Speaking on BBC WM, Aston Villa CEO Keith Wyness mirrored MOMS opinions about the January window, when fielding supporter questions for an hour on Friday evening. In short, there wasn’t much work to be done, if any.
Incoming?
While Villa have been attached to various strikers to cover Jonathan Kodjia’s long-term absence and there’s been reports of a loan deal for Manchester United’s defensive prospect Axel Tuanzebe, Wyness admits there’s a chance there might not be any new players this window.
“We weren’t going to take anybody in unless they were going to come in straight away into the first team and make a big difference,” he said.
“Those sort of players are few and far between. Those sort of players also – clubs are waiting to see if they have injuries.
“Right now as we sit here, at present, I don’t think there could be anybody coming in, at this stage.”
When you look at the depth of the squad with players like Henri Lansbury, Birkir Bjarnason and Ritchie De Laet failing to get much game time, despite Villa having several injuries before the new year, certainly Villa don’t need players for the sake of it.
“We’ve said right from the start we’ve got a good squad, a squad that has got some depth to it as well,” added Wyness.
Naturally that leads to the conclusion there can be no excuses for a failure to get promotion, from a personnel point of view.
Outgoings
In terms of shipping players out of the club, you’d expect (hope) Villa to keep the likes of Tommy Elphick and Birkir Bjarnason, as they have recently proven they can perform well when slotting in.
Wyness was quizzed on the radio about getting rid of Gabby Agbonlahor and Micah Richards, whose high wages have been paid with next to no return.
Naturally, their high wages and inactivity mean clubs are hardly going to be queuing up for their services and either player is very unlikely to give up their contractual security for any kind of pay-off.
“Gabby has been trying to contribute, I know Micah hasn’t played for a while, but in order to move someone on, you’ve got to have a club that wants to buy that player,” said Wyness, on the club’s dilemma.
“At this stage, we’ve had no interest for either player.”
It’s kind of ‘state the obvious’ territory, but as Wyness pointed out, “when we took over the club we inherited those contracts.”
Agbonlahor is at least expected to leave at the end of the season, when his contract expires (unless this happens!).
UTV
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Well Mr Chief executive. Do not make the mistake that Villa have been making for the last 4 seasons, I. E. Too many players for the manager to choose from causing discord in the dressing room. How about suggesting to the manger that he manages what he has! Ah yes but we need a striker. How about the best striker this division has seen in the last 5 years, one who is currently breaking scoring records in Australia. Yes McCormack. The one who’s wages we are paying. Maybe the manager is able to get the best from a player he has given up on. After all, he has done it recently with Grealish, Adomah, Hutton, Hogan, Bjanason, Elphic. Apart from a striker the last thing we need is more players. We can’t get rid of the 15 we should get rid of. Why did we need to bring on another midfield player for the be fit of Spurs? Onomah is no use to us save his wages now.
If we miss out on getting a striker in, and then go on to miss out on promotion, there will be no excuses, yes we’re playing well but if we get complacent and if Hogan gets injured again we will be lucky to make the play offs so why take the risk, Agbonlahors contract won’t be renewed and that will save 60k a week, come on do us all a favour get a striker in this week before it’s too late.
All of our promotion opponents are signing players. All we do is talk about it.