tylerreznik

Yeah exactly, Gueye clearly filling Cleverly's spot in the squad. Left back is the top priority for mine, hope we get that sorted within the next 7-10 days.

What excitement, almost like a new signing! Good on for coming out and making such a strong statement, I suspect indirectly that actually may help us with our other recruiting. Suddenly gone from a club losing its captain (and one of better players) to a club who's captain can't wait to lead his team out and feels about the future. Certainly makes us look just a little more inviting to new signings. I do wonder how close he came to leaving, more inclined to think he was more like a .01% chance of leaving though, and I doubt Man City even bid, all just chinese whispers and making click bait headlines. Mail, Mirror, and associated trash rags are all blacklisted in my eyes now, i'll never visit them again....

Totally agree with Clark, seems a very obvious choice and you'd hope it would help him develop even further next year.

Townsend for 15m is total insanity, absolute madness, what has he done to be valued anywhere near double figures?!? At 5-6m could be ok but really there must be 100's of better / cheaper options around Europe, also think we have far more pressing area's of the team to fill, i.e. left back... The thought of having both Nzogbia + Townsend on our wage bill, and running around like headless chickens makes me want to cry.... Clearly not valued by Spurs, makes me so sad that we might be ripped off by them paying over the odds for a player they don't believe is good enough for them, just wrong on so many levels.

The situation feels strange, once the release clause was made public surely we should have been treated with respect and dignity and either Delph or the club admitted yes it did exist rather than release that stupid photo of him kissing the captains armband... While he has been a great player for us and will be a loss, he has been playing in a woeful side which certainly made him look better, he is certainly replaceable, so while disappointing it's not the end for he world. I actually feel sorry for him, if he were really that good then surely at least one of the other top 5 clubs would have made a bid, Spurs definitely and even Saints, he is certainly worth more than 8m. But no only Man City... And only because he is English, so sad.

For sure Sherwood got him playing well again, but that is far and away the least important factor when recruiting players. We are finally starting to operate like a professional organisation, have invested in Reilly to head up a recruitment team. If you start making player decisions based oh I think he's a good lad and I can get him playing well, trust me, well we might as well go out all and hire Redknapp as a director of football. That's a medieval way of operating, we need to be thinking way more progressively. Sherwood could be gone in December, imagine if we did sign him on 80k p/w over 3 years, stuck with him then..

Yes I imagine you are mate... He is trouble, absolutely everything about him is wrong. Entering the twilight of his career, only cares about picking his his wage, comes with so much baggage he is more likely to destabilise the team than add anything, has zero resale value, would blow our hole in our wage budget / structure, i could go on and on... The fact that Spurs are (allegedly) willing to subsidise some of his wages to get him out of the club should set alarm bells off. Too many of these clowns in the game, yeah on their day they look world beaters, but more often than night they are useless and simply a drain on the club. I'm sure Liverpool felt the same way about Balotelli and he has way way more upside than Adebayor, but the sad truth is many of these players are more interested in 'being' footballers than actually playing football. I would fell both sick and violated if he joined us, massive massive step backwards. We should be focusing on finding younger players with real hunger and desire, that want to play and want grow and improve. Lets go out and find a 25 yo Adebayor who wants to make a name for himself, i.e. Wilfried Bony or Benteke types.

Best of luck to him, suits both parties well and great to get another big wage off the monthly bill.

Just papers talking it to create headlines / fill white space, my guess is Liverpool have a passing interest in him at best, I'm sure he's one name on a long list of forwards they are looking at. I reckon they are more focussed on getting rid of Balotelli first, can't see them paying big $$$ for Sturridge, Balotelli and Benteke, plus they have Origi and Borrini unless they both get moved on, that'd surely be burning a big hole in their wage budget... Same as the nonsense about him 'telling' Sherwood he wants to leave... Cool, well tell your agent to find someone to willing to pay us 32m, very simple... Until that happens you're a Villa player, and if you're deadset on leaving it'd be a good idea to put your head and play to your abilities, put yourself in the shop window so to speak. If he goes the other way and has a big sulk and form drops off, come Jan / next summer he'll be lucky to find mid table teams interested in him...

I totally agree. Given the precarious situation we were in when Sherwood joined, you can't blame him for wanting to settle on a first XI and sticking with it, trying to get them playing as a unit the way he wanted, it wasn't the time to experiment or chop and chance each week. This season should be a totally different story. The guy has clearly got ability, he's had a bit of time to settle in now (away from the spotlight which will help), hopefully speaks some basic english etc. He is essentially a new signing, and hopefully he makes a big impression in pre-season and hits the ground running, certainly looks happy enough in the videos released yesterday.

Does seem a stupid rule change that's skewed to cater strongly towards south america players.. I'm surprised they don't apply some form of monthly wage (or even transfer fee value) criteria, i.e. paid above xxx p/m. Many countries use this as part of the process to get a work visa. Anyways he's a proven international with proven track record in France, I can see him being denied a work visa, just has to go through some more manual processing.

If I knew how to use Photoshoto and had a few hours spare, I'd love to photoshop most of the Liverpool first XI wearing Man Utd jersey's and spam the Express twitter account.... I've not lived in England since I was a young kid, do people over there really buy / read / believe the nonsense these gutter tabloids print? Seems like a very unique market that can support so many sad excuses for newspapers...

Wow the Express 'mock up' photo of him wearing a Liverpool jersey is pure comedy gold.... Seems they've let a 16 yo summer intern loose on the Photoshop computer, are we now supposed to believe that a deal is 'imminent' on the strength of that... So so sad, I really feel sorry for the people that have to work for those gutter press tabloids.

I don't like to see us sell our best players, but I think we could come out stronger if he does leave for the 32.5m. He's been a revelation and it's probably fair to say without him we may not have survived in the PL, but our style of play and attacking focus has become so dependant on getting the ball to Benteke so we are starting look very one dimensional, and teams know that if they mark him out of the game we have little to no other attacking threats, short of speculative shots from outside the box. If does leave and we reinvest that money wisely to beef up the midfield (looks like that will happen any ways), and bring in a proven goal scorer, I think we've come out the other side with a better balanced dare I say stronger side.

profile infrastructure stadium location Valuing a football club (privately held) would be insanely complex and somewhat subjective, but using a few super crude methods yeah I'd say if West Brom are valued at 150m we should be worth at least 200-250 if not more. Using the most basic possible valuation of x2 revenue, using last seasons revenue numbers West Brom are worth 173m we are worth 222m, around 50m more. Factor in current circumstances, we are in a epic slump, just had our worse finish in PL history, whereas West Brom are flying high in their most successful period for many a year, so I'd say we have significant upside to increase revenue quickly if / when performances improve, West Brom on the other hand will have to work a lot harder to grow revenues. Then try to value tangible assets like stadium, training complex / properties etc, try to value intangibles like respective brands, supporter base, global profile, which are all in our favour. Of course that's all ultra simplistic and doesn't take into account the cost bases, debt levels, and current financial states, which I'm sure both favour the Baggies. Ultimately a business is worth what the market will pay, and Peace has done a pretty amazing job with West Brom, seems like he is keen to get out at the top though, whereas we have been run into the ground and Lerner is basically trying to cut his loses.......

Very legit, however there are a multitude of possibilities at the conclusion of the exclusivity period. All exclusivity means is both parties are serious and agree to perform due diligence (on each other), in return Lerner agrees not to engage with any other potential buyers. Essentially very early stages of a deal, but we don't know how long this buyer has been looking at the club, they could have been running numbers and making plans for the past 12 months and for them looking at the books and internals of the club is the final stage. The buyer might decide that the club isn't in great health or differs from their expectation and walk away or counter with a much lower offer which Lerner could reject Lerner might decide the buyer can't fund the purchase and decide not to proceed with further talks. I'm assuming he already believes they are a suitable buyer, but funding a purchase is another matter. Remember Lerner has sunk his own $$ into the club, cast your mind back to Liverpool's disastrous leveraged takeover by Hicks & Gillet, while Man Utd have faired better under the Glazers, but again they effectively leveraged the assets of the club to buy the club and pay hefty interest on those loans. Definitely an ultra high risk strategy for a club like us that doesn't have the same revenue generating potential. Everything Lerner has said indicates he will only sell if a responsible buyer can be found, so I take from that that won't allow somebody load the club up with debt to fund the purchase. It all works out, buyer likes the club, Lerner likes the buyer, price is agreed It doesn't work out and the status quo is resumed, sale efforts continue in background it doesn't work out, Lerner makes major changes to the current structure, walks away from or recasts his Chairman role and takes a passive approach to his investment, sale efforts continue in the background Whatever happens the club has definitely been moving in the right direction for the past month or so, the fact that we are bidding for high calibre players and prepared to pay out serious money in transfer fees proves we have a properly funded budget in place, which frankly is what pretty much everybody has been calling out for... To my eyes the future is bright regardless of what happens next week. I trust Lerner will only sell to a responsible buyer, and I also believe he has put plans in place to ensure the club can progress under his ownership if a sale can't be concluded this summer. Seriously if West Brom are sold for 150 mill, we are surely worth 250+.... If I were Lerner I'd be very very tempted to hold tight for now, walk away from any operational duties, let Fox, Sherwood and co do their jobs for a season or 2 and look at selling in a few years time. Right now he is pretty much a distressed seller having made his intention to sell very public, we've just narrowly avoid relegation, have one of worse squads in recent memory etc.. Let's say things go well with Sherwood and we make some more astute signings, fast forward 2 years we could be finishing in the top half of the league with the club in way better health, he might even be able to recoup his entire investment and some from a sale under those conditions.

Yeah I found it strange that Sherwood persisted with him while public scolding unnamed others as being lazy 'losers', from what I've seen that describes him down to a tee.... He's just never done it for us, and I can't see that changing. Would love to see him shipped out this summer but sadly just don't see it happening. On good money here and hasn't performed well enough to really interest anyone into bidding.

Not in a month of sundays, Adebayor is untouchable & a ticking time-bomb, Spurs can't give him away.... Absolutely nothing about him fits our recruitment policy (wrong age, massively high wages, unstable personal life, inconsistent performer, minimal / zero resale value, comes with baggage etc). While Sherwood got him playing well for a period, its worth noting that Sherwood had to work with him, given he no transfer window, case of working with what he had at that moment in time, and clearly he has ability when he puts his mind to it. Long term he'd be a very different proposition and I'm pretty sure Sherwood would far rather invest his time / energy in somebody younger with hunger that can be moulded and developed rather than trying to massage Adebyor's ego and coerce him into performing to his ability week in week out. More than likely he'll head to Turkey / Middle East for a final payday, if Spurs can offload him.

He may have been part of the selection team for bad managerial selections. But to say Faulkner added nothing of value to the club is complete tosh. He negotiated an increase on our commercial gain virtually every yr. He made record deals for the club during his time here. Sorry I just don't buy it, simple fact is the club regressed massively under his leadership. His leadership led us to where we are today, that's a stone cold fact. Lerner is not and never has been a hands on Chairman so the CEO role is beyond critical for us, beyond day to day ops and creating a vision for the club, he was the guy who crucially also shaped Lerner's view and perspective. Yes commercial revenues have increased yr on yr, they have for every prem league club, he literally just needed to get out of bed each morning to make that happen, no points there. If I had the time I'd try to find the yr on yr gains for say Spurs, Everton, Stoke, West Brom and look at the % gains for each, I'll bet we are bottom of that list. Look at the quality of core sponsors we have managed to attract under his watch, an online FX broker, Malaysian casino, nondescript online bookie, frankly I'd never heard of any of them, non were strategic we just become a run of the mill billboard as most lower end teams in the league. Did he manage to secure a global brand like Standard Chartered, Samsung, AIA and lock in a long term strategic partner or just sell space on our shirt / tv screens. So commercially no he didn't do anything special and certainly didn't take the club forward, he achieved the bare minimum during a time when prem league exposure and $$$ potential went through the roof. I mean geez when we finished 6th under MoN and looked to be cementing ourselves as serious top 8 team did he manage to cash in on that success with big ticket commercial deals? No he did not, not even close. After the MoN horror show came to an end we needed a strong leader with a clear vision on how to right the mess MoN had created, what we had in Faulkner was a clown who simply tried to cut costs without a long term plan, and honestly he made a mess of that... Fox has shown how to correct a budget and control costs while ensuring investment continues. Look at how Stoke, Swansea, Southampton, even (actually especially) West Brom have progressed in the same time period, under proper leadership with long term vision and disciplined business management. Honestly it's gut wrenching for me, by pretty much every measure imaginable we are 'bigger' than these clubs, yet they have consistently finished above us, have had far greater success recruiting talented players without spending huge $$$, all while managing to make a profit. So not only did he add zero value above and beyond what anybody could have done in that role, but he managed to regress the club to such a degree that two much smaller local rivals now routinely finish above us, and in West Broms case now incredibly have a similar enterprise value to us - that is an absolute disgrace, a case study in mis-management. Finally this is the clown who actually thought hiring Alex McLeish was a good idea, and then incredibly hired him........ That wasn't a bad decision, that was a disgraceful decision that heaped misery on the club when we already at a low point. I get we had serve budgetary constants at that point in time and we were not looking for a big name manager, but for gods sake I could think of ten similar guys on the managerial merry go round could have done just as badly / well under the same conditions, but didn't come from SMALL HEATH. During that time there was little good news to be had, hiring McLeish simply made a bad situation many times worse and caused additional pain for fans who desperately needed some good news. Because of his disastrous rein Lerner gradually lost interest / passion for the club, though thankfully Lerner woke up and acted. I give Lerner a lot of credit for making that decision (albeit too late) and for making the Fox hire when he easily could have brought in a nobody numbers man to run the club on life support as a caretaker until he could sell. Sorry to go on and on but when I start to think about what he did to our club it really makes me feel sick..

Certainly makes sense, and would be an best case outcome in my mind. Plus Lerner does seem intent on finding the 'right' buyer and not just sell to the first or highest bidder.

I think this is all tabloid bs, just filling up white space. Pretty clear cut, if they really want him they can have him without any drama at all. It's actually a pretty fair release fee, not as if we put in a stupid number like 60 mill. I think they need to offload Balotelli first in any case, maybe if they can find somebody to take him then we might see a formal bid come in to trigger the release clause.

Yeah if both of them will be presenting 'something' would seem very strange to be confirming a takeover... I assume it will be something sponsorship related, as Wijerantna heads up the commercial side, can't see why else he'd be present otherwise. Careful what you wish for r.e. Far Eastern billionaires........ We could playing in Red with a revised 'dragon' badge..... I've lived in HK for a while now and spent a far bit of time in the mainland, frankly I couldn't think of a worse fate than having Chinese ownership to be honest...

Because under Deadly Doug's regime we had no CEO per sae, from memory that role would have been the club secretary, but really Ellis ran the show how he pleased and did things his way for better or worse, prior to the last Ellis era / premier league it was a very different world and the role didn't really exist. Then we had Paul Faulkner who imo caused immense damage and took us backwards when many other more progressive yet 'smaller' clubs were becoming way more professional in how they ran both the business and footballing side of things. So yes Fox is far and away the best business leader we've had, and in nine or so months he has already made huge strides in turning the club around. We have real structure now, proper recruitment strategy, clearly Reilly has an excellent scouting network in place, budget is under control and the club has direction, all of this is due to Fox coming on board. If he leaves who knows maybe the new guy will continue on the same path, or maybe not, in which case we'll be back to square one again.

The fact that we are willing to spend 'real' money on transfers leads me to believe Fox has really got a handle on the business side and we have a proper business plan and budgets in place for the next few years with or without a change in ownership. Quite simply the club should be creating a profit each year if managed correctly, christ even the likes of Swansea & Stoke are able to make money, while improving their squads, invest in better players year on year and rise up the table... It's really not that hard with the amount of money washing into the Prem league these days, and just goes to show the damage Martin O'Neill and Paul Faulkner did to our club. Lerner is guilty of naivety in allowing those clowns a free rein under his watch, give him credit for righting his past wrongs and replacing them with the right people.

Fox was employed by Lerner, I expect via an executive search firm. Lerner brought Faulkner in after first buying the club, mistake number 1. Faulkner was a nobody who had worked his way into the Lerner family office via a stint at MBNA, he was well known to Lerner but clearly out of his depth and added zero value to the club in his COO & CEO roles. Lerner realised his mistake and sought to bring in somebody with both the skills and experience to fill the CEO role and take the club forward, enter Fox. His appointment had absolutely nothing to do with potential takeovers, Lerner simply woke up to the fact that without proper leadership on the business side the club would drift further into the abyss. IF the club is taken over I really do hope Fox is retained, he's the best leader we've had ever.... If he leaves, it's back to square one again.