Summer transfer window 2017/18

NARLA24 wrote:Wrong decision in my view

mine too

Joppe84 wrote:

NARLA24 wrote:Baker having medical at Bristol City

Gotta assume he isn't keen on being a bench player. Does that mean Suliman will cover for Chester?

it must do, I really didn't expect him to go, he always gave it his all

So now we are stuck with Richards then. Bad decision by Bruce this is in my view

NARLA24 wrote:So now we are stuck with Richards then. Bad decision by Bruce this is in my view

he's been very very quiet about Richards, maybe we will see a different player? (I'm now preparing to be ridiculed for that comment )

Wonder if there's someone else lined up to come in. It does seem a strange one regarding Baker.
I dropped in on this page and read the "strange decision" comment expecting it to be about mac going to blunderland or elphick to the scum, didn't think it would be about Baker!

I think it's more likely he will bring an academy product in to cover for Chester.

If we assume Terry and Chester for the first team, Samba rotates for Terry and in worst case for Chester, all though Terry and Samba would be the slowest CB pairing in history. Then you could have Suliman cover for Chester.

Richards should be given away free. I wish we could just take the hit on the wages and get rid of him. Has there been a worse defensive player than him in the history of this club? I know Lescott is up there, but else?

It's a shame as he was part of one of the better defenses in the league last season and would have been useful this season, but the meltdown over this on twitter is completely over the top and I honestly don't think it's the end of the world, there's a reason he's going to a team like Bristol City.

Maybe we're going to slowly introduce Sulliman or Bedeau, who are both apparently highly rated, if not I'm sure we'll be signing another defender, someone with a bit of pace would be ideal.

People moaning at the club on twitter, for selling Baker and not Richards, I read the other day that he's on £60,000 a week and still has a contract until 2019, that's a burden that the last owners left us with. if no one wants to buy Richards there's not much that can be done about it.

Cannot see us linked with anyone to fill that position.

deadbuzzardalive wrote:
People moaning at the club on twitter, for selling Baker and not Richards, I read the other day that he's on £60,000 a week and still has a contract until 2019, that's a burden that the last owners left us with. if no one wants to buy Richards there's not much that can be done about it.

I'd honestly just release him and pay the wages and insert a clause where it says he can't play in the championship for the next two years (or as long as we are there). Can't be good for the club to have this overpaid wanker in the club.

Dammit! I thought he and Chester made an excellent central defensive pairing and we only needed to bring in backup that wasn't Elphick.

If we keep Richards I really hope the plan isn't to play him on the right of a three. He's not played in so long he's just going to be rusty. Samba is an excellent signing but at the expense of Baker? I can understand why he wants to go somewhere else but he really does (did) put his balls on the line for us and is still relatively young (compared to Terry and Samba). If Terry's only on a one-year contract what next if he doesn't hang around or gets injured?

Bad move for us. Good move for Baker and Bristol but bad for us.

8 days to go to opening game.............I've honestly not a clue as to who will start or as to how we will play. This has to go down as a pretty dysfunctional pre-season. Has anyone any idea as to our "form" going into the opening game? It's impossible, we've hardly played a proper game!

Dazzle wrote:8 days to go to opening game.............I've honestly not a clue as to who will start or as to how we will play. This has to go down as a pretty dysfunctional pre-season. Has anyone any idea as to our "form" going into the opening game? It's impossible, we've hardly played a proper game!

you will have a good idea whom will start next week by who starts tomorrow

Don't agree with this either but Baker may have instigated it due to us signing two CB and him dropping down the pecking order.
Expect Bruce to have Jedinak as cover for the CB position.

Read a rumour that Baker asked to leave

If this is the fallout from Terry joining then I don't think he's worth it.

Would anyone have been happy if we'd known it would turn out to be a total swap for Baker? All feels like a gamble now & I don't like gambles on defence.

I'm a bit nervous.

I'm sure that once Elphick has been sold, then we will bring in another central defender, for me the panick over Baker leaving is quite bizarre.

Baker gone for 3 million

I liked Baker but losing him isn't worth freaking out over. Chester was the important part of the defence and Terry/Samba are great additions. Elphick out and a better CB in and we will be fine.

I guess Baker might have had solid wages as well? Maybe he signed a contract extension when we were in the PL?

The problem is everyone kind of suspects that Terry won't be able to play twice a week all the time. So, in reality, we're gonna need another stable defensive partnership for when he's not in the side. Samba has looked good this pre-season but heaven knows what he will be like when the real stuff starts. Baker symbolised a player who was very reliable alongside Chester last season. I mean didn't they get eight clean sheets in the last thirteen games? So by letting him go now, we're left a little uncertain as to how the back-up defence will cope.

I especially look at the Xmas schedule and that's really when Baker would have come in handy the most. Now we're left hoping that Samba is decent and then there's the nightmare of seeing Richards and Elphick in the backline again. It's just asking for trouble imo.

For me it would be a mistake to rely on Suliman and Beadue. Suliman didn't really impress much when he played in league two for Cheltenham and Beadue didn't play that many games at Bury either. Toner might be the one to step up as he does have a lot of league experience. But again, the word is he wasn't that impressive at either Bradford or Walsall.

Richards going seems to be a fantasy right now. The lad is clearly happy running down his contract and doing nothing with his career. I suspect Elphick will go and maybe we'll be able to bring in a defender on loan to boost things. Because counting on Richards, or heaven forbid Jedinak, would just be terrible management from top to bottom.

In closing James Nursey keeps banging on about "FFP"..and yet haven't we sold Sanchez for 2.5m, Veretout for 6.3m and now Baker for 3m?!!!..whilst only spending about 2.5m. Therefore our profit this summer is around nine million!!..So I can't see how ffp could be a problem? Infact, when you really look at the sales we've had since Xia arrived, it's well into the 40m mark I'm sure.

AstonThriller wrote:The problem is everyone kind of suspects that Terry won't be able to play twice a week all the time. So, in reality, we're gonna need another stable defensive partnership for when he's not in the side. Samba has looked good this pre-season but heaven knows what he will be like when the real stuff starts. Baker symbolised a player who was very reliable alongside Chester last season. I mean didn't they get eight clean sheets in the last thirteen games? So by letting him go now, we're left a little uncertain as to how the back-up defence will cope.

I especially look at the Xmas schedule and that's really when Baker would have come in handy the most. Now we're left hoping that Samba is decent and then there's the nightmare of seeing Richards and Elphick in the backline again. It's just asking for trouble imo.

For me it would be a mistake to rely on Suliman and Beadue. Suliman didn't really impress much when he played in league two for Cheltenham and Beadue didn't play that many games at Bury either. Toner might be the one to step up as he does have a lot of league experience. But again, the word is he wasn't that impressive at either Bradford or Walsall.

Richards going seems to be a fantasy right now. The lad is clearly happy running down his contract and doing nothing with his career. I suspect Elphick will go and maybe we'll be able to bring in a defender on loan to boost things. Because counting on Richards, or heaven forbid Jedinak, would just be terrible management from top to bottom.

In closing James Nursey keeps banging on about "FFP"..and yet haven't we sold Sanchez for 2.5m, Veretout for 6.3m and now Baker for 3m?!!!..whilst only spending about 2.5m. Therefore our profit this summer is around nine million!!..So I can't see how ffp could be a problem? Infact, when you really look at the sales we've had since Xia arrived, it's well into the 40m mark I'm sure.  

What I was thinking/concerned about re Baker - feels like we've destabilised an area of positivity coming out of last season.

Villa_Dan wrote:I liked Baker but losing him isn't worth freaking out over. Chester was the important part of the defence and Terry/Samba are great additions. Elphick out and a better CB in and we will be fine.

I like Baker too but I don't think his going will weaken us, it's not an area we lack options and I'm not even including Richards as one of them. Besides, he'll spend half of next season on Bristol's treatment table rather than ours.

FoxyAV wrote:Dammit! I thought he and Chester made an excellent central defensive pairing and we only needed to bring in backup that wasn't Elphick.

Did they really though?

If we were so solid defensively how come we mostly only won when Jedinak was in side, sitting in front of the back four?

As I said last season, there has to be a problem with a defence that needs a sitting midfielder in front of it to avoid conceding.

As Jamie Gray said on Twitter, Villa fans seem to love Baker because he would literally 'head a brick', but that doesn't make him a good player.

We conceded a fair few goals last season through the heart of our defence, where the opposition exchanged a few quick short passes and were in on goal to score.

Often it was down to Baker making it easy for them by charging out from the edge of the box to try and win the ball, leaving space in behind.

Having said all that, I hope Bruce has got something in mind for defensive cover.

Also, if it's true Baker requested a move then fans should be directing their anger at him, not the club or Steve Bruce.

People going on about FFP, as if we had to sell Baker to survive, he's fourth choice, and not very good, £4m for him is good business, that's why he's been sold.

Just looking at the stats, Baker was in the defence for nine of our fourteen clean sheets last season. And though I've bigged up his partnership with Chester, I must admit that they also had a few shockers that I'm hoping Terry/Samba will help to address.

Reading 3-1 loss= The defence was a joke that day
Brentford 3-0 loss= They cut through us time and time again
Barnsley 3-1 loss= Again we were a shambles at the back
Blackburn 1-0 loss= They should have scored much more than one
Preston 2-2 draw= Lackluster that day
Cardiff 1-0 loss= Again they had a lot of chances

I'm confident that with Terry/Chester we will have perhaps the best partnership in the division. The key is trying to get Terry to play in at least 34-36 of the 46 games next season.