Villa Blogsville

A Bit Of Patience Could See Villa’s Expensive Flop Turn Into A Roaring Success

|

With our EFL Cup clash against Burton Albion set to be Aston Villa’s season opener following the postponed Manchester City clash, this coming week is only going to see a spike in transfer rumours and many fans would argue we must have a more experienced and proven striker in place by the time the league opener against Sheffield United rolls around.

With plenty of talk already about Ollie Watkins or a Callum Wilson type of addition, there continues to be a massive debate amongst fans as to the relative merits of our current set of forwards – Wesley, Mbwana Samatta, Keinan Davis and I guess we have to include Scott Hogan here as well.

Davis’ strengths and weaknesses are well known, Samatta could potentially offer a lot more in 2020/21 now he’s had six odd months to better settle into the club, and equally the same can be said of Wesley.

The now Brazilian international undoubtedly had a poor start to life at B6. Too much complaining sat on his backside on the pitch, a lack of movement and understanding but as time went on, we arguably saw ‘some’ improvements in his play. Now we can all debate how much improvement and whether or not that should give some confidence for the future, but he still ended the campaign with five goals and one assist from 21 matches.

Whilst performances were far from perfect, there’s no reason to doubt that had his season not come to a premature end, he could’ve easily got into low double figures and for a first season/new club/new country, most would’ve seen that as a good return.

I’m not quite sure when the 23-year-old is set to return to first team contention but he was set to return to light training at the end of July, and with us needing to strengthen up top anyway that shouldn’t change our plans on that front, but there are more positives to Wesley’s return to fitness than negatives.

Would You Sell Wesley?

No, Give Him Next Season First

Yes @ 15-17m Euros

Yes If We Broke Even

No, Not Unless We Make A Profit

Hogan will undoubtedly be off, I see the benefits of keeping Davis for his hold up play as an option to better see matches out and out of Wes and Samatta, Wes is definitely worth holding onto for another year to see how much he can improve now better settled and it seems the majority agree as a poll asking the question at the beginning of last month had 62% wanting to see if he could do a Douglas Luiz.

If he can show anywhere near that sort of improvement, our £22million outlay, in hindsight, could look like a bargain.

1 of 12

In the Old Trafford clash with Manchester United back in the inaugural Prem campaign, Steve Staunton opened the scoring – but how?

Previous Article:

“I Remember It Like It Was Yesterday” – Honouring A 40 Yr Villa Memory

Share this article

4 comments

  • barry'sboots says:

    If selling Wes at break even meant we could then afford to bring in Edouard and have a front three from four of Rachica/Watkins – Edouard/Watkins – Benrhama I would sell him all day long!!

  • Philip McNally says:

    When is Wesley due to back training with 1st team squad

    • Mike Field says:

      As per article, his trainer out in Brazil said he would be back in training at the end of July but I’ve seen nothing about a return to contention date. If Heaton needs 5 more weeks to be tip top, Wesley can’t be far off that himself.

Comments are closed.