Proof How Big Aston Villa Are/Should Be | Page 4 | Vital Football

Proof How Big Aston Villa Are/Should Be

But Heaton is not an extreme.

Experienced on the PL and an England international.

Seemed a no brainer to me.
 
Fulford said:
Ings was an example mate.

Buy a team that will stay up and build from that.
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I can't disagree with that mate. This is why I think we hedged bets for all eventualities knowing our future was more grounded regardless. Again this is why Jan is key for me as we can't be conservative now.
 
We would love to be able to do a Chelsea and Man City now and spend a billion or whatever but FFP stops us so we have to try another way to get to that level.

Whether that way works or not who knows but we need to have a go.
 
For all their faults, a Hutton/Whelan/Jedi if they were willing to be sensible with wage and chip in at U23 level would've been an absolute bonus to us and that was another mistake.
 
The Fear said:
Not really, sinking down the well of modern football. I don't get why people can't see what an utter mess this is?

We might scrape survival, hope we do, and push on, hope we do. I might then be more relaxed. But all in all, this season has been a pathetic effort so far and I am not sure I have much faith in it improving.

Not helped by my brain aches maybe, or being told to feck orf by the PL after all those years, that has perhaps tarnished things a little. With that said, I have a better view of the matches now than when I was pitchside and we are a mess formation wise, we run around like kids on a playground all grouped together and poor old Jack is meant to do the job of 2 players. He'll get injured or just burn out having to do that. Coaches should be protecting him.
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I've never known you to be so ascerbic mate :)

I agree, it is a mess but IMO that mess is "planned" to an extent.

I think/hope everything will be an awful lot better in 12 months time and view the recent history as the medicine we need/ed to take.

There was no guarantee, none at all, that we wouldn't do a Leeds/Forest post-Lerner/Xia so I'm very much thankful for small mercies and trying to enjoy our top flight involvement for as long as it lasts.

Frankly, if the PL bubble had popped while we were down there then the AVFC lights could have gone out forever so in that light, our current situation is gravy to me ...

From where we were, I'd give them a 6-7/10 so far but that score may well drop a couple of points if they fook January up - they've just gotta get it right, no excuses.

As alluded to in my big post on page 1, I've very obviously got a different perspective to most (i.e. not short-term/here & now) with what I think is a realistic view on how complicated our situation is/was and the challenge it presents without being able to throw £1/2b at it like Chelski and Citeh.

I've got my doubts about DS and I'm absolutely willing to ship him (and JT) but not before the Summer and I think half of our buys look pretty decent and that's a better than average return on most club's buying.
 
The Fear said:
Said it a 100 times, when Man City started spending, they started spending on PL quality first. They then progressed.

We have done a Fulham.
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To be fair Man City were already established in the top half of the PL after investment from Shinawatra or whatever his name was - they had a massive head start from what our owners took on. It’s difficult to convince top class players to join a newly promoted team who haven’t been good since MON walked out 9 years ago.
 
Fulford said:
Heaton cost us no more than the average goalkeeper.

We didn't need a complete team with PL experience and for example we could have got someone like Ings for less than we paid for Wesley.
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At the beginning of December you would never have made that comparison as Southampton were a basket case. We cannot keep judging everything in isolation. We have taken years to get to this point and it will take a herculean effort to get us back on an even footing.

JF may be correct and we have sufferred from a lack of ambition. The only comparison we should make is with the Bucks. Eden's has invested, chucked out coaches and built success after a few years. We need to give the owners the same opportunities with Villa. As Mike says, put the foundations right, build from there.

This is not excusing the poor showings recently. If we were Norwich I would agree that we did a "Fulham" but we are not and there is still room for optimism. Recruitment will tell us everything we need to know and you may get your "experience". Keep the faith a little longer brother. UTV
 
Oh I'm not saying do the ridiculous spending that Man City or Chelsea did before them, that isn't sustainable and our owners aren't here to do that, they aren't a charity.

Just don't think we have built right at the moment. As Fulford says, build a team to stay up, then push on. That all I am saying.

We have done a Fulham to me, we might get away with it, we might not. As said, those two I name above, might well have brought the steady heads, the fight and the experience needed.

And us constantly taking on the middle range of manager has never worked, we should be able to aim higher, we could if we wanted.

No way am I advocating the massive spending though.

And maybe that is part of the frustration, it is modern £00tball, the thing I loved, is now a mess and I don't see how you ever really compete when some clubs are paying their players £300k a week

We aren't a million miles away from each other... I am more than happy to build medium to long term.

Main difference, although you say you have doubts about Smith as well, is I don't think we've started a re-build very well or properly and results are backing that up.

Hope that turns around with a sensible signing or two, if indeed we are able to sign anyone.

I'm not despondent, I didn't mind the championship, I'm just not seeing a very good stab at re-building is all... at the moment. If we have to go down and start all over again, one thing is clear, people like us will still be there.

Not sure how long I will be able to stand the PL and VAR and all the crap of being also rans though. Probably just another 20 years :lol:
 
garygaryshaw said:
To be fair Man City were already established in the top half of the PL after investment from Shinawatra or whatever his name was - they had a massive head start from what our owners took on. It’s difficult to convince top class players to join a newly promoted team who haven’t been good since MON walked out 9 years ago.
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not sure I said top class, I said players with some PL experience.

I buy your other points mate! It is a rebuild, but I worry we've replace mediocre with mediocre.
 
garygaryshaw said:
To be fair Man City were already established in the top half of the PL after investment from Shinawatra or whatever his name was - they had a massive head start from what our owners took on. It’s difficult to convince top class players to join a newly promoted team who haven’t been good since MON walked out 9 years ago.
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I can absolutely promise you that UAE money will have been "instrumental" in conjuring up FFP after they'd already sunk £100s millions into Citeh - it was not a coincidence that it happened in 2012 after they bought the club in 2008.

It's how big money works - make the play then stimey the competition ...
 
The Fear said:
Oh I'm not saying do the ridiculous spending that Man City or Chelsea did before them, that isn't sustainable and our owners aren't here to do that, they aren't a charity.

Just don't think we have built right at the moment. As Fulford says, build a team to stay up, then push on. That all I am saying.

We have done a Fulham to me, we might get away with it, we might not. As said, those two I name above, might well have brought the steady heads, the fight and the experience needed.

And us constantly taking on the middle range of manager has never worked, we should be able to aim higher, we could if we wanted.

No way am I advocating the massive spending though.

And maybe that is part of the frustration, it is modern £00tball, the thing I loved, is now a mess and I don't see how you ever really compete when some clubs are paying their players £300k a week

We aren't a million miles away from each other... I am more than happy to build medium to long term.

Main difference, although you say you have doubts about Smith as well, is I don't think we've started a re-build very well or properly and results are backing that up.

Hope that turns around with a sensible signing or two, if indeed we are able to sign anyone.

I'm not despondent, I didn't mind the championship, I'm just not seeing a very good stab at re-building is all... at the moment. If we have to go down and start all over again, one thing is clear, people like us will still be there.

Not sure how long I will be able to stand the PL and VAR and all the crap of being also rans though. Probably just another 20 years :lol:
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Well we *cannot* do Citeh-esque spending even if we wanted to, it's simply not possible anymore as they've fixed the game having lifted themselves to the very top.

We cannot and I mean *cannot* judge this on the first six months, it makes no sense at all - we have to give it/DS another 12 months and see where we're at then.

You're right, we cannot compete, literally cannot compete with the top clubs on money alone but that doesn't mean we can't build a base to start moving nearer them over a few years - some of them are wobbling already - Man U/Arsenal so we just need to be better managed than they are to close the gap.

The other point to make, as I've made elsewhere, is that people always look at the current teams around us, especially at smaller clubs, and point the finger but it's just not on to do that, it's too simplistic.

Clubs like Southampton and Wolves will have current teams that are the culmination of years of work, not six months - all we see in their current team now is the wheat, not the bundles of chaff they shipped along the way. We're just starting so the chaff:wheat ratio is bound to be maxed out, there's no way around it!

Moreover, many of those clubs will have 3 years worth of PL FFP qualification and the minimum £100m per season income that goes along with that - we dont, so there's a long tail at play here that's got at least another two years to run until we're on a level footing with those guys - that isn't opinion, it's hard fact.

Managers need 2-3 years to do a proper job and we all know it and decry managers being shipped when they've had 6-12 months in the job, it's just nonsense and subject to performance I'd be a bit pissed off if DS got shipped unless the performance is woeful - he's going to know a sh*tton more about our squad in 12 months time than he does now.
 
This is just history repeating and in all honesty I'm so surprised (maybe I shouldn't be given the short termism nowadays with fans) that so many have not looked at the likes of Veretout, Gana, Adama, Gollini taken a step back from the situation and thought , let's not write players off after half a season. Lets give them time in whatever division we find ourselves in so we don't see Luiz playing in Serie A for Roma, Marvelous playing for PSG , Trez playing for Wolves .....
 
The Fear said:
We've built a championship team, as can be seen the way we are losing consistently and as can be seen today.

You buy PL experience to survive in the PL.

I would be more than happy and respectful of steady progressive building. I don't see what we've built so far.

We are bang average.
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I agree with all of this TBF - I agree nothing has really been 'built', we've attempted to build some sort of foundation but the truth is we don't know yet if it is strong enough to hold up the house. Its not looking very strong but I do think it will gather strength over time.

Inspite of opposing sides in this debate and even in seemingly black/white opinions everyone is kind of right which is what makes this interesting for me. The truth again is somewhere in the middle.
 
I watched up till kodja scored, piss poor slow football. We need a new team but we need to stay up first. Elmahamdy, hurry up, landsbury, jota and kodja are championship players at best. All hands to the pump to stay up with hopefully 4 players at least coming in.
 
CDX_EIRE said:
I agree with all of this TBF - I agree nothing has really been 'built', we've attempted to build some sort of foundation but the truth is we don't know yet if it is strong enough to hold up the house. Its not looking very strong but I do think it will gather strength over time.

Inspite of opposing sides in this debate and even in seemingly black/white opinions everyone is kind of right which is what makes this interesting for me. The truth again is somewhere in the middle.
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The truth is always somewhere in the middle :)

FYI, house foundation concrete pours typically take 28 days to reach full strength, although you can build on them before then if you go easy.

That's just concrete drying/curing though, getting 11 guys who've never met each other before and have just moved abroad to play a game as complex as football can be takes a tad longer than 28 days.

28 weeks sounds about right though.

It is, however, time to start building the house, not just pouring more concrete ...
 
The Fear said:
not sure I said top class, I said players with some PL experience.

I buy your other points mate! It is a rebuild, but I worry we've replace mediocre with mediocre.
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Yeah I wanted some experienced players myself such as Cahill. But I also remember the amount of people on here criticising every time we were linked with a player over 28. Whatever we did, a section of the fans were going to disagree.
I was starting to doubt Deano until he finally changed formation for Burnley, jury is still out for me but hopefully he is going to be far more flexible in his approach to games moving forward. It was only 5 or 6 weeks ago everyone thought Southampton were gone, but they’ve turned it round and are now 12th. I’m just hoping 3 decent signings this January can give us a boost and we can do the same.
 
Melon Donkey said:
This is just history repeating and in all honesty I'm so surprised (maybe I shouldn't be given the short termism nowadays with fans) that so many have not looked at the likes of Veretout, Gana, Adama, Gollini taken a step back from the situation and thought , let's not write players off after half a season. Lets give them time in whatever division we find ourselves in so we don't see Luiz playing in Serie A for Roma, Marvelous playing for PSG , Trez playing for Wolves .....
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This.
 
garygaryshaw said:
Yeah I wanted some experienced players myself such as Cahill. But I also remember the amount of people on here criticising every time we were linked with a player over 28. Whatever we did, a section of the fans were going to disagree.
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The problem for me is not who we bought (apart from my mate Jota obviously) but the fact that they were all bought together with no experienced players to help them .
 
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