Villa Silly Season Thoughts

Target areas? It’s all about priorities, how to stretch your money the furthest while getting better and deeper. I would think wide right, another striker, and a midfielder or two. Clearly, there’s no way Ramsey, McGinn, Luiz, and Kamara can play every match. Can’t see not having another striker option besides Duran, likewise a better backup keeper.

Have Sawiris and Edens Changed Villa’s Remit?

Villa have gotten in one player this window we’d never have expected, another quality signing in Digne, perhaps another big surprise, a CB prospect in Kerr Smith, a reasonable #2 in Robin Olsen, and it’s anything but a normal January.

Everyone is rightly asking what all this means. There’s SG being backed versus Dean (ie, the Grealish money + what we’d have considered our expected summer spending outside that windfall); NSWE’s short- and long-term ambitions; and Villa’s previous recruitment/development strategy. Sure I’m leaving something out.

A Depressing Familiarity in Villa’s Brentford Failure

I didn’t enjoy Sunday at all. But I wasn’t necessarily surprised. The team is reverting to norm. You can have all the expectations you like, but some are more reasonable than others. The squad is the squad, and despite pressure from above to achieve more now, Villa are still mid-table quality. You can tweak the system a bit, set different standards, emphasize different things, but you’re still working with the same clay.