The sun stopped yesterday, did you see it? It was the summer solstice so theoretically today we are a day closer to winter. Enjoy the summer while you can, every day is important.
Every day is also quite important for this transfer window - you see the number of players to the right that have already left us. Some of those need to be replaced but we are also led to believe from this manager that some of the younger players will get their chance. So don't be surprised if there is actually not that much activity this window.
The importance of youth
Last November I wrote about how important the younger players were for Aston Villa and it was because they deserved a chance. They deserved it and they should get it, because that is how we will be successful.
We will never be successful if we do not have a core and we will be more successful if we have our own core. The manager maybe not getting that much money and emphasising on youth might not be because Lerner doesn't have money, it might just be because the club have told him that is what he has to do and that he buys into it.
It could be that he has been told, show us you can do it with an Aston Villa core and we will pepper the team with the players you need to make them even better.
Could it really be that there is a secret plan after all or could it be that I really am grasping at straws? One thing is for certain, the younger players need to get their chance otherwise they will leave, because they want football and if they do, we will never know.
And if we never know, we are just going to be bringing in more and more players and never really kicking on, just moving on from one manager to the other and one player to the other. Naturally, I could be scraping the barrel looking for some sort of hope and digging to the depths of my soul for an optimistic outlook, but this truly is when we will find out. There really are not many options after this.
Moving forward, quickly
So, there will be players coming in, but not many and I'm not going moan and whine that it is because the owner has given up. We don't actually need that many players if we are to give the younger players a chance and we need to give them a proper chance with a manager that can get them fired up and playing the right way.
So, I'm knocking rumour and speculation on the head. I'm actually drawing another big fat line under it all, unless it gets to the point where it looks like it might be happening or it really is quite audacious and possible, but the run of the mill stuff is getting run of the milled where it deserves. None of us know, that was proven with the Ancelotti stuff and the appointment of McLeish, so why bother.
What I'm going to do instead is follow the Aston Villa news on NewsNow and wait for actual news to come in and I'm going to hide all those publications that just speculate, because football speculation is driving me mad and actually, like I've written, I don't think we need that many players.
You see, this is the season. If we go and spend loads of money on players, we actually know from the off, we are doing it wrong, because it is too much change and we will likely be bringing in what we already have, but we will just never know because they will never have had their chance.
This is the season to demonstrate Aston Villa actually have a fairly good production line that is capable of making the step up. This is the season where fight, good football and determined players get their chance because they are doing it for their club. This is the season that our players get their chance. It has to be.
If it isn't, we are back in that cycle and if we are in that short term cycle and the owner doesn't see it, he is going to have to bring in people that can.