AvfcTheObsession

24 minutes ago, omariqy said:

Who is Villa_Southerner?

He called Clarke and Bond coming in before it happened IIRC.

How many we sold, we likely to clear 20,000?

On ‎01‎/‎07‎/‎2016 at 20:28, sharkyvilla said:

Nice one.  I don't think I got the postman job, there was an online test where you have to spot the difference between two lists of postcodes and reference numbers under the clock and I ran out of time on the last set.  It says the vacancies are filled on the website now, which is a bit of a bugger.  I would probably have been better off guessing rather than trying to get each one right, which is a bit worrying when you think about it.

Can I ask if you don't mind what was the salary being offered for the postman job? I've often wondered about doing something a bit more active.

It's not sold out, the Tweet said 'WHEN' it sells out we'll have 4500 there.

11 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

It was very apparent last night that a striker needs to be made an absolute priority. 

Yep, Gestede is useless. He won't be repeating that one-off season he had for Blackburn.

37 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

15m is only 5m more than veretout (10m) and we paid 9m for gana. Not exactly a great deal more money?

So now you have changed from 'who both cost more than Wijnaldum' to 'not exactly a great deal more money'.

I'd say 50% more than Veretout and 66% more than Gana is a great deal more money.

37 minutes ago, PieFacE said:

Didn't Wijnaldum cost Newcastle about £15m? 

Yep, £15-17m depending on where you read. A lot more than either of the players Demitri mentioned for us.

17 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Makes Xia look like small fry then great

On the face of it, this takeover probably appears more exciting, because his wealth is clear for all to see, whereas we don't know what Xia is worth. Xia may turn out to be the better owner, only time will tell.

One thing which may worry Wolves fans is the fact the Chinese govt. believes Fosun benefitted financially from corruption within another company: http://deadline.com/2016/01/fosun-chairman-guo-guangchang-appears-in-shanghai-1201666270/ and Guangchang was AWOL for a while

QUOTE:

Fosun International chairman Guo Guangchang is back at work and continuing to oversee day-to-day operations of his company. The head of the Shanghai-based conglomerate disappeared for about a week, leaving those in financial circles wondering about the sudden departure. It is known that there has been an ongoing investigation in China into corruption involving another company whose head was sentenced to 18 years in prison, and it was rumored that Guo was picked up for questioning.

I think Moyes will do a good job there if he takes it, which I imagine he will.

Let's remember a good job there would be finishing about 12th, as it's got to have been a few years now since they've had mid-table mediocrity.

7 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Is Li involved with Fosun International?

No, but their chairman is Guo Guangchang who is the 19th richest man in China, worth over £4billion in UK money / $5.5billion USD.

22 hours ago, blandy said:

What's shocking about that is that 1 league cup in 16 years between all the clubs in the midlands. Totally success starved all of us.

V bad last 15-20 years for West Midlands football.

With the histories of Villa, Wolves and Albion, between the 3 of us for us to have been the only one who has come close to winning anything in recent-ish years, but not got over the line, is not good for the region.

Let's hope with our takeover and the potential Wolves one, 3 West Midlands clubs will be in the Prem very soon. Blues and Coventry can rot in League 1/bottom end of Championship.

23 hours ago, StanBalaban said:

If Wolves get promoted, as daft as it may seem, the owners will earn far more from them than they would from AC Milan. 

True, but Milan can bring him more glory, won't take a lot to get them challenging for Serie A titles and in the Champions League.

For Wolves, you're right he can make more money, by getting promoted and then just being mundane and finishing 12th or somewhere.

1 hour ago, Hev said:

Can't believe these prices - especially when all the Prem Teams have to charge a maximum of £20.00 now - trust us to miss out on that as well!  I guess we will be classed as a Category A game for most clubs?  Interesting to see what they charge other teams.  Anyway, I am   annnoyed that they have taken away the ST Holders from last season with 3+ aways as I have six and my other friends that want to go have 3 - but we will have to wait until the 1+ banding - assuming there are any left by then . I am sure they used to have a 3+ away banding. 

It's £30 in the Prem, but your point stands on the ticket prices for this game - disgrace for the 2nd tier of English football.

4 hours ago, villa4europe said:

Lack of opportunity is a load of **** bullshit

poor young English players can't get a game because of Johnny Foreigner...don't sign for **** Chelsea then...izzy brown would have played 30+ games for the baggies by now, went to Chelsea for the big bucks and the bright lights, I hope he enjoys vitesse 

none of these kids are banging tables saying get me out of here I want to play football, they're enjoying themselves, football is coming second 

Exactly. They all want to drive the flashiest car, earn the most money and sign for the 'biggest' club, whether that be Chelsea, Man City or whoever else this week. Parents encourage it 'son, you're signing for Man City, Guardiola's the manager!' etc. Ignoring the fact they haven't even made their name at WBA/Villa/whoever else they started at.

On ‎12‎/‎07‎/‎2016 at 22:13, leighavfc said:

yeah i was joking mate!! thats what a lot of them say!! Deluded

On ‎12‎/‎07‎/‎2016 at 22:03, It's Your Round said:

I assumed you were joking but thought I'd have a look anyway. 

 

You have to go back to 1949 for any attendances close to our capacity. 

http://european-football-statistics.co.uk/attnclub/birc.htm

They 'peaked' at 28-29K, this would have been when they were selling out with the excitement of being in the Prem for the first time, and this lasted just 2 seasons.

Since that the seasons they've been in the Prem they have hit a glass ceiling of around 25k even when finishing 9th, and in the Championship their support is woeful, varying from 15-17k over the last few years.

Wolves won't be Li's primary interest, far from it. I think we can expect to see a lot of AC Milan youngsters loaned to them though if Li's takeover of both club gets approved. This seemed to work well with Watford getting good players from Serie A on loan when they were in the Championship, but if Wolves fans think they will be anything like Man City or Chelsea in the future, I think that's way off the mark.

2 hours ago, thabucks said:

If rumours are true and wolves are set to be taken over by a Jorge mendes X Robin Li (7th richest man in China) consortium  then our chances of automatic promotion may have dramatically decreased. Time will tell if those rumours are true but if so not liking our odds. 

Sounds like exciting times for Wolves fans.

At the same time they need to be a little weary of how they are going to be used in conjunction with AC Milan, as it looks as if Robin Li is buying both clubs.

John Percy reckons it will complete in around 3 weeks, so won't give Wolves much chance to strengthen their squad this transfer window/before the season starts, we need to make use of our head start as it could be next season onwards they become a force to be reckoned with.

1 hour ago, useless said:

He's said himself when asked if he's as wealthy as a dollar billionaire, that he thinks he's worth 'rather more than that'. LHG recently valued at around a billion in English pounds, he has other businesses besides, xwho seem to have done a lot of work with government. Then there's the £600m he was widely reported to have put into a English bank account, to prove to the football league that he has the finances to run us for the next two years.

Wyness said recently that it's no good coming in a promising this and that if you can't back it up and that they've got a chance to be the best in the business.

Where have you read that? There will be more qualified finance people on here than me to look over the figures, but looking at Lotus' recent accounts does not make good reading. I very much doubt it would fetch a billion English £ as Lotus' total assets are worth around £ 250 million, obviously there is goodwill to take into consideration but with it's liabilities and the way it is currently performing it doesn't appear the most attractive of companies.

http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Financials?s=600186:SHH&subview=BalanceSheet

2 minutes ago, avfcwills10 said:

Sochaux recently got relegated to Ligue 2, before that they'd spend 66 consecutive years in ligue 1. More than PSG. 

So with good owners you'd have expected them to have more chance of returning to Ligue 1 than being concerned about relegation to the third tier, however I guess with a sale price of 7m euros sadly you attract allsorts.

8 minutes ago, Daweii said:

There is a difference between us and Sochaux.

Sochaux to but it bluntly are a shit tier team in a shit tier league bought out by a company looking to expand their market reach in France. Ledus clearly didn't do their research as any company that did would have bought a Ligue 1 team that hovers around mid-table or hell just buy an English team.

Aston Villa are huge even in the Championship we are worth more to advertisers and companies around the world than most teams in the world. Sure we may be bought by a company that leaves us to die in 3 seasons from now, but the likely hood is so slim. We are in a completely different scenario to Sochaux, but feel free if our new overlords give up and liquidate us to say "I told you so". 

It isn't a 'told you so' situation, I just decided to do a bit of research on the two clubs that article mentioned as being owned by Chinese groups. I don't know much about French football, but I saw that Sochaux won the cup in 2007 and have spent a lot of time in the top-flight recently, so to be in danger of going down to the third level, the owners have to take some flack.

I would agree that the chances of it happening to us are slimmer, as at 10x the price we will attract more serious players, I just remain cautious when I think of other takeovers from that part of the world (Vincent Tan, Venkys, and a certain team very close to home!)

If it's a real man rather than a yes man I'm all for it. I'd put the likes of Allardyce and Moyes in the first bracket, and a failure like Garde in the second.

Hmmm, a word of caution on one of the Chinese buyouts mentioned in that article above: http://www.scmp.com/sport/hong-kong/article/1906451/why-fans-french-club-sochaux-fear-takeover-hong-kong-company-could

Very early days on the other recent Chinese takeover, Espanyol, that completed in January this year, the new owner has set his sights high considering they are currently 15th: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/jan/22/espanyol-owner-chen-yansheng-champions-league

3 hours ago, KHV said:

He was awful in his second season at Chelsea and abysmal at Schalke. No thanks

Can't really be described as awful in either of those two jobs. Was third at Chelsea when he got sacked in November, they went on to finish third. At Schalke a similar situation, he finished 6th, the following season they are currently 7th with 1 game left.

Personally I don't think he's a bad manager, however as has been mentioned he doesn't tend to stay at clubs longer than 18 months to 2 years, whereas I think we need someone with the intention of building something longer term, and at least setting the foundations for it even if they don't get to see it right through.

8 hours ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

I'm sure this has already been said but it's £10 off for me in the Lower Holte.

I'm not actually that bothered, however I am mildly annoyed that the reductions are not universal. I've suffered just as much as somebody in the Lower North stand or the bloke 10 seats away from me in the wings. Thing is, they know that the Lower Holte will always populate first anyway, I understand the economics of it but I find the decision making unsavoury. If not surprising.

I've renewed anyway of course. 

It still works out as a saving of £4-5 per game in the Holte Lower, due to 4 extra home games.

Looking forward to Saturday now, like others have said lets go out with a bang at VP, regardless of what's happening on the pitch. Will be quite a sight seeing thousands of balloons being released along with the beach balls and whatever else people take!

Anyone who hasn't donated towards the costs of it, let's try and reach the target before the weekend, to thank all the organisers for their hard work by not leaving them too out of pocket, a few more fivers and tenners will do it: https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/AVPG