MessiWillSignForVilla

9 minutes ago, momo said:

Gabby is one of the all time top goalscorers for Aston Villa.

Only in recent history, Gabby isn't even in our top 10 goalscorers of all time, him being our top Premier League goalscorer is just a testament to how bad we've been in the last couple of decades.

Idiot

play on you numpties!

6 minutes ago, mwj said:

How do other clubs affect how Aston Villa is run?

The owners (in this case fans), set a governance structure (probably some democratic process) that installs a management structure that is accountable. Pretty much the same as it is now, just substituting Reform Acquisitions Ltd (Randy Lerner) as the majority shareholder.

My point is that its entirely POSSIBLE to do this, it wouldn't affect the day to day running of the club at all

We would just need to find enough money from somewhere, which is the hard part.

This is the problem, surely the point of a takeover is that day to day running will be affected so that we are run better, to do say in football's current climate requires money, a lot of money. So it is possible for the fans to take the club over (though I have doubts about stumping up the required capital for the initial bid) but it won't change anything, instead of the blame lying at Lerner's feet it would lie at the feet of the 50,000 or so fans that own the club.

As for football being a business the same as every other one, it really isn't. Football is a money pit, no owner can ever expect to make money off of a football club like you could with regular businesses, in 2013 over half of Premier League clubs made losses, and have only been making profits recently thanks to the TV money, but with the way transfer fees are going I can't see it being long until most clubs go back to running losses. There's a reason that most Billionaires don't invest in football clubs, because they aren't like other businesses and are bad investments unless you're willing to piss money away.

16 minutes ago, Feidhlim said:

Curious to know the source for all of those figures quoted. The last one doesn't make sense to me - does Aston Villa have zero revenue? Are we really losing £300m per year? No wonder Lerner wants out.

They were just educated guesses, hence putting the "~" in front of the figures. Obviously the cost of buying a club is going to depend entirely of assets, but League 2 clubs are not often bought for higher than £10m. Most League 2 teams have a yearly wage bill of between £500k - ~£2m, so perhaps my estimate for running them was a little low, though not too much so, however FFP rules determine that wages must account for 55% of Turnover in League 2, so that leaves 45% of your Turnover to be spent on general upkeep and transfers, so the need for fan investment isn't all that high.

As for Villa, of course we don't lose £300m per year, that was my highest estimate of what could be expected to be paid in the first year of ownership if the club was sold for £200m + my highest estimate of upkeep costs. Villa are currently spending £65m on wages, our 2014 accounts stated that we made a £4m loss (with a £52m loss the year before) and we have a Net Debt of £102m. That debt will need to be paid off for a start (assuming that it isn't taken care of with the sale from Randy), so that money would need to be stumped up. So if the fans could stump up the cash to buy the club and get rid of that debt, with some shrewd accounting then the fans could buy the club and run it at it's current standard. But I thought the whole point was our current state isn't good enough and we aren't spending enough as a club currently? If the club is making just £4m losses and still hardly spending any money, how can it be expected that it would be any different under fan ownership? We need significant investment if want to get back to just mid-table, imo, roughly £50m-£70m in the current climate of the Premier League and how much other teams are spending, and that's assuming we somehow stay up this season, it's gonna be even more if we have to get out of the Championship too.

Unfortunately, football is now a multi-£1B business now, which requires owners to invest significant amounts of money if they want to compete in the Premier League, amounts of money that regular fans just do not have, the idea of a top level, fan takeover in the current climate of football is absurd.

1 minute ago, Feidhlim said:

Portsmouth and Wycombe to name two but I'm not sure why that's relevant.

Because those two teams play in League 2, where it would cost no more than ~£10m to buy them and the yearly upkeep would only be a couple of million.

We're talking about a club that is up for sale for £150m-£200m, and has a yearly upkeep of ~£75m-£100m. Can the fans stump up ~£225m-300m just to run the club for one year?

5 hours ago, Zatman said:

no Martin Palermo

 

 

 

Why would you let him take a third after he smashed two on to the crossbar?

Argentina deserved for him to miss the third for that.

4 minutes ago, Zatman said:

saw a video of fans invading the pitch at the end. Dont know how true it is

I bet Lawrenson is ashamed that fans of his club are throwing football back to the dark ages!

Lol, Liverpool fans having a go at Benteke for not attacking a cross about 5-10 yards ahead of him.

6 minutes ago, supernova26 said:

LOL yes playing at Villa in the championship is the great way to learn his trade. 

He doesn't need to learn anything from us, our other players can learn from him though.

Started for Barcelona on the odd occasion but wouldn't get a game at Man Utd either?

Kidding yourself here. 

Invariably gets an assist when he plays, what more do you want. 

He played once for Barcelona, and that was off the bench, so yeah, he wouldn't play for Utd.

They're not even in the play-off places...

17 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Surely our lack of willing runners into the box is down to instructions. I just don't get it. 

Could be, but it seems to me that our midfielders aren't confident when getting in the box. We have a very lightweight midfield and it's almost as if they realise they're not gonna leap above a CB for a header or out-muscle someone for a tap in, so they don't bother. Garde needs to make them realise that just being in the box is helpful as they force the defense to do something under pressure, so might make a mistake you can capitalise on.

It's not a problem just Garde has experienced though, Gil and Veretout never really did it under Sherwood, and Westwood never really did before either, the players we had that did do it were players like Cleverley, Delph, and El Ahmadi did a bit, and further back Milner, Downing, Barry etc..

Thought he was really good today, much improved from earlier in the season.

My only complaint with him currently is he doesn't get in the box anywhere near enough. It's as if he feels that he can't compete physically so he shies away from the box, but just being in there would help as at the very least he's a nuisance for the defense. Garde should show him the chance he had v Leicester, where he tries a scissor kick, and tell him that's what happens when you get in the box, chances fall to you, one will eventually go your way.

Not just a problem with Westwood though, the same could be said of Gil and Veretout too.

Sign him up! We need a striker.

Just now, Davkaus said:

And everyone knows we're one of the most entertaining teams in the league.

At least we get to see a good thumping every so often.

Yes, Garry, Gil has gone up front, because Ayew couldn't go upfront as he already was you moron!

****'s sake, just when he was starting to look half decent.

Can someone take Garry Birtles out back and put out him of his misery please?

If you're fed up of saying it shut the **** up! We're fed up of hearing it too.

"If Villa play 2 up top..."

WE ARE YOU **** IDIOT! AYEW IS A STRIKER!

Has to be worst commentator I've ever heard.

1 minute ago, OutByEaster? said:

Will be Bacuna be on the right of a diamond or as part of a central three? Whichever, I don't think he'll be playing down the right hand flank - our width will come from Ayew and Gil.

I'm unsure about Bacuna as a central midfielder - with Gardner proving unsuitable, Lyden unready and Sanchez a bit of a fruit loop, we don't have enough options in there. Put that on the list with striker and keeper.

 

 

Either that or RM in a 442.

To be fair, even if he is on the right of the diamond, the way Veretout has been playing it makes it look more like he's playing right midfield than central.

7 minutes ago, Zatman said:

5 at the back today. strangely defensive move against 1 striker

Looks to me like a 442 with Gil and Bacuna on the wings.

BT Sports online stuff, it's **** awful! Trying to watch the Norwich v Liverpool game and it's constantly stopping and skipping every ten seconds. Decided to watch a stream of it instead, literally the exact same coverage and it's perfect quality and no problems at all. How can you expect to charge people for your shitty streaming when you can get the exact same coverage in much better quality for free?

11 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

He wasn't even making the bench under Lambert for large periods. There's a difference between giving a kid and a chance and not having him as a regular player. He showed weeks after Lambert was sacked that he was ready to play a part. 

And has shown this season that he isn't.

Guzan; Richards, Lyden, Clark, Richardson; Westwood, Sanchez, Grealish, Sinclair; Ayew, Gestede.

Lyden at CB? or 3 at the back?

Edit:

So Sanchez at CB presumably.