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Steven Hollis


Villan4Life

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New Aston Villa chairman Steve Hollis has expressed his frustration at the club's summer spend and insists "other things need to be fixed" before big money is spent again

So we can't have anymore players before things are fixed?  What could this possibly mean? What needs to be fixed?

It can't be the playing side because Garde has the boards total backing! It can't be the commercial side because Fox has the boards total backing!

Surely it can only be player recruitment? Reilly and Almstadt must surely have f****d up.  Problem solved sack them and bring someone properly qualified to do the job in

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Can someone please tell him he is running 'football' club. Listening to Hollis it is like the league we play in (premiership or championship) is of secondary importance to him - his job and main priority is to get the f**king infrastructure right first. Well if you care about money as much as you say you might just want to have another look at the cost of going down vs a bit of investment now!  Also, strikes me as odd how he talks big about shaking things up and suggesting the existing regime waisted £50m or so in the summer (which I do not actually agree with), but then says the last thing he would do is apportion any blame or change  the leadership.  Build their confidence he says!  Also annoys me how he hides  behind meaningless terms like infrastructure - well what does that mean?  Kit deals, sponsorship, income wage bills, contracts - what exactly is he shaking up?  I am not against an experienced business person running the club, quite the opposite, but this guy is loosing me pretty quickly.

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27 minutes ago, VillaCas said:

 

TRO. if there was a prize for totally missing the point, you'd be a dead cert to win it!

Being successful in football, as in life, is both incredibly simple and incredibly complex

The "blueprint" that you feel was so successful in 1981 was (your words) "recruiting the right players and coaching them well".  I agree that if you got both those elements spot on you would be a long way down the road to being successful.  Because we are performing so badly it's highly likely that we must be doing at least one and probably both of these things very poorly.

HOWEVER, my point was that knowing that you have to "recruit the right players and coach them well" is hardly a secret that has gone under the radar for the past 35 years. 99.9% of fans would tell you that finding good players and improving their abilities is crucial. Leicester have found some decent players and (we don't know for sure but it is likely) coached them well. This is not some lost recipe for success invented by Saunders and Barton in 1981 and uncovered and applied by Ranieri 35 years later.

If Hollis and Fox were to announce tonight at the supporters AGM that our plan for the next five years was to "recruit the right players and coach them well" I expect the response from the masses would be "no shit Sherlock"

As for "hard work and a great attitude" this is laughable as it is the phrase used by Hollis as weasle words that he intends to rollout whenever anyone talks about levels of investment. The phrase "Hard work and a great attitude" is in THIS CONTEXT banal, tedious and trite. EVERYONE knows that to be successful you need to work hard and display the right attitude but saying it and doing it are a million miles apart.

Also hard work and a great attitude FOR ME need to go hand in hand with a proper investment strategy. Please note, I am not saying here and have never said that the only road to success is to spend 100's of millions (although I don't think it would harm our chances either). I actually have no problem with the overall level of Lerner's investment although I do have problem with the feast/famine nature of its application and the structure (or lack of) by which it was applied

Finally, you keep saying "blah, blah, blah....stick that in your blueprint"  I wasn't the one who started this whole conversation of models and blueprints - that was you!  Things have moved on incredibly in 35 years but I'm sure that there are many lessons that can be learnt from 1981 and from every succesful team between then and now.

If I asked someone to teach me how to play the trumpet, if they replied "blow in here and wiggle your fingers" I wouldn't take me very far. That the same level of instruction as "recruit the right players and coach them well".........maybe if I displayed "hard work and a great attitude" it would help

Sorry but everyone can see the faults at VP, it seems a little more difficult to find the solutions

VC they may say " no shit Sherlock" but there is little else to do.....but just

What are you expecting them to say.....we now have a master plan that no one else has thought of.....it a mature sport that has been functioning for over a hundred years...there is no Stephen Hawking in the wings to come up with your mythical explanation.

its having the personnel with the nous to do it.....and yes a bit of doe is necessary too.

You too are missing the point in my view, so claim the moral high ground all you will.

there is no secret formula, except good players who are managed well....but so far we have been unable to do it.....as simple or complex that is.

you make out that everyone knows that, but do they...we backed Lambert for 3 years.

..I still hear overtures of money being the major drawback, lack of it, when we spent 50 mill in The summer.....that is a mixed argument too

and all the managers have had money......so my argument is not as one dimensional as you suggest.

Look, I get your gist without any further explanation ,but apart from disagreeing with me,you haven't offered any alternative yourself.

you win,you win,you win,you win, you win,you win.

can we just drop it?.....it's boring now.....you don't see a crumb of what I'm trying to say and quite frankly I'm glad you don't.

you clearly see nothing from my text, so ignore it.


 

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I think this guy needs some serious instructions on how to deal with the media, especially with regards to sports journalists looking for a story and alienating the fanbase. Every statement is worse then the last. I'm trying to look through it to see a positive but I can't. He seems to have latched on to the idea that success in football doesnt require money because Leicester are doing well this year. A team who very nearly got relegated last year and yes they are having a great year but I very much doubt they will finish as high up as they are now. They are also the exception and not the norm. I seriously hope this is just hullabaloo and that Garde is actually given the funds and help that he needs and is not handcuffed. 

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In a way he is right, we got young players in but not experienced players to balance the side, most pundits thought we would struggle, also maybe he is saying we have not got rid of bad apples and these have to be removed.

At least he is facing the cameras and giving us something even if it not what we want to here. better than the previous silence coming from the club

 

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On 17 January 2016 at 18:14, Richard said:

Yes ,  I avoided answering that as to be honest I dont know, I'm not sure anyone knows and I think that is part of the problem.

We have some intelligent, thoughtful fans and former employees of this club that I think would be highly motivated to help the club if those running would be willing to listen.  This is another part of the problem.  I dont think they are prepared to listen.  I think that they are arrogant in actually thinking they have the correct solution and will continue to pursue it even though it has failed.  They will carry on banging the same drum that has brought us to this position not accepting they could be wrong,  or that there are people worth listening to. 

Lots of people have said the thing that gave us the biggest problem was the rise of Man Citeh.  I think quite the opposite.  The thing that has caused us the greatest problem IMO is not the rise of the money clubs,  but the rise of the "smaller"clubs.  The rise of Southampton and how they conducted business ,  developing younger players and selling for a lot,  has actually been the biggest factor for us.  Closely followed by Palace,  Swansea and latterly Leicester have been a huge problem for us as I believe those running our club have seen that and tried to use that same template at Villa.  I dont have an issue with that but they tried to impose the template without any substance.  Tried to use it with nothing to build on.  It's like your mate has windows on his pc so you go to the files try and copy it to use on your own pc.  It wont work. You have the template but there is no coding for it to work.  We have no identity as a club,  none whatsoever.  Those running it do not,  IMO, have the first idea of the industry in which the business is operating.  They have tried to implement a solution without laying the groundwork for that solution to be a success .  And as we have continued failure and stumble from one chaos to the next they do not understand why it is failing and just continue to try and implement it. There is nothing there at the club and that is a big big worry because there needs to be, and quick or else we are going further down.

Under Ellis we had an identity.  Maybe people did not like it or agree with it but we knew what we were and worked to it.  He never invested to go beyond and restricted what we could have been but we had an identity.

Under Lerner I couldn't tell you what we stand for. Proud History Bright Future was the strapline used.  Fine,  tell me what the bright future is,  what we stand for and how you are going to achieve it.  he never has. Part of that is because I dont think he ever knew.  It was mostly superficial I think.

I suspect he came in thought he could make an initial investment in a business that was underachieving and could achieve more and that it would be easy.  There was never any detail,  or clarity on the journey.  Just come in spend a bit it will be easy and then sit back and wait for the success. Largely he had a manager that he could rely on for that but he left and his managerial apppintments since have not been able to as he has tried to be more involved ,  restricted the investment but still without the clear identity.

What does Aston Villa stand for? What does it mean? We can't answer that as fans and how bad is that? The employees and those charged with running it cant answer it either and they need to be able to.

Sounds like I was pretty close to the mark

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9 minutes ago, Gary Thomas said:

Listening to on him on AVTV.  He said, "I will have a board of directors, we''ll be making some announcements about the board composition."

What we really need is scouts and people who can deal with agents properly as all that matters is on the pitch, not some bloated business/management structure.

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1 minute ago, supernova26 said:

What we really need is scouts and people who can deal with agents properly as all that matters is on the pitch, not some bloated business/management structure.

You mean like the stuff Fox was supposed to be doing last year?

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31 minutes ago, Rds1983 said:

I think this guy needs some serious instructions on how to deal with the media, especially with regards to sports journalists looking for a story and alienating the fanbase. Every statement is worse then the last. I'm trying to look through it to see a positive but I can't. He seems to have latched on to the idea that success in football doesnt require money because Leicester are doing well this year. A team who very nearly got relegated last year and yes they are having a great year but I very much doubt they will finish as high up as they are now. They are also the exception and not the norm. I seriously hope this is just hullabaloo and that Garde is actually given the funds and help that he needs and is not handcuffed. 

Of course money is required but it has to make an effect when it is spent.....when you sign as many duds over a period of time we have and have little to negate that via the academy....it creates this in fighting.

i am not defending Lerner,because they are his managers that have spent it.

i fear it will get worse before it gets better.

i get to a point of not knowing who to trust running our affairs.

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