TobiOT
Veteran
Good readBoth Fulham and now Villa had to buy. Vila released like half of the squad.
Fulham lost about 8-9 players that were key to their promotion by either going back to their parent clubs or leaving. So they had to spend. Also factor in that their transfer window started later because of the play off finals and then the WC and the window closing before everyone else's, which left Fulham about 3-4 weeks to get players in. Fulham's mistake was not getting enough proven PL players. And because of Jokanovic style of play, even in the Championship, it took then players a while to get it. So lack of time for signing to bed in, poor signings and Jokanovic failing to change his tactics you got the shyt show of last season. To sum up Fulhams season, Seri cannot play in cold weather.. Playing in Newcastle would of killed him.
Now this window for Villa, they have bought players with PL and or English football experience, but also young players to develop and some foreign buys with potential to improve. But the main thing they got is time to bed in the new signings. And now signing Heaton, which is a big big signing. Fulham signed 2 Iberian keepersVilla have to keep Grealish fit and hope Wesley is more @Roberto Firmino and Gabby Jesus than Alfonso Alves. Brasilian strikers don't have the greatest record overall on the PL.
I know of the media got their narrative OMGz they spent over 100m. But the reality is when you lose half of your squads and still have to improve the overall quality of the squad, while still replacing what you've lost, you have to spend money and big. Now people can bring up a Burnley and Bournemouth but they kept their base of core players that got them up in the first place. Their goal when they came up was to not go down, but also spend on a budget, that if they did go down straight away, they weren't crippling the club financially.
Villa is different because they are a big club and from the 2nd City of the country, while Burnley is Burnley and Bournemouth people go for stag dos. So expectations aren't as high. And Fulham is just fighting for the scraps of trying to be the 5-8th best team in London.
I bet you wish you never asked now
TL:DR who knows, the only thing, we can all agree on, the market is phucked
Fukkery never stops
a good first half vs Spain and a goal vs Croatia, apart from that he's done phuck all for England. I guess it's for the WC, but to me that counts as the 17/18 season.