promoted to a much tougher league and that many players were out of contract and needed to be replaced, the second summer we'd just escaped relegation by the skin of our teeth and they needed to protect their investment by making big improvements. This summer we've offloaded 2 goalkeepers, 3 defenders, sent a player back from loan and sold our best player, so you would imagine one keeper and 5 outfield players would not be unreasonable again. At some point, yes, a couple of additions should be enough just to freshen it up especially if the squad is full of young talented players but this summer is not that point.
You can't go around telling everyone you're ambition is to be in the champions league, but even though we're still miles off it we're only going to add a few new players to the squad, it doesn't add up, especially when you've got loads still going out of the squad from our championship side and our first round of PL signings.