moose

Please feel free to correct me on this, but my impression is that a LOT of our recent appointments are NOT Aston Villa appointments, they're "V Sports" appointments of which AV is a part. Read the wordings of the job titles and announcements carefully. Chris Heck doesn't work for Villa, he works for V Sports. We're just the (currently) largest element of a group now. Secondly, American owners generally (because they're drilled on the US model of closed leagues and sports that are only played in the USA) do not consider profit and loss much, they just care about an appreciating asset. This is seriously dangerous in global sport - remember American sport has no promotion/relegation, the player markets are dictated by the franchise holders, etc etc. The power in American sport is held by the owners, this is absolutely not true for the rest of the world but the owners think it is. Todd Boehly is a prime example of a clueless billionaire and we can simply be thankful he doesn't own us, and whilst our ownership seems mostly more switched on, I don't think they're entirely the saviours we've generally built them up to be. Still, we're in European competition, so who cares?

So we're going to monitor "global reaction" to the new badge? Whose reaction are we monitoring? People are either Villa fans or they aren't and maybe if the internet gets filled with randomers from Upper Umbobo saying they don't like it they'll take their views over those of the fans living within 20 miles of the ground? Bonkers. The fact that some clubs are popular in the vast Asian market is because they wear red. Nothing else. Absolutely nothing else. We don't wear red. Yet.

Castore is basically two blokes who decides to make sports stuff. Gymshark is worth hundreds of millions and started by a bloke who I assume had never worn leggings or women's gym attire. So you do have a point there.... how can a kit be any worse than what we're given now by "professionals".

I can't decide whether that shirt looks terrible or awful. Decisions, decisions.

With all these tyre jokes I think I'm going to keep a low profile for now.

Not only is our main shirt sponsor enjoying a lot of negative publicity today (but all publicity is good publicity, right?), but I noticed that our new sleeve sponsor is a spread betting firm and not a "trading" firm. Poor form on both counts for the club, but money talks I suppose.

Any time I think of Far East investors I can't get the fiasco with Vincent Tan at Cardiff out of my head. Maybe next season we'll be playing in red and gold, players will all wear number 8, and the lion on the badge will be replaced by a dragon. I'd rather it's the Americans, maybe then we'll get a sister club in the MLS.

3 of us from Gibraltar will be there.

He seriously does not give a flying **** about anyone or anything You just said he made a £1 million donation to childline, is that not worthy of praise similar to the praise Lerner got for donating money to acorns. Was that action and the knighthood unconnected? You should know that to family and friends I am notoriously cynical. Only just read this, but in answer to this question the donation was basically the purchase price of the "honour". Cynicism not needed.

Lambert on Sky last night said something like "if one guy leaves and we can use the money to make the team better overall, that's fine" I'm not too hung up on any one player wanting to move on, it's inevitable and they're not Villa fans they're just young guys wanting to make enormous amounts of money. Can't blame them, don't blame them. Anyhow - remember last summer when everyone moaned about us signing a bunch of lower league and unknown foreign players? Who's to say with a £30m fee coming in for one player that we can't spend less than a third of that on a replacement for the one leaving and a few million here and there for some other improvements. Add on the fact we'll get a number of overpaid slackers off the books this summer we'll be quids in. Randy can start to repay his loans with the additional Sky money and Villa will end up with a load of young players with transfer profit potential, no debt, and hopefully a sustainably good squad built around getting the best out of a team rather than relying on one player.

It's plan with more holes than our defending against set pieces.

I think Given's £50k, Hutton £40k. Not sure about the rest. Wouldn't be surprised if it's over £200k/month (and the figures quoted always exclude things like employers NI, so add another 13%-ish)

My professional view is that Lerner's far too reliant on people who used to work for him (YCRTA "yes men") which is not exactly a great position to be in. I'd have a non-executive Chairman, an ambitious CEO with football industry experience, a CFO who's level headed and able to appreciate the fine line between seeing expenditure on players as a cost and an investment, a COO who can handle all the back-office requirements, and two independent non-execs who were selected for specific knowledge and experience whether it be football or not (I'd actually have one who was experienced in turnaround situations right now). I just don't have the impression that the board are listed for any other reason than to make it look like we actually have one and it's really just Lerner and Faulkner asking Russell to sign some cheques.

I'll still have my season ticket if we go down - and probably go to more away games than I will to this season. I'd reckon we'd get an average of around 25-30k for most games, with a few exceptions like playing some right no-hopers on a Friday night televised match but they'd get compensated by the bluenose derby. I also think we'd see a significant amount of away supporters coming to VP which would boost the number.

The Prem's been around 20 years. It's like saying you think we'll stay up because we won the European Cup. It's the here and now that matters, not history.