Teale's 'tache

Found a little more time to make some more adjustments to this concept. After reading the @NurembergVillan post I decided to remove the star, I've also flattened the diamond out a little and changed the font-face. I've also just knocked up a few graphics to better present the idea, which I've thrown up on Behance https://www.behance.net/gallery/147539317/Aston-Villa-Crest-Redesign-Concept for the people who like that sort of thing. I'll post the images below for those who don't. Think I'm going to leave at that, should probably get some work done at some point... but because I love you all, here's a few more bits I did playing around.

I really like Pete and his channel and he makes many good points in this video, but he's being quite selective here. He doesn't mention the complete lack of progress, the previous season of poor performances, and if you are going to ask for patience and to give him time then you need to balance that with reasons to do so, but the lack of any discernible positives to how we are playing right now makes that pretty much impossible. I don't buy the financial argument either, yes it costs money to pay him off and get the next guy in, but it's not going to be anywhere near the £25m we seemed happy to chuck at Watford for a player in a position we hardly need.

Gerrard was always a risky appointment, I think we knew that from the beginning. The lack of any tangible improvement on the pitch, in any area, despite the time and money afforded him thus far, is really poor. His record with us is now very poor, and the recent performances we are seeing on the pitch are just horrid. He doesn't have any experience of this type of situation in his managerial career, and he's shown nothing to suggest he has any idea how to turn things around. I'm sure the club will give him a few more games, because they've invested so much in him, but I've no doubt he'll be gone soon enough. I don't dislike the man, he's always spoken well and I'm sure he genuinely wanted to do great things with us, but he's not addressing our weaknesses or issues, in fact it feels like he's now causing more issues than he is solving. When he first arrived he immediately saw the problems we had in midfield, the gaps being too big and it being too easy to play through us, he tightened things up and we went on a nice little run getting ourselves out of trouble. We now have exactly the same issue in midfield, he arrived with what seemed like a pretty clear plan, but that plan has now chopped and changed with no real benefit to anybody. The only player that I think has improved is Cash, that's it. His job is to get the best out of the players we have and ideally improve them, he simply hasn't done that. The only real positive I can really take from his time here is that he has improved the quality of the squad, and I'm very excited to see what a genuinely competent manager with a clear idea and system could do with them. However, I'm afraid we still have a few games of misery heading our way before that becomes a possibility, and that itself depends upon if you trust the club to employ the right manager... FWIW I don't think Purslow will have any issues binning Gerrard, he's a cut throat business man, and a successful one at that, you don't get in to that position by being overly sentimental. He'll see the warning signs, and he'll know what he has to do.

48 PL Appearances, 36 as a substitute, for 1 goal and 1 assist in 1368 minutes played (15.2 games). It's more than I expected, but it would be quite a stretch to say he's proven at this level. That said Chelsea paid £20m for Chukwuemeka who only has 312 minutes of PL experience. It's all a bit mental really.

Wolves have rightly held out because they didn't want to sell, until the money became too good to turn down, especially considering the FFP boost they get. Why Forest are bidding so much for somebody so unproven is the most baffling part for me. If they don't stay up, I would imagine they may regret it. If they stay up then you'd have to say it's justified. Is he good enough to make that much difference? I have my doubts, it's a hell of a risk.

I'm not sure how great Holding is, I've not seen him play enough to really make a judgment. However, I would imagine most people's immediate memory of him, is the brainless red card he received against Spurs at the back end of last season. It was an very important game which they went on to lose 3-0, he was sent off after 33 minutes for repeatedly trying to rough up Hueng-min Son, he got plenty of warnings but persisted. It was a very stupid and very costly dismissal. If that is most peoples immediate thoughts, then you are going to have a hard time selling him to us.

I kind of feel like his 'scampering' style is sometimes misconstrued as panic, but he's yet to be dispossessed this season, certainly not the liability some would have you believe. I know a lot of people see a midfielder who can keep the ball as being vital to progression, but in my opinion it's more of a team issue we have, as a team I don't think we recognise situations quickly enough, like when to keep the ball, or when to progress it quickly. For a long time the default has been to progress it quickly no matter the situation, and changing that mentality is taking time. We have a lot of good footballers, they should all be capable of passing it around when needed providing the rest of the team are giving them enough options. Although getting in another midfielder who can take care of the ball would improve us, I'm not sure it outright solves the issue, the movement and options provided by the whole teams needs to improve as well.

I would imagine we do in fact have a plan, it's just that Gregg Evans isn't privy to it, so he's had to guess, which seems to be the sum total of his job. I'd be very very surprised if Lange doesn't have a long list of potential candidates in various price ranges, because you know, it's his job, and he seems to be pretty good at it. Very few transfers are straight forward though, so it might take a little while before we hear anything.

I think the reactions in general have been a little over the top both fans and media, and Gerrard should certainly be given some time to correct things. How much time really depends on him. Performances like Bournemouth can not continue, if we are that inept against Everton then there's going to be plenty more calling for his head and at some point those calls will become too loud to ignore. There has to be improvement, and continuous improvement for the foreseeable future.

I'd be interested in reading this book, do you have a link for it? A quick search brings back a lot of books called 'the science of coaching', just want to be sure I grab the right one.

I've never been particularly pro/anti Gerrard, I just kind of accepted that it was a risky appointment and trusted the powers that be that he was worth giving a chance. After an initial upturn it's been very bitty, some good stuff here and there but an awful lot of dross, none worse than was served up on Saturday. My main gripe is that none of the issues we had when he arrived have been corrected. We can't put on a 90 minute performance, we still give away really really avoidable goals, and we still give the ball away far too easily. We are too easy to play against, more often than not we will defeat ourselves without the opposition having to do anything, and this was the same under Smith for his last year or so. It was easy to accept some of it last season as a work in progress, and that Gerrard was discovering these weaknesses as we trundled along and would fix them in due time. Unfortunately, the time is due and the problems persist, on top of that he seems to have created new problems. Coutinho, although a great signing for the profile of the club, forced one of our best players (Buendia) out of the team, which would be fine if Coutinho was consistently putting in performances, but he's not, and that's not entirely down to him, in a functional team I'm sure we'd get more out of him. The question is, was it worth it? Did we really need him? I like Coutinho, I still can't believe he plays for us, I'm just not sure his signing has been entirely beneficial. The whole captaincy debacle is weird, if he wanted to pick his own captain fine, do it when you arrive, or if you want to assess and not upset the apple cart do it as soon as the season ends. I see no benefit to making the change weeks before a season begins and alienating a good player in the process. I feel like something has happened to force the timing of it, but the feeling remains it has been handled poorly. Making players train with the kids, what is the purpose? Where's the benefit? It feels like man management is lacking there. I am surprised by the reaction after Bournemouth, the fans, and the media have really jumped on it, and if you lose the fans and possibly some of the dressing room you are in big trouble, there's not really any coming back from that. I'm not sure if we are at that stage yet, but it feels like it's on the precipice. We have a good squad of players, and they are not performing to their potential or anywhere near it, and at the end of the day in part that is what Mr Gerrard is paid handsomely to do. He needs a good start against Everton, because if we concede early again the atmosphere will become unbearable, if I was Lampard I'd be looking to take advantage of that.

What's particularly interesting is that Gerrard specifically mentioned Davis getting minutes with the u21's in his press conference this morning. Has he picked up an injury in that time(possible) or has something else happened?

I wonder if the changing of the crest announcement is a sign that we'll be bringing in a stronger branding/identity going forward. At the very least it shows they are looking at ways to improve that side of things.

I see, so you are leaning more towards whoever is in charge of branding for the club has been changing the colour and possibly we aren't using the company you mentioned and so the colour might not be matched quite as accurately as it maybe could. It could be that we've changed the company in charge of branding multiple times, and each new company that has stepped in has changed the colour, this would explain the wild variations we've had. I wouldn't be surprised. It's a shame really because consistency is key, and constant changing of something as important as the colour isn't going to result in a strong brand.

Interesting. So do we think the variation in the shade of claret on the kits is down to trying to match whatever the official brand colour is on different materials and dyes each year, and just not doing a great or consistent job of it? I get that it's never going to be 100% the same, I've encountered enough trouble between screen and print to know that. I'd also imagine claret itself is a slightly more difficult colour to work with than some others, simply because the balance only has to be slightly out before it becomes too 'purple' or too 'red'.

I think you could say the same about us fans in that respect as well, even if we signed two more quality players today, with 27 days left of the window, I'm sure there'd be plenty of us begging for one more before it... Slams Shut™

Just a thought. In digital media where colour is concerned, even if you consistently use the correct colour code it won't always look the same for everybody. This is because of different screen types, different screen settings (i.e. brightness, contrast .etc) and various other factors. I wonder if there's a similar thing in fashion, like dye's look different on different materials, how materials react to different types of light, that kind of thing. @NurembergVillan may be able to elaborate.

I don't think finances are necessarily the issue, more that players who are worth £40m and up will be more inclined to demand European football. I think we've done an incredible job to attract who we have considering where we finished last season. There's going to be an awkward stage where we are close to European football but without it won't really be able to attract the players to progress further. Money talks of course, so it's not impossible to sign at that value right now, just improbable.

I work in design and have seen many 'brand guidelines' pass over my desk, all of them list the very specific shade of colours that you can use and how you can use them, this helps ensure 'brand consistency' across products/media. I'd be astonished if a company/brand as big as Aston Villa don't have a set of brand guidelines that must be followed to the letter.

I would add that Sanson has played 25 times in European competition including the 2018 Europa League Final. He has plenty of pedigree, and arrived with a good reputation. We just haven't seen the best of him yet.

I think part of the problem is wages, and the fact that the Premier League as a whole pays way more. It makes it's difficult to sell anyone abroad or down the league, because the player doesn't want to take a pay cut and clubs abroad or in the Championship simply can't afford them. So the most likely place to get a sale is to another Premier League club, I'm not sure which clubs other than possibly the promoted ones, would want any of the players you mentioned. I think there will be sales, but they may be closer to the end of the window when clubs and agents start to blink.

I've a sneaky suspicion that we might not have the quickest of starts. Just because I think integrating two new players in to the spine of the team takes a while, especially when both are coming with no experience of the Premier League, I'm sure both will adapt, it just might take a little while. Beyond that it's really down to the form and fitness of certain players and how well the manager performs, but looking at the other teams around us a surprising amount do appear weaker than 12 months ago, where we definitely should be stronger. I think 8th/9th would be a good return from this squad of players. I'd also like to see a positive goal difference. 19 losses is simply not acceptable and anything near that can not happen again if we want to progress.

You're definitely not the only one! Design always divides opinion, and change will always meet resistance. Making the perfect logo/badge that is loved by everyone is pretty much an impossibility. This is just an idea I had, designing logos is only a small part of my job, and I'm just one person. I'd imagine we've employed a design firm with many very good designers/marketers involved, all hopefully doing their research. I don't know if the club will go for something this drastic, or play it safe, but I'll be very interested to see what they eventually come up with.

That's pretty easily solved by adding a claret diamond around it as below. Personally I quite like the current trend of monochrome badges/logos, but regardless, a good logo should be flexible enough to do both.

Found a bit of time to progress this idea a little more... Think I could maybe try making it a little wider, and therefore a little shorter in terms of height, though that may make the 'A' and 'V' look less like letters...