Aston Villa made their first signing of the January transfer window and it was former Norwich striker, Grant Holt, 32. There have been mixed opinions in regards to this signing, usually I’m on the positive side, supporting Lambert and his signings. But this time, I reckon he’s crossed the line. Holt was brought in to cover Kozak, who has been ruled out for the remainder of the season. The fact is, Holt offers nothing different to what Villa already have. He doesn’t offer a new dimension nor will be able to change the style of play off the bench. He is really slow, sluggish, strong, tall and that’s about it. What we have essential done is re-sign Emile Heskey from Wigan.
What bothers me the most is that Lambert had already signed a good striker in the summer, Niklas Helenius. The Dane is yet to start a League game but has already halved Holt’s goal tally for the season! That single goal against Sheffield United is half of what Holt has achieved in over 12 games. Plus, in my honest opinion, I reckon, as a player Helenius offers much more than Holt. Helenius has technical ability, good vision, tall, strong and can score a goal. The arrival of Holt has just dropped Helenius lower in the pecking order. I’ll admit, Holt is experienced, however I still think it would benefit Aston Villa in the long-run if we gave Helenius a chance.
Aston Villa haven’t scored many goals this season so it’s fair to say why Lambert wanted to sign a new striker on loan. But the problem lies elsewhere. Aston Villa have no left-winger nor attacking midfielder. These are the two positions that I want Lambert to focus on. What’s the point of having several forwards if we have no players to create. There isn’t much service for these forwards. If Lambert can bring in a much more needed player, then the signing of Holt won’t be looking as bad.
Overall, I do wish Holt well though, if he can score a goal or two that would be considered a success. Our last loan signing during January was Robbie Keane and he was a huge success. Keane scored 3 goals and provided 1 assist in 7 appearances. I doubt that Holt will be able to make such an impact but hopefully the least he could do is give the younger players some advice and be an example, that’s what experience is for right?
How much did we actually spend in the summer?probably not as much as saints did on one player me thinks.
good question i would love 2 know ~ i can’t remember i bet it was under 20 mill
can any1 tell us how much we spent on the 7 signings
another good question gardner ~ he must be better than kea ~ another that was already here plus better than wots been playing
In: Libor Kozak (Lazio, £7m), Jores Okore (Nordsjaelland, £4m), Leandro Bacuna (Groningen £3m), Aleksander Tonev (Lech Poznan, £2.5m), Antonio Luna (Seville, £2m), Nicklas Helenius (Aalborg, £1.2m rising to £2m), Liam Prynn (Torquay, £50,000), Jed Steer (Norwich, Free).
Out: Barry Bannan (Crystal Palace, £1m), Courtney Cameron (Torquay, Free), Brett Holman (Al Nasr, Free), Eric Lichaj (Nottm Fst, Free), Jean Makoun (Rennes, Free), Derrick Williams (Bristol City, Free), Graham Burke (Shrewsbury, Loan), Richard Dunne (QPR, Free), Andrew Marshall (Millwall, Free), Darren Bent (Fulham, Loan), Samir Carruthers (MK Dons, Loan), Nathan Delfouneso (Blackpool, Loan), Enda Stevens (Notts County, Loan), Stephen Ireland (Stoke, Loan).
Released: Calum Barrett, Joshua Barton, Daniel Devine.
Cheers mate so 20mil give & take a few quid.so it’s not a deficeit breaking amount to a billionaire then.so it’s more of a quantity not quality thing.fuck me it’s certainly showing.
Nath, your mentioned transfer fee´s are not right. As we learned a few days ago, we paid much less for Bacuna (less than a million). Don´t know if my fee is right but it should be more realistic than yours.
them figures i found on web, i put how much did aston villa spend summer 2013 ~ i was wondering along with giddy ~ a few ppl are suggesting the figures were inflated by media’s
Nath it was about £40 million…..but that’s including Faulkener’s supply of pies for a week.
lmao b6
Makoun (Rennes, Free) this guy joined for 8 mil and hes allowed 2 go for nothing not good business
Nope he joined for €5 mill (euros not pounds and i believe we did recoup a small fee. also, lambert has already said the figures in the press were way out and Bacuna and Luna were around the £800k mark, along with Lowton and some others who’s fees were greatly exaggerated. In fairness to Lambert the £40 million is a complete myth, he’s not spent anywhere near that
also worrying, delph and albrighton are the best of the midfield. they were already ere 🙁 bacuna i av hope 4. but who plays the left midfield they need 2 be defensively minded as behind them lays a mistake ready 2 happen
i am really worried / we are sightly better than last year suggest the statistics, but playing badly, also lambert has been saying he needs 2 /3 experience heads in holt is one ?? mixed messages unless the nxt 2 will be loans
What’s happened to Gardener?
Hull have done some good business signing Jelavic and Long (if they get him). Would have loved to have both of them down VP.
BWS..Jelavic only scored 8 goals in 43 starts mate. Season before last, Holt 12 in 38 starts…just saying! not forgetting that Jelavic was also playing for a much better team!
Fuck off Lerner and Red Bull, the Villa is OURS
He also got 27 in 71 games for Rapid Vienna ans 30 in 45 for the Gers, he always looked pretty decent to me.
Everton a much better team? Perhaps now but not so much under Moyes.
I’m assuming Holt is cheap, will be Lambert’s man in the dressing room and is better at bringing down long balls than Benteke.
I’d like to see more of Helenius and I think against Arsenal Donacien should have come on to replace Baker to maintain the starting formation if that’s what Lambert was planning to play for the whole first half. We needed five at the back if we weren’t going to take the fight to Arsenal. As it was, two mistakes and they scored from both.
I digress. I think we have some promising players in the squad already like Gardner, Donacien and Helenius and they should all be either played or if Lambert would rather play people out of position than bring in new blood (think Baker at LB – why not bring back Stevens – or Lowton at CB when Donacien is available) send them out on loan. Grealish shows great promise, if he’s not coming back now for the first team it’s good news he’s out there playing competitively so we can sell Tonev at the first opportunity. Actually, I think when Grealish comes in Tonev should go out on loan.
We’ll have to wait and see about Holt, it might be that Lambert can get him fit and playing properly and he’ll play for his old gaffer. Presumably he is cheap enough that if it doesn’t work out Lambert can play anyone but Helenius in that striker role.
Oh and Bacuna for a trial as AM. Yup, I know it will never happen but what the hell.
Thought the same thing Foxy about the shift in formation. Another CB may have prevented the two goals we conceded, particularly the first one. What’s the point of a CB on the bench if you’re not going to use him even if a CB gets injured? Not the first time either I think. Changing the formation when we didn’t have to shows a lack of trust in certain players. Same as playing players out of position just to have them on the field.
The team seems to be playing not to concede too many. We only had a go at Arsenal when Weimann came on, and they looked vulnerable at the back. Without the ability to break down teams with clever play and incisive passing we can only really do it by getting men forward and players being positive. The team needs to be more bold and that has to come from the manager. He was brought in to return us to a more positive style of play after McLeish but it looks like his bottle has gone.
For f,.’-k sake are we a charity shop, all them went for sod all, we must be the best thing since sliced bread to the league, I’m now pissed off, I have a thing now watching other games how many teams have our one time players, we are run by idiots dopes and lunatics. No wonder we get abuse ever game we play now.
A combination of end of bosmans, low earners shifted off the books and the curious case of Lihaj, Holman and especially Makoun. Having said that Holman cost us nothing and none of them set the league on fire did they? Only Bannan remains in the PL.
How embarrassing for get the rights and wrongs of whether Holt is a good signing. Having just read the quotes attributed to Holt shows the club in its try light an embarassment. Firstly I question whether Holt actually said those words. I assume Villa PR machine is responsible. Quotes mention TRANSITION (again suurely the longest transition in history) also mentions experienced quality players already at club. To me this shows the contempt Lerner and his team have for he supporters. That said it appears the majority of Villa fans can not be bothered to hold Lerner accountable instead they continue handing him money. Theses so called fans will destroy the club. Lerner out
Ted im one you can most certainly guarantee won’t be lining that dam yankee’s pocket until things change at the villa however long it takes i for won’t be attending games.
Ted..your an ignorant twat mate..check whar I put about Lerner instead of ignoring it..you seem to live in your own little world. Plenty of people on here slating Lerner. Stop making thigs up..its child like!
If their sold off for fuck all where’s the agents cut?
well since in we are the mood to speculate a little i believe we spent less than what is mentioned above.
kozak for instance is rumoured to be a very heavily structured fee 4m approximately up front and add-ons and conditionals to bring it to the reported 7m
I heard 1.5 for luna
on top of that,
the reported loan fee for Bent has been put anything from 4- 6m
there was a loan fee for makoun too in the region of 2m or even 2m per season) reportedly
and of course there was a loan fee for Ireland but i never heard any figures being mooted
I think fees generally tend to get inflated in the press ( thanks tabloid journalism .. lol i have seen the same paper run the same rumour story 3 times in 2 weeks and each time the fee increased by 2m)
but there you go.
Completely off topic, this is a very well put together article and well worth reading
http://www.thisisanfield.com/2014/01/opposition-analysis-aston-villa/?
very interesting read it was
personally i don’t believe theres a rite or wrong way 2 play~ u play 2 win and our tactics are basic but so are our players ~ man for man pool win so playing short passes through midfield and on the ground, pass and move little give and goes isn’t playing 2 ur strengths
albeit our style is boring but its affective ~ if one day we had quality in midfield maybe we will play sumat similar JUST maybe
Don´t see much wrong with Holt. Yes, with Benteke and Helenius we do have 2 big target men but if Benteke is injured all the burden would lay on inexperienced Helenius. So, the loan of Holt makes sense and is a short term matter. Btw, the record of Holt with Wigan isn´t important for me – PL will know what he can bring to our team.
ok, will do. its not looking too promising at the minute though is it?
I really hope you guys are right and we have something up our sleve because I don’t think the current set up is up to survival, really had hoped we wouldn’t be struggling with relegation battles again this season.
(soz don’t know why my above post has popped up here, was a reply to Langford saying that we still intend to strengthen and there is still a couple of weeks left)
***** just a reminder **** sky subscribers can watch Villa play Liverpool live in 4th rd FA Youth Cup***** sky channel 429……Grealish starts for Villa *****
Stop bragging just cause I’ve thrown my sky in last week, I’ve got BT Sports 1_2 plus ESPN .
Lol Bill… Got 2 Villa tattooes as well. Lambert is at the game its 15 mins gone 0 – 0
Liverpool on top…defending is shite from Villa..18 mins Liverpool 1 up…..great goal!
1 – 1 own goal..Grealish playing as no 10… Very comfortable on the ball
cheer up VILLA fans
things could be worse lmao oh yeah they could
we could be southampton fans ~ every man tea leady and rats are jumping ship
VTID
pool 2 aston villa 3
Langford is it 1-1 or 2-3 like nath says it’s thrown me out now.
sorry giddy lmao i mean on saturdays game not 2nites lol
anyone know where i can get a link 4 2nites game
Just searched couldn’t find one unless you pay Liverpool.
hey that Scouser chick is a bit of alright
Nath have you found one ?
only just seen ur message
its finished 3 1 pool i wouldn’t be allowed 2 post the link ??