"We've momentum and we can't afford to lose it tbh"- The '13-'14 summer transfer window thread for PL and beyond

I can't fucking wait for Being: Liverpool II

Busy with signings = less screentime for Ian Ayre

maybe he'll sign a new poet while he's at it

Ah hell, Guardian joining the same dots as I am: Suarez admits interest in madrid

Begovic for Reina

aspas headbutted someone so it's a like for like. will just have to ensure he learns racism.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/transfers/luis-suarez-im-ready-to-leave-england-8636805.html

Suarez still has another three years of his contract still to run after joining from PSV Eindhoven for £24m in January 2010

oops

Hughes in, taking Stoke down would be the perfect way to cap a fine career

Hughes is a deeply limited manager and too stupid to manage the sort of megaclubs he clearly craves but I dunno, Stoke feels like the perfect club for him. His best seasons as a manager were at Blackburn, taking a team of cloggers and turning them into a regular top-half team. By the end that side were not without a certain thuggish allure.

glossier Pulis, just what Stoke need

did a job with wales and half a job at city

I sort of think he's at his best when forced to work with limited resources and limited vision, give him a blank chequebook like the one he had at City or QPR and that's when things go wrong. Then again Stoke have wasted a colossal amount of money in recent years so this could be the worst of both worlds.

can see him doing a job at Stoke. a horrible, ugly job.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens if the board do decide to back him with a bit of money, especially given their apparent loss of patience with Pulis’s penchant for spaffing the budget every year on assorted Neanderthals and escapees from the 1970s. Whither might Hughes take them with £25 million burning a hole in his back pocket? He’d be more than welcome to Charles N’Zogbia and Steven Ireland.

Relegation obviously the best possible outcome here though. Tbf from a personal perspective, there’d be fairly rich pickings for a team in Aston Villa’s position (nae bad but desperately in need of a little more physical presence and steel at key areas in the side) were Stoke forced to dismantle this squad. Is Rob Huth out of our league? Difficult to tell with Stoke players

Do you know much about the Villa tadpoles? I know they're meant to be the business, but nothing about whether they're big lads, technical types or whatever.

I know less about them than I’d like tbh, too much MOTD and too few games attended this season. But I’ll do my best. Prior warning for those of you who are not interested, this is definitely going to be a tl;dr post I would think. Apologies for clogging up the thread, I know this isn’t really the place for a post like this. And I’ll also apologise in advance for the quality of the written English, I’m splurging this down at work in between doing other things. But anyway, pussy’ole cavilling is out the way, here goes:

Ashley Westwood has been something of a revelation in midfield. Apparently the only one of our crop of youngsters with the fabled ability to “put his foot on the ball and calm things down” when the going gets tough. He’s looked a little lightweight at times this season, but he’s got a good passing range and is reliable in possession. Has drawn comparisons to Joe Allen. Roy Hodgson’s mentions of him the other day as a player he would be looking at were undoubtedly premature, but he’s a prospect and no mistake.

I think the arrival of Yacouba Sylla has been beneficial for Westwood’s game. Sylla is big, strong, mobile, puts himself about a lot and is willing to do a lot of the running in midfield. He’s also more than happy to get forward, though he does show his youth sometimes with the odd stray pass, wrong decision etc. Hasn’t established himself in the same way that some of the others have, but certainly has earned his place for next season I think. A shrewd move by Lambert, in hindsight, although I was sceptical at the time. Added some much needed bulk to our midfield.

Of the fullbacks, Matt Lowton is certainly looking like the real deal. His defensive positioning needs work but there’s only so much you can ask of a youngun in their debut season. He’s mostly been reliable at the back and he’s superb getting forward. It’s also nice to have a player at Villa who can hit a 35 yarder every now and then, something we’ve been missing basically since Tommy Hammer left.

Joe Bennett, on the other hand, is much more interesting / worrying. Apparently has great potential getting forward, but that’s mostly manifested itself in a few beautiful crosses from the left it seems. Not that I’m knocking it, if we hold onto Benteke then beautiful crosses from the fullbacks in precisely what we want. But his offensive game is nowhere near good enough to cover his defensive game, which has at times been woeful beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. To describe him as a liability would be to sell this kid short. He’s the first player I can remember seeing in a Villa shirt where you really feel that he can and will cost you everything at the drop of the hat. He does more stupid or incompetent things per game then any defender I can remember. And he gives away needless free-kicks in dangerous positions like it’s going out of fashion. Got more solid towards the end of the season, but this was surely the multiplier effect of everyone else getting better. He’s gonna have to improve next year to keep his place I think.

Andi Weimann is patently the cat’s pyjamas. Works hard, is good on the break, and scores goals. He misses a few too many chances to be described as a great or consistent finisher, but he’s one of those players that just finds himself in the right place at the right time over and over again. A poacher by any other name. I hope he doesn’t go.

As for the others – Baker / Herd / Clark seem to fall into a weird utility player hinterland where they can all play at full back, centre back or defensive mid. And none of them seem particularly good at any of it. Clark as captain earlier this year really did feel at the time like a sign that the curtain was coming down. Lichaj isn’t good enough period. Bowery I don’t know enough about, but him over Bent this season was pure trolling from Lambo. And who the fuck knows what becomes of Villa Park’s real forgotten man (sorry Daz, you don’t even get that accolade) Marc Albrighton. I don’t think anyone even remembers that he exists. He’ll probably never cut it for us now unfortunately, at one point he seemed to moving up in the world.

These are my broad impressions, and it’s worth remembering that my assessments may well have been thrown off by the bottom-of-the-canal - top-of-the-world nature of the season. These lads have usually looked either really good or really rubbish, with not much in between.

FIN.

Suarez is staying, his agent tells Sky.

thiscraic of apologising for content has got to stop ffs

oh yeah alrighton

S'aight, I'm in work mode atm. I apologise in advance for everything, all the time. Makes life as an office junior quite frictionless, douchebag colleagues can't get on my back so easily. Curiously enough this is almost precisely where I stand wrt ILF.

oh ya? list equiv of douchebag colleagues pls you little fuckin toerag

ILF: never apologize, never explain

Would demonstrate a colossal lack of self awareness from all involved to misconstrue my reference to the ilf residents as douchebags as anything other than straight talking tbpfh.

You've been here a year sonny, time to start taking responsibility if you want that promotion

and get that report on the nextgen squad on my desk for tomorrow morning

PS if nobody complained about that tl;dr post, you should take that as a sign that you did a decent job

I got that line in my first appraisal as an office tadpole, really makes you feel a valued member of the team

(thanks btw)

iirc villa are meant to have a very tasty prospect by the name of jack grealish, little wingfielder forward type. england and ireland were tug o' warring over him

yeah as i read windsor's post i was trying to think of him. fairly sure he declared for ireland in the end.

what about barry bannan? he maybe had a poor season, or just overshadowed by westwood, who plays a similar role iirc?

Forgot all about the wee man tbh. He played a goodish number of games for us this year I think, but with the Westwood/Delph/Sylla triumvirate that was in place through the run in, as well as Charlie N-Z’s run of almost-decent form earlier in the season, there seems to be less of a place for Bannan under PL than there was under Houllier, same as Albrighton. Shame, there was definitely a point where he looked like he had a bright future, he’s always seemed very tidy on the ball.

But as you say, I think his status in the squad has suffered from a poor season - or at least getting his main run of games in a period when the whole team were absolutely arse and then not benefiting in confidence and general perception from the redemption of the last 2 or 3 months in the same way everyone else did.

http://www.marca.com/2013/05/30/en/football/real_madrid/1369899845.html

Spanish press claiming Suarez to Real already agreed with him, although not Liverpool (but if it meets his get-out clause then whether they agree or not is irrelevant).

Shit, only £40m

Is CR7 definitely on his way out? Suarez, Ronaldo, Ozil, Di Maria is a fearsome looking thing. Bale for Di Maria would obvs. have been twice as terrifying, so good that isn't happening.

aiui Marca is the unofficial mouthpiece of Real and where they do their public tapping-up. If that's true and they say he's shaken hands on personal terms then it's probably correct.

The buy-out clause seems to have been put in when he renegotiated his contract last year. That was a bit short-sighted and maybe should have set some alarm bells ringing.

Actually, isn't this exactly what happened at Ajax? Bit a player, got suspended, spent his time out of the team arranging a transfer and not playing again?

40m oughtnt irritate the nostrils

would take 40m for him. but his agent was on sky sports today saying he's staying, so who knows.

1.125 Andy Carolls iirc, or 2 Jordan Hendersons, if you will. Arf arf. Tbh a few more Coutinho-level signings and you'll be laughing

If his agent admitted he'd been talking to other clubs, would Suarez not be in breach of contract or at least have to give up his loyalty bonus when he transfers out (whoring himself around without asking for a transfer request)?

I thought that was a nice and fair impression of the Villa kids. Thanks.

Xp Well yeh, but tapping up never seems to have consequences.

Pool:Suarez::spurs:bale

Invest wisely and you're better off without than with.

Tbh a few more Coutinho-level signings and you'll be laughing

this is the question this year, if they can do that kind of business then all will be well, wouldn't rule out a few more clangers though.

The Aspas headbutt is well worth watching.

coutinho has only been there six months, it's too soon to say he is definitively a success (arshavin, jelavic, zaki, even pd cissé etc)

That's fair. Still, compared to Liverpool's recent transfer history Coutinho (and Studge too tbh) are both looking like great deals. Not saying that they'll be able to pick up the slack if Suarez leaves, anymore than whoever they snap up with £40 million could replace him. But Rodger's very recent track record in the transfer market is looking pretty good right now, I reckon he could spend that £40 mil without completely wasting it.

According to the Liverpool Echo, Aspas' buy-out clause drops to 7m Euro if Celta are relegated this coming weekend. Seems weird not to wait a week rather than shell out 2m extra.

The point of them moving now was to agree a deal with Celta before other bigger clubs get involved.

£15m for dembele looks a lot more sensible than £15m for allen

― A.R.R.Y. Kane (nakhchivan), Sunday, 16 September 2012 22:49 (8 months ago)

the worry about borini is that he doesn't really have a burst of pace or a trick up his sleeve, his qualities are more about anticipation and knowing-how-to-play, and the EPL isn't always friendly to players who know how to play football

― Unlike humans, dogs don't talk shit (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Sunday, 2 September 2012 17:00 (8 months ago)

aiui shelling out the extra £2m means having the field to ourselves; next week a load of other clubs become interested if the price is £7m

The other clubs that were supposedly interested (from the same article) were Valencia and Swansea. "Bigger" doing a lot of work there.