The following is kindly offered by Big Fat Ron. Cheers fella.
The new season is hurtling towards us and the talk has not surprisingly turned to team selections and new signings.
Two key questions that have popped up recently are can Buendia and Coutinho play together and does Gerrard even need any more new recruits. The consensus seems to be “no” to the former and “yes” to the latter. However, the opposite may well be true. Coutinho and Buendia should and must play together and no, as things stand, Gerrard doesn’t need any more new recruits.
Let’s begin with Coutinho and Buendia. The most basic rule of picking a football team is you pick your best players. These two are probably the two best players at the club.
A recent comment was made about not enough chances being created.
With these two in the team, the man up top will have so many chances, they will have a problem in that if they don’t put a large percentage away, they will take a lot of flak, and rightly so. Through-balls and defence splitting passes will be in plentiful supply. There is absolutely no reason why they can’t play together, one on each side of the main striker, switching positions, dropping deep and causing absolute terror and mayhem amongst opposition defences.
Not starting with two outstanding footballers who can unlock defences would be a massive mistake on Gerrard’s part.
The next one is do we need a striker? To answer this, we need to establish if a striker is available that is better than what we have. The answer is most probably “no”.
Ings is one of the best finishers in the league, without doubt – an instinctive finisher who can score from anywhere. Dare I say, he should be first choice?
Watkins is arguably proven at PL level and his work rate often gets him plaudits, but doubts remain about his goal ratio, despite some interesting comments recently about the proportion of chances he converts. If Buendia and Coutinho were to start with him, he would have no excuses to not bag a minimum of 20 league goals.
Then there is Archer. There is a feeling that this young man could well be a better finisher than both the men apparently ahead of him in the pecking order. I wonder how tempted Gerrard is to start him. A front three of Archer, Coutinho and Buendia could well yield phenomenal results far beyond our wildest dreams. Then there is Bailey and Traore as top-notch impact subs (based on their injury problems) to replace either wide-man at either point. Wow. That is some serious firepower and creativity.
So if we don’t need a striker, are there any other weak positions? To answer that, it’s useful to ascertain if the manager has two top class first elevens to select from. We might be surprised by the answer. In goal, two internationals. Nothing needed there. In central defence, Mings, Carlos (probably the first choice pairing), as well as Konsa, Hause, and Chambers. The depth is there. There is an argument to upgrade Hause with a world class player to play alongside Carlos. But is he out there? And would he come? The full-backs: Digne – world class? And Cash – top class? Both now established internationals, ably supported by Young and Augustinsson, both vastly experienced with international pedigree. A good word for Freddy Guilbert, who has always shown to have all the attributes Gerrard likes in a full-back: tigerish in the tackle and capable of assists for the forwards – has chipped in with the odd goal, too. Surely, worth a squad number and some cup games? Not to mention Kessler-Hayden. Bar a world class centre-back, the back line looks extremely strong.
Now it gets interesting: the midfield. Similar to the other areas, of course, if a world class talent that was gettable came up, by all means…But the talent in midfield is there. Let’s assume Gerrard will play with one holding midfielder. That is now Kamara’s spot to lose. Behind him are Nakamba and the ever impressive Iroegbunam. Not to mention the versatile Chambers as an option. That’s at least three defensive midfielders of quality. So even if Gerrard wanted to go with two for tougher away games, the depth is there.
That leaves two more places for the main engine-room in front of Kamara and behind the front three. Surely, we need look no further than Ramsay and McGinn? Energy, dynamism, combativeness, creativity, goals – all there. With world class players in front and strong back-up behind. Challenging for those two spots will be Luiz, Sanson, Aaron Ramsay, and the other defensive midfielders who could potentially play higher up. There is a strong argument that an upgrade for Sanson is definitely doable. Other than that, the midfield is not short of talent or depth.
To conclude, a stating eleven of Martinez, Cash, Digne, Mings, Carlos, Kamara, McGinn, Ramsay, Buendia, Coutinho, and…what the heck, Archer, looks a mouth-watering proposition.
The only question that remains and will no doubt be debated no-end in the next nine months, is can Steven Gerrard get this hugely talented team and squad to fire Villa to cup glory and European qualification? Because that has to be the target.
UTV
A tactical note to start the season. The people who really know where Villa’s weaknesses lie are the analysts our opponents employ.
One example from the match v MUFC. Matty Cash does not tackle a winger just outside our box, because he thinks whichever way the winger goes he will catch him. A wing-back overlaps behind the winger and receives the pass – he is going too fast for Cash to catch him and puts in a cross from which MUFC score.
The counter measure would involve either Villa having a right midfielder who tracks the wing back, or Konsa reading the move and tackling the wing back himself. Neither Villa player who could have done this was in position. What you can guarantee is Brighton will have done their homework and will put Villa to the test behind Cash in a copycat move..
Bournemouth not Brighton.
If Maddison is available in the region of £50m – £60m we should be all over that in my opinion. If Newcastle get him that would be a top signing. He is just the player we need to push on another level.
BBC saying Leicester want £60m for Maddison – can’t see us going for that unless we can raise some cash through sales.
Maddison?
No thanks.
Maddison? Yes, good player and we’d certainly have loads of top mid attackers then!
In other news, Archer is going to stay with the first team squad, which will hopefully mean lots of minutes when our current “strikers” strike out.
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/steven-gerrard-makes-cameron-archer-24644545
SG was quoted several times during the last few weeks about having a ‘bloated squad’, which makes me think that we’d have to shift maybe 4-5 players out (and actually receive some money for them for a change-) before we bring anyone else in.
Maddison would be a good choice, but I can’t see it happening at all unless (say) we sold Luiz for £25-£30m; even then I could see him ending-up at one of the London or Manchester clubs for £60m+
So Chukwumeka is off to Chelsea. He won’t get in their first team and I guess they will loan him out. Not sure he’s making the right choice but as soon as he goes we move on. TBF he didn’t come through our youth and we nicked him from Northampton so take the money.
So Chelsea have agreed a fee with Villa to sign Chukwuemeka for a reported £15-£20m. Good riddance is all I can say. He might end up being a quality player but making demands when he hasn’t proven anything other than good performances for the England U19’s was laughable. He needs to reign his neck in and enjoy his loan spells in the championship now he has joined Chelsea. It was getting too much of a distraction and I’m pleased Gerrard put his foot down. We had enough speculation with Grealish last summer which impacted our season.
If we receive £15-20m for Carney Chukwuemeka then excellent! It means we have sold between £33-36.5m worth of player this year and bought £49m. Looks like we are now moving into an era where our transfer business is starting to become sustainable.
Well done to Villa for moving CC on. If the demands made in the press are true then if the board accepted them it would wreck the future of our grow your own approach.
Let’s see if he can play in more than 13 Premier matches next year with the enlarged subs rule. CC may well go on to bigger and better, but his values do not match Villa’s. Goodbye.
We currently hold the British transfer record for established player sold. Will this be a record for a non established first team let under 20 player sold?
I can’t get my head around that price.
I suppose it’s all about potential and Chucky does have boatloads.
I suspect he’ll just end up the latest in a line of “if onlys” though.
Some very decent players can’t get in the Chelsea side, so Chucky will have to go some to even get a chance.
And given that he showed extremely little for us when actually given minutes I can only wish him the best of luck.
I couldn’t care less about him going to be honest.
Given how long we’ve had him, it’s great business.
I just hope Northampton had a decent sell-on clause and make a similar sort of killing out of him.
Absolutely agree.
He has been hyped beyond anything that he’s actually shown against PL opposition.
Take the money and forget him…
He had opportunities at Aston Villa but didn’t deliver. I think in a season or two he would have done but he is clearly impatient. It might ruin his career but I would prefer he reaches his potential. Life is too short to hold grudges and no one can see what he thinks and what advice he is getting.
We have enough to get excited about to just let it go imho.
Do you think we have finished our transfer business (in)?
I would expect that’s just given us a bit more room for signings and we can maybe push the boat out a bit more than we would have otherwise, DS.
My guess is we want another one or two in, but are willing to wait until other clubs get more desperate.
There’s noone who stands out as a massive improvement over anything we have at reasonable prices, imo.
What’s the odds he’ll be loaned out to the likes of West Brom?
Chelsea will loan him out guaranteed – that’s what they do. They acquire young players with potential just to control the market.
If Gallagher can’t get a game at Chelsea what chance young Chukweumeka?
No one is bigger than our club – good luck to him; I suspect he’s going to need it.
I have a feeling it’s more about his wage demands than game time. Surely he must think he would get more chances of playing at Villa than Chelsea! When you look at someone like Ross Barkley with the world at his feet playing for Everton and how things have turned out for him.
Bad advice from his greedy agent(s) wanting their fat cut, Holte, I’d suggest.
That said, even if you cut the rumoured £100k a week in half, he’ll still be pulling £50k a week.
£2.5 mill a year x 4(?) contract = £10 million
Or, made for life at the age of 22, with another 10 years of playing left in him, if he stays fit.
Greedy or just laughing all the way to the bank and emminently sensible?
Would you knock back that sort of guaranteed deal for a promise of ifs, buts and maybes?
Contracts in the hand pay the bills.
Promises don’t.
Or, in plain English, the days of being a god for your club don’t matter anymore 🙁
The “controlling the market” thing came to my mind too.
I’m convinced that’s all Man City were doing when they signed you know who.
I’m actually okay with that policy, tbh, as long as they pay way over the odds.
If dubious club owners with more money than sense want to spread their money about they have done with just two of our players, I say bring it on.
In a perverse way, it actually helps the game in getting spread about.
That’s an interesting thought Badger and might explain why Grealish has struggled since his move.
Perhaps they’d like to loan him back to us 🙂
Well, I think it’s universally accepted that JG doesn’t suit the Man City style of play.
Many Villa fans said it too, although in all honesty, I thought he had the abilty to adapt.
I don’t think Gerrard would want him, tbh.
Coutinho and Grealish wouldn’t work, imo.
JG slows the play down too much
( imo). All the ability in the world but dallies on the ball far too long – He would do well to heed the words of the late great Bill Shankly
“If you’re not sure what to do with the ball, just pop it in the net and we’ll discuss your options afterwards.’
Just to move on from Chukwuemeka who has had more than enough news coverage IMO. How about predictions for the season ahead?
I’ll start the ball rolling with below.
1) Liverpool
2) Tottenham
3) Man City
4) Arsenal
5) Chelsea
6) Man Utd
7) Newcastle
8) West Ham
9) Leicester
10) Aston Villa
11) Crystal Palace
12) Wolves
13) Brighton
14) Brentford
15) Everton
16) Southampton
17) Nottingham Forest
18) Leeds
19) Fulham
20) Bournemouth
I don’t think we are going to get a European place if I’m honest. We will need another season or two and plenty more investment to have a chance. Unfortunately I think there is now a top 7 elite group being established.
I think I predicted 13th, last time out.
This time I predict 12th at best, given that I don’t see Gerrard as the answer.
And I don’t see how the top 7 is set in stone either.
I’m not convinced about Newcastle at all.
Tottenham for second is interesting too. I think they’ll be lower.
Man U is the real puzzler. I can see them having a disastrous season. There seems someting majorly wrong there and it’s toxic.
Otherwise, I don’t think you’re too far off.
Dirty Leeds relegated would make me happy, but there are some poor sides this time, so they’ll probably scrape it again.
I can imagine us at around 8th.
Leicester seem to be preparing to sell their best players to balance the books, and I think it’s far too soon for Newcastle’s new money to push them up to 7th this season.
Can’t see Spurs finishing higher than Citeh, either.
As for Badger’s point about ManUre, I think it could go either way: maybe the new manager gets them off to a rocketing start, but fundamentally, I share the belief that there is something terminally in decline there and the ongoing saga of Ronaldo is just another symptom.
Holte – I agree with your top five and to (mis)quote the great Eric Morecambe ‘they’re all the right teams but not necessarily in the right order’ 🙂
Villa’s stated objective is to become the best of the rest following which they can make a serious assault on the top six (if you include Manure). To do that in this coming season, we need to be competitive with the likes of West Ham, Wolves, Newcastle and possibly Crystal Palace – I’ve omitted Leicester given their publicly stated need to balance the books which may well make this a challenging season for them.
Bournemouth seem most people’s favourites for a quick return; after that perm anyone from four or five although I’d be surprised to see Leeds relegated. Second season syndrome might be a big factor for Brentford.
Is Gerrard the answer? For me there still seems to be something wrong in midfield – the first half of the friendly against Man Utd looked suspiciously like last season with their attack walking through our mid field. I’m not convinced Kamara is the defensive mid we’ve been missing nor by the link up play between Coutinho and Watkins / Ings.
I’ll be semi positive and go for 10th – will that be good enough to keep Gerrard past next summer?
Holte, that is a sound list you have put up. I have my eye on some serious flops, all relative to expectations. Leicester * see below. Everton, Chelsea, Newcastle. And Improvers, Arsenal, possibly Villa. Bournemouth start with 2 key players injured and 3 CL teams in their 1st 4, but I expect them to avoid relegation.
* No cash. The Covid slump in tourism means King Power airport shops are bleeding cash and they still have to stump up to the Thai king the ransom he demands. It isn’t generally know but the Foxes need a fire sale.
Brendan Rodgers has admitted several times that they need to ‘balance the books’ ; you’ve just explained why.
I’d never looked into their owner’s funding, just sort of assumed it had something to do with Thai food!
I expect Newcastle will spend the money to snap-up a couple of Leicester’s finest, although personally I doubt that the spending will actually do much in terms of their league position.
Leicester are looking in a very precarious position,a situation there reminds me of the last death throes of Lerner era.
Relegation?
Worth a little flutter at 14/1.
Leicester selling some of their top players will make me reevaluate their league position. I do think Rodgers is a top manager and the owners don’t want to lose him. They do have a number of youngsters like ourselves who could step up but it might be a transitional year for them. I would be surprised to see them near the relegation zone.
As for Villa, we need to get off to a good start. Last season against promoted Watford we all expected an easy win and crashed to a humiliating defeat. Also a win against Bournemouth wouldn’t mean too much either. Remember what happened the last time we beat Bournemouth first game of the season! 🙄
As RSS says, Leicester’s position does smell of Lerner’s last year or two; It’s one thing expecting one or two promising youngsters to come through, but they’ve already lost Schmiecal, and seem to be wating for the right offers for two or three other big names.
Replacing three or four of your best players (especially with the season already about to start) at one go is not going to be easy – however good the manager might be.
I see them struggling this season – if they avoid the drop it’ll be because there are some really duff teams in the division (Fulham, Everton, etc,)
Hitch
I agree with you about our midfield. I think Kamara as defensive midfielder will be good. I actually think the problem revolves around McGinn. I was expecting to see a new midfielder replace him. As he has been made captain he would be virtually undropable. I expected Kamara, Ramsey + 1 upgrade, McGinn is inconsistent. If he were on the bench that would really show a level of depth.
Another concern is the formation played. It seems when we play 4-3-3 we are quite good. However, SG seems to like one with either 2 strikers or one striker and 2 No. 10s. Every time this occurs team cut through us like a hot knife through butter.
Finally our strikers. I’d give Watkins and Ings until Christmas to show what we need. If not, then the club need to be ruthless. I hope Archer steps up when opportunities come his way.
Overall I would like to see a box to box midfield upgrade on McGinn and a new quality striker, selling Ings in the process.
Then I think we could put pressure on 6/7th spot.
Good call on McGinn Sid.
I hope you’re right about Kamara but having watched him in the friendlies, particularly against Man Ure and Rennes, he was poor defensively.
I’m no expert but it seems to me that the problem with Coutinho and Watkins / Ings is that the latter two spend too much time coming back towards the ball and seem to end up treading on Coutinho’s toes – Gerrard needs to sort that out. Archer, on the other hand, is more likely to be sitting in and around the box more giving Coutinho room to creat chances for him.
I’m bothered about our goal scoring capabilities. Watkins misses too many good chances and I don’t think that will change. Ings goal return is less than I expected. I’m not sure Archer is ready to deliver consistently but that remains to be seen.
Considering we have Coutinho, Buendia, Bailey, Ramsey, McGinn and Luiz behind those forwards I would expect a better return.
Not sure what the answer is other than a better finisher
Agree with most of that, but I’m hoping that Archer is a born goal-scorer!
I think he could turn out to be the next Gary Shaw – although it might take a little time to get up to speed in the Premier League!
Archer, yes, i do believe he is a natural goal scorer and i think we will see big things this season.
Archer has signed a five year contract – another good bit of business and shows the club is committed to support its best young players despite Chukweumeka’s actions.
DS – you make a very good point about the talent in our midfield and they need to look at themselves closely. We can criticise the strikers – that’s easy – but the reality is we just don’t create enough chances. More chances – more goals.
I think there was a stat that showed that Kane misses more XG’s than he scores but Spurs regularly create a lot of chances.
Compare & contrast (as they used to say on exam papers-): Archer, who’s managed to actually ‘do’ something pretty-well every time he’s been in the first team; Chuk, who’s always promised much, but rarely seemed to ‘do’ anything interesting when he was given a place…
Personally I’m delighted that they’ve got the kid to sign up for another 5 years.
Aaron Ramsey signs contract extension and goes out to Norwich on a season long loan. Another sensible piece of business.