Supporters Trust & Purslow

[eamonn]

I think getting Buendia in early was an attempt to try and be ready for Grealish leaving. With him, Ings and Bailey, you had a good balance of experience in the PL, a promising player from abroad and room for growth. In typical Villa fashion though, they've all stalled with us.

Also, the Purslow verdict to the fans in August 2021 that all three would directly replace Grealish ignored the obvious point that we could only field 11 players at once so surely we would lose-out further by having to compensate for Jack with two extra players?!

[PeterWithesShin]

The basic principle is creating Grealish in the aggregate.

[Scott Nielsen]

Also, the Purslow verdict to the fans in August 2021 that all three would directly replace Grealish ignored the obvious point that we could only field 11 players at once so surely we would lose-out further by having to compensate for Jack with two extra players?!

Yeah, this never made sense.

[LeeB]

The basic principle is creating Grealish in the aggregate.

Yes, and as was pointed out at the time you can't play 13 men.

[chrisw1]

I think the Buendia signing was excellent, and probably as close to replacing Grealish's flair as we could have hoped.  Bailey was a bit of a punt that on papaer looked very exciting.  In reality it looked like we massively overpaid for him.

Ings was clearly a panic buy.  On the face of it it was exciting, we definitely needed more firepower up front and the excitiment on here and elsewhere was tangible that we'd signed him.  Ultimately though he was signed with no plan.  Trying to appease him and Watkins cost Smith his job and Gerrard hasn't made it work either.  We needed a striker to compete with Watkins, not necessarily to play along side him, although in theory I would have expected Watkins to make a better fist of playing wide whereas instead if felt like he just sulked.  Missing out on Tammy was the huge mistake that summer.   

[ChicagoLion]

All we have done is replace Bert with Bailey with no discernible benifit.

[paul_e]

I think the Buendia signing was excellent, and probably as close to replacing Grealish's flair as we could have hoped.  Bailey was a bit of a punt that on papaer looked very exciting.  In reality it looked like we massively overpaid for him.

Ings was clearly a panic buy.  On the face of it it was exciting, we definitely needed more firepower up front and the excitiment on here and elsewhere was tangible that we'd signed him.  Ultimately though he was signed with no plan.  Trying to appease him and Watkins cost Smith his job and Gerrard hasn't made it work either.  We needed a striker to compete with Watkins, not necessarily to play along side him, although in theory I would have expected Watkins to make a better fist of playing wide whereas instead if felt like he just sulked.  Missing out on Tammy was the huge mistake that summer.   

I can't agree on the Buendia thing, I think on here there is a bit of a habit to overstate how well Buendia does when he plays because people want him to start more games. He is the best option in the squad to pick passes through gaps around the box but he also gets caught in possession too easily and, certainly recently, he looks better coming on aainst tired defenders than when he starts. None of this is to say he's a bad player but he offers nothing like what Grealish did, even just in terms of chance creation.

I'm also not sure I agree with the idea that Watkins sulked out wide, I don't think he did but rather just wasn't sure what was expected of him out there.

[chrisw1]

Nobody could replace what Grealish offered us.  Buendia has been our most creative player since he joind and was as close as we were going to get.  If we'd built the team around him like we did with Jack I'm sure you'd see a lot more from him.  Not Jack levels, but better than anybody else offers us.

Watkins sulking was almost palpable.  He played several seasons as a winger so not knowing what to do is hardly an excuse.  He just didn't want to do it.

[paul_e]

Nobody could replace what Grealish offered us.  Buendia has been our most creative player since he joind and was as close as we were going to get.  If we'd built the team around him like we did with Jack I'm sure you'd see a lot more from him.  Not Jack levels, but better than anybody else offers us.

Watkins sulking was almost palpable.  He played several seasons as a winger so not knowing what to do is hardly an excuse.  He just didn't want to do it.

I think Coutinho at his best has been far more creative than Buendia at his best. You might be right that building the team around him would help but it's odd that you'd say Watkins sulked when asked to adapt for the team but make an excuse for Buendia not doing the same.

I'd also question whether Buendia is the closest we could get to replacing Grealish, the best thing Grealish gave us by a long, long way was his ability to move defenders out of position and create space as a result. Of anyone in the squad the player who comes closest to giving us that is Ramsey and when he was being backed to make those runs regualrly Coutinho used the space superbly.

On Watkins, it's not an excuse, my point is that if you watch them when they've played together neither Watkins or Ings seem comfortable with what they're supposed to do to get the best out of each other, they just don't naturally work as a pairing, and that's ok, we never should've tried to play them as one.

[chrisw1]

The thing is, Coutinho has been given the gametime and we've seen him at his best twice, maybe three times?  Buendia hasn't had the same opportunity, but we've seen some incredible performances off the bench.

Ramsey is good at running straight and direct, but he can't pass or link up play like Jack could.  IMO Buendia is the closest in terms of skill, passing and vision, he's decent at dribbling too.

[PeterWithesShin]

The basic principle is creating Grealish in the aggregate.

Yes, and as was pointed out at the time you can't play 13 men.

You don't create the aggregate with 13 players.

[SoccerHQ]

I think the Buendia signing was excellent, and probably as close to replacing Grealish's flair as we could have hoped.  Bailey was a bit of a punt that on papaer looked very exciting.  In reality it looked like we massively overpaid for him.

Ings was clearly a panic buy.  On the face of it it was exciting, we definitely needed more firepower up front and the excitiment on here and elsewhere was tangible that we'd signed him.  Ultimately though he was signed with no plan.  Trying to appease him and Watkins cost Smith his job and Gerrard hasn't made it work either.  We needed a striker to compete with Watkins, not necessarily to play along side him, although in theory I would have expected Watkins to make a better fist of playing wide whereas instead if felt like he just sulked.  Missing out on Tammy was the huge mistake that summer.   

I don't think we massively overpaid for Bailey. He was hitting double figures in Bundesliga for top 6 club and had decent stats in europa league aswell so given his age I'd actually say under 30m in these times is actually a bargain, Buendia cost more and he had far less top level experience.

Ings was the signing that made little sense, age and totally the wrong profile for forward we needed. We were tentatively linked with Alvarez who went to Man. City so that was type we needed, someone who could play out left or also CF if required. Most of the top teams have that sort of versatile forward.

[chrisw1]

Buendia had already performed well in the PL though, which adds a premium. 

[paul_e]

I think the Buendia signing was excellent, and probably as close to replacing Grealish's flair as we could have hoped.  Bailey was a bit of a punt that on papaer looked very exciting.  In reality it looked like we massively overpaid for him.

Ings was clearly a panic buy.  On the face of it it was exciting, we definitely needed more firepower up front and the excitiment on here and elsewhere was tangible that we'd signed him.  Ultimately though he was signed with no plan.  Trying to appease him and Watkins cost Smith his job and Gerrard hasn't made it work either.  We needed a striker to compete with Watkins, not necessarily to play along side him, although in theory I would have expected Watkins to make a better fist of playing wide whereas instead if felt like he just sulked.  Missing out on Tammy was the huge mistake that summer.   

I don't think we massively overpaid for Bailey. He was hitting double figures in Bundesliga for top 6 club and had decent stats in europa league aswell so given his age I'd actually say under 30m in these times is actually a bargain, Buendia cost more and he had far less top level experience.

Ings was the signing that made little sense, age and totally the wrong profile for forward we needed. We were tentatively linked with Alvarez who went to Man. City so that was type we needed, someone who could play out left or also CF if required. Most of the top teams have that sort of versatile forward.

I agree, I was saying all along that summer (even when the hope was that Grealish was staying) that I wanted someone who could primarily play out wide but would be an option upfront if needed (Amine Gouiri and Marcus Thuram were my 2 picks at the time).

[SoccerHQ]

Buendia had already performed well in the PL though, which adds a premium. 

He had one season at Norwich where he did fine but then so did Todd Cantwell.

Think part of the issue is going back to 90s we've liked going to championship/bottom end of prem for star players in relegated teams and they've never been able to replicate that form for us.

Curcic obviously who was a basketcase. Alan Thompson was excellent for Bolton in 97/98 and he played o.k first few months here before reverting to expensive squad player, amusing reading one of Merse's books as apparently after every training session he was apologizing to our internationals for not being good enough!

And in recent times we decided it was a good idea to replace Benteke with Rudy Gestede with all the consequences that followed.

Perhaps we should've refreshed central midfield more with ball players rather than trying to replace Grealish directly. Someone like Bruno Guimaraes would've been ideal for where we are very weak currently, transformed Newcastle since he joined.

He was playing for Lyon when we signed Traore.