Claret Villans
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Aston Villa must not repeat transfer mistakes of old

By Dean Caffrey

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 27: Ashley Young of Aston Villa and Clarke Carlisle of Burnley challenge for the ball during the Carling Cup Fourth Round match between Aston Villa and Burnley at Villa Park on October 27, 2010 in Birmingham, England. (Photo by Matthew Lewis/Getty Images)
BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 27: Ashley Young of Aston Villa and Clarke Carlisle of Burnley challenge for the ball during the Carling Cup Fourth Round match between Aston Villa and Burnley at Villa Park on October 27, 2010 in Birmingham, England. (Photo by Matthew Lewis/Getty Images) /
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There was great anticipation in the summer of 2016 among Aston Villa fans after Tony Xia’s takeover and with promises of plenty of capital put aside for transfers, it was easy to get caught in the whirlwind of it all.

What followed was plenty of new faces being added to the Aston Villa squad at will. Ross McCormack and Jonathan Kodjia were the two biggest deals in terms of price, young unproven talent in Aaron Tshibola and Pierluigi Gollini coming in along with an abundance of Championship experienced players Ritchie de Laet, was Albert Adomah and Tommy Elphick.

The squad did need freshening up with a sprinkling of new talent but it seemed to be a scattergun approach to the whole window with no emphasis on style or how the new players will fit in.

After struggling in the first part of the season, the following January brought a raft of arrivals and departures to the squad. The approach seemed to be to buy the best players in the Championship with evidence of that supported by Henri Lansbury, Conor Hourihane and Scott Hogan all arriving after excelling for their previous clubs.

Ashley Westwood, Rudy Gestede and Jordan Ayew were all sold and the mass number of changes to the squad seemed to upset the balance of the squad and results suffered as a result. Too many changes mid-season have proven to be more of a hindrance than a help and Villa should learn from this.

Going back even further and Villa are still suffering from transfer mistakes: Agbonlahor and Richards are still being paid handsomely by the club despite not featuring much for the best part of 2 years after Villa gave them long contracts at 28 years old and with both being injury prone.

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Ross McCormack is another who was handed a 4 year deal at nearly 30 years old and who is another who looks likely to not feature much for the remainder of that deal.

This summer brought better management of contracts whether that was through FFP or Aston Villa learning from their mistakes well, time will tell. Chris Samba and John Terry signed 1 year contracts, Glenn Whelan and Ahmed Elmohamady signed for 2 years and Sam Johnstone, Robert Snodgrass and Josh Onomah were shrewd loan signings from the Premier League.

Steve Bruce had a pre-arranged transfer strategy to bring in experience to the squad and he has certainly done this and Villa look better for it.

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