To spend or not to spend?

The January transfer window is now well under way and we, well, are not. I was in two minds as to what we were going to do before January began. Either the club was going to throw money in every direction, in one last desperate attempt to stay up, or save Randy Lerner’s precious cash and accept our fate. Whilst it is looking like the latter, recent results have given our club a renewed sense of optimism going in to today’s game.

We’re unbeaten in four games. Granted, two were against Wycombe Wanderers, but the past couple of weeks haven’t been as excessively grim as we’re used to. That leaves a lot of Villa fans in a dilemma: do you still plan for Huddersfield away next season or do you start to believe again? I had always been in the frame of mind that we were well down this season and, whilst I do still believe that will eventually happen, our second half performance against Leicester City gave me renewed hope that we could actually do the impossible.

If we are going to make a go of it, however, we need more signings. Even after two or three good performances, I do not believe that we have enough depth in our squad to stay in the Premier League. We just don’t have a good enough group of players currently and if we don’t make any signings whatsoever in this window we will be playing in the Championship next year.

Having said all of this, chances are we will at some point get round to signing some players. Most recently, we’ve been linked with Nemanja Vidic after he terminated his contract with Inter Milan. Initially, I was very excited when I heard about this potential signing. After all, it is Nemanja Vidic – a natural born leader, experienced in the Premier League who can even pop up with a much needed goal or two.  But, at thirty-four, he is a short term solution to our problems. On top of this, his wages would be ludicrously high.

I still believe that we need a striker. Jordan Ayew has been a revelation but apart from him our forward players just don’t score enough goals. We’ve scored the fewest goals in the Premier League so far this season, just eighteen, and we need to find a striker who can put the ball in the back of the net if we want to stay in this division. Goals win games – and we need wins at this point.

I expect there to be a mad flurry of activity at the end of the window, as usual, and for us to be involved. This season has thrown up a tricky question of whether to spend big or save cash. We bought a lot of players this summer and that didn’t turn out quite how we wanted it to. If we bring in a couple of game changers who adapt well and quickly they might just give our season the spark that it needs. If not, we are just adding to the mess that we find ourselves in. Roll on January 31st.