Tom Fox

[Demitri_C]

I hold him just as responsible as Lerner. He has added nothing since joining us. PR tosser

[mwj]

yeah I had faith in Fox and I feel let down as well, he talks a good game but hasnt backed it up

A more PR friendly Paul Faulkner

Not true. Faulkner actually achieved NOTHING in 5 years, at least we have a new shirt deal with Fox

[Stevo985]

7 hours ago, maqroll said:

As much as a sleazy liar that he seems to be, he can't spend money he's not been given. It's Lerner who is the major obstacle. Fox is just his flunky. 

There was money though. We had money to spend on a goalkeeper and a striker at least. But we've ended up with nothing.

It's hard to know who the driving force is behind transfers these days, but there should have been backup options and contingency plans in place for things like this falling through. We should have signed some players and I'm putting Fox to blame. It's his team that are in charge of that.

For once I'm not sure I actually blame Randy for this one (directly anyway). There was a bit of money available, which is all we can really expect when we're almost certainly relegated.

Edited February 3, 2016 by Stevo985

[sexbelowsound]

I think that is part of the reason why roles aren't clearly defined for the public at board room level. It creates confusion and is difficult to pinpoint who is to blame for certain aspects of our failings.

Everyone just points at each other.

[Tony]

Who actually is the one deciding on the direction the club is taking, set up and what not. I'm assuming it is fox. 

[Demitri_C]

If the forum was today today the question I would fundamentally ask is: who is responsible for the embarassment of bringing in no new players into the club? I would probe Fox until he gave a name. He has been pathetic in the role as Chief Exec

[Demitri_C]

Fox has a lot of explaining to do in my opinion, this system has been such a massive success for us hasnt it?

Quote

 

Aston Villa's recruitment policy is to blame... Leicester show eyeball beats moneyball

ASTON VILLA fans should call for an independent post mortem if and when the club’s Premier League status draws its last breath in the next few months

38

By Dave Armitage / Published 4th February 2016

GETTY

UNDER PRESSURE: Remi Garde

They won’t get one, because it wouldn’t take a genius in football forensics to discover some pretty gruesome truths.

Good people will lose jobs and some who are poor at theirs may well remain. That’s often the way it works and Villa won’t be an exception.

But without over-simplifying what a football Quincy might uncover, one thing has brought about Villa’s downfall more than anything.

And if we can make one simple observation from the current league table, then it has to be that you can’t beat a good old-fashioned pair of eyes when it comes to recruiting talent.

While Villa have gone down the Football Manager computer route, crunching numbers and coming out with God knows what; there at the top sit Leicester.

Is Boavista medic Rossana Torales the sexiest doctor in football?

Villa use a system referred to as Moneyball whereas the club they have looked down upon from the other side of the Midlands seem to have gone for the more traditional ‘eyeball.’

That system (you know the one, where people actually go and stand on a terrace in the rain and watch a player) has brought them Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez to name but two.

Not a bad pair to be fair. Vardy is the Premier League’s top scorer with 18 which, coincidentally is the same amount as the entire Villa team.

Vardy was a £1m punt from non-League while the brilliant Mahrez was picked up for £400,000 scuffling around in France.

Villa relied on their number crunchers and ended up bringing in 13 players in the summer for a total cost of around £55m. It’s doubtful they’d recoup half that for the lot of them.

I haven’t seen one of them that comes even remotely close to being fit enough to share the same room as Vardy or Mahrez, let alone the same dressing room.

Villa’s recruitment policy has been an absolute shambles and someone needs to be made accountable for the massive cost it has inflicted on Villa and their fans.

Not just the financial cost but the pain and ‘grief’ inflicted on supporters at seeing their great club becoming something of a laughing stock. It feels like Villa have been relegated since August. Perhaps they were but we just couldn’t see it.

Surely someone has to be held responsible for such an appalling hotch-potch?

It’s embarrassing and if it wasn’t so serious for those who care, and those good people who may end up being out of work, it borders on comical.

Eyeball beats Moneyball – that would be the inquest verdict. For all football’s millions, you still need someone with an ‘eye’ for a player. Someone with a feel.

 

Imbecile Fox

[KHV]

On 03/02/2016 at 09:06, Demitri_C said:

If the forum was today today the question I would fundamentally ask is: who is responsible for the embarassment of bringing in no new players into the club? I would probe Fox until he gave a name. He has been pathetic in the role as Chief Exec

To be honest I'm not bothered we didn't sign anyone. I'm not sure what's worse, not signing anybody at all or Paddy Reilly switching his laptop back on

[El-Reacho]

Nice bit of lazy revisionist journalism there. Also yet another complete misunderstanding of the term moneyball.

Didn't Leicester want to sign Veretout?

[Demitri_C]

5 minutes ago, KHV said:

To be honest I'm not bothered we didn't sign anyone. I'm not sure what's worse, not signing anybody at all or Paddy Reilly switching his laptop back on

But lets say (unlikely i know) we go down by one point you know how angry we should be. The point is if not sign players for premier league at least get a few quality championship players in FFS you can see the team needs support. Hollis even said the money was invested badly yet not  a penny spent. Disgrace

[HanoiVillan]

That journalist can piss off to be honest.

1] Vardy & Mahrez are not even slightly 'typical' even of Leicester's signings

2] I don't recall journalists blowing their loads over them 12 months ago

3] Does he have any actual evidence that we never watch players, or that Leicester never use statistics but simply rely on grumpy men in flat caps?

4] Some of the summer signings are amongst the 'best' players at the club (I realise that's little accolade) and represent most of the small resale value this squad has

5] They're 'not fit to share the same room', but they were fit to share the same football pitch when we drew 1-1 with Leicester three weeks ago

6] Just piss off Dave Armitage

I got out of bed the wrong side maybe. 

[KHV]

1 minute ago, Demitri_C said:

But lets say (unlikely i know) we go down by one point you know how angry we should be. The point is if not sign players for premier league at least get a few quality championship players in FFS you can see the team needs support. Hollis even said the money was invested badly yet not  a penny spent. Disgrace

I firmly believe there will be massive player changes in the summer

[Demitri_C]

3 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

That journalist can piss off to be honest.

1] Vardy & Mahrez are not even slightly 'typical' even of Leicester's signings

2] I don't recall journalists blowing their loads over them 12 months ago

3] Does he have any actual evidence that we never watch players, or that Leicester never use statistics but simply rely on grumpy men in flat caps?

4] Some of the summer signings are amongst the 'best' players at the club (I realise that's little accolade) and represent most of the small resale value this squad has

5] They're 'not fit to share the same room', but they were fit to share the same football pitch when we drew 1-1 with Leicester three weeks ago

6] Just piss off Dave Armitage

I got out of bed the wrong side maybe. 

The wording might be shit but you cant argue some of those points the money was so badly invested by those clowns. collymore said something similar about how we target players using stats, formulaes and all this garbage. Forget all that and go scout these bloody players

[Stevo985]

14 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Fox has a lot of explaining to do in my opinion, this system has been such a massive success for us hasnt it?

Imbecile Fox

What a dreadful article.

Firstly, we don't recruit like that. he's written his whole article on a wrong assumption.

Secondly, he has no way of knowing we'd barely get half of our summer spending back. I'd completely dispute that.

Fox has plenty to be blamed for. But that "article" mentions none of it. it's a pile of shite.

[El-Reacho]

1 minute ago, KHV said:

I firmly believe there will be massive player changes in the summer

I really hope so - as the season goes on the players I'd like to hang on to are quickly decreasing. Wouldn't be disappointed to see any of them leave. 

[Demitri_C]

3 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

What a dreadful article.

Firstly, we don't recruit like that. he's written his whole article on a wrong assumption.

Secondly, he has no way of knowing we'd barely get half of our summer spending back. I'd completely dispute that.

Fox has plenty to be blamed for. But that "article" mentions none of it. it's a pile of shite.

Like I highlighted above Collymore said something of this nature before he was sacked by the club.

Stevo barring Ayew there is no way we are going to recruit the money back. Who on earth will pay 10m for Gana for example? I dont even think we would get 10m for Veretout and he has arguably been better of the two

 

 

[KHV]

6 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

3] Does he have any actual evidence that we never watch players, or that Leicester never use statistics but simply rely on grumpy men in flat caps?

 

Our scouting system has been cack for a number of years. Reilly  is now supposed to be implementing a proper scouting structure but I do wonder how extensive our scouting process actually is. Given everything else at the club I would imagine our scouting process is really shit. The fact that our chief scout has never been a chief scout doesn't fill me with much confidence. I would like to think we watch the players but this is Aston Villa.......

Edited February 4, 2016 by KHV

[sexbelowsound]

In the modern game the need to physically go and watch every player isn't necessary. I'd imagine the final stage of the scouting process would be to take in a few games live once the list has been narrowed down but there are services out there that allow scouts to watch every player and every game in full with live stats without needing to travel.

I'd imagine every top flight team are using this approach.

[Stevo985]

Just now, Demitri_C said:

Like I highlighted above Collymore said something of this nature before he was sacked by the club.

Stevo barring Ayew there is no way we are going to recruit the money back. Who on earth will pay 10m for Gana for example? I dont even think we would get 10m for Veretout and he has arguably been better of the two

 

 

If we sold them this very second then we'd lose money. But Gana and Veretout have shown enough to show they may grow into decent premier league players. I don't see any reason why, if we sold them in a year or two, we wouldn't get at least close to what we paid for them.

What about Adama? If he realises his potential we could be doubling what we paid for him.

What about RIchards? Signed for free, if we sold him we'd get a few million.

Amavi? everyone's forgotten about him since he got injured. If he regains his fitness we could easily make money on him.

Ayew, as you mentioned could make money.

 

That article is a steaming pile of jizz

[sexbelowsound]

Also, I wanted to read that article, saw the mention of moneyball in the headline and immediately closed it.

We've been down this discussion route a million times before. Its nonsense and didn't happen and if they're leading the article with that I can already tell its going to be bollocks.