maqroll Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 Yeah, it all seems too little too late. Unless the alternative was administration, but we were never in that dire a situation. Fox got it totally wrong in the summer by not holding several interviews for the manager job. Just giving it to Sherwood was a colossal error in judgement and strategy, and it blew up in his face in just a few short months. I'm not sold on Fox, despite his best pitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KHV Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 Just now, maqroll said: Yeah, it all seems too little too late Villa's biggest problem, every decision we make is a reactive one rather than a proactive one and as a result we are always behind. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 24 minutes ago, blandy said: 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 marketing 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. Welcome back Pete, you are 100% spot on mate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post OutByEaster? Posted December 16, 2015 Moderator Popular Post Share Posted December 16, 2015 Gents, I posted in this our donors forum on Sunday and thought it best to share with everyone. I got an invite on behalf of VT to meet with Tom Fox this week and was lucky enough to sit down with a small number of fans from websites, Lions club chairmen and representatives of the Aston Villa Supporters trust along with a couple of people from the club and Mr Fox. It was clear that the purpose of the meeting was a little bit of a mystery to each of us as we took advantage of the free coffee and waited for the Chief Exec - but I thought I'd take the opportunity to report back and give you the opportunity to decide for yourselves. Tom (oh yeah, first name terms) spoke at length about the club, how it worked, where we were at and what was being done. He spoke about the mess the club was in due to mistakes that had been made both during the Lerner era and before, about how our revenues increased by just 14% between 2004 and 2014 (not 14% a year, 14% period) and how the club was moving forward to try to get us back into the right areas on revenue. He described us as having found ourselves living in the wrong neighbourhood and how our first target was to get back onto the right street, even if it was in the smallest house. He was also at pains to correct a number of things that appeared in local and national media that are driven by the desire to make a story out of our situation - the most crucial of which is that the way in which we operate our transfer and scouting system is the same as everyone else's - we have scouts, we have people who do data, we have Paddy Reilly and we have the manager. He was very clear that ultimately the manager signs players by a process of recommendation or veto and that our previous manager was in favour of buying every single one of our summer signings and rubber stamped each of them - no matter what has been printed elsewhere. Tom was quite direct about this; he also pointed out that the only quote in any newspaper directly from Tim Sherwood on the subject was in the Evening Mail on the 2nd September when he was clear that the players were his, he'd had the final say and it was up to him to get them playing. He pointed out that Paddy Reilly wasn't sacked by Liverpool, that they had wanted to keep him (he left us initially because he found it difficult to work with one of Paul Lambert's assistants) and that Henrik Almstad isn't directly involved in player recruitment - even though at least one national paper would have you believe that he's our transfer supremo, nor was he brought in over Sherwood's head - he had dinner with Tim at his house before joining and Tim was asked to green or red light the appointment. I've been lucky enough to meet with two previous Villa directors on the old Supporters Consultancy Group (SCG) meetings, and what was noticeably different about this one was that Tom was very happy to talk about football. The SCG's were about supporters and the 'fan experience' and ended up being about wi-fi and better pies. Tom spoke about players, he spoke about how Jordan Ayew is the leader in our dressing room, how Richards and Hutton are the other vocal leaders and how we'd love more leaders in there He spoke about the make up of the current first team and how few of the players signed by Paul Lambert were still here and what the club was learning through the mistakes of having signed 23 players for £47m during that period, just about all of whom had failed both on the pitch and as investments (with the exception of Benteke), he spoke passionately about the Leicester game in a way that would have been right at home in our match thread and he spoke in firm defence of Fabien Delph who changed his mind twice in joining City, not for any sort of negotiating position, but because he genuinely loved it here - and how Delph's agent was more than a little surprised that Delph agreed to sign a new contract with four months left on his old one. He might take abuse from the stands for it, but within the club, that £8m was a gift from a loyal servant. He also spoke about how the club was slightly disappointed in the way in which the management team had initially gone about integrating the summer's recruits. In terms of snippets of news, he confirmed that we'll have a new kit manufacturer to announce in February and he seemed quite pleased about it. More importantly, he confirmed that the club is very close to appointing a new Chairman and will be adding another person to the board. There was no mention of a sale and nothing he said sounded temporary. And that's about it really. we asked a few questions, the club are looking at January and finding the right way forward, he's happier with the coaching staff than he has been, he knows the squad needs a lot of work, they're very aware of what relegation means but they believe that what they're doing now will continue to work in whichever division and that making a huge change in direction at this point would be harmful, and he confirmed that the club is absolutely nowhere near being in profit - we're still living out of the owner's pocket. I think ultimately he'd called us together because of his frustration with the way in which the club is portrayed in the press, especially around Sherwood's departure and he wanted to get his side of the story out to people who care about the club. I'm sure the club recognises the power of social media, but I didn't get the feeling it was a machiavellian plot to turn us into good little club fed news machines. I think he was looking to find a way to speak to fans and hear from fans - I'm not sure if he got exactly what he wanted, but it's a good place to start. There was some talk of establishing a fans council, but at this point that's an idea that's just sitting out there, it came from around the table and Tom was happy to support it, he wants to speak to and listen to supporters - it's something to keep an eye out for, but I don't see it happening in the immediate future. One thing I'll say, in my opinion, he was both honest and open. Too honest at times and I got a definite sense throughout that he had a plan and knew exactly what he wanted to do - he was clearly exasperated at the opportunities we've missed, but he's got passion for the club and I liked him. I'm not sure that's worth a jot, but there you are. One final thing I'd add is that it's difficult in these situations to type up the meeting, the words carry a weight and a slight misuse of a phrase can skew it a great deal - I think I've already done that by saying that the Mail's were the only quotes from Sherwood and I should add that the 14% income increase is outside of TV income - apologies for that. What's worth doing is reading on the reports from the trust and those on other fan websites - a composite is probably useful in this sort of thing - we each miss things and take different things from what we hear. 26 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCJonah Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 (edited) Sounds like a lot of none of this is my fault and nothing we haven't heard before from Faulkner and the General. A load of shit when the whole point of the club is an absolute embarrassing joke. Shame he didn't want to take some responsibility given the fact he's sacked 2 managers in 8 months. Sounds like nothing is going to change and even if we survive by some miracle, it will be more of the same. Not sure I believe him fully in terms of signings. Fox or the club give me little reason to trust what they say, neither does Sherwood though so who the **** knows what went on. It's a **** mess what ever it was that he helped put in place. Edited December 16, 2015 by DCJonah 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ender4 Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 (edited) Thanks for writing that up OBE. Very interesting to hear. Did you get the impression that Villa would spend in the January transfer window? Edited December 16, 2015 by ender4 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 Fox is a spin doctor, no doubt about it. But that's his job, I suppose. He's the big smile back slapper who smoothes over the edges (or tries to). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 (edited) 4 minutes ago, useless said: I wonder who the new Chairman will be? We were linked to some guy from Monaco in the summer, but I think he might have ended up getting a job at PSG. I've just looked it up and it's 'Luis Campos' but he was their 'Technical Director' so doubt he'll be coming here as Chairman. Edited December 16, 2015 by useless 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingman Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 Tom Fox is full of shite and can suck my hole! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 3 minutes ago, Kingman said: Tom Fox is full of shite and can suck my hole! am I the only person that read this in Cartman's accent 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 According to TBAR (I realise that this perhaps makes it unlikely) the word from BMH is that David Dein is going to be the chairman. I'm not sure if that would be a good thing or not, I mean he's been away from the game for a while now. But we seem to love our Arsenal connections recently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCJonah Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 What difference is anyone going to make to this club under this owner? It doesn't matter one bit who gets the job. I've no doubt it will lead to nothing. Nearly every appointment made under Lerner has been poor and has led to nothing but more heart ache and misery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 (edited) Not surprised to hear about Ayew, Richards and Hutton. When we play they are the only ones who seem to give a shit. Notice that our 'club captain' isn't mentioned in the same way. Edited December 16, 2015 by andym 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LockStockVilla Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 https://audioboom.com/boos/3960001-tom-fox-talks-about-remi-garde-relegation-fears-new-chairman-and-more Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeyp102 Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 OBE, in line with what you said about being in wrong neighbourhood, is this to do with income and structure? You say about pre Lerner, are we still suffering from dougs decisions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted December 17, 2015 Moderator Share Posted December 17, 2015 I'm afraid I don't fully remember the wording Mikey. He never mentioned Doug, but he talked about the club having fallen behind and came across to me to me like he was meaning to include the period since Lerner took over. It's difficult to answer questions properly, I'm keen not to misrepresent anything and other than the things I wrote down, I'm relying on a memory which then got filled with the Arsenal game. Interesting on that audio that at the end he says he's looking forward to working with a Chairman that is local. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCJonah Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 33 minutes ago, Stevo985 said: Care to elaborate? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted December 17, 2015 VT Supporter Share Posted December 17, 2015 Just now, DCJonah said: Care to elaborate? It's just hilarious how people read things and conclude such different things from them depending on their mindset. I'm fairly sympathetic towards Fox and think the jury is still out on him, and I was really encouraged by what OBE reported. You are obviously dead set against Fox (and anyone running the club) and you read it totally differently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCJonah Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 2 minutes ago, Stevo985 said: It's just hilarious how people read things and conclude such different things from them depending on their mindset. I'm fairly sympathetic towards Fox and think the jury is still out on him, and I was really encouraged by what OBE reported. You are obviously dead set against Fox (and anyone running the club) and you read it totally differently. I'm not dead set against him, why would I be? he's not a manager or a player, he's a marketing expert employed to run the club. I just see no evidence to buy into anything he says. I've fallen for it a few times with this club over the last few years and I won't be doing it again until I see evidence to back it up. The general and Faulkner used to say similar things to send the right message to the fans and it resulted in things just getting worse and worse. To be fair to Fox, I don't believe he's in a position to make much of a difference to the club, I don't for one second think he will take us forward while Lerner owns us. There's nothing he can really do. But on the flip side i've got little sympathy with the man running the show while this season pans out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliffy Biro Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 I think hes a very good speaker and he'll obviously talk about the positives but the fact is we are run horribly, we are going down without a fight and we consistently hire the wrong people. All his nice talking and talk of sponsorship deals and revenue means absolutely squat to me when we are in our worst state since i started supporting us. Faulkner was peddling all this nonsense years ago about the projects and how we are righting the wrongs and that will be beneficial in the long term but its all utter nonsense. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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