RKM was the Solanke cover; Simons was the Maddison replacement and Kudus covered Deki.
At least that's how the guys in charge viewed it.
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Transfers The Winter Transfer Thread - 25/26
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RKM was the Solanke cover; Simons was the Maddison replacement and Kudus covered Deki.
At least that's how the guys in charge viewed it.
I know Levy is a significant shareholder but as evidenced by his unceremonious sacking he was ultimately an employee. The average tenure of a FTSE 100 CEO , ( I just looked it up is 5.9 years). Firstly there is a constant need for fresh blood and new ideas and dynamism and secondly the buck stops with the CEO . He / she is held accountable for the failings and rewarded for the success . 25 years at the top when your record is anything but stellar is inconceivable at any well run business . He is not the ultimate owner , the only thing that can make you bomb proof. He was a very well compensated CEO who has overseen the club go backwards for quite some time now .
Did he move us forwards yes , but at a far slower pace and from a stronger starting position than some of our competitors.
As it stands when/if the injured players come back where do they fit into our UCL squad?
We are odds on to have at least 4 more UCL games. We are maxed out with Tel taking the Solanke slot because of injury.
Dragusin is not in the squad.
I can't see us buying anyone of note.
MGW shambles was the final straw for old Danny boy.
I hope you are right as having a great/s come through the academy is what we all love . I think right now Vuskovic and Melia look our best hopes short term ,neither are academy produced
Maybe , I still think despite comments to the contrary it’s about a sale and they moved Levy on as a roadblock to that ambition . This is purely conjecture on my part but I guess we shall see . Problem is we are are becoming less attractive by the day right now .
Here's the kicker:
The only competitors we moved slower than were Chelsea and Man City, who had cheat codes on for money.
Comparatively, there's been quite some distance between our evolution as a club from our starting point compared to teams we were at the level of.
If people were to name teams, they'd probably go for daft things like "look at Aston Villa in 3rd" and completely skip the lack of trophies, relegations, and lower table finishes that have made up those 25 years.
They say happiness is reality minus expectation - and the most toxic supporters, who only ever seem to have criticisms, talk as if we were winning league titles in the decade the preceded those 25 years.
In the 90s we were shit at buying and shit at selling, had a shit academy, awful managers, a lot of terrible players.
It sometimes feels like I've entered a parallel universe where we were battling United, Liverpool, and Woolwich for the title under Sugar
Much needed
Vic has his strengths but overall he’s exactly the type of GK I hate
Really ?
Villa and Newcastle ,( Newcastle might be rich but cannot spend it ) were both championship clubs fairly recently . So a much worse starting position than ours , far far worse in fact. Leicester came from the championship then PL relegation fodder to winning a title , reaching a CL QF and winning an FA Cup in a fraction of the time it took Levy . Their rapid demise coincided with the owners tragic death and the son appears to me to be both less competent and committed.
One cannot expect the likes of Brentford , Bournemouth, Palace , Brighton to compete with us . However as we have gone backwards from a poisition of strength in recent years let’s not pretend their rise pound for pound is not a vastly greater achievement. In fact they are proof that smart people running a club means you can sell your best players , have your managers stolen and still perform .
Brentford and especially Brighton prove the above . Look where Hearts sit since Bloom took over there
A final point you cannot talk about Villa over 25 years because they have had several owners in that time . The new owners have done amazingly well in a fraction of the time .
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You're looking at it in quite a myopic way there, in saying that - in a vacuum - Villa and Newcastle have done much better than us over the last 25 years because they've crawled back up from relegation. Both clubs were regularly finishing higher than us 25 years ago. It's been 30 years since Villa last won a proper trophy. Does their current season suddenly trump our rise to being regular CL qualifiers, finishing 3rd and 2nd etc?
Newcastle started the ENIC era in the top 3, and have been relegated twice and won one league cup. They've finished top 4 once in the last 22 years. They are currently 2 points ahead of us.
This what I mean - people kind of act like our previous administration took over when we were 3rd and don't apply any credit for getting to that point in the first place. A club was built that was regularly in the CL, not a flash-in-the-pan (if slightly dodgy, once in a lifetime) Title win for a relegation-battling side.
I don't think a couple of bad seasons all of a sudden means all of the good progress over that time is meaningless
By your logic we should add the debacle of Sugar on to Levy . The facts are that NEW owners have come in to clubs in a far weaker position than Levy took over at Spurs. Those NEW owners from said weaker position turned the clubs round far quicker than Levy did when he was the NEW owner at Spurs .
If you want to talk about Newcastle in the Keegan / Robson era I might as well go back to Spurs in 1961 . They were a basket case under Ashley and everyone knows it.
With money. Aston Villa have been bending FFP rules for some time now, and we all know about Newcastle's attempts.
Levy never had that luxury with the basic concept of everything we've done in the last 25 years has been, in reality, without a wealthy owner or - indeed - any owner at all (in the real sense).
There's a significant different in achievement in what the club has done compared to a country buying a club and putting its GDP into it and calling it an achievement. For City and Chelsea fans, we all know - all of football's fans - that there's no actual "glory" in what they've won. It's hollow gamesmanship. Not really too far off being Lance Stroll and claiming that it was talent that got him to F1. I always hoped we'd be able to get to the pinnacle and be free of anyone being able to besmirch it, as it would have been entirely down to doing it the right way.
If anything, Newcastle has been a rather underwhelming project considering the scale of what they 'could' do and what they've achieved.
As I say, not even remotely convinced Newcastle be claimed as a bigger success. They immediately spent £100m and have regressed from that first PIF season in league finishes and are currently only 2 pts ahead of our "crisis"
View: https://x.com/i/status/2008913341670965525
The little ive read on him he's barely even played
Would likely need loaning out to develop
But has potential
Should he really be a priority right now!?
I have not compared us to either City or Chelsea . Villa might have sailed close to the edge to speed up their progression , they had to then sell to cover it . The option to push to the limit has been there for Levy , we just have different theories as to why he chose not to .
As far as I can interpret, it will be a Lange/youth signing which is a different process.
Same with buying Clarke, Veliz etc.
So not likely to be taken as a first team target
I don't think it's a theory, really. We haven't had the money, and I don't think the covenants on the long term debt allow the risk of going above a certain revenue threshold like others.
After all, Villa's owners sold the stadium to themselves to cook the books for just £50m. Imagine the outrage if that was done with us - never mind with HSBC
I don't know but I suppose the CEO wants to use different skill sets in the transfer aspect of the club.
LETS SHOW SOME AMBITION AND SIGN CALLUM WILSON ON A FREE (and yes I am shouting)
Well, now the offer is slightly more than we paid for Bergvall which makes him a better player than he was yesterday.
Leicester paid £450k for Mahrez before selling him on for £60m (making him the most expensive African player in the Prem).Kanté was bought by the same club for £5.6m. Obviously neither were proper Prem transfers based on the fee and it’s not like those players helped the club win a title.
Going forward, the goal should be to pay ‘proper fees’ for everyone because that’s how we measure ‘ambition’. It’s worked out brilliantly so far in terms of our expensive signings.