Summer Transfer Window (2024/25)

[CarryOnVilla]

2 minutes ago, Philosopher said:

I think they have done some good business. Kilman is a defender Watkins rate as one of the best in the league.

Guido Rodrigez is an a very good dm. They have 2 excellent dm operators in him and Alvarez.

Fulkrug is likely a colossal waste of money, I expect him to flop.

The Brazilian kid could be anything, will need time though for sure.

Summerville is  good player, but I don't see him as huge quality. Will need time also.

Paqueta still facing gambling charges I believe. 

Mixed bag but a couple of good one for the immediate term, and a couple of good longer term investments.

It’s hardly a fate changing window for them. They do about the same as last season 

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

16 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

We're not signing another 8 players

We need 8 more minimum just to equal Douglas Luiz...

[duke313]

5 minutes ago, Jas10 said:

I’d be very surprised if we signed another midfielder, think we are very much done there.

A 10 and RB/CB may be all we do and the current priorities.

Agreed, we won't be signing anymore central midfielders.  Currently we have: McGinn, Tielemans, Onana, Kamara, Ramsey, Barkley, Enzo and Dendoncker.  If Donck leaves towards the end of the window, he can be replaced by Bogarde who will also cover CB. 

[Jas10]

3 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

We need 8 more minimum just to equal Douglas Luiz...

[CarryOnVilla]

5 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

We need 8 more minimum just to equal Douglas Luiz...

we just Need Danny Drinkwater back. Job done 

[The_Steve]

7 minutes ago, Jas10 said:

Is this the West Ham thread or the Aston Villa Summer Transfer Window thread?

Some people need to take their claret and blue specs off. But they aren’t sure for which team. 

[Jas10]

7 minutes ago, duke313 said:

Agreed, we won't be signing anymore central midfielders.  Currently we have: McGinn, Tielemans, Onana, Kamara, Ramsey, Barkley, Enzo and Dendoncker.  If Donck leaves towards the end of the window, he can be replaced by Bogarde who will also cover CB. 

Donk is just excess, we just need to get rid not replace him.

I have faith in Enzo and can see him being involved. Looks to have plenty of quality.

I think Onana & Tielemans is the undisputed starting CM partnership, but Barkley and Barrenechea are good backups/alternatives.

McGinn can fill in if needed but best in other positions and hopefully won’t need to or very rarely.

Bouba will be back too!!

Edited August 8 by Jas10

[Jas10]

1 minute ago, The_Steve said:

Some people need to take their claret and blue specs off. But they aren’t sure for which team. 

[duke313]

2 minutes ago, Jas10 said:

Donk is just excess, we just need to get rid not replace him.

I have faith in Enzo and can see him being involved. Looks to have plenty of quality.

I think Onana & Tielemans is the undisputed starting CM partnership, but Barkley and Barrenechea are good backups/alternatives.

McGinn can fill in if needed but best in other positions and hopefully won’t need to or very rarely.

That's what I meant with Bogarde replacing him, as he's already in the squad lol.

[Jas10]

Just now, duke313 said:

That's what I meant with Bogarde replacing him, as he's already in the squad lol.

Gonna be brilliant to have Bouba back too, him and Onana will be great together.

Youri can be freed up to attack more then too, like we saw last season.

[Jas10]

2 minutes ago, duke313 said:

That's what I meant with Bogarde replacing him, as he's already in the squad lol.

He may end up going on loan again for more minutes and development. Just extended his contract too.

[Jas10]

7 minutes ago, CarryOnVilla said:

we just Need Danny Drinkwater back. Job done 

 

[ozvilla28]

3 hours ago, Kiwivillan said:

Not really. We finished 4th

Won't get away with those defence lapses again.

[ozvilla28]

3 hours ago, allani said:

Not really.  We conceded 10 goals in the first and last matches of the season - the Mings injury and our back 4 not playing together before (and Newcastle being expert at breaking the offside trap) contributed to the first and every player being hungover contributed to the latter.  Take those two results out and our defensive numbers aren't as bad as people make out.  We also had spells when both our LBs were injured, almost all our CBs were out or playing through niggles, etc.  Also our central midfield was unbalanced when Kamara was injured.  That's been addressed over the summer already and we'll be better at defending our back line as a result.  Then also consider that we've added some serious aerial presence and so will be much better equipped to deal with set pieces this season.  If we can stop as many crosses coming in from our right (Cash / Konsa last season) then that will help too.

We've already addressed several areas that impacted us last season.  I'd like to see us replace Carlos with someone more consistent and more aligned to the way we play or someone who is good in the air so that we can switch things up when we play teams who like to play a lot of aerial balls into the box.  But we've got the best goalkeeper in the world and an international defender to return so we've not come close to playing our starting XI for West Ham yet.  So drawing too many conclusions on pre-season when we've been playing our second / third / fourth choice keeper and third choice CB partnership is a bit weird.  Just as if we'd kept 5 clean sheets I wouldn't suggest that we should all be celebrating that we've got the best defence in the league.

I'm hearing you. Through you can't concede like we we're doing last second half of year way to easy lapses and high balls. Sooner or later won't get away with it.

[Villaphan04]

1 hour ago, striker said:

Wharton would be my choice.

signing him would signal that either Kamara’s injury is worse than originally thought or that we’re selling another first team midfielder (McGinn/Tielemans)… there’s no way we break our transfer record AGAIN this summer for another midfielder. He’s also going to expect to start most matches so that’s another first team midfielder who’ll expect first team.

If we do drop 70M+ on him, where does that leave us in terms of buying another CB (that I think we all agree we need)? 

[allani]

27 minutes ago, ozvilla28 said:

I'm hearing you. Through you can't concede like we we're doing last second half of year way to easy lapses and high balls. Sooner or later won't get away with it.

Yeah I agree.  But I think we've already made steps to address that.  We will be better at defending set pieces for sure - Onana, Enzo and Barkley all have very good aerial challenge stats.  Emi B wins a lot of headers despite his size.  We will be better in both boxes in this regard.  A few goals came from poor positioning from the second phase / second ball - which is all stuff that can be trained / reviewed on video / etc.  Plus we're more likely to then have Pau or Konsa dealing with the second ball rather than the first ball.  I think that Ned and Maatsen will be much stronger FBs - they seem to have the pace to recover situations and I think they'll stop more crosses coming in - or at least more dangerous crosses coming in that are harder for the CBs to deal with.

I don't know how Mings is doing and how much / how early he will be available - but presumably that is something that our medical and coaching staff do know and are informing Emery and the coaching team on the situation.  The little news that does leak out seems more positive than not - but that might be wishful thinking.

I do think we will see another CB arrive as it looks like Carlos is likely to depart (if you assume that he's not been left out because of a niggle) - I was really excited about him before he signed but he's flattered to deceive.  He's not good enough in the air, he's suspect on the ball and he plays a very risky game with his "physicality" - always looks like he is on the brink of giving away a really silly foul / card and is more interested in wrestling his man than playing the ball.  I also think Konsa kept moving between RB and CB too much and so got caught out positionally a few times.  If / when we recruit I hope that that means that Konsa plays 80%+ of the time in the same position.

That said I think we will concede more goals with the way that Emery wants us to play.  Our passing out of defence is risky - it has to be in order for the plan to work and for the opposition to over-commit and allow us to exploit the space they leave behind.

Last season we scored 76 and conceded 61 which is still a goal difference of 15.  This was a better goal difference than any of the teams in the top 12 who finished below us except Newcastle (+23).  Our 61 goals shipped was also better than all of those teams with the exceptions of Man Utd and Palace (both of whom scored 20 goals fewer than us).  If you exclude the last game when basically most of the players looked like they could see four balls then our defensive numbers compared to those teams improve significantly.

If you compare our numbers with the previous season we scored 51 and conceded 46.  So we've scored 25 more goals and conceded 15 more.  That's still a huge positive gain.  We are more likely to win 2-1 than 1-0 under Emery - that's the way we play.

Also worth remembering that (I think) we still "dropped" the fewest points from a leading position of any team in the league last season.  There was more an issue of buttoning down the hatches when we went a goal down and making sure that we kept ourselves in the match rather than going two or three down.  I think part of that was down to losing control in other parts of the pitch and I do think that with the likes of Onana, Enzo, Barkley, etc - we will be better able to avoid being over-run in the middle of the pitch.

Final point.  In 2022/23 - if you ignore the relegated teams only three teams conceded more than 60 goals in the league (Spurs, Bournemouth and Forest).  Last season if you ignore the top 3, only three teams conceded fewer than 60 (United, Palace and Everton) all of whom scored 20 goals fewer than us.  So there were ridiculously more goals scored in general last season across the league.  Our defensive numbers don't jump out as being an anamoly against the other teams hunting for CL places.  Indeed our goals for / goals against is remarkably similar (Newcastle score more / Utd concede fewer). 

The issue is more - how can anyone catch the Top 3 who scored 10-15 goals more and conceded 20-25 goals fewer?

[macandally]

4 hours ago, KAZZAM said:

Geertruida also bad in the air so yeh atleast we will have a theme in the backline. 

Still prefer to move Ezri there and have Kosta as backup whilst buying a top RCB to improve our aerial prowess. 

Yeah, apparently only 97th percentile (whatever that means!)

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

1 hour ago, ozvilla28 said:

Won't get away with those defence lapses again.

I'm legit starting to think Unai sees defenders as first line attackers  

[PaulMcGrath_5]

2 minutes ago, macandally said:

Yeah, apparently only 97th percentile (whatever that means!)

As in only 3% are better.

[macandally]

3 minutes ago, PaulMcGrath_5 said:

As in only 3% are better.

So definitely not good in the air if 3% of players are better!  

 

#sarcasm! 

Edited August 8 by macandally