tomav84

7 hours ago, KSV said:

After the meeting with the new owners.. he didn't speak to the media after the game. Now we signing non Steve Bruce players.. 

They trying to make him walk rather than sack him?

talk about jumping to conclusions...

Something didnt sit right with me about that interview...i dont know what it is. it felt like they could have literally just bought any club aside from mentioning the year we were founded. it was so generic. maybe they're just not media friendly

1 minute ago, villa89 said:

Is it? We have lost/will lose Johnstone, Terry, Snodgrass, Grealish and there will little to no money to get new players in. Anyone expecting anything other than a slog to get into the playoffs is going to be disappointed. 

Then there's going to be plenty of disappointed folks on here. A lot of the reaction to Bruce staying has been that we now have no chance of promotion indicating that they expected it with Henry

2 hours ago, Rodders said:

I am getting, strong hints of the Ole gunnar Solskjaer's about this

i remember that...we were so excited!

8 hours ago, jim said:

I’d rather we got rid now than wait a few months into the season. Another season in the championship written off.

At least get someone in now,  half way through pre season gives us half a chance. 

i think it all comes down to everyone's expectations of this squad...those like the above think that the squad is good enough for promotion and that a different manager can achieve that. i personally think this is a mid table squad (certainly if JG leaves) that, with the wrong manager, could also be relegated. henry is an unknown and it could go very badly wrong. at least with bruce, i cant see us going down

2 hours ago, villabromsgrove said:

It's thinking like this that paralysed us in a number of matches last season. Bruce was so fearful of losing (he said that himself) that we hardly got out of our own half.

If we the fans start fearing the consequences of going forward as a club, we're in trouble, and if our new owners are afraid to embrace the challenge then we're never going to go anywhere.

to address the bolded point first, this was largely due to the forums/facebook being riddled with "Bruce out" after every defeat (and it went right back to the start of the season - take a look at R&R of cardiff thread)

and i think we have the right to fear going forward as a club right now, it was trying to move forward too quickly which made us an egyptian and an american away from going into administration. i hate to break it to you, but we're ALREADY in trouble. the squad is weaker than last season, and will only get weaker with the probable sales of our 2 best players. if you really think that an unproven manager will get a squad of mid-table quality promoted, above others that are spending and spending wisely, then i admire your optimism...but forgive those of us that think we just need to keep a bit of stability following what will have been quite a turbulent summer

bruce probably wont get us promoted this season, but i dont know many managers out there that would...but there are plenty that could get us relegated quite easily, and i dont think bruce would be one of them

interesting thought, is is possible that the owners leaked the henry story to gauge the fan reaction?

11 minutes ago, Taxahunter said:

Why not? Both clubs took a gamble on inexperienced managers. I know that the players are on a much higher level than at Villa, but they were also playing against better opponents in the league, champions league etc. They werent afraid to take the gamble, why should we? I would rather take a gamble on Henry, than keep Bruce who has failed at promotion twice.

the caliber of players in the squad was such that pretty much anyone with their coaching badges would have made them competitive...and i somewhat disagree with the "better opponents in the league" comment, as many in la liga would struggle in the championship.

and sorry to be pedantic, it's harsh to say he failed at promotion twice, based on where we were when he took over

26 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

I see the Henry haters are lining up already, excitedly looking forward to their "I told you so's". And I suspect that a lot of it is because he's French. 

If there's one thing that certain about football, it's that nothing is certain about football. Whoever we have as manager, they could fail disastrously. Or succeed magnificently. Bruce, Smith, Pulis, Allardyce, Wagner, Henry. You just can't know what will happen. Me, I'll accept whoever the new owners appoint, and wait and see. FWIW, I thought Bruce did OK, but it's probably time for a change. If it's an untried manager, so be it. But I could do without all this VT negativity. 

Think this is massively unfair (particularly implying racism with the skeptics among us)

I have seen only valid questions being raised: "No experience", "Need stability" etc...not everyone will agree with those questions, but they're perfectly valid arguments. I've seen no "I just dont want/like him" posts from anyone.

We have just faced a real possibility of administration and seem to be out of the woods on that front, but still do seem like we're going to have to sell the best young talent we've had in years, so i think the "Henry haters" can be forgiven for not being 100% jazzed about another upheaval less than 2 weeks before the start of the season.

3 minutes ago, Nigel said:

How do you know Henry will play decent football? The fact is even he won't know what will work for him.

because he's younger than 50? played as a striker? i cannot think of any other logic people are using aside from pure guesswork

30 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Would he be such a risk if a director of football came on board too, and implemented a style accross the club like Steve Round once promised? If we could take a direction and stay with it, then managers can come and go. It would mitigate the risk with Henry at least. I'm basically thinking what Southampton did.

if he's not good enough unless there's a DOF on board then he's not good enough full stop...

I just cant see these Henry rumours being anything but a bad thing. the club needs stability now more than ever. and i just cant believe we're fortunate enough for henry to be the next wagner.

100% in

21 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

New owner has no impact on FFP.  We're still hamstrung by that.

Only difference will be that we aren't having to put the catering ovens on eBay to avoid the tax man closing us down.

**** it...call the ground abu dhabi park for 300m sponsorship...FFP solved and we'll win the prem in 2020 while we're at it

17 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

Wonder what happened to the EFL’s investigation into whether we had enough football management competence at board level?

that was fake news according to Xia's letter...

47 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Surely that depends on how badly the club wants the player. Wait until the end of the window to save a few million and risk losing out on the player? 

 

normally i would say that folks would want the player sooner than later...not just risk of losing out, also so that they can use him in friendlies, integrate him with the team, and condition him the way they want ready for the start of the season. but this isnt a normal scenario and i unfortunately think that deadline day is going to be quite a busy one for us, for all the wrong reasons

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

I disagree completely.  He was telling it how it is. Im sick of the lies and I am happy bruce had the balls to tell us the truth.

and maybe publicly naming them could be an attempt to start a bidding war? do people really think he would have given such a candid interview without consulting the owners first? but of course, as others have said, people will find any old stick to beat him with

1 hour ago, bannedfromHandV said:

I'd love to know what people would have liked him to say.

Because anything other than what he has said would have been a lie so are people asking to be lied to?

Are these the depths we've reached seriously?!

I hope he stays, I fear he won't and it will be the 'fans' that end up as the deciding factor in him leaving.

for many, there is literally nothing that he could have said that they would have liked

12 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Ipswich had no money as Evans stopped investing after Keane wasted the money. He spent 3 million on 81 players in 6 years at Ipswich. Living off loans and free transfers

was this purely correcting facts for correcting facts' sake or actual support for getting that clown in as our manager? definite step down from bruce for me

1 hour ago, Hoof hearted said:

Can't argue with that Dave, the club can't force him to do anything however, ultimately it's down to the player to agree terms and sign, fees are agreed all the time but he can just say no.

It will basically boil down to the wormtongues who have his ear and how driven by success or money he is.

in this day and age, a player refusing a move for financially more than a typical lottery win (bearing in mind he'll pocket a nice % of the transfer fee) because he wants to stay at his boyhood club would be unprecedented and frankly, just wouldnt happen. if they accept a bid, he's off unfortunately. the plus for us is that considering we are apparently his boyhood club is that he's unlikely to throw his toys out the pram if he doesn't get a prem move. he's unlikely to get into the england squad in the near future in any case...#itscominghome

1 hour ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Which is exactly what happened @ Hull before someone chirps in with 'well that's what he did to Hull'.

He was promised transfer funds that didn't arrive, we have to hope he's not been made any assurances like that here.

i would imagine this situation is different...i guess the only line that he might be spun that he could be stitched up on is "if we sell jack for £30m then you'll have £10m of that to spend"

4 minutes ago, daggy_333 said:

Wyness the CEO?

backroom staff generally refers to the coaching team hence my confusion

5 minutes ago, DaveAV1 said:

Basically he has spun the fact that the back room staff are leaving the sinking ship on a daily basis, and trying to make out it was always part of his master plan. The man is a fraud from head to toe. 

who else except round and some medical fella have left? did i miss something?

7 minutes ago, daggy_333 said:

I've no idea how much Bournemouth failed FFP by but surely a precedent has been set by that fine now?

it's because of teams like bournemouth (and i think wolves and leicester) that they have now changed the rules to include points deduction as well as fine