Do Aston Villa know what they're doing?

schrutebucks wrote:

donttreadonred wrote:Case in point: Would you want to rely on these two in the middle of a relegation fight?

Seeing as they were in a relegation fight two months ago and both came up huge for Villa, I'd say that yes would be my answer.

I'm obviously not proclaiming them as wonderkid cornerstones for Villa to build around, just to clarify, just extremely intelligent, cheap, successful signings by the club.

They did perform well, but to say they're the reason they stayed up... :hmm:That argument is dubious at best.

Villa stayed up because of their results in weeks 32, 33, 35, and 36 (Stoke away, Fulham home, Sunderland home, Norwich away). In those 4 games, Agbonlahor and Benteke came up big with 4 goals apiece. Now, it would be naive to suggest that goals are the only contributing factor to a successful relegation fight, but they certainly don't hurt. 8 goals from two players sounds pretty darned influential to me. They are the two players I want to rely on in such a situation.

I get that these two aren't meant to "save the world", and I agree that they are both intelligent and frugal signings. However, Villa had turnover all over the pitch, and they are only buying young, under-valued players from lower leagues. In that situation, it seems the reasonable expectation for continued success would be a few "Lowton's" and "Westwood's" and a raft of other players that take longer to, or maybe never,  make the jump to that level. Is that really good enough? I know what my answer would be.

As for the “promotion is a positive” argument, I simply can’t see that. I personally believe it would set Lambert’s project back at least a season, making it all the more likely they would not make it up the first year and creating more and more difficulty each season they failed to make the jump.  Should Villa get relegated, you had best believe other Premier League clubs would come in for the talent remaining in Villa’s team. The young players that made the jump to Premier League level will be targeted, leaving only the unsuccessful cases. Sure, they could still come good, but they will have to go out and bring in another crop of youngsters to just below the level of quality they actually need. In this situation you’re relying on the palyers that didn’t really cut it in the Premier League, hoping they make the jump, and then filling out the squad with a brand new group of talent (remember this is a group that is willing to come to a championship club). This does not seem like a good situation to me. I hardly think Villa would pop back up as West Ham and Newcastle did. Because of this, I believe Benteke may have saved Aston Villa several seasons of embarrassment in the Championship.

donttreadonred wrote:They did perform well, but to say they're the reason they stayed up... :hmm:That argument is dubious at best.

Indeed it is, which makes it a good thing that I said nothing of the sort.

Art Morte wrote:Like some here know, I rate Paul Lambert, let's get that out of the way.

But I've been watching what Aston Villa have been doing this off-season and it has raised my eyebrows.

They have signed five players pretty much for peanuts now, all of them aged between 20 and 23. (Luna from Sevilla, Helenius from Aalborg, Okore from Nordsjälland, Bakuna from Groningen and Tonev from Lech Poznan)

That seems incredibly daring for a club who only narrowly escaped relegation. Are they really finding Premier League quality for such small fees and from solely young players? They already had a young squad last season.

If they manage to improve their squad with these signings and remain in the Premier League next season, too, it will be a great achievement by the club, but they really seem to be taking a high risk approach to their squad building.

You'd imagine they'd want to bring in a bit of experience as well, the defender Okore has Champions league experience but in truth it was very little and didn't really go well for his team even if he came out of it with his head held high.

I personally think they need a leader in midfield who can give the younger lads the guidance needed at times.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:

SUPERCARTTS wrote:Couldn't agree more, Art. I said something similar regarding Newcastle around January time; Sprucenuce didn't take kindly to my criticism of their french-revolution and even compared it to when Wenger was splurging out on french players, some years ago - in the sense that there, presumably, wasn't anything wrong with what Wenger done and what Pardew was doing.

Back to Villa, if they think they're going to genuinely improve on their 2012/13 season, they've got another thing coming.

Tbf i did vastly underestimate how much of a buffoon Pardew is, i still stand by that with a good manager we would have got a lot more wins than we did.

I think I'll have to agree with that.

The Devil wrote:

Art Morte wrote:Like some here know, I rate Paul Lambert, let's get that out of the way.

But I've been watching what Aston Villa have been doing this off-season and it has raised my eyebrows.

They have signed five players pretty much for peanuts now, all of them aged between 20 and 23. (Luna from Sevilla, Helenius from Aalborg, Okore from Nordsjälland, Bakuna from Groningen and Tonev from Lech Poznan)

That seems incredibly daring for a club who only narrowly escaped relegation. Are they really finding Premier League quality for such small fees and from solely young players? They already had a young squad last season.

If they manage to improve their squad with these signings and remain in the Premier League next season, too, it will be a great achievement by the club, but they really seem to be taking a high risk approach to their squad building.

You'd imagine they'd want to bring in a bit of experience as well, the defender Okore has Champions league experience but in truth it was very little and didn't really go well for his team even if he came out of it with his head held high.

I personally think they need a leader in midfield who can give the younger lads the guidance needed at times.

Same here. They can benefit from at least 2 experienced players

I like it and I think it's the way to go, but you need balance.

They ought to buy some experienced, PL proven players to improve their squad. They're throwing their money at a slot machine with these youngsters (somewhat) and like what happened last season, it's not guaranteed they'll be able to stay in the PL with these kids.

I do however think that signing young and cheap and developing these players will go a long way for Aston Villa...but they need experienced players, too. You can't rely just on youngsters, especially ones coming from other leagues.

I think they'll stay up comfortably, but I think it's possible they also go down, or they exceed my expectations. It's hard to tell, but I can say with certainty that if they buy a couple experienced players, like RG said...2 is a good amount, that can go a long way for Aston Villa and I think they will comfortably stay up no questions if they do.

It is risky but I think it's good. But they're being unnecessarily risky.

I think most politicians would blush at the waffling in that post, CB. You've basically covered every single base and said they're all possible without committing to any of them, lol.

It's not as though they're completely without experience either. In Vlaar, Bent, Insomnia, Agbonlahor, and Guzan they have significant experience. Even if they sell Bent the others are still around.

Well I think they ought to commit to buying a couple older experienced, PL players and cut back a bit on their going for the young unproven (?) guys. But I think they're headed in the right direction...just a bit extreme.

Think I might follow Villa in the upcoming season

Rebaño Sagrado wrote:Think I might follow Villa in the upcoming season

The question is which club will he be at

BUMP

So, they will remain 11th even when they lose this game to Arsenal (can't be bothered to watch the 2nd half). But I do worry for Villa a little.

They needed a bit more quality and a bit less quantity in the summer. Bacuna, Tonev, Luna, I don't know have those signings made them at all more likely to survive in the Prem. Okore obviously got very unfortunately injured in September.

What I've seen of them lately - like the two too easy goals Arsenal scored tonight - Villa can be awful both in midfield and defence. Benteke isn't showing what he showed last season (should Villa have sold him for £20m?).

They try to play on the counter, but when your defence leaks goals like that, it's not great to happily surrender the opposition a lion's share of possession.

11th now, wouldn't surprise me if dragged into the relegation battle, though.

Aston Villa has been crap for years now. Wish they were as good as in the late 90s and early 00s. Would have easily beaten Arsenal imo.

Benteke needs to stop thinking and just shoot.

He's poor goal to game return this season is because he takes one step too many / thinks about placing it and fails it and just wastes the chance. He's also been closed down a lot more this season. That's lead to him losing some of his confidence. He seemed to be a natural finisher last season and just scored against Arsenal. Hopefully he can go on a goal scoring run again. Well, after this weekend. And he's still quite young.