Keener window-cleaner

Only two days left, looking forward to it! Great to see us play some football and forget about the rest.

Jack, be a true Villa hero, refuse to be sold - force us into administration and we can get rid of the clown and start again with you as the main man.

...although, that would be the thinking of a sound businessman, as Xia is a charlatan probably anything can happen. GET OUT!

This is how I understand it as well. That Xia is still formally the sole owner. If someone else had been allocated shares, then we would have seen that in the Companies House records right? So my guess in that someone loaned money to Xia --> Xia loaned that money to Villa --> Xia converted his loans to equity. Now what is most interesting is how much Xia has borrowed, i.e. how much can he loose when he sells. My fear is that he borrowed up to 100%, then he simply can't sell for less unless his other business can cover the loss. If reports are true that his other business is doing badly, then he simply doesn't have much choice, he must stick with Villa. My hope is that he wont asset strip us. Probably the assets alone don't add up to what he bought the club for, it was probably quite much goodwill value when he bought us. So his best chance of saving himself is getting the club back on its feet, get the finance in order, have a competitive squad and have a hope of making the Premier League, that way someone could pay what he payed and he can sell the club. The tough part is that this probably will take some time. So hopefully it's not about asset stripping and running away, but making business decisions to get the club on it's feet, which like any business will mean short time pain (getting rid of staff, selling what is surplus etc) before we can go forward again.

I'm not sure what to think of Luke Organ at the moment, either we should be happy that he is there and that he is a guarantee for stability and experience, or he is a Xia ally who is partly responsible for the mess and should be accountable thereafter. Has Luke surrendered to the dark side?

And how about the plans for the Championship if we didn't win the final game? Fellaini and Javier Hernandez...yeah they would have got the Villa engine running...

You're the last one Dr, out you go!

Come on! He was 19 the first part of the season. A kid playing his first games in the first team who did really well and showed great potential. At the time we didn't play very expansive or created many chances. Of course he can develop and start scoring loads of goals. Harry Kane scored 3 in 14 when he was 20 and played his first proper season for spurs. Agree that he rather seems to be a target player than a goal poacher, but no need to write him off. I'm looking forward to seeing more of him next season, hopefully with RHM and O'Hare running around like rabbits creating chances for him.

I don't know what the Villa View has done, but perhaps they take a soft approach which sometimes can be even more efficient. If they have access to VP and staff then that's a great thing. The Trust I think have made some quite sharp statements lately. This is what I mean with a unifying approach, reaching out to them not slating them.

The sale of Jack will probably cause much discontent, and if things get worse probably supporter groups will take the lead. Individual initiatives on forums like this one would also be commendable. For it to work I'd suggest a unifying approach towards fellow villans, it's usually most productive. I think most of us would have doubts about Xia at this moment. But in fairness it's much we don't know, and when the time is for a proper protest that most would support is probably also too early to be sure of. If for example a miracle happens and Jack stays and we get investment in from a good investor, I would hesitate to participate in a protest even if I want Xia out.

Trying to be positive, here's hope of Bruce taking more of a DOF role, dealing with transfers etc now when Round and Wyness are out, and that Agnew gets more responsibility when it comes to the football. It worked well the weeks Bruce was absent in February (or when it was), we played the best football of the season at that time imo.

I disagree, we're united when it counts, the McLeish and Lerner out campains for example. Discussions on message boards are another thing that should not be blown out of proportion.

How about bringing a lawsuit against him for fraud or something, we have paid for tickets etc in the believe of investment, champions league football, a theme park etc etc. Not it would of course be unfounded and would loose the case, but it could be worth the cost just to give him negative publicity. "Fans suing owner for broken promises", "Fans suing owner for being a fraud". Bet the Brittish media could come up with some tasty headlines.

To cheer you up hopefully we wont sell all our youngsters, so we will have a team of young talanted villans to cheer on and see develop, instead of overpaid oldies who come in for a couple of years for a final pay check.

Even if we sell Jack, Chester, Hourihane, Adomah and Kodjia, we still have a fairly good Championship team. I would expect top half, with good management even play offs. Though if we are in crisis and chaos, that will probably effect the team and anything could happen.

I agree, for me Yorke, Southgate, Barry and Delph has been the hardest to take so far. But Jack feels the worst. Mostly because we sell him just because of mismanagement by the owners, sell him to cover the costs. It's not him leaving, it's us kicking him out. We are kicking out one of our own, our most gifted player I have ever seen, the one that gives me hope of us becoming a top side. I'm sure he could have stayed for at least another season if we weren't in this mess. Xia - you kick out Jack, we will kick out you.

I assume we need to sell Jack to cover running costs (which p**sses me off). But if we need to sell him because of FFP, why not wait until the January transfer window? It wouldn't matter for the FFP if we sell him now or then. Prices are generally higher in that window. We would keep Jack for half a season and we would be given more time to try to shift other players instead.

I've not seen Bruce as a long term solution and at times I have wanted him out as soon as possible. But regarding the state of things right now I'd fully back him. Are we seriously being run by Xia, He and some chinese woman? God I'm glad we at least have big fat Bruce giving us some kind of stability. Playing dull football seems to be a minor problem at the moment.

I'm not sure if Xia is a complete fraud, the Asian Gatsby, he could well be. But he could also be a quite normal businessman who is taking risks and exaggerates his and his companies credentials, as businessmen often do when they market themselves and seek investment. It could be as simple as at the time he bought us he had quite much assets, took advantage of Chinas policy of becoming a football world power and managed to get loans with his other business as a security to buy us. Then the Chinese stock market and his other businesses crashed and his gamble on Villa failed. So now he sits in the **** with a lot of loans which we now pay the price for. He probably did what many newly rich businessmen do, they take risks. It's how capitalism works, it requires entrepreneurs to gamble on different projects, many go bust and then you try again. It's the normal market. The problem is that football clubs should not be part of this normal market thinking. For me it goes back to Lerner, he was the one who chose to sell us to a chancer. In fairness, it's not much we or EFL could have done. We could have payed more attention to the ones questioning Xia and his background and protest, but in the end Lerner sells to whom he wishes. Probably Lerner sold to Xia because he could pay with cash up front with his loaned money. It shows that the EFL:s rules on owners must be revised and become much stricter so that we can avoid this to continue. I think I would prefere administration as soon as possible in the hope of getting rid of Xia and facilitating for a local long term, preferrably partly supporter invovled ownership to come in. Until that, I'd happily be part and chip in on a massive Xia out campain with a demand to sell us to responsible owners.

He was calm and solid playing in a team hard to break down, but for me didn't hit the heights to show that he will be a real top keeper. Not too fussed about having Jed Steer in goal instead.

Looking forward to having two Jedi in the team next season!

I tend to agree, although after some turbulent first years both Man U and Liverpool are doing quite well. Especially pool seem to have their house in order at the moment.

No problem fellow villan, it gave me a glimmer of hope to cling on to. Whether something will happen or not - so far Sweden is through, Swizerland and evil dwarf Shaqiri is out and I can still have my taco Tuesday taco, so all is well! ??? No other news to share?

Thanks! Will do! ?

So what does Santa Claus say in China? ?