West Ham spend £15m on Carroll Atletico Madrid bag David Villa (Spain's all-time top scorer) for less than £3m Where is the sense? I know there are many more factors in play here, particularly the age gap between the two, but come on. Austin nearly cost Hull £4.5m!
Matt Mills cost £5m for a ****e defender. Austin was worth a punt at £4.5m. Villa might be cheap in comparison but what are his wage demands compared to Carroll and Austin. I imagine Villa would be on at least double Carroll's wage and probably 8-10 times more than Austin.
Alright, nothing personal mate. We all know that most clubs have drastically overpaid for someone at some point or another, us more than most. The Austin point was that Villa still cost less than that. Just saying that it seems crazy that transfer fees can vary this much and that money paid for proven world class talent can be eclipsed by overrated second class Premier League players. Wages will have been a major factor here but Atletico never pay the big salaries that Barca and Real pay. I bet they're not that different to be honest. @IUTBJF - few are mate, few are.
I'm not sure what planet your living on, but I think the air may be slightly too thin. Charlie Austin is apparently on £12k a week at Burnley, Villa was on £115k a week at Barca. He may have taken less for a new deal, but there's absolutely no way they are similar money, they're not in the same league. And it's rubbish to suggest Atletico don't pay big wages, Torres and Aguero were on over £100k a week and they offered Falcao over £200k a week to try and stop him leaving.
David Villa is a terrific player - if he is back to full fitness then he will be worth whatever the wages in what, let's face it, is a crazy market (Wayne Rooney on £200k a week?????) - I rate Villa amonsgt the best 'finshers' currently in the game - I'd probably say the best.
Where did he suggest that Austin wasn't worth a punt at 4.5? He's only saying Villa is 'cheap' at 4.4 (obviously he's not cheap on 100k+ p/w). When we signed Mills he looked like one of the best defenders at that level. As it turned out we had over paid. I wouldn't call him a ****e defender at all to be honest. Just not worth the amount we paid in wages and transfer fee. Our expectations were not matched with him. The worst thing about him was his distribution which is ****ing atrocious, but in terms of being a defender (heading, tackling, blocking and the like) he was very good.
Did make the caveat about being back to full fitness ... but Villa has always been terrific in major tournaments that he has played in whereas RVP was distinctly average at the last Euros - and flunked chances that I've never seen Villa miss in terms of numbers etc - so I'd still take Villa personally.
I would certainly say that Villa is a better finisher but RVP can score from anywhere which is something Villa hasn't been able to do.
