Tom Fox

[Richard]

As it turns out being relegated last year may have been better for us.  We will go down this season and miss out on fortunes.  We could have been builkding this season,  get promoted and come back for a fortune

[BOF]

I never said he can't be criticised.  I said I don't particularly agree with the criticisms, and I certainly don't agree that he has been "splendidly awful".

[El-Reacho]

2 minutes ago, Richard said:

As it turns out being relegated last year may have been better for us.  We will go down this season and miss out on fortunes.  We could have been builkding this season,  get promoted and come back for a fortune

Surely the fortune will still be there should we get back up for 2017-18? If we'd gone down last season we'd have lost Benteke, Delph etc and not been able to sign the like of Veretout/Amavi/Traore/Ayew. At least when we go down this season we have players with clear potential that could well benefit from a season in the Championship and be premier league ready at the end of it. 

[HanoiVillan]

The report from the meeting is helpful in that it tells us 'the party line', but it still remains one man's word against another's. Maybe Fox is right, maybe Sherwood is. I'm certainly not simply taking Tom Fox's word as gospel, especially given how convenient it is to blame everything that's gone wrong on the man they've already sacked while he and Reilly appear to be shouldering none of the blame themselves. 

Usually, after a big ticket project goes horribly wrong - and this was a big project, we spent north of £50m rebuilding the squad, and it most assuredly gone horribly wrong - successful businesses conduct a thorough investigation to find out where the problem was. It's rare that anybody can escape with no blame whatsoever, that being in the nature of ****-ups. Even in the very best case scenario for Fox and Reilly, they still ineptly supervised a novice manager misspending a unique bounty that we won't get again, and that's giving them the maximum possible charity. But instead of real introspection and acknowledgements of failings, all I can smell is responsibility-shirking and laying everything at the doorstep of the guy who can't fight back. To me this is more proof of a disastrous culture behind the scenes at this football club. 

[HanoiVillan]

12 minutes ago, Richard said:

As it turns out being relegated last year may have been better for us.  We will go down this season and miss out on fortunes.  We could have been builkding this season,  get promoted and come back for a fortune

I have to laugh at this line of argument. Are you expecting TV revenues to be magnitudes smaller in 2017-18 than 2016-17? If not, then it makes absolutely no difference which year we go down. 

[DCJonah]

18 minutes ago, BOF said:

I never said he can't be criticised.  I said I don't particularly agree with the criticisms, and I certainly don't agree that he has been "splendidly awful".

We're more than likely going to be relegated with a club record low amount of points. 

I think everyone, especially the man running the club, can be described as doing a splendidly awful job. 

[BOF]

1 minute ago, DCJonah said:

We're more than likely going to be relegated with a club record low amount of points. 

I think everyone, especially the man running the club, can be described as doing a splendidly awful job. 

As I've said, IMHO that is Randy's fault and it has been years in coming.  The fact Fox happens to be at the wheel at the point where we run out of luck doesn't automatically mean the axe should swing for him too.  For me this is all on Randy.

[rodders0223]

1 hour ago, Tomaszk said:

If players had worked out from the off and we were sat 10th with Tim still here. I can promise you he'd be saying to everyone how they were solely his signings, no such committee would be mentioned.

Everything he says is now trying to cover himself. 

Lying chancer.

No he wouldn't.

[srsmithusa]

21 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

The report from the meeting is helpful in that it tells us 'the party line', but it still remains one man's word against another's. Maybe Fox is right, maybe Sherwood is. I'm certainly not simply taking Tom Fox's word as gospel, especially given how convenient it is to blame everything that's gone wrong on the man they've already sacked while he and Reilly appear to be shouldering none of the blame themselves. 

Usually, after a big ticket project goes horribly wrong - and this was a big project, we spent north of £50m rebuilding the squad, and it most assuredly gone horribly wrong - successful businesses conduct a thorough investigation to find out where the problem was. It's rare that anybody can escape with no blame whatsoever, that being in the nature of ****-ups. Even in the very best case scenario for Fox and Reilly, they still ineptly supervised a novice manager misspending a unique bounty that we won't get again, and that's giving them the maximum possible charity. But instead of real introspection and acknowledgements of failings, all I can smell is responsibility-shirking and laying everything at the doorstep of the guy who can't fight back. To me this is more proof of a disastrous culture behind the scenes at this football club. 

I disagree that saying.... "The process involved a group with input from all, but final decision with the manager, like most other clubs" is even remotely "to blame everything that's gone wrong on the man they've already sacked while he and Reilly appear to be shouldering none of the blame themselves. "

You have set up a false dichotomy that states we can't know who to blame and then lay the lions share at those you see as "responsibility-shirking and laying everything at the doorstep of the guy who can't fight back. To me this is more proof of a disastrous culture behind the scenes at this football club. "

I disagree that Tom's statement did that at all.  Calling his report "the party line" reveals a bias against what he is stating.

I think the report was that Sherwood blamed the others  "they forced me to take players I didn't want."  I think Fox is saying.  "What we did, we did together. He even had a final say."  I don't think his statement even asserts anything about the quality of the decisions made.  Just the process, about which some (in his view, and according to several of Tim's statements) "false information" has been circulated. 

 

[HanoiVillan]

16 minutes ago, BOF said:

As I've said, IMHO that is Randy's fault and it has been years in coming.  The fact Fox happens to be at the wheel at the point where we run out of luck doesn't automatically mean the axe should swing for him too.  For me this is all on Randy.

There are two very massive problems at the club that are very difficult to dump at Lerner's door:

a] We appointed Tim Sherwood, who we were told was a Fox appointment made when Lerner had handed over responsibility for the day-to-day running of the club, on a three-year contract yet had to sack him barely six months later. 

b] We spent more than £50m during the summer on a group of players, of which none can so far be described as a 'success' (Ayew and Richards seem to be the closest). £50m should have been enough to get us to midtable, but we spent badly. People are arguing that Randy's involvement was limited to nothing more than signing cheques, so this isn't really his fault either. 

None of this means Lerner has been a good or successful owner - clearly he hasn't. But we can't simply handwave away the fact that when Fox took over we were keeping afloat in the PL, even if only just, yet now after a summer with a huge total spend (and yes I know we had a lot to replace) we're dead and buried at the bottom of the table. I'm not necessarily calling for him to be sacked - I'm starting to think we do too much sacking in the hope that it'll solve problems at this football club - but I would like to see a degree of introspection that I just don't think is present at all. 

[AntrimBlack]

22 minutes ago, BOF said:

As I've said, IMHO that is Randy's fault and it has been years in coming.  The fact Fox happens to be at the wheel at the point where we run out of luck doesn't automatically mean the axe should swing for him too.  For me this is all on Randy.

Very much this. You can apportion blame how you like, but throughout there has been one constant - Lerner - and he is undoubtedly the person responsible. Others, hired by him, may not have been up to the task, but he is the one responsible.

[rodders0223]

2 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

There are two very massive problems at the club that are very difficult to dump at Lerner's door:

a] We appointed Tim Sherwood, who we were told was a Fox appointment made when Lerner had handed over responsibility for the day-to-day running of the club, on a three-year contract yet had to sack him barely six months later. 

b] We spent more than £50m during the summer on a group of players, of which none can so far be described as a 'success' (Ayew and Richards seem to be the closest). £50m should have been enough to get us to midtable, but we spent badly. People are arguing that Randy's involvement was limited to nothing more than signing cheques, so this isn't really his fault either. 

None of this means Lerner has been a good or successful owner - clearly he hasn't. But we can't simply handwave away the fact that when Fox took over we were keeping afloat in the PL, even if only just, yet now after a summer with a huge total spend (and yes I know we had a lot to replace) we're dead and buried at the bottom of the table. I'm not necessarily calling for him to be sacked - I'm starting to think we do too much sacking in the hope that it'll solve problems at this football club - but I would like to see a degree of introspection that I just don't think is present at all. 

£50m when we lost Benteke, Delph, Cleverley and Vlaar was never going to be enough. Pitiful.

[HanoiVillan]

2 minutes ago, rodders0223 said:

£50m when we lost Benteke, Delph, Cleverley and Vlaar was never going to be enough. Pitiful.

Of those four, Vlaar had rarely played in his last season and was adequately replaced by Richards on a free anyway. Cleverley was on loan, and we could of course have played the loan market rather more successfully than Tiago **** Ilori. That leaves Delph and Benteke. Since we can't attract the sort of players that would cost more than £20m in the first place, we definitely could have managed 3-4 quality purchases for £50m that would have plugged those holes, at least better than we managed. I refuse to believe we did the best we possibly could with £50m, the idea is absurd. 

[sexbelowsound]

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

why?

Think its because the management that I know in my personal life happily lie to a group full of people.

[AntrimBlack]

5 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

There are two very massive problems at the club that are very difficult to dump at Lerner's door:

a] We appointed Tim Sherwood, who we were told was a Fox appointment made when Lerner had handed over responsibility for the day-to-day running of the club, on a three-year contract yet had to sack him barely six months later. 

b] We spent more than £50m during the summer on a group of players, of which none can so far be described as a 'success' (Ayew and Richards seem to be the closest). £50m should have been enough to get us to midtable, but we spent badly. People are arguing that Randy's involvement was limited to nothing more than signing cheques, so this isn't really his fault either. 

None of this means Lerner has been a good or successful owner - clearly he hasn't. But we can't simply handwave away the fact that when Fox took over we were keeping afloat in the PL, even if only just, yet now after a summer with a huge total spend (and yes I know we had a lot to replace) we're dead and buried at the bottom of the table. I'm not necessarily calling for him to be sacked - I'm starting to think we do too much sacking in the hope that it'll solve problems at this football club - but I would like to see a degree of introspection that I just don't think is present at all. 

Reference (a) Fox was appointed by Lerner, so if you think Fox has done badly, it still falls to Lerner. Also, though Sherwood was a bit of an ass, but he kept us up, so a good decision.

[HanoiVillan]

15 minutes ago, srsmithusa said:

I disagree that saying.... "The process involved a group with input from all, but final decision with the manager, like most other clubs" is even remotely "to blame everything that's gone wrong on the man they've already sacked while he and Reilly appear to be shouldering none of the blame themselves. "

You have set up a false dichotomy that states we can't know who to blame and then lay the lions share at those you see as "responsibility-shirking and laying everything at the doorstep of the guy who can't fight back. To me this is more proof of a disastrous culture behind the scenes at this football club. "

I disagree that Tom's statement did that at all.  Calling his report "the party line" reveals a bias against what he is stating.

I think the report was that Sherwood blamed the others  "they forced me to take players I didn't want."  I think Fox is saying.  "What we did, we did together. He even had a final say."  I don't think his statement even asserts anything about the quality of the decisions made.  Just the process, about which some (in his view, and according to several of Tim's statements) "false information" has been circulated. 

 

Thanks for the reply, a lot of points made!

There is no 'statement', it's just a precis of what was said by someone who was at the meeting, so I can't be certain that was all that was said. However, assuming that the precis covers the main points, you are correct that it doesn't assert anything about the quality of the decisions made, and that is precisely why I regard it as responsibility-shirking. From the information available so far, it appears as if the purpose of the meeting was to 'clarify' who did what in the transfer committee, but that really isn't the main issue. None of us would care exactly whose idea these signings were if they were at all successful, but they've been hopeless. My interpretation of that transcript is 'blame Sherwood, he's the one who picked most of them'. Maybe that's true, but I just don't agree that we can be certain about that. I understand if you differ in opinion, but then we'll have to agree to disagree. 

You seem to mistake me for someone making excuses for Tim Sherwood. I'm not. I was calling for him to be sacked after the West Brom game, and I think he was a rotten appointment who clearly made a number of huge errors, certainly including transfers. I've said elsewhere on the site that the Lescott signing seems to be all Sherwood, and I think he's the worst centre back I've ever seen play for Villa. I'm just not prepared to put 100% of the blame on Sherwood. 

 

[srsmithusa]

Hanoi, we agree more than we disagree.  I don't put 100% of the blame on Sherwood either.  I just don't think that's what Tom Fox said.

[Nabby]

So what will a chairmen bring to the table ..at present he will come in to oversea a team going down so it will be on him to bring us back.

With that in mind who are we likely to attract ..? Are we expecting a football man , maybe an ex player ?

This and a new board member makes it sound like ironically we will have a commitee overseeing things an actual structure in place which is better than the corner shol approach we have had up to now.

[Dr_Pangloss]

50 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

There are two very massive problems at the club that are very difficult to dump at Lerner's door:

a] We appointed Tim Sherwood, who we were told was a Fox appointment made when Lerner had handed over responsibility for the day-to-day running of the club, on a three-year contract yet had to sack him barely six months later. 

b] We spent more than £50m during the summer on a group of players, of which none can so far be described as a 'success' (Ayew and Richards seem to be the closest). £50m should have been enough to get us to midtable, but we spent badly. People are arguing that Randy's involvement was limited to nothing more than signing cheques, so this isn't really his fault either. 

None of this means Lerner has been a good or successful owner - clearly he hasn't. But we can't simply handwave away the fact that when Fox took over we were keeping afloat in the PL, even if only just, yet now after a summer with a huge total spend (and yes I know we had a lot to replace) we're dead and buried at the bottom of the table. I'm not necessarily calling for him to be sacked - I'm starting to think we do too much sacking in the hope that it'll solve problems at this football club - but I would like to see a degree of introspection that I just don't think is present at all. 

The buck stops with Randy, he is the one who hired this muppet, who has gone on to hire other muppets who have presided over us signing £50m worth of lemons.

[blandy]

On 14/12/2015 at 18:47, Dr_Pangloss said:

muppets who have presided over us signing £50m worth of lemons.

There's been a lot of good posts made in this thread of late.

Just looking away for a moment - this isn't a comparison as such, but just looking at the "model" elsewhere. Take Chelsea and Abramovic, or Man City and Sheik Mansour. Now I know they're way wealthier, but what they have in common with RL is that they stay out of the picture, and they have appointed a complete other set of people to run their clubs. They each set up structures, with expert people (or at least knowledgeable people) in all the roles. What Randy has done once the dust was settled on his takeover was to have a tiny team of people, barely any of whom have had the right level of expertise or experience and given them much wider roles.

Bu following that path he has failed to protect his investment. He's had manager's spend unsustainably, then he had an inexperienced CEO put the brakes on, when he realised. Cue disruption and manager strop off. Then he was left to find a new manager at the worst time possible, without a good team of advisers or experts to turn to. That pattern was repeated at each sacking. Get advice of people who haven't necessarily got the best interests of Villa or Randy at heart - be that Fergie or Arsene Wenger. Funnily enough they each recommended their mates for a job.

Tom Fox wasn't a CEO, he was a commercial guy.

Fox though has brought some structure and it looks like a new Chairman is coming along too. This is an improvement, structurally.  Unfortunately, as per the bit I quoted above, the people in the structure set up to oversee and set policy on transfers seem to have adopted a model which was unsuitable for the situation. A side that nearly went down, that then lost it's best players and the spine of the team followed a policy of replacing that loss of quality with not like for like replecements - internationals at Centre Forward, midfield and (to an extent) Centre half, but largely concentrated on unproven or end of career cheap signings, but a fair few of them. So the 40 million quid or whatever we got in, was spent back out, with a bit extra on top, on a whole bunch of lower quality players. What was needed was slot in replacements for the ones who left, and one or two extra players to replace other first teamers not consistent enough to allow us to improve league results.

It looks like the scouting and transfer network had the wrong policy. More money down the drain and a worse team.

So in essence I think Fox is putting a proper stucture in place, and that's good. But I'm not sure that the people being appointed have so far done a good job. It's something that should have been done 9 years ago, mind. Slow Lerner, you might say.