Summer 26 Transfer Window - hopes, speculation, rumours etc.

[eamonn]

Every club has their share of duds each year  In our strait-jacket  we're under pressure to have an almost perfect hit rate but that's never going to happen, it never does anywhere.

[Toronto Villa]

If we can't spend much after a few years of: CL twice, winning a trophy, selling youth players, dodgy mutual transfers, trading players around like they're Pokemon cards, selling the warehouse, selling the women's team, screwing every penny out of fans with piss take prices then maybe we have to look at what we're doing wrong rather than just blame the rules.

Not really, as we have spent very little, in nett terms. The rules are quite clearly designed to restrict us and clubs like us. We have come closer to regularly challenging the established elite than any other team in England, Spain, Germany or France.

I'd say we get a lot more right than wrong.

The rules mean we cannot make mistakes. And when we talk mistakes our biggest outlay is £28M for Guessand which hasn't worked out but we would still get most of it back when sold. £28M spent on a player in the PL today is a story that doesn't make the news. So of course we could have done better but when you look at some of the signings made at Spurs, Man U, Chelsea etc. where their revenues allow them to make massive errors to begin with, it shows the fine margins we are working with. Our net outlay is tiny. If we want to be a top 4 side then we either operate like one and pay the bigger transfer fees or wages or we decide our revenues are more suited to being mid table/Conference league. What we have is a world class manager that allows us significantly overachieve because you can see with Newcastle, that without one they quickly sink down the table. That would happen to us if Emery left.

[PaulWinch again]

Whilst we are more challenged than the clubs we’re trying to compete with I think we could do a lot better with what we do spend. There have clearly been successes, with Rogers and Duran the obvious ones, but in recent times lesser purchases like Bizot and Lindelof have been really good. But if you compare with say Bournemouth - who obviously don’t have a 100% hit rate, but in the last few years have managed (rough fees):
 
Rayan £22m
Huijsen £21m
Kroupi £10m
Scott £21m
Semenyo £9m
Kerkez £18m
Truffert £12m

There are other successes and failures as well, but those are midrange to low fees (and I suspect wages) and is the sort of stuff we should be able to match.

[AV82EC]

Whilst we are more challenged than the clubs we’re trying to compete with I think we could do a lot better with what we do spend. There have clearly been successes, with Rogers and Duran the obvious ones, but in recent times lesser purchases like Bizot and Lindelof have been really good. But if you compare with say Bournemouth - who obviously don’t have a 100% hit rate, but in the last few years have managed (rough fees):
 
Rayan £22m
Huijsen £21m
Kroupi £10m
Scott £21m
Semenyo £9m
Kerkez £18m
Truffert £12m

There are other successes and failures as well, but those are midrange to low fees (and I suspect wages) and is the sort of stuff we should be able to match.

The difficulty here is Bournemouth are a talent development club not a competing for trophies club despite this year qualifying for Europe. I’m intrigued to see how they attract that type of talent when they have a more settled squad. It’s fine attracting this type of player when you get straight into the first team and are able to display your wares week in week out, that’s not the case at Villa you’ll be competing quite often with a very experienced international player who isn’t just going to let you take his place.

[Toronto Villa]

Yep it's trying to be Brighton, Brentford, Bournemouth who have been superb in developing players but also setting and aligning on expecations. Those players are well scouted but they also know they will have playing time to showcase their talents almost immediately. They know it's really a 2 year commitment and they will be off to a much bigger destination.

[Percy McCarthy]

^^ Yeah it’s kinda like us a few years ago when our recruitment was great and it was easier to improve the team.

Watkins, Martinez, Konsa, Mings, McGinn, Cash, Dougie all had obvious pathways into the team. Hard to improve on them lot with £20m players like they were.

[PaulWinch again]

I get that to an extent, but if you look in wide attacking areas for instance there is plenty of scope to come in and play. I’d argue Rayan could have played wide and probably been more effective back up to Ollie if needed than Tammy. We have felt pretty unimaginative of late.