Transfer Speculation (1st June onwards)

alderz

Aston Villa are absolutely flush, what’s going on?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/57505196

OutcastLondoner

alderz said:

Aston Villa are absolutely flush, what’s going on?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/57505196

I heard he asked Coufal for the 86’s bus schedule

thornburyiron

Grealish going out, that’s what’s going on

Fortuneseeker

thorn, I said that after they bought Buendia but what happens if no one offers Villa what they want for Grealish? Either way they are trying to do their deals early.

thornburyiron

They’ve signed one player. Making bids doesn’t necessarily mean they’re getting deals done early. We have no idea if we’ve made bids for players or in negotiations so it’s wrong to imply we are doing nothing.
The club can’t win as they’re slagged off if they go public with their targets and then don’t get them and also if they their cards close to their chests. The window has only been open a week. The time to start worrying is around the middle of august.
They may be spending most of their time rejecting offers for Rice and as has been muted in the press Soucek and tying them down.

Fortuneseeker

thorn, the key word was “trying” I said nothing which could be conceived as a dig at us having not signed anyone yet. If it is the same in a months time or when the players start pre season training then imho I will feel justified in raising my concerns but that is just me believing we should now be competing with the other so called big clubs across Europe in attracting sort after acquisitions.

claretandbluesky

Spending the Grealish money.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

The more I think of it, the more I'm astonished Norwich let Buendia go

The last season they got promoted I think they spent less than £10mil on recruitment (which just isn't enough) and in all truth, they were pretty much rubbish

And now they've got a other chance.....they've sold their best player!!

I know that they may have had an agreement with him if he stayed last year in the championship they'd let him go, but that is shocking imo

whupathman

I think they value financial stability more than trying to compete in the PL, as few season of up and down should see them sound

IronHerb

Maybe Buendia didn't want to stay or when Villa decided to overpay by £10-15m it was too good an offer to refuse.

OutcastLondoner

Maybe it means they can invest properly unlike last time?

OutcastLondoner

Sergio Ramos. 35. Barely played this season because of injuries. Released. Sounds like a West Ham special.

ASLEFshrugged

TuttoMecatoWeb reckons Anderson will be off to Lazio and Sabah Spor (Turkey) reckon we might let him go on a free just to get his wages off our books

OldCastleSwift

ASLEFshrugged said:

TuttoMecatoWeb reckons Anderson will be off to Lazio and Sabah Spor (Turkey) reckon we might let him go on a free just to get his wages off our books

I wonder if we still owe Lazio money. Maybe we're just writing off the debt.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

Would be perhaps our worst ever signing

Huge waste of money

ASLEFshrugged

Savio

Deanscaleshammer

Boogers

alderz

I've been doing a bunch more analysis of our transfers, because I was meant to be interviewing this afternoon and the person cancelled so now I have some spare time.

I said yesterday that the accusation that the owners leave it late in the window to sign players was perhaps unfair, but I only looked at counts of signings and nothing else.

Here are some things I've found today:

1. Players we have signed after the season has started go on to have shorter careers than those we sign before the season has started. Players that were signed early played an average of 64 games for the club, those we signed later played an average of 47 games for the club. This suggests that late business could be seen as panic buying, where we get players in who maybe aren't right for us.

2. Players that are signed later in the window tend to cost us less money. Signings made before the season started average at £6.25m each, and those that came later in the window average at £4.14m each. This could mean that late signings save us money, but when you combine it with point one, it suggests that actually our late signings could be described as "barrel scraping" - grabbing whoever is available to plug a gap we have.

So, I think I'll revise my conclusion and say:

I don't think it's fair to say that the club leaves business late as a matter of course. I think the club get most of their good business done early. However, it would be fair to say that the later we leave it the more likely it is that the plan goes out of the window, and we end of with players that have little to no impact on the club.

OldCastleSwift

I assume Champo means in terms of contribution v cost more than anything else. Boogers was undoubtedly a bad signing, but he probably didn't cost a lot.

Anderson has contributed 10 goals and 8 assists in 63 games for West Ham, which at £40m is not a great return for a forward.

Deanscaleshammer

Fair enough OCS. Just having some fun really, not intending to be critical of others.

Boogers was £1m, played 4 games, got sent off for a notorious horror tackle against Phil Neville, never scored, went back to Holland to recover from a knee injury and never turned up again.

Different times but still has to be up there with some of our worst ever signings imo.

OldCastleSwift

Didn't think you were being critical 👍. And you're right, Boogers was a terrible signing (although the aftermath of that tackle where Dicks collects two Man U players as they're having a go at Boogers is still one of my favourite West Ham moments)

Yeoldhammer

Apparently Alioski hasn't signed a contract with Leeds ? is it worth trying to prize him away? his contract is up i believe.

thornburyiron

Boogers ended up living like a hermit in a caravan somewhere

PrestonHammer

I've seen worse tackles than that, compared with the Utd players did to the Spanish winger for Arsenal who's name escapes me.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

ASLEFshrugged said:

Savio

Would actually say Anderson is worse if he goes on a free

Savio was barely seen but at least we managed to get £3mil and Da Costa (who wasn't anything special but wasn't that bad either)

£42mil is atrocious waste of money, especially as I think 8 of his 10 goals for us came in 9 games

Fortuneseeker

Preston, Reyes?

ASLEFshrugged

thornburyiron said:

Boogers ended up living like a hermit in a caravan somewhere

Sadly the truth is somewhat different from the myth (the story was in The Sun so no surprise)

Boogers needed surgery on his knee and while recovering he went back to Holland to be with his wife who was due to give birth. We loaned him to Groningen but his knee only lasted one Intertoto Cup game.

After he left us he played for three other Dutch clubs, ended up playing 128 games for his home town club Dordrecht, retired in 2004 aged 37 and was director of football until 2017

PrestonHammer

Fortuneseeker, that's him.

Slacker

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years said:

ASLEFshrugged said:

Savio

Would actually say Anderson is worse if he goes on a free

Savio was barely seen but at least we managed to get £3mil and Da Costa (who wasn't anything special but wasn't that bad either)

£42mil is atrocious waste of money, especially as I think 8 of his 10 goals for us came in 9 games

I see your Anderson and I raise you a Ted McDougall.

claretandbluesky

The thing with Anderson is that he is a bit different to some of the other wastes of money, he can really play football. He just can't seem to put it all together to be an actual footballer worthy of his ability. It's like Morrison, although for different reasons, it's all there but you just can't turn it into something equalling anything near the sum of it's parts.

We could throw in John Radford for a waste of money also.