Time to map out a plan for Villa's future
- Says blogger Matthew Turvey
Albion blog: The Summer Sales
Friday 24th April 2009, 9:10AM BST.
Albion blogger Jarrod Hill anticipates traffic at the entrance and exits of the Hawthorns in the summer.
As we count down to the inevitable conclusion of our season – relegation, if you had not guessed – both fans and management alike have started planning for next season.
The news coming out of the club is that we will have to sell players before we can buy. Before we look at who could possibly be moving on to pastures new, the scenario of having to sell before buying could cause us major problems.
It effectively means we do not have control of our own destiny within the transfer market.
For example, our manager Tony Mowbray will have his targets, but if he has to wait for players to leave first it will be in the hands of the gods whether his targets are still available.
Last summer we witnessed more activity towards the end of the transfer window and it seems the club are expecting the same this year with their plea this week for fans to be patient.
Patient? We must be the most patient, understanding fans in the country!
So let’s take a look at a few scenarios, starting with who the club are probably looking to move on.
My best guess for definite pushes from our management will be Luke Moore, Pele, Carl Hoefkens, Marek Cech and Craig Beattie.
All have had limited opportunity this season and will be looking for regular first team football. Borja Valero could be another player pushed towards the exit door, but Mowbray may see it as an admission of a huge mistake made last summer and want to keep him.
Players I expect us to get inquiries for this summer are James Morrison, Jonas Olsson, Jonathan Greening, Chris Brunt, Robert Koren and Paul Robinson.
Greening has already stated he is happy to remain at the Hawthorns, but any of the others could have their heads turned. The price would have to be right, we all know that our chairman is a shrewd negotiator and notoriously slow.
The only player within the list that we paid any real money for is Chris Brunt. My feeling is that to sell him the offer would need to be £5million plus, because we owe Sheffield Wednesday 15% of any fee.
We signed him for £3million, so anything less and I would suggest keeping him.
Anyway onto the game, it will be interesting to see what the atmosphere will be like. Personally I look forward to every game and will approach it feeling less stress due to our doomed circumstances – I have also found beer helps.
Team selection is irrelevant although I would like to see a few players who we will need to make decisions on in the close season including, Youssouf Mulumbu and Juan Carlos Menseguez.
I would also like to see the young lad Chris Wood in action. I hope he is the first of many to roll off our youth scheme production line.
The news that our youth teams are starting to produce some real talent has been one of the few highlights for the club this season, so maybe a season in the Championship could see some more of them making first team debuts
Anyway enjoy the game as much as you can, two months from now your choice at 3pm on a Saturday will be a barbie r mowing the lawn.
See you all against Sunderland!
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Out with the old,in with the new!!!
This will be Mowbrays third summer of complete change,granted last year we got promoted and better players had to be obtained(debatable if that happened)
On his boardroom victory in August 2002,Jeremy Peace quoted that Albion would be an established premier league club within 7 years.
He has failed and so maybe he should now look for a potntial buyer before next season.
Jarrod you comment on how notoriously Jeremy is in signing players, can you imagine him trying to sell the club and trying to get over the odds for his shares !!!!
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Bomber, I pretty much agree with your list of players who might move on & I would also add Bednar to it, on the basis of his lack of opportunities in the second half of the season. My best guess would be that Morrison and Brunt are the two that will be picked up by other Premiership/SPL clubs although Koren would also be a shrewd buy for someone.
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TBH I can’t see too many making the move to a “bigger” club.
Most of our players have proved only one thing this season – THEY AREN’T GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE PREMIER.
And that’s why we’re bottom.
Okay we’re not as bad as Derby who sold no-one back the PL, but we’re on a par with Reading who only lost Kitson (albeit to Stoke).
Morrison is obviously going to get attention as he’s been our most dynamic (there’s a word I haven’t been able to use too often this season) player.
But where could he go? Bolton? Fulham? Sunderland? Wigan? It’s arguable whether a move to any of them is a career move.
I expect Jonno to stay although he could view it as his last chance for a move to an established Prem team – but again the list is going to be similar to the one above – and would he fancy it?
As for the “forced outs” – I can see one or two of your list being given frees to speed up their departure.
Would like to see Mensenguez stay and Brunt who (let’s face it) isn’t going to fool anyone into thinking he’s actually Prem quality – despite a couple of goals recently playing on the wrong wing!
If we can hold most of the squad together we’ll have a great chance next season.
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We could be effectively down by Sunday night if both Blackburn and Hull win combined with a defeat for us at the hands of Sunderland.
Goal difference and 12 points would be a tough ask!
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I can see Bolton going in for Greening and Morrison, either Wolves or Fulham going for Olsson. You need to get rid of Robinson, he has disrespected the fans on several occasions and quite frankly is useless anyway! Some good championship players around and I expect you to bounce back up within 3 years.
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WHY sell our better players who now have Premiership experience and who are on relatively low wages and know the Mowbray system (whatever it is),to go and get cheaper players who may turn out not be good enough or will take time to settle in or even ,Heaven Forfend, not train properly and so never be included in the team anyway!!
Soz. Bit of a rant there, but I think you know what I am saying.
Hopefully common sense will prevail and only fringe players will leave.
I would still like to try Luke Moore in the CCC before we finally give up on him. A run of 7 or 8 games may see things click for him???
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1) I’m not having a go Streetly, but it just seems we as a nation have an obsession with holding people accountable/forcing resignations/going on witch hunts when something goes wrong.
Whatever your thoughts on JP, the club is in a hell of a better state now than it was in 2002. We have a sports academy, a youth academy, a training ground, facilities that are a million miles beyond what we had. Do we really need to force him out because he didn’t reach a benchmark he set in his 2002 manifesto?!
People speak of him bleeding the club dry, yet the guy’s salary is around a tenth of what Luke Moore takes home, for sitting on a bench sulking (not even a bench anymore!!). In a few years time, if and when a lot of big financial institutions are going bump, and nobody can refinance their debts, we might be thankful for JP and his prudence.
We’re roughly about the 20th-best supported club in the country, I think our average football league finish is about 19th. Are things really that bad whereby we need a clear-out from top to bottom?
As Forest and Leeds have shown, there’s a hell of a long way to fall. The catalyst for so many clubs dropping divisions is chopping and changing managers/owners every 6 months. We’ve tried that before in the 80′s and 90′s and where did it get us?
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Forget the doom and gloom last game at Blackburn lets do it in a blaze of colour . lets bring back the famous BEACH WEAR PARTY, and for those of us booked into Blackpool see you all in the station at 11.30 for the football special leaving just after 12.see you all there.
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to all the JP knockers look at what has happened at southampton …
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5. Laffinwulf. You expect us to bounce back within 3 years. That would be failure as far as I am concerned. If we can keep the majority of this squad together along with bringing in a couple of the better “championship type” players I would expect us to be playing wulfs next season in the prem (if you can manage to stay up). The players we had this year were pretty much the same ones who got us promoted. I know Gera and Phillips left but realistically Phillips wouldn’t have cut it in the prem which is why he decided on moving to the blues IMO. Gera would have got more games for us than he has had at Fulham (and this says a lot about the strength of the prem). The Wulfs will find it a lot harder in the prem since the last time you were there, it seems that every mistake you make gets punished and, lets face it, us baggies have made plenty!. The wulfs deserve their place in the top flight as they have earned the right to be there, just don’t make the mistake of thinking it will be easy.
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Excellent Blog again as usual, i for one cannot believe that we should have to sell before we can buy, with the revenue we have had over the past few years with premier league payments and parachute payments and how much we have actually spent, i cant see why we cannot just go and get the players that mowbray wants, is Alistair DARLING doing our books at the club.
Anyway with regards to new players watched a game on sky this week Burnley V/S Sheff utd, saw a player i would like to see at the hawthorns next year wearing our colours, Clarke Carlisle, during this game he never seemed to miss anything, was clearly the best defender on the pitch,total no nonsense defender, he would be really good along side Olsson what ever division we are in next year.
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no.10- Believe me I am expecting us to get a good few hammerings, but that is ok, as long as we stay up. I think we have the club in place to take the next step from top to bottom and in terms of finance and if we learn from our mistakes and with the other 2 promoted clubs and clubs like stoke and hull with 2nd season syndrome we can do it. 3 years is not failure we have had 5 years out lost our parachute payments and started a completely new strategy which has worked and I believe will continue to work. For the first time in years the albion have a lad playing who has come through the academy and this a good sign. I think you will lose, Olsson, Greening and morrison will be gone but for the championship you can replace them easily enough. Peace is a very good chairman but Mowbray has to held responsible for wasting the money on poor players.
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guys can we have a little optimsum! if we win all our games we will probadley stay up!!
lets fight for our lifes and get a win tommorrow against a sunderland we no we can beat on our day.
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