blandy Posted January 22, 2016 Moderator Share Posted January 22, 2016 20 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said: Fox isn't wrong though, because he said what you are saying. Though not in such words of course, can't expect the man to stand up there and say "I'm a word removed and I **** it all up". Who would respect him then? Sorry, I maybe was unclear. I think Fox is wrong in the disagreement OBE pointed out there is between Hilton and Fox ...They differ completely in a key area - recruitment... Hilton seems to say that they have a problem in that tons of money's been wasted on players that haven't made the results better and Fox seems to think what they did this summer was great. - that's where I think Fox was wrong. What they did this summer was a major cause of our troubles. And there are rumours (maybe untrue) that Garde wants to get players in because what he has is pants, which if true would further support my view. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 Hollis. Steve Hollis is the Chairman of Villa. Steve Hilton was a former advisor to David Cameron, memorably parodied in The Thick Of It. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pilchard Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 19 minutes ago, blandy said: Sorry, I maybe was unclear. I think Fox is wrong in the disagreement OBE pointed out there is between Hilton and Fox ...They differ completely in a key area - recruitment... Hilton seems to say that they have a problem in that tons of money's been wasted on players that haven't made the results better and Fox seems to think what they did this summer was great. - that's where I think Fox was wrong. What they did this summer was a major cause of our troubles. And there are rumours (maybe untrue) that Garde wants to get players in because what he has is pants, which if true would further support my view. The thing is...Fox has to say that, doesn't he? Because if he admits it was the complete failure it was, then not only is he admitting that this has happened because of something whilst he's been in charge, he's also admitting the route cause of it is the whole system that he's pressed to put in place, the one that upset the manager that was in place at the time, has failed putting him as number one reason why we are where we are and basically saying he should be sacked. He isn't going to say that. It's like Garde ending up as Villa manager. Riley and the rest of the fantastic player recruitment team aren't going to choose someone like an Allardyce, Moyes, Pearson. Because they want to be able to choose who to buy, want control over the youth system etc - it'd be effectively voting to get the sack. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briny_ear Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 12 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: Hollis. Steve Hollis is the Chairman of Villa. Steve Hilton was a former advisor to David Cameron, memorably parodied in The Thick Of It. True. Although I do think at some point the management of Aston Villa Football Club would also be a good subject for a satirical comedy written by Armando Iannucci. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted January 22, 2016 Moderator Share Posted January 22, 2016 5 minutes ago, Pilchard said: The thing is...Fox has to say that, doesn't he? Because if he admits it was the complete failure it was, then not only is he admitting that this has happened because of something whilst he's been in charge, he's also admitting the route cause of it is the whole system that he's pressed to put in place, the one that upset the manager that was in place at the time, has failed putting him as number one reason why we are where we are and basically saying he should be sacked. He isn't going to say that. Probably, yes. it's obviously easier to say "it was a great idea, but Sherwood made mess of it". I guess you're right and I think we're agreeing anyway, aren't we? I'm not actually against a policy that has us buy intelligently (who would be?) I just think they were kind of determined to do their new policy idea, full-on and full of their own rightness and they took too little account of, or dismissed as irrelevant, the human and football related aspects and immediate consequences. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted January 22, 2016 Moderator Share Posted January 22, 2016 17 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: Hollis. Steve Hollis is the Chairman of Villa. Steve Hilton was a former advisor to David Cameron, memorably parodied in The Thick Of It. Sorry, yeah. How could I get so confused between faceless office bods. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 19 minutes ago, briny_ear said: True. Although I do think at some point the management of Aston Villa Football Club would also be a good subject for a satirical comedy written by Armando Iannucci. Why hasn't a satire on football ownership been written? It seems ripe for comedy to me. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 Sorry, I maybe was unclear. I think Fox is wrong in the disagreement OBE pointed out there is between Hilton and Fox ...They differ completely in a key area - recruitment... Hilton seems to say that they have a problem in that tons of money's been wasted on players that haven't made the results better and Fox seems to think what they did this summer was great. - that's where I think Fox was wrong. What they did this summer was a major cause of our troubles. And there are rumours (maybe untrue) that Garde wants to get players in because what he has is pants, which if true would further support my view. The thing is...Fox has to say that, doesn't he? Because if he admits it was the complete failure it was, then not only is he admitting that this has happened because of something whilst he's been in charge, he's also admitting the route cause of it is the whole system that he's pressed to put in place, the one that upset the manager that was in place at the time, has failed putting him as number one reason why we are where we are and basically saying he should be sacked. He isn't going to say that. It's like Garde ending up as Villa manager. Riley and the rest of the fantastic player recruitment team aren't going to choose someone like an Allardyce, Moyes, Pearson. Because they want to be able to choose who to buy, want control over the youth system etc - it'd be effectively voting to get the sack. I think it's too simplistic to say it was a complete failure, or that Sherwood was solely to blame. The truth is somewhere in the middle and I got the impression they admitted to as much last night. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I've read it wrong, but that's how it came across to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AntrimBlack Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 1 hour ago, Pilchard said: The thing is...Fox has to say that, doesn't he? Because if he admits it was the complete failure it was, then not only is he admitting that this has happened because of something whilst he's been in charge, he's also admitting the route cause of it is the whole system that he's pressed to put in place, the one that upset the manager that was in place at the time, has failed putting him as number one reason why we are where we are and basically saying he should be sacked. He isn't going to say that. It's like Garde ending up as Villa manager. Riley and the rest of the fantastic player recruitment team aren't going to choose someone like an Allardyce, Moyes, Pearson. Because they want to be able to choose who to buy, want control over the youth system etc - it'd be effectively voting to get the sack. Or........ they want to run the club on modern lines, but were over-enthusiastic, and tried to run before they walked. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 2 hours ago, Pilchard said: The thing is...Fox has to say that, doesn't he? Because if he admits it was the complete failure it was, then not only is he admitting that this has happened because of something whilst he's been in charge, he's also admitting the route cause of it is the whole system that he's pressed to put in place, the one that upset the manager that was in place at the time, has failed putting him as number one reason why we are where we are and basically saying he should be sacked. He isn't going to say that. It's like Garde ending up as Villa manager. Riley and the rest of the fantastic player recruitment team aren't going to choose someone like an Allardyce, Moyes, Pearson. Because they want to be able to choose who to buy, want control over the youth system etc - it'd be effectively voting to get the sack. Funny you mention Pearson, as he worked with a transfer committee at Leicester (Steve Walsh is head of recruitment). Martyn Glover, who was head of recruitment when Allardyce was at West Ham is apparently set to rejoin him at Sunderland in the same role. Most teams operate in this way. A transfer committee is not a bad thing in principle, and i'd say putting one in place is one of the few good ideas the club has had. Obviously though it falls down if you don't have the right people on it - and we clearly didn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grasshopper Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 Regarding summer spending and what PR HA TF & TS recruited/decided on. 1) who we brought in have been, on the whole, successes. 2) we also needed a GK, RB/CB (depending on where richards played) CB, DM, RW, LW & CF. thats around 50mill underspent. TS destroying team and moral aside. Our spending was only going to at best scrape us through another season. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BruLan Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 Ok, As a newbie on here but a Villa Fan of 35 + Years, Please be Gentle with me LOL I have to say I think we are in a far better position than a Month ago ;- to explain, The Managers finding his feet, and I for one am pleased to see we are not throwing Money at yet more Mercenaries. The contracts are running down on some of the current Leeches and Parasites currently stealing a Wage, you know who they are. Further we have a Team who seem to be gaining in confidence and are now unbeaten in four games, Finally and (to me) importantly we seem to have appointed a Chairman who has a grasp of reality , Anyway I for one believe we can get a few more results on the Pitch and hope what goes on behind the scenes starts to make sense UTV !! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted January 22, 2016 Moderator Share Posted January 22, 2016 13 minutes ago, Grasshopper said: Regarding summer spending and what PR HA TF & TS recruited/decided on. 1) who we brought in have been, on the whole, successes. I'm not trying to be facetious, but are you sure? I mean having sold Benteke and Delph we replaced them with a forward(s) who have scored about 3 goals between them and some midfielders none of whom are at the same level as Delph. Surely we needed to fill the gaps with at least similar quality as we lost just to stand still? They may all turn out to be good buys in a few years, but we didn't and don't have the luxury of waiting to find out. That was (IMO) the main problem with the summer window. The "solution" employed was for the wrong problem. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andym Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 Last season we had a poor squad with a handful of really good players who basically kept us up. If you lose those good players you have (imo) two main options if you have a pretty tight budget. You could spend the money you get trying to directly replace them and hope for the same outcome (i.e. they carry the team and keep you up). However, i'm not sure we would ever have replaced Benteke with a similar quality player, and you could possibly say the same for Delph, depending how high you rate him. Alternatively you sign a lot of average but good enough to cope in the prem players, who replace the good players but also the poor players. So in terms of squad make up there are less extremes, but the overall strength is still enough to stay up. We didn't take either of the options - we basically signed a few average ones to try and replace the good ones, but were still left with a lot of the poor players (and also added to them in some cases). So overall the strength of the squad reduced. Like Grasshopper says, we simply didn't spend enough money 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 (edited) Andys summing up of our summer dealings in the post above is pretty much spot on.The only thing I would add is that I think we signed a handful of players that looked good in other inferior divisions/leagues with the potential to eventually become accomplished Prem League players. Trouble is by the time they all settle, find their feet and become good enough, assuming they ever do, to be capable of carrying a squad made up of other at best average players, then we will have been relegated. I look at the signing of Traore now and he looks an exciting prospect but two managers seem to have quickly came to the conclusion that he would be a bit part player and one for the future. We were not in a position to be spending 8 mill on a player that was going to take at least a season before being ready to be a regular starter. Edited January 22, 2016 by markavfc40 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 1 hour ago, Grasshopper said: Regarding summer spending and what PR HA TF & TS recruited/decided on. 1) who we brought in have been, on the whole, successes. 2) we also needed a GK, RB/CB (depending on where richards played) CB, DM, RW, LW & CF. thats around 50mill underspent. TS destroying team and moral aside. Our spending was only going to at best scrape us through another season. A quality striker to replace Benteke would've papered over some of the cracks in our team and get us ticking over until January. Indeed him scoring in 1-0 wins for us would've helped some of the new lads to adapt quicker as it's easier to settle in a winning team. It was a horrendous decision to effectively replace Benteke with Rudy Gestede. Most of us were saying at the time we needed an experienced premier league striker while Rudy got used to the league and we will pay for that decision very soon. As much as I defend him on somecounts, I hold Sherwood responsible for that. He wanted to sign Adebayor, it broke down and then he seemed content to wait until August 31st without a back up plan. Along that point I believe he decide after Gestede's winner at Bournemouth that getting another striker wasn't a huge priority. Next time we're in this league from August whoever our board is needs to learn the simple lesson....break the bank and sign a quality striker and life is easier in the premier league. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BruLan Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 29 minutes ago, VillaChris said: It was a horrendous decision to effectively replace Benteke with Rudy Gestede. Most of us were saying at the time we needed an experienced premier league striker while Rudy got used to the league and we will pay for that decision very soon. As much as I defend him on somecounts, I hold Sherwood responsible for that. He wanted to sign Adebayor, it broke down and then he seemed content to wait until August 31st without a back up plan. Along that point I believe he decide after Gestede's winner at Bournemouth that getting another striker wasn't a huge priority. Much as I appreciate your thoughts is it fair to blame Sherwood, for not securing Adeybayor ? Seems other forces were in play when it came to Transfers, moreover, no one else seems too keen to sign him either, perhaps we're better without (yet) another over paid Player looking for one last BIG contract ? Just asking Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grasshopper Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 1 hour ago, blandy said: I'm not trying to be facetious, but are you sure? I mean having sold Benteke and Delph we replaced them with a forward(s) who have scored about 3 goals between them and some midfielders none of whom are at the same level as Delph. Surely we needed to fill the gaps with at least similar quality as we lost just to stand still? They may all turn out to be good buys in a few years, but we didn't and don't have the luxury of waiting to find out. That was (IMO) the main problem with the summer window. The "solution" employed was for the wrong problem. Amavi, Gana, Vertout & Ayew have been worthy additions ----- 2) we also needed a GK, RB/CB (depending on where richards played) CB, DM, RW, LW & CF. ----- this would have covered delph & Benteke like for like was impossible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 If you remember we were going to announce Adebayor on the same day as Gestede who signed the start of August. Then Adebayor consulted God and decided not to come here. We had therefore 4 weeks to source up another alternative from Paddy Riley's FM Manager game (Ayew had been signed by that point aswell btw so you couldn't declare him a Benteke replacement, more Weimann's replacement). I can't help thinking it was more than a co-incidence that Gestede scored at Bournemouth, the mass hysteria on here that he was going to score 15-20 goals this season no problem and talk of a new striker died down, I think some people got carried away and Sherwood seemed content to wait for Adebayor to possibly change his mind on August 31st. A massive massive error. At least Randy was still suitably motivated in 2011 to get in Darren Bent. My belief was we'd had stayed up that season even if Bent hadn't of arrived as Young and Downing were at the club. Too late now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted January 22, 2016 Share Posted January 22, 2016 (edited) 46 minutes ago, VillaChris said: A quality striker to replace Benteke would've papered over some of the cracks in our team and get us ticking over until January. Indeed him scoring in 1-0 wins for us would've helped some of the new lads to adapt quicker as it's easier to settle in a winning team. It was a horrendous decision to effectively replace Benteke with Rudy Gestede. Most of us were saying at the time we needed an experienced premier league striker while Rudy got used to the league and we will pay for that decision very soon. As much as I defend him on somecounts, I hold Sherwood responsible for that. He wanted to sign Adebayor, it broke down and then he seemed content to wait until August 31st without a back up plan. Along that point I believe he decide after Gestede's winner at Bournemouth that getting another striker wasn't a huge priority. Next time we're in this league from August whoever our board is needs to learn the simple lesson....break the bank and sign a quality striker and life is easier in the premier league. we wanted Adebayor, Berbatov and Gayle. neither came here in the end though Pardew mentioned we made an embarrassing offer for Gayle Edited January 22, 2016 by Zatman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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