Transfer News 2022/23 Season Incoming Transfers and a few other things

[tatabanya]

Almost none of them attract firm bids of over half a million pounds, which is what Villa tabled a year ago. And it wasn’t to be third choice, it was to be backup to Martinez. Jed Steer was going to be allowed to move on loan with Stevens as first sub keeper. In the end they brought in Robin Olsen in late January with Steer going on loan to Luton. That was planned to be Stevens’ spot.

I just find it weird that there’s been quite a lot of very, very harsh criticism of Stevens in recent months. The amount of people I’ve seen questioning whether any club would even want him on loan, or saying things like “if anybody offered us cash we should snap their hands off” has been a bit of a shock to the system at times, for me. Neither keeper had a great season last year, and it’s totally fair to say as much, but there seems to be a bit of vitriol behind comments towards Stevens at times, and I don’t really get it. Maybe people expected too much of him so are coming across as overly brutal at times, but I do find it a little jarring.

He could’ve thrown his toys out of the pram and forced through the Villa move, which would’ve tripled his wages for the next four years, but he behaved superbly and signed a new long-term contract rather than flouncing off for peanuts. While that doesn’t make him immune from criticism I do think it’s forgotten sometimes, that’s all.

EDIT: And anyway, Martinez and Steer are both homegrown keepers, so that had nothing to do with Villa’s intentions. Especially given they then loaned out Steer and replaced him with Olsen, thus reducing the number of homegrown players in their squad rather than increasing it. As for Arsenal, their second and third choice keepers aren’t homegrown - the latter of whom, Turner, was signed from the MLS literally weeks after they decided not to push ahead with Stevens - so there’s nothing tactical going on with their goalie spots either if they eventually went for an American with zero homegrown criteria. About 90% of the PL doesn’t need to play that game with the third keeper spot as they have enough players who qualify anyway. They usually go for cheap 30-somethings who are just happy to have a contract, and most of the time that’s got nothing to do with their homegrown status, they’re just covering their arses in case of a freak injury scenario.

Whether Villa and Arsenal had homegrown keepers/didn’t sign other ones doesn’t change that they need to fill their quota, and signing a young back-up English keeper on a long-term deal helps them do that. I don’t think Jack would be getting interest if he wasn’t, especially not now.

I’m not sure how the criticism can be too jarring, beyond the point of just wanting to protect a guy who has come through at Oxford and made a blistering start to his career including an iconic save against Swindon. I haven’t seen anything personal, just that he clearly wasn’t good enough last season. Everybody wants Jack to bounce back to top form and fitness after his illness, and I think the club have played this perfectly by protecting our asset whilst allowing him to have the platform to show everyone what he can do without taking on any of the risk.

Clubs may well still be monitoring him now, but nobody would bid anywhere near the 500k Villa offered and that’s a sign of the last 12 months. If we’re fielding those kind of bids again next summer than hopefully we can rebuff them, but if we’d had any in the last few months I think we all know that Jack wouldn’t have been signing a 3yr deal with us.

 

[The mighty Aldo]

What don't the coaching staff agree with?
He has just signed a new contract whist going on loan ( hopefully to play himself back into form)

Well the coaching staff don’t think he’s as good as Eastwood and have paid up for Mc Ginty, so they see him third in the pecking order …… at the moment
They do have faith in him though which makes me think he will be back next year fighting it out with Mc Ginty and Eastwood will go
If we get promoted not sure what happens but I suspect we will get a championship quality keeper in and Stevens or Mc Ginty go on loan

 

[ECYellow]

Almost none of them attract firm bids of over half a million pounds, which is what Villa tabled a year ago. And it wasn’t to be third choice, it was to be backup to Martinez. Jed Steer was going to be allowed to move on loan with Stevens as first sub keeper. In the end they brought in Robin Olsen in late January with Steer going on loan to Luton. That was planned to be Stevens’ spot.

I just find it weird that there’s been quite a lot of very, very harsh criticism of Stevens in recent months. The amount of people I’ve seen questioning whether any club would even want him on loan, or saying things like “if anybody offered us cash we should snap their hands off” has been a bit of a shock to the system at times, for me. Neither keeper had a great season last year, and it’s totally fair to say as much, but there seems to be a bit of vitriol behind comments towards Stevens at times, and I don’t really get it. Maybe people expected too much of him so are coming across as overly brutal at times, but I do find it a little jarring.

He could’ve thrown his toys out of the pram and forced through the Villa move, which would’ve tripled his wages for the next four years, but he behaved superbly and signed a new long-term contract rather than flouncing off for peanuts. While that doesn’t make him immune from criticism I do think it’s forgotten sometimes, that’s all.

EDIT: And anyway, Martinez and Steer are both homegrown keepers, so that had nothing to do with Villa’s intentions. Especially given they then loaned out Steer and replaced him with Olsen, thus reducing the number of homegrown players in their squad rather than increasing it. As for Arsenal, their second and third choice keepers aren’t homegrown - the latter of whom, Turner, was signed from the MLS literally weeks after they decided not to push ahead with Stevens - so there’s nothing tactical going on with their goalie spots either if they eventually went for an American with zero homegrown criteria. About 90% of the PL doesn’t need to play that game with the third keeper spot as they have enough players who qualify anyway. They usually go for cheap 30-somethings who are just happy to have a contract, and most of the time that’s got nothing to do with their homegrown status, they’re just covering their arses in case of a freak injury scenario.

Stevens had a poor poor season after he came back from illness. He simply wasn’t able to keep net when shots were coming in from 18/20 yards and he was found wanting when commanding his area.

Had any club higher up the pyramid wanted to pay a fee for Stevens during the second half of last season, I’d have snapped their hand off.

It’s all good and we’ll saying he was loyal (admirable quality for sure) but his job was to keep the ball out of the net and imo, he wasn’t anywhere near the standard of a top league 1 club, never mind a premier league number 2.

 

[Up The U's]

Several ways, but usually it comes from a club official making an ‘off the record’ enquiry. Particularly higher up, some clubs don’t like lodging official bids unless they know it’s going to be accepted, as they don’t want the “embarrassment” of being turned down. Newcastle and Southampton asked the question re Baptiste a couple of years back after sending scouts to every home game for 2/3 months, but an official bid never came. They were right on the verge of pressing the button, though.

In the case of both Baptiste and Stevens, I only knew about clubs “nearly” bidding because I met a lot of people while working as a journo for national papers and magazines over a decade ago. Sometimes said people ended up working inside clubs and sometimes said people still work closely with particular clubs in the media. With Stevens, I merely happened to know one of the scouts who was tasked with his file. Pot luck.

Thank you, I am always trying to find out more how football works behind the curtain.

 

[Left Wing Cross]

Thank you, I am always trying to find out more how football works behind the curtain.

I'm currently reading "The Deal" by Jon Smith - quite enlightening

 

[Nadi-]

As my mum was from Sligo, have always kept a eye on the bit of red.
Although it’s pre covid since I was at the showgrounds, I still watch as many games as I can.
There’s no doubt If it wasn’t for Mcginty, Sligo would of been out of the Europa league last Thursday.
He’s a good league of Ireland keeper. But as well as he played Thursday, I’ve also seen a fair few errors over the last couple of seasons.
He’s young at 22, tall a good shot stopper and has a decent left foot.
The potentials there and if Wayne Brown can iron out these lapses in judgement. He could do really well.

Wouldn’t know how to get this from here onto the Ed Mcginty thread.
Like I mentioned last month, there will be lapses in judgement to be ironed out.
But with Jack Stevens new contract signed, we could have 2 decent young keepers over the next couple of seasons.

 

[Big Ron]

I don’t want to be critical of Port Vale but they are obviously not on the same level as the mighty Yellows - and what do I base that on?

Well, the simple fact that their transfer thread only has 471 pages. They really do need to up their game.

For the sake of balance, I should also point out that the Wycombe transfer thread has gone absolutely bonkers - they are now up to 45 pages.

From now on this will be my measure of pre and early season 'bigness' and by that measure we are massive!!!

 

[Sheik djibouti]

For the sake of balance, I should also point out that the Wycombe transfer thread has gone absolutely bonkers - they are now up to 45 pages.

From now on this will be my measure of pre and early season 'bigness' and by that measure we are massive!!!

Yeah...but how many posts per page, hmmm?

 

[Left Wing Cross]

For the sake of balance, I should also point out that the Wycombe transfer thread has gone absolutely bonkers - they are now up to 45 pages.

From now on this will be my measure of pre and early season 'bigness' and by that measure we are massive!!!

If they had a Kip, they'd do better

 

[oufc1991]

If they had a Kip, they'd do better

Kip leysboy and mellow yellow could ad a few pages on their own

 

[SteMerritt]

For the sake of balance, I should also point out that the Wycombe transfer thread has gone absolutely bonkers - they are now up to 45 pages.

From now on this will be my measure of pre and early season 'bigness' and by that measure we are massive!!!

To be fair though, there are only 3 of them so that's pretty good going.

 

[Big Ron]

Yeah...but how many posts per page, hmmm?

That's a good and valid question - I need to dig deeper into the metrics.

Having completed that exercise - they have 1,300 posts and we have 16,592 ( I feel that number should written in text the same as when the teleprinter confirms a high score) and counting.

 

[Chippy]

I would liken Jack Stevens form last season to that of Eastwood’s the season before, which is when Jack was given his chance, and let’s be honest he took it with both hands.

Everyone was saying how we couldn’t let him leave and should offer him a new contract etc… when rumours emerged of interest from Villa. Unfortunately his illness then came at exactly the wrong time and since then he hasn’t been able to recapture his excellent previous form.

I still don’t think there is much between him and Eastwood even now, and McGinty similarly, though he needs to prove himself a little more still, but has bags of potential from what we’ve seen thus far and know about him.

I don’t think the criticism of Jack has been particularly harsh, and certainly no worse than that given to Eastwood in the past or any player who falls short over a number of games of what we expect from them. It‘s been the same with Seddon, and Winnall for example and to a lesser degree Sam Long in the last few weeks. Fans are entitled to their views and some do go over the top, but that’s the same everywhere, and everyone reacts differently. Some even over praise players when they have one or two brilliant games that’s then not necessarily replicated week in week out.

I’m sure Jack has received excellent support, understanding and encouragement behind the scenes as any player of the club should get from those they work for and with, day in and day out.

Hopefully he‘ll take the chance at Vale and bounce back to the levels he was at when Villa were very interested, and when everyone was saying what a top keeper he could be. If Eastwood and McGinty don’t deliver in the months ahead I’m sure there will even be clamour to get Jack back in January if he is doing well during his loan!

 

[SteMerritt]

Having completed that exercise - they have 1,300 posts and we have 16,592 ( I feel that number should written in text the same as when the teleprinter confirms a high score) and counting.

>LG1 Wycombe W 1300 Oxford Utd 16592 (Sixteen Thousand Five Hundred and Ninety-Two) HT
_

There you go

 

[IsleofWightYellow]

>LG1 Wycombe W 1300 Oxford Utd 16592 (Sixteen Thousand Five Hundred and Ninety-Two) FT
_

There you go

It’s not full time though is it Steve… oh no, in fact we’re just getting started on here… many more posts for you to read… thousands more… it will never end

 

[SteMerritt]

It’s not full time though is it Steve… oh no, in fact we’re just getting started on here… many more posts for you to read… thousands more… it will never end

View attachment 9755

Wishful thinking on my part, I've edited it back to 'HT'

 

[Big Ron]

It’s not full time though is it Steve… oh no, in fact we’re just getting started on here… many more posts for you to read… thousands more… it will never end

View attachment 9755

Good point, I feel we may only be in the 48th minute here.

 

[McVicar]

For those of us old enough to remember, quality -

https://twitter.com/1968Tv/status/1557773036513894405?t=SRhrjomhbwG5PQLt7ytGkQ&s=19

 

[SteMerritt]

For those of us old enough to remember, quality -

https://twitter.com/1968Tv/status/1557773036513894405?t=SRhrjomhbwG5PQLt7ytGkQ&s=19

Damn, watched the whole thing but our score didn't come in.

 

[Mellowyellow]

Kip leysboy and mellow yellow could ad a few pages on their own

Try reading a summary of what people post rather than making sweeping judgements, simpleton.