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Missed Opportunity For Villa?

Well, there you go. The end of the transfer window and Villa are no better off than when they started numbers wise - unless there is a late announcement like we had with Shaun Maloney's signing!

One in, one out and a profit to the club as Gary Cahill went for more outwards than Wayne Routledge cost inwards.

I must admit I'm shocked. Lying in 5th with money in the bank, I thought January would be a decent month for us. I had expected the right-back we were told in the summer was 'worth waiting until January for' would arrive and I genuinely believed we'd bring in a striker.

Villa always baffles though, it seems to be the nature of the club!

I for one understand what Martin O'Neill is saying that most clubs don't want to sell their best players, especially to the competition, but then Boro have just spent £15million on Alves, Portsmouth might have bought Jermain Defoe (still no confirmation and it is relying on Man City buying Benjani) and Spurs have done some good business buying Hutton for £8million and Jonathan Woodgate for an undisclosed fee. To be frank, even Derby County have spent more money than us.

On the positive side we have five players named in the England squad today and are currently lying in 5th. My feeling and those of many in the forum is that with some investment we could even have pushed for 4th this year (which even a few months ago would have seemed like crazy talk!) but surely with such a small squad and no new arrivals, Villa will now be scrambling for positions and we naturally have the big gamble of little cover if we pick up any injuries or more suspensions.

One thing is for sure, MON is going to do it his way and we are surely still in for an interesting ride?

Maybe Martin O'Neill's way will prove, by the end of the season, to be genius. After-all how big a squad did we have back in the glory days?

Just a shame that we aren't in the 1980's now, this is modern football and for that, you need a decent sized squad.

Opportunity lost? We'll find out come May 11th.

(Our latest poll asks if we've blown our chance)




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Writer: J P Fear Mail feedback, articles or suggestions

Date:Friday February 1 2008

Time: 12:00AM

Your Comments

ha ha i like the way this came on the site just after the window closed like you expected it wouldnt be that interesting. Oh dear we may hear summat in the next hour or so while deals have been finalised and issuing statements.......
krisvilla
wrote it at 10:30, just got the sinking feeling to be honest!

Back to the real business, Villa to beat Fulham on Sunday, now we will see what the few players we have can do for us!
The Fear
like you say Kris, still an outside chance of an announcement, but don't think I'll be hanging around, maybe wake up to some good news...!
The Fear
I'm waiting for some breaking news at the last second like last year...but not bloody likely. You make interesting points, how do all these other clubs get the names (alves to middlesbrough, what is he high or something???) especially because he said his teammates in brazil would laugh at him when he told them he played for heerenveen. Now they'll ***** their pants! All in all, if it was meant to be - it was meant to be. Let's not put our heads down, we're in 5th place and we're striving for 4th with or without new signings. New signings didn't get us to 5th, our current villans did! I think wayne on the right will add some diversity and put teams under more pressure not knowing which side we're going to go down the flanks on. Hail Hail MON and let's beat the ***** out of fulham on sunday!
los_angeles_villan
to be fair routledge could be the best value signing of the whole window.Some tems have paid massively over the odds.
Pking
Interesting to see Davis go to Rangers on loan,the 4 mil we got for him looks like good buisness now.
Pking
yeah Fulham are woeful, a very bad side, we got more than enought to beat them, I mean half of our team is in the england squad we must be good!
krisvilla
I still believe we have the players to get a Euro place. We are in no cups. 14 games is it? We'll be fine.
Adam Deuce
Sunderland Small Heath Middelsvilla and Wigan all to come at home,plus Fulham And Derby away? Surely six winnable games there that would leave us there or thereabouts.
villa96
pking....no trophys for best value...no trophys for most english players....gutted. Letdown again.
tylervilla
some good points, 14 games left , I think we'll be fine, we are getting delusional, a big squad doesnt necessarily mean you will win, just cover
krisvilla
man city have just confirmed they signed a soon to be home sick italian, so still time left!
krisvilla
The transfer policy is going to have to change if we are ever going to do some damage in the league without relying on luck of injuries.
tylervilla
** sorry soon to be ecudorian home sick player
krisvilla
Everyone around us play each other again this weekend. I can see us needing to beat Fulham to go fourth again. FIVE. Count em. FIVE AVFC players in England squad. We have a "Bright Future". In MON we trust. That said I am a bit disappointed! lol
Adam Deuce
Maybe, just maybe its not the right time to be bringing in big name players on hefty contracts, maybe the manager feels he needs this season to consolidate the work he has already done in the rebuilding of our club. Maybe he actually knows what he is doing, only MON can see the bigger picture. I have faith that the squad we have will be good enough to see out the last 13 games of this season leaving Villa in a much better position come the Summer.
col8
Disappointed again with transfer dealings but otherwise January has been quite a good month. Currently 5th compared with 14th this time last year. Averaged 2 points per game this year, which, if we keep it up will virtually guarantee us European football next year and possibly a Top4 finish. So it's not all bad providing MON can continue working miracles for us.
villacross
well im a little dissapointed i wasn't expecting a superstar. with a couple of injuries or suspentions we could be in trouble it would of been great if we could of bought/loaned some decent cover players but it wasn't to be. we dont have a busy schedule the rest of the year and should be able to pick up the points we need to see us into europe remember the players we have now got us to 5th and hopefully we can hang around. I just hope we dont hear to many excuses from martin if things dont go well (wages, avaliability ect) other teams managed to pick up some decent players and i cant see wages going down any time soon. I LOVE MY TEAM and let our 5 thats right 5 england internationals battle hard and pick up 3 points against fulham.
1982benny
Why is it that you haven't bolstered your squad. Aren't Villa a big club? I thought they were. Is there no money available? You're pushing for a CL spot surely a little investment in the squad is advisable? Or have I got it wrong?
spurjon
as much as i'm left in dissapintment in not being able to lure more quality players to Villa, i'm going to put some faith in the team we have (we have no choice really) and have expectations of Euro qualification. If it comes ooff..great and we can look forward to summer spending... if not....i suppose we'll blame january inactivity ... important however is to note what our main challengers and rivals for euro places have done in the transfer market..... and we will find everton....portsmouth and man city were agressive... all games are tough....but we still have to go to man u, arsenal, everton,portsmouth.....that is where i believe our euro chances can be won or lost.... all the same...UP THE VILLA!
reza
I consider it a failure on the part of Mr O'Neill to allow a hugely talented kid like Jermain Defoe go to an out and out rival like Portsmouth without so much as a whimper on our behalf.
evoflash
Spending big doesn't ensure high league positions as you know well, Spurjon... We'd have liked that rush you get when a new player signs, but only time will tell whether MON's transfer policy is either genius or completely mad.
johnnyuk
I believe the problem lies in the contracts. MON doesn't seem like the guy who would offer silly wages. While other clubs do.
-Phoenix-
I wrote a similar article on Jan 1st! lol. You just knew it was gonna be a quiet January!
DeanoVilla
Totally agree evoflash. O'Neill seems to be re-active rather than pro-active in the transfer market, so I thought we'd see a bid yesterday. He did it with Harewood in the summer when everyone thought he was off to Wigan but MON stepped in. To let a player of Defoe's quality go to one of our rivals for 4th/5th is criminal IMO
Geordie_Villa
evoflash that's just your view of Defoe its not mine and it isn't the view of now 3 england managers and 2 spurs managers or are they all wrong and you are right. At the end of the day you have to trust the judgement of the manager and judge him by results over 3 or 4 seasons.
daveldvilla
I'd be more hopeful that we tried to highjack the Benjani affair, why has noone realised that Defoe isn't very good and there are much better prospects elsewhere and already at the club. He is selfish and wastes too many oppurtunites, yes he has some good moments but I don't see him as worth that or really being a good addition, I'd have been pleased of another squad member but to be honest I'm glad he's gone elsewhere.
deano_t
daveldvilla, I think you have a very good point, in that the 5 managers you mention have all rated other players more highly than Defoe. But when you consider the players ahead of him, i.e Keane and Berbatov or for England Rooney and Owen, I think it doesn't take a genius to understand why that was. I think the real question would be is Defoe better than what YOU have at the moment? Would he have improved your squad? Which is what I think evoflash was saying.
spurjon
johnnyuk, you too have a good point. Spending big does not ensure success, although I'd have to counter that NOT spending "generally" equates to failure, although that too is not a guarentee. Anyway good luck in your fight for the CL spot. Hope you get it.
spurjon
If we fail to scrape into Europe this year I hope we do not Hear SMALL SQUAD or INJURIES, TIRED YOUNGSTERS. We had an opportunuity in the summer & yesterday to try & consolidate ourselves as a Top 6 side. But we did not have the know How To do it. This was another opportunity Lost. If Matin does not understand the Tranfer Market lets get in someone that Does
FatKev
I thought we have done as well as anyone and my point on Defoe is that he wouldn't have added to the squad. The new england manager so far at least is saying he prefers Gabby to Defoe. If he came to us it would have been as a squad player and he would not have liked that. The strength of our team at the moment is a good team spirit and strong work ethic, with some quality as well, Defoe would not have fitted in with that. As for fatkev's suggestion well you just have to laugh.
daveldvilla
Ok, I will admit I'm disappointed we didn't get additional players in even if just for cover. As we can all plainly see, we have a small squad, and we're playing a dangerous gamble with possible injuries. That's the bad stuff, and it could well bite us on the ass. But the good stuff outweighs the bad IMO. Martin O'Neill is not the kind of manager to rush out and splurge on a bunch of anybodies just to appease the fans and build a big but fairly useless squad. He wants players that fit his way of thinking and play footie the way he wants them to. You gotta admit it's kind of working so far isn't it ? We've got some great players, and more importantly, there's a belief about them, a resilience. Ability to do things like come from behind to at least level the score if not go on to win. Apart from a brief spurt of this in O'Leary's first season, this is something that has been lacking from the Villa - UNTIL King Martin. I trust him totally. I bet the players do too. If we don't qualify for Europe this season then it'll be a shame, sure, considering how well placed we are now. But we're making progress. 16th two years ago. 11th last year. The direction is upwards, for bloody sure. UTV!!!!
ExpatVillaShirt
Disagree daveldvilla. I most certainly think he would have added to the squad. He scores goals consistently given the opportunity, but I accept that its all about opinions. Pompey's gain though will be our loss, but of course only time will prove that. I certainly think that 'Arry got the better end of the deal in bringing in Defoe to replace Benjani. Routledge though, when up to speed, will be an asset. Whether he alone can be the spark to fire us to a top six finish, we shall have to wait and see. The lads looked tired and jaded yesterday, not up to the task. Hopefully that was a one-off, but victory next Saturday is an absolute must. Easier said than done of course.
glensider
Only time will tell whether its been a missed opportunity for us, but sadly by then it could all be too late.
glensider
 

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