Hitchens60 has offered the following thoughts about incomings and outgoings at the club.
Cheers, Hitch.
Now that we’ve secured our immediate premiership future, thoughts turn to next season and the need to strengthen the squad; to bring in that bit of quality that we all recognise is missing.
Before looking at our playing squad, it’s also relevant to consider the management issues, particularly around our transfer strategy last summer – I’ll ignore the January dealings as it’s almost impossible to improve a squad at a sensible price during that window. We tried and, frankly, other than Reina we failed. Suso has gone and I reckon there will be few, if any, Villa supporters shedding tears; rather it’s good to see Purslow and the Villa owners recognising that he really didn’t contribute anything that couldn’t have been achieved by Smith.
Continuity has to be the new mantra at VP, so major changes should, if possible be avoided. Smith should stay and he’s earned that. Whether JT stays I suspect may be down to two factors – does Smith trust him or does he want to move on to management – time will answer those questions. I’ve no doubt we’ll appoint a new DoF but Smith should be directly involved in the choice and his (DoF’s) role needs to be clearly defined. Smith must have the major say in transfers.
Turning to the squad the challenge will be improving it without major surgery – so again continuity is the key. The squad is relatively small which should help in that regard. But, before thinking who should go it’s important that we keep our better players albeit large fees may be tempting for the owners. As I see it, we do need to keep Mings, Grealish, McGinn, Luiz and Konsa in particular.
Who should go – well Drinkwater and Reina are on loan and should return to their clubs (Baston has already departed). However, it would be interesting to get views on Reina returning next season as GK cover assuming we could get him on another loan.
From the current squad – who should go?
Goalkeepers – Nyland and Kalinic but that then leaves us with only two senior GK’s (Heaton and Steer) with uncertainty over the fitness of both – hence my question above regarding Reina or do we splash out on a new keeper – such as Ben Foster from Watford?
Defenders – recognising that we need squad players I am only advocating Engels as a definite. But what about Elmo, Hause, Targett and Taylor? Given that we don’t want to make wholesale changes will age become a deciding factor or should EPL experience be the driver? And what about the forgotten right back James Bree? Chester it seems has been released.
Midfielders – Jota and Lansbury are definite for me. Nakamba I think will be retained as a squad player. Then there’s El Ghazi and Trezeguet – both of whom seem to blow hot and cold. Trezeguet has 7 goals (as does Hourihane) and El Ghazi has 7 assists each of which is second only to Grealish (10 goals and 8 assists) in stats – I can see one of the two moving on particularly given Andre Green to come back from loan. Hourihane is the marmite midfielder but with 7 goals and 7 assists would you keep him?
Forwards seem a little more straightforward – Hogan and Samatta should move on although I could see the latter staying – even though he doesn’t look Premier quality – as I suspect he’s not on a big wage. I see Davis having real potential and would retain him – there was a significant improvement when he replaced Samatta on Sunday.
I started by saying continuity should be the way forward but how do we improve the squad and avoid major surgery? However one looks at it, we are going to need at least five or six new players – let’s hope the owners have deep pockets and we don’t have to fund transfers by selling any of our better players.
I’ll leave it to others with more knowledge than me, to suggest who our targets should be.
I did call this and think it’s an excellent move. Expect JT to move on. Thanks to JT for what he’s done for us but too many conflicts in the EPL
Great move, another huge step to improvements in all personnel.
What a difference staying up is making, possibility of keeping all our best players and being able to compete in the transfer market is not what I thought was going happen before the pandemic.
Brilliant appointment I said they should try him or Pearson though he was more a No1.
I feel great it’s like Xmas come early. Are we really on the way up at last, with his experience we should be a safe mid table or slightly pushing Europa League. Though it rather not bother with that.now let’s get the players joined and it’s upwards we go.
I feel like I’m in the clouds 😂😂 come on villa.
That seems a very good appointment.
Shakespeare lives in Four Oaks and a mate of mine sees him quite often.
Apparently he’s a nice bloke and very down to earth.
He had some big posh car (think it was a gift for Leicester’s league win) and sacked it off because it wasn’t practical.
You’d expect that if Terry isn’t gone imminently, it won’t be long before he is.
I won’t miss him in the slightest, not because I just don’t like him, but because I want our staff to not overtly support another club.
smith has now got all his trusted assistants with him and slowly will get us playing some good sh it now. we ended up playing some good solid football after the covid break. but we still lacked movement and fluency with possession, without the ball we started to look premiership quality. mr Shakespeare will add more expertise to our backroom and in our locker.
we just need to add more quality in the forward areas and depth to our squad
Now the 5 sub covid-time rule has gone, will they be halting these stupid water breaks that are turning the game into quarters? Or have I missed something!?
Being reported that JT is definitely not leaving Villa. Smith quoted as saying he’s staying and the appointment of Shakespeare is to ‘strengthen the back room team’.
If Smith trusts him and wants him to stay then he must feel he adds to the coaching staff. We certainly need to see a big improvement in defence this coming season. And on that note did anyone read the interview with Mings where he said that being called up for England played on his mind, adversely affecting his form and the way he played. He was certainly more like the player we expect to see post lockdown.
I give up . Why are we or the paper’s saying we are interested in Odsonne Edouard, I’ve studied him tonight and Celtic can keep him for me. Another player chasing money at the expense of Villa. He’s a Donkey in discise.
Wouldn’t take any notice of the media – Edouard, Morales, Callum Wilson and Watkins to name but a few that we are ‘interested in’. Common theme is that all of those players are being linked with numerous clubs – most of it is pure fiction.
# disguise. silly text.
Sad news today with the passing of Mike Tindall. A true Villan who played wing half over a 10 year period in the 60’s. Remember watching him play – a no nonsense grafter with more than a little skill.
Joins the growing band of Holte Enders in the Sky
RIP Mike Tindall
And did you see that our new Director of Women’s football Eni Aluko was arrested and appeared in court in Barbados for breaching their quarantine regulations!
What is it with these people?
Remember him well Hitch, a true Villa player. RIP Mike a player I will remember.
OK it’s the media but Rob ‘Mr. Sky’ Dorsett is reporting that we are ‘preparing a bid for Watkins’. Smith feels he can be a big success in the EPL having brought him to Brentford and worked with him there.
Although Benrahma is also mention the impression is that Watkins is our main target.
RIP Mike Tindall! Sad news.
Also good luck to Chessie at Stoke. One of my favourite players for his professionalism and leadership. Shame that injuries prevented him from playing for us in the premier league.
Update on Douglas Luiz.
Citeh’s buy back clause is at £25m – we paid them £15m – and expires next summer. It seems that Villa have to pay Citeh a bonus of £1m as a result of us avoiding relegation.
Reported that Citeh do not intend exercising the buy back this season which is good news.
That is good news. First of lots to come I hope!!!!
Villa tie down Philogene-Bidace to professional contract
Jaden Philogene-Bidace has signed a professional contract with Aston Villa.
The 18-year-old winger has impressed in Villa’s academy setup since joining the club in January 2018.
Having become a key member of the Under-18s side, Philogene-Bidace broke into the Under-23s last season and featured in the EFL Trophy.
He was linked with Arsenal and Manchester City earlier this year while Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich and Dutch champions Ajax were also rumoured to be keen
I’m going to look to post something tomorrow.
God knows what, but I’ll try and think of something. It’s been too long.
I’ve been trying to think of something to write about as well 🙂 It’s easy if you’re a click bait journo – invent a transfer story or apply ‘ground hog day’ with a different misleading banner headline!
Agree Badger too long 😂
What about your thoughts on this forward line up.
Benrharma Watkins rashica with grealish in behind plus mcginn, Louis behind.£80m should do it then maybe another FB and we will have a strong squad.
But this is the villa so probably be too slow and end up with some unknowns again 😖😖😖
That looks very tasty on paper, Roy!
Stupid money, but a reluctant sale of Grealish would cover a big % of that on his own.
If that was all we bought, I’d be ok with it, but still think we need better quality in mid and def too. Having to rely on certain of our players as starters occasionally isn’t good enough, imo.
With Wesley looking like he might be out for a good while (which I have questions about and then there’s the fact that I don’t rate him anyway) I’d still have concerns about the lack of Prem experience upfront, which leaves room for an under the radar old warhorse type striker. Someone proven though and not the likes of Baston, who to my mind was a ridiculous choice, even if we were pretty desperate. I actually wonder if his signing was a reason Suso got the bullet??
Then again, as I’ve pointed out previously, a lack of goals was not the main problem anyway and I wonder how closely Lange and Smith will look at that.
If they do look closely, it wouldn’t surprise me if we didn’t go so overboard on the attack side of things.
Whatever, we need to get on with things. The last thing we want is having to get players to try and gel when the season has already started.
Talking of which, I wonder if we’ll actually get time to play any pre-season friendlies this year?
Heh, now I’ve started a comment, things are coming to mind and I probably would have had enough to write a post about, after all.
I believe Hitchens has got something in the works though and I’ll give him some time first.
I do like it when others write posts as I don’t think it’s particularly healthy to just hear my opinions all the time.
Indeed I always encourage anyone to submit articles. It doesn’t require anything special in creativity and perfect grammar or spelling etc, just the thoughts and I can always clean them up, as required.
What about “Villa in for unsettled Messi”!!!!!
Haha, what a nice thought that is.
Can you imagine?
We’d have to build another tier on the stands to accomodate all the fans who’d want to see him in action.
well next week should see us sign most of our players. i can not believe posters here are not going mad with the potential quality signing Rashica if it does happen. my mates who are more clued up with german footy say he is one step below world class. i watched the youtube stuff and he does look like a very decent player. not to dissimilar to grealish. quick feet loves driving runs into the opposition,
i like Benrharma i am pretty sure he would have been a success had he joined last year. if its only one between him or rashica i would defiantly go with the latter.
another great bit of business i dont think i messaged about the new coach Shakespeare will be great help. could have done with him last season earlier parts, he will bring more know how at this level at the coaching side. luiz staying is another brilliant signing. he was class after the covid restart, i know city fans have been impressed, so them not going to buy him back this summer is massive. they have one last chance next summer for 35 mill. i hate the way cty have been allowed to have this clause if he is a success next season his stock will rise well above 35mill. we should start implementing clauses like this,