Deisler123

Really? only 1 in 21 takeovers went through? I didn't expect the check was THAT tough.

I have to say even when he speaks Chinese in a few interviews, he appeared to be 'nervous', by giving breaks between words that is not necessary at all. Maybe it is just how he speaks.

Yes, it can go on forever until all his time is wasted on these nonsense. Xia will soon learn he should avoid unnecessary interview, or appoint someone who will speak for him.

The first interview he talked about his ambition - people critisized him being too ambitious and not wealthy enough to run Villa. The second interview he talked about his wealth by showing a bank statement - people critisized him being too 'simple' and not having a detailed plan for the club The third interview he then talked about rebuilding the scouting team - it has also been critisized as what you have said. It is surely useful to contructively critisize, but too much is no good. I am not trying to defend him though, but I guess Xia must have realised how difficult being a owner of an English football club is - that is probably the reason that most owners would rather keep quiet in front of the media as they certainly cannot please everyone. And sadly even being quiet as an owner can be critisized.....

From this interview, Xia clearly expressed that he is not happy with the current scouting team at Villa. I am curious to know, if this is his personal observation (which requires him following the club for quite a long time to know this), or him knowing this from somewhere else (his team, or even from current owners?)

The first half basically means, he is in fact someone who likes to implement hard work in orde to achieve his dream, rather than just being a talker. Yeah, the second half is clear - we are all doomed.

Do you mean 'nothing more than what that means' or 'nothing more than what that means literally'?

Yes, that is him. It has the sign of 'V' behind his name, which means certified account (to be him).

He rarely used his Weibo account. (maybe one post every month) I found a quite interesting post he posted on 23rd/ March and I quote here: http://www.weibo.com/xiajiantong?refer_flag=1001030101_&is_hot=1 鉴于各种议论和谩骂，说一下我特认同的关于理想和吹牛B的区别：牛b是说完了一切就结束了，理想是牛吹了，一切刚开始。P.S.某个天天发表评论的却私下私信骂我的家人，就此拉黑。同时对那几个故意散布了一段时间的谣言的人，希望能知道网络不是为所欲为之地！宽容和软弱更不等同！ My translation (I doubt google translation can do anything with this, because he used 'internet' language and slangs a lot). 'Regarding the discussion and invectives (on me), I wanna say something I particularly agree in terms of the difference between dream (ideality) and brag (talking big, in Chinese slang it literally means /blowing ox's vagina/): Brag means nothing will happen after blowing (the vagina), Dream (and work on it) means blowing is just a beginning. PS: someone who keeps posting comments every day but privately (in private messages) abuse my family, I will blacklist them. Meanwhile, I will like to warn those who intentionally spread bad rumours against me: Internet is not a place for you to do anything on your will. Don't take tolerance (from me) as the same as being weak'. He is a quite special character I have to say. BTW, I actually used google translation on his post and here is what it gave me: Bovine b is finished all over, blowing over the cattle = bragging lol

OK. I got that, but didn't get why hungry an hour later.... Because cantonese takeaway tends to have less amount of food? to be honest I am never happy about the food offered in the Chinese restaurants in where I live. I think they somehow changed the recipe to suit local people's taste, which is a good thing though. It is like KFC/Mcdonalds in China now offer fried rice or fried noodle as main meal instead of chicken/beef. If you know how it should taste, you will find it so weird.

I dont know you, but I always got super thirsty after having Cantonese food (which is probably loaded with soy source than MSG?) Funny thing was, I went to western part of China for my honeymoon. People there are addicted to spicy food - after 1 week staying there, at toilet i always feel 'hot' (i am heterosexual and I am a man, so dont get confused lol...)

No. Why?

This reminds me of a funny story, quite trivil one though, that shows the culture difference is in fact everywhere. About 6 years ago I invited a friend from Australia to have lunch with my family (my mom made food for us). Then we shared the food, everything was fine. My friend only ate a little (he tends to eat very little for lunch, but for Chinese we always have a full meal for lunch especially in small towns). Then my mom offered him some more food, and he politely rejected. My mom started panicking (because it is very rude to reject elderly's offer of food at a formal meal, especially by important guests - my mom never had meal with foreigners so she prepared a long time for the meal). She thought it was because the food is too salty/spicy so she actually tried to make more food (and I told her not too). She felt extremely sorry and couldn't even eat anymore (as she thought she didn't do well enough to accommodate a foreign guest). My mom later that day asked me: you friend is almost 2 metres tall, how can he be full with that little food??

Sorry I missed your post. It is not that straightforward though. yes, student exchange programme could be a potential solution - however in order to play official matches in youth academy, if you are under 18, it is no way (unless parents get jobs for non-football reasons which is a FIFA regulation) to come to UK as a Chinese player. Even if older than 18, Chinese players have to get a work permit to be able to register in the club for U19 team. Coming to Villa without being able to play in the official youth matches is quite pointless to both parties tbh.

What worries me is, before new owner has passed the test, it is very difficult to convince a good manager to sign the contract. I guess all potential manager candidates are playing 'wait and see' games now, because the take over is not approved yet. But if it will take another 3-4 weeks to officially finish the take over - i doubt all the candidates will still be available then. I think it is very possible that Xia has already signed a conditional contract with one of the candidates (most likely Moyes then Di Matteo), provided that Xia can pass the test and take over Villa officially. At the same time, the candidate is still seeking for job offers from other clubs, even though the offer from Xia is his preferred one. Considering that Xia has said in one of his interviews that, he has signed the deal with Villa owners for the take over, on the match day against Newcastle, and waited till late last week to announce it due to some approval process, it is logical to believe that there will be a conditional offer from him to the manager candidates, based on the approval of the football league.

LOL. www is never short of this, is it? Anyone who has even a little knowledge of human anatomy, will know that ’human-shaped‘ meat is just an 'sculpture' from a big piece of beef. It is quite well photoshop'ed though. Jareth -please give us a warning on this type of news to people who may have had a lot of food for breakfast - I know it is not human fresh but the pics there are quite disgusting.....

Hi Kingman, as far as I can see from this reporting, there are three allegation to Xia, 1. Harvard Professorship claim 2. 1 listed company instead of 5 3. President's brother. First off, these three things are no secret in China. Everyone knows it - I didnt know Xia and Recon before this take over, but I baidu-ed it, and I get these rumour said by a lot of people on forum. 1. In the battle between him and Fang Zhouzi, there is evidence that he used 'Professor' in his application form. He is not the only one who has done this - I dont think it is very bad - but yes if that was true then it is not good. It should be noted that Fang Zhouzi, although was appreciated at the beginning of his 'anti-fraud' career, now has been seen as 'doing it too much for no good'. 2. No one knows if this is Xia's fault, or a misunderstanding, or current owner's fault. I dont think this is an issue tbh. 3. Whether or not this is true, I do not know. People are certainly talking about it - again, i see this as a minor problem.

Firstly, no Chinese players (at the moment) can get a work permit. As the China national team is not within the first (60? or 40? i cannot remember) of the FIFA table. The players therefoe need to be loaned out from Villa to other leagues in EU in order to gain the permit (Chelsea do that a lot), or being bought with more than 10M to activate 'football genius clause'. Let's assume they can play for Villa, then a few that come cross my mind: 1. Wu Lei - Shanghai SIPG,24 yo - AMC/small attacker -he is quick and his off-ball is top class. His shooting is poor. He is better played as a shadow attacker. 2. Zhang Linping - Guangzhou Evergrande- 27 yo - RB/CB -he is very strong physically. He is called Zhang-mos, as he is a look-a-like and plays the same type of football as Sergio Ramos 3. Zhang Yuning - Vitesse (netherlands) - 19 yo - CF - he is strong, very good at holding the ball, top heading skills, not very quick, not very good at passing and shooting. He is believed to be the player that has the potential to become the China's best football player in the next 10 years. He, in my opinion, is better than Solanke (the chelsea loanee at Vitesse) who was the top-scorer in youth UEFA champions league. There are others ofc. Especially those youth players 17-19, there are a lot of them who are quite good. Problem is the transfer fee. As i have mentioned in another post in the thread, Chinese players (in Chinese clubs) are very expensive. Wu Lei is like 10M pounds at least, and Zhang Linping is like 8-10M. Zhang Yuning is much cheaper (at Vitesse) though. I think generally speaking Chinese players who play in defenders position may mostly-likely become successful in English football.

Rodders, i was not upset by the mentions of the state - please do not try to play the wording games. I was upset by someone who (not for the first time since I joined VT) keeps pointing a conversation to the political system that China has, which has nothing to do with the coversation itself. I do have my view on political benefit, but I don't want to talk about it here (in VT I did talk about topics relevant to China politics, but that was because I want to explain things about the football and this take over). The video below, from TED talks, by Kevin Ruud, is a good one to read. He used US as an example but if you just substitue 'US' with 'UK' in his talk, it is also fine.

There has been quite a few years that a lot of domenstic assets (mostly in the form of cash) start to be spent on overseas assets. This phenomenon is due to a lot of different reasons, some good, some bad. It is very difficult to reach conclusion on this, before Xia does anything for the club. But you can ask the same question to all owners of English club that are not very successful recently. 'If Xia is not here to do something serious I really can't see why he would be here at all. '. Yes, I do agree.

No, not at all. That is very strange. Typically a take over (Villa is quite famous (not very popular now) to football fans in China) like this will take the headlines of all newspapers. But no, it was not even covered by main media (1-2 news pieces in main internet media i can find). Certainly didnt hit anywhere close to the headline. I actually had discussion on this with another VT user in private messages who is now working in Shanghai (he was born in Birmingham and supported villa for 30+ years). We both think that 'not a big story in China' is in fact a sign of state support backing Xia up. Otherwise he will make a very loud news coverage in China's media all over the place - because normally people needs that coverage to extend their business. But, strangely, very little coverage on this take-over. I wonder why.

Thanks a lot. Let's stop there. Back to football discussion.

The key point in his post, as the way how i read it, is : 'Or is it a Communist Party thing to try and break that?' How is what I said (about 'Xia will not like to involve the gambling business in the club') relevant to the Communist Party?

I didnt read it that way sorry. I don't think it was a simple question he just want me to answer. maybe you should check his other comments on my posts.

apologies. It was not the first time he keeps saying to me about 'communism'. I just can't stand that.