As Paul Lambert has begun to get his hands dirty with transfers, I am sure I will not be the only one looking on with hope. After years of what could be considered “predictable” signings, Lambert’s scope for players seems refreshingly wide.
Whilst Matthew Lowton may well have been in the mould of the type of player Martin O’Neill used to sign, his value for money seems far higher, and his wages seem predictably lower than the wages O’Neill gave to his signings.
With the addition of Karim El Ahmadi, evidence points to the fact that Villa’s transfer policy will not be simply focused on moves that Lambert may have had to make due to his position at Norwich. Some fans had been quick to suggest that Lambert would solely focus on what he knew, what with his signings for Norwich being almost entirely British or Irish players.
The reality is that Lambert has historically only signed what has been plausible for him considering the clubs he has managed. I have no doubt that our manager can spot people who don’t operate in the English leagues, I simply believe that he didn’t have the finances to fund scouting any further afield in the past.
Now, yes, some fans might suggest that because you or I can name players we have seen via TV or some other method, then managers should be able to approach them. However, scouting a player for a multi-million pound contract, it is evident that there needs to be more due diligence compared to the manager just saying “Aye, I’ve seen this wee lad who was playing on Sky last night and I want the money Mr Lerner.”
As with any company investing significant sums of money, and given the recent issues with finances at the club, more needs to be done to examine a player than simply seeing a person play. Due diligence isn’t just an optional extra, it is a necessity in today’s game.
After all, this is not the 1970s and football has, whether we like it or not, become a more complex and business focused game. Clubs are not simply owned by local businessmen as they have been in the past, with many clubs owned and operated, as we well know, by people who have multiples of billions of pounds.
I know that this face of the game may well be something that many people don’t like, largely because Aston Villa aren’t competing at the top like some other clubs are, but it is a necessity. Often narratives tend to focus on the supposed ineptitude of board decisions or beliefs that there is some conspiracy theory to destroy the club intentionally, but this is ultimately nonsensical.
It is far more likely that the board is merely doing the best that they can but being outperformed, outspent, and otherwise outmaneuvered by other clubs. I fully understand the frustrations of fans when other clubs do more, spend more, and win more, but that is the nature of the game – we can only do our best.
To that end, these situations often mimic real life. Whilst I can wholly understand the desire for many to see football as escapism – something to get them away from the humdrum routines of our lives – clubs can only operate under realistic parameters that are consonant with the finances available.
People may well see the current reality a hopeless narrative, but at least it offers longevity of challenges. Sadly it may mean, in the short term at least, that Villa may not win anything of note, at least not in terms of the league, but the club existing and continuing to challenge is a positive.
Often fans can lose track of that because clubs have an indefinite but otherwise seemingly infinite potential to exist whilst our own lives are, by definition, finite. Fans are born and die, but the club can live on.
Whilst such a statement may not exactly provide reassurance for those who feel that waiting decades for success is too long, the alternatives of failing to solve financial issues may well mean that future generations simply don’t have a club to support.
Ask yourself, despite our lack of a trophy since the 1990s, whether you would be willing to sacrifice the club’s future for some (potential) success in the short term. Would you?
It may not be this year or next year when Villa win something, but we will have a stable platform to build on. Whether our next piece of silverware is a league cup in five years or a thirty year wait to win the league again, Villa can compete, and do so as close to the very top as any owner without tens of billions could ever manage.
It may well be less than fulfilling as some fans get green with envy as the two Manchester clubs continue to haul trophies into their cabinets, but things could be far worse if one contemplates Villa’s existence in the context of the whole of the football league.
Villa are a big club, as trite a phrase as that may be, and I will be happy to support a club that has been a perennial member of the Premier League, and a club that has potential to win things – rather that than having no club to support at all, or a club that falls into financial difficulties and plummets down the league.
The future’s bright and, under Lambert, the transfer policy looks similarly rosy.
Transfer Latest
With Villa now linked with yet another player, Ivan Ramis, it seems like Paul Lambert is set to overhaul the team with the full support of the board.
After a season of scrimping, issues with players, and an inability to progress the team due to strongly imposed financial restraints, such a change around is, to be frank, quite amazing. Whether all of the transfers that have been vaunted will come off is clearly uncertain, but the whole direction of the club has to be lauded.
Given the quality of season (I use the term “quality” loosely) that we paid for last year, it seems like a totally different team. I am certainly more happy going into this season than I was last year despite my pragmatism on Alex McLeish, and long may that continue.
So will Ramis move? Will any more players come in? I think we will see more faces, although how many is unknown. What do you think? Are you as happy as I am with the moves, and do you think the squad is in for a real overhaul now Lambert is showing his hand in terms of transfer policy?
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