Godders

Potential buyers from the UK, the US and China?? So that's Ellison, Wang and this UK Euro Consortium covered then. Either there's a billionaire bidding war going on, or the Mail is covering all the bases.

Am I right in thinking that if we spend £500 million on assembling the best squad in the world next season and get promoted, then FFP means f all unless we get relegated again??

Rich folks have made their money the same way as everyone else- buying low and selling high. I can guarantee that no one with a significant amount of personal wealth would just buy the finished article unless they saw value in it. Buying AVFC for £75mill would be right up their street if they thought the club would eventually be worth a lot more with a bit of investment. If they reckon we'd be worth, say £300mill in Europe, and they reckon they'd have to spend £150million to get there, we would definately pique their interest at £75mill

Here's some wild speculation... What if Hollis was bought in to oversee the sale of the club. To this end, he bought in Bernstein and King to advise him and also to look at what's broken and needs fixing ASAP. Hollis is in negotiations, King & Bernstein approve of the new owner, and finish their review. Everything's looking Rosie so far. Lerner then starts stalling. Maybe suggesting actually, he'd rather stay. King & Bernstein, knowing Lerner needs to jog on for AVFC to have any future, tells him it's best for all involved if he sells up. Cue discussions between the board and the owner. Hollis, Bernstein & King (and Bevington given the media background) agree Bernstein & King will resign, with the letters worded in such a way to heap maximum pressure on Lerner. Bevington leaks the letters, and OK's the OS message confirming Hollis is in extensive negotiations regarding the sale of the club. King does his Bloomberg interview intimating a sale is close. If you believe this, then a sale is about to be done unless Lerner walks away again. Of course, this is likely all BS, and we're going to be in for another summer of having all hopes dashed!!

He's a tough one to read is Mr King. So, it's obvious from his resignation letter and the interview that he thinks the only way for the club to move forward is under a new owner. He then talks optimistically about the future and being champions of Europe again! Does he know something about a sale, or is this just PR nonsense?? I'm hoping he's expecting an imminent sale...

There is a world of difference between wanting to sell and being a motivated seller. A motivated seller wants to get shot as quickly as possible, and would be willing to accept any reasonable offer. Motivated sellers often sell below the percieved value because they want out quickly. Randy could have sold this club already if he was a motivated seller. Offering Villa for £50million would have had no end of offers I'd have thought. Changing firms to bring about a sale doesn't suggest to me that he's any more motivated a seller now than this time last season. Actions speak louder than words, and if he is truely motivated to f off now, he'll sell up PDQ

Yeah something similarly cryptic was mentioned on talksport earlier. I just assumed it was a trail for their 10pm show as that's where we were told to listen to get the latest from the front and back pages with regards to Villa. Maybe something is breaking...

Fixed

So what is it about this structure that doesn't seem right to you? Reading your post, I think Hollis is doing what you saw Fox failing at - getting the right people alongside and below him to look after the on the pitch stuff. Why is splitting the football and commercial board tripe? Surely getting the right people in a room making key decisions specific to a main function of the club makes sense? Especially a function that is seen by many as requiring very specific, bespoke knowledge? From being a long time lurker on these boards, I believe many fans have been concerned with the fact that non-footballing people are making footballing decisions. Hollis, with the football board, seems to have changed. We now seem to have football industry relevant leadership making football related decisions in the club. Key decisions have to be sanctioned by the main board- makes sense since we can't afford Messi's buyout clause and wages no matter how much Bernstein and Little would like to see him here. I sincerely hope this is not PR waffle, and that at board meetings, the right decisions are made to take the club forward.

I'm personally not reading too much into the "British manager" rhetoric at all. I would imagine that when Remi left, we were at a significantly advanced stage of discussions with one or more replacements. Just as we were with Remi when we sacked Sherwood. It just so happens whoever the club is talking to is British, and the media folks at the club think it's a good message to give the fans. Hence the British manager angle. Im hopelessly optimistic still that being British was not actually a requirement at all, and it just worked out that way since they were actually looking for experience in getting teams promoted from the championship, which since it's the 2nd tier of English football, will naturally include British managers anyway.

Quick question about this debt to equity conversion for some of you accountant types. I get that the idea behind it is to move debt off the accounts without paying it off- the creditor would get the sum due back to them on the sale of the equity it's converted to. Im assuming in this case that it's the club's debt to RL, so this conversion makes the accounts look better, with RL getting the money back on the sale of the club. Why don't we just convert all the debt to equity then? Is it just debt to RL we carry? What's the benefit of leaving debt on the balance sheet if he's looking to sell? Apologies if this is a stupid question!

Any manager would be an idiot to come here

Please God, no Pulis. I can see anarchy breaking out if he's appointed. The guy sets his teams up to play more negatively than Lambert ever did. Sitting back and inviting pressure hasn't worked for the last few years, so it's not going to change in the championship. Having said that, if Remi does walk, it feels like the sort of appointment this board would make. Give Remi whatever he says he needs to get us back up ASA f'ing P.

Unfortunately I think this would be more difficult to work than 100% ownership. If RL is not willing to invest now, he won't be if he owns 49% either. So, the fans will still have to stump up all the investment, the same as they would under the 100% ownership option, but this time, we'll only see half of any returns. On the face of it, it doubles the risk involved.

I can understand the fact that BoA would want to see evidence of funds. RL has a price in mind. Potential buyers of AVFC will have a price in mind. The first job for BoA is to see if those two figures are in the same ballpark. If not, there's no point doing anything else as it would be waste of everyone's time. BoA will also want to see evidence that the buyers can actually afford that sum, again to stop time wasters. If the two figures are in the same ballpark, and the buyer has shown they can afford it, then the buyer and his representatives will do due diligence, finalise negotiations etc. If RL is actually a villa fan, then the evidence of funds that needs to be seen is likely to be significantly more than the price of the club that's being mooted as he knows first hand how much of cash drain a football club is. I've never bought a club before- this is purely my speculation as to the process. In short, unless we've got upwards of £300 million sat in an account somewhere, or can evidence who is willing to provide us that amount (and by evidence i mean a banks representatives stating that they're going to lend us the money- a business plan based on fans possibly buying shares won't cut it), we're not going to be given the time of day here. If the OP is serious about getting this idea off the ground, I would suggest the first step is to do a little research. Go out to foreign and domestic supporters clubs, hit up social media with the idea, speak to fans outside VP on matchdays and try and get a flavour for actually how many people would be willing to part with the sorts of sums that's needed to fund this.

Thankfully, the only Liverpool fan I sit near at work left on Friday.

I don't think I'm really comfortable with this argument. We could get someone in to dig us out of a hole quickly, and maybe keep us up. But then what? Do we get rid of the survival specialist to get someone in who can build a half decent club? Stick with them in the summer so they can bring in 'their' players? IMO, bringing in someone who can get us out of a hole quickly would lead a series of Sherwood type appointments and inevitably, relegation pretty damn swiftly. We don't need someone to get us out of a hole quickly. We need someone who can rebuild the football side of the club into a competitive force again. That will take time, and we'll likely be relegated during the transition. But, if done properly, we should come back up quickly enough- plenty of evidence of teams in the top flight now who have built properly and come up before. Whether Garde is the right person to lead us through it, I don't know. At the moment though, he looks like he is to me.

Your choice has nothing to do with whether or not Remi can win matches, but since you're suggesting he's not a good a manager because he's not winning matches, I was just interested to see who you would rather realistically have. Personally, I think I've seen enough from him to suggest he can win us matches, more so than anyone else I think we can realistically get, assuming he has the right tools (and more so than our previous two managers). I just hope he's backed in the summer so he can get the players in he feels are good enough to get us out of the championship.

If Garde goes tonight then, who's your choice?

This. Absolutely this. The players may not be the best in the league, but the last few weeks they've started to improve. We've also got a manager who clearly can see where things need to get better. The boards job was to back the manager this window. They've failed. Not the players or Remi.

The problem with Villa is they always try and walk it into the net.

If he and Mark Lawrenson ever got together to commentate on a game, it would be like listening to the Radiohead of football.

With the Euro's in the summer, and a guarantee of first team football for 6 months in the premier league, I think we can probably find a decent striker willing to come here. The 'reality' we have to deal with is whether the club would be willing to pay for them.

I'm not sure I'd call it tripe. Two months ago, it was tripe. This is now the second game in a row where we can genuinly feel frustrated we didn't win - one of which was against the team at the top of the table. We're all but down, but I'm genuninely happy with the way we're playing at the moment compared with where we were when Garde took over. As others have pointed out, we're probably one forward away from being a reasonable PL team. Yes, it's too little too late, but assuming we get a striker and carry on playing as we are, there is no reason in my eyes why we shouldn't expect promotion straight back up.

My favourite today was when, after spending 70 minutes moaning about how no one was in the box, he then moaned about the fact that Gil lost the ball by the corner flag because everyone was in the box! Who was this joker?!