Steven Hollis

[Rds1983]

1 hour ago, VillaCas said:

Do you think Hollis reads this thread. He seems like exactly the sort of bloke who would google himself.

I do hope so!!

Is this a clever bluff to throw suspicion of you actually being Hollis?

[Zatman]

He is probably on Yelp checking how his customers are responding to his quotes

[VillaCas]

18 minutes ago, Rds1983 said:

Is this a clever bluff to throw suspicion of you actually being Hollis?

Now that would be some bluff

If he does appear I wonder what his username will by "Fee Trick Steve"? "Back Stabbath"? Or maybe something a bit more macho "The Terminator"?

[TRO]

2 hours ago, blandy said:

I think it's almost certainly Randy Lerner's view that he has put a ton of cash into signings, wage bills and all the rest, and that the club has not performed commensurately. And he's right. And he's decided enough is enough (which is a shame, because as others have said Remi Garde genuinely appears to know what he's doing, and maybe a Charlie Austin type would have given us a better chance of staying up).

The difficulty I have with Hollis saying this, is that I'm not sure that it's really his own thought, more what RL has told him, relayed through some business babble. Furthermore, there's the thing about "putting infrastructure in place" before doing more signings. This is kind of drivel, really. You could take the view that the current system picked a bunch of players that cost 50 million quid nearly, and while many are now in the team, the team is crap. Ergo the plan and execution and infrastructure was wrong (I pretty much take that view). But the infrastructure was Sherwood, that Halmstad bloke, Paddy Reilly and Fox. Sherwood's gone (and he gives the impression of not really being that keen on the signings). The others are still here. So is Hollis going to get rid of them/sideline them? Or is it more of an excuse, actually. Does he really think, "stuff it, we're down, we have to comply with FFP with reduced income, we can't spend now because of the longer term harm it'll do. Better to wait till the summer, see exactly what the finances are, and then spend whatever we can." I think he might think that. But he dare not say it.

I don't think they'll change the infrastructure, I think they're just operating under limited availability of money, likely drops in income, and Championship FFP constraints about to hit.

I can't argue with the feasibility of your thoughts Pete.

i was just trying to be a bit hopeful/ reasonable/balanced....etc.

I do believe though, Hollis's agenda with be very much Lerners brief.

[TRO]

5 hours ago, VillaCas said:

What expertise are you imagining Hollis is bringing to the table to ensure that we sign good players?

It seems to me that the latest infrastructure (that already exists) can identify good players already - Gil, Ayew, Amavi, Veretout, Gana, Traore all seem "good players" to me? Gestede, Bunn, Lescott, Sinclair and Richards are "mooted" to have been Sherwood's choices. Iiori and Crespo were duds but didn't break the bank. We don't need a structural review, we can sign decent players already

I think you're falling hook, line and sinker for Hollis' spin - he's been told to slash costs and his first crack at placating the fans is the famous "conduct a full review" gambit. 

I'm not falling for the spin.....I'm trying to understand the reluctance to spend money on new players.I'm trying to understand why the obvious from a fans point of view is not obvious to a senior director/ chairman....I can only hazard a guess.

it seems your more for castigating .....I'm more for questioning.l'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

nothing would give me more pleasure....I want to see new signings and your Charlie Austin call on the surface seems an obvious type of capture for us....but to no avail.

all the above players will have varying opinions from the fan base, but the bottom line is at present we are cut adrift at the bottom heading for the drop and we have spent a fair few bob on that lot irrespective of where the money has been sourced from.

so something ain't right somewhere.

[John]

2 hours ago, VillaCas said:

Do you think Hollis reads this thread. He seems like exactly the sort of bloke who would google himself.

I do hope so!!

No, I doubt he cares what we think about him although he might get someone else to read it for him so that he can point to how much flak he is already taking for our "custodian" who also happens to be the "shareholder" whose money he is being paid to protect.   

[TRO]

5 hours ago, VillaCas said:

What expertise are you imagining Hollis is bringing to the table to ensure that we sign good players?

It seems to me that the latest infrastructure (that already exists) can identify good players already - Gil, Ayew, Amavi, Veretout, Gana, Traore all seem "good players" to me? Gestede, Bunn, Lescott, Sinclair and Richards are "mooted" to have been Sherwood's choices. Iiori and Crespo were duds but didn't break the bank. We don't need a structural review, we can sign decent players already

I think you're falling hook, line and sinker for Hollis' spin - he's been told to slash costs and his first crack at placating the fans is the famous "conduct a full review" gambit. 

I'm not imagining any particular expertise to be brought in.....as I said in my post its their call.I was merely stating what I thought Hollis was implying.

It will be interesting to see if in 12months time if your former 6 players are still at the club.

[VillaCas]

12 hours ago, TRO said:

I'm not falling for the spin.....I'm trying to understand the reluctance to spend money on new players.I'm trying to understand why the obvious from a fans point of view is not obvious to a senior director/ chairman....I can only hazard a guess.

it seems your more for castigating .....I'm more for questioning.l'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

nothing would give me more pleasure....I want to see new signings and your Charlie Austin call on the surface seems an obvious type of capture for us....but to no avail.

all the above players will have varying opinions from the fan base, but the bottom line is at present we are cut adrift at the bottom heading for the drop and we have spent a fair few bob on that lot irrespective of where the money has been sourced from.

so something ain't right somewhere.

 

12 hours ago, TRO said:

I'm not imagining any particular expertise to be brought in.....as I said in my post its their call.I was merely stating what I thought Hollis was implying.

It will be interesting to see if in 12months time if your former 6 players are still at the club.

While Hollis' is "trying to understand" we are plummeting into the Championship. A reasonable amount spent at the start of the window on a decent striker could easily have seen us half a dozen points further on.

I've explained this before, but if Hollis seriously believes that the money spent in the summer was wasted then he would have no choice but to sack one or all of Reilly, Fox and Halmstadt.  I will bet that he won't do that. Why? because the "review" is just a ploy to withdraw funding for the time being.

You ask if "my" six players will still be here in 12 months time. Firstly, they're not "my" players, I merely said that I think that we got value for money and that to me the transfer committee is doing ok (not stellar, but ok). If they're not here in 12 months it will be because Hollis' review has contributed to us being in the Championship

[Grasshopper]

I'll go out on a limb here.

Why is SH here?

RL will not invest enough to keep us in PL.

His will is to take us down so the stakes are not so high and find the level at which we are sustainable.

I fear for the fact that the stakes will be too high in the championship for our beloved Mr L to want to stay there either.

I think he's prepared to find out which level is sustainable for AVFC (finances drip-feeding his £200mill back)

His though proccess probably being this

Sustainable?

PL  = x

Championship = ?/x - if not try next level down

L1 = see championship

SH sole brief is to find this out.

[blandy]

19 minutes ago, Grasshopper said:

His will is to take us down so the stakes are not so high and find the level at which we are sustainable.

No it isn't. Last season, almost every Prem Club made a profit (only Villa and one or two others didn't, I believe). In the PL, if the club (any club) is run half decently will make money - and more so with the new telly deal. The other leagues, absolutely not so.

The only level at which Villa will be sustainable is the Prem. It is also where the best sale price will be had.

Sorry to be blunt, but on the quoted point, you are absolutely wrong.

[VillaCas]

In order to assist Mr Hollis with his review, I took a look back at our transfer dealings during Lerner's tenure.  I looked at how much each manager spent, each managers net spend, the profit/loss made by each manager on their own signings and an adjusted profit/loss taking into account players still at the club

MON   Spent 130m  Net 61m  Profit -47m  AdjProfit -47m

HOU   Spent 24m    Net 19m  Profit -24m  AdjProfit -24m

McL    Spent 18m    Net -22m Profit -5m   AdjProfit -18m

LAM   Spent 47m    Net 42m  Profit +9m   AdjProfit  +28m

SHE   Spent 53m    Net 9m    Profit n/a    AdjProfit  n/a

Totals Spent £271m Net £108m (additionally £25m raised from sales of players already at the club on Lerner's arrival and £23m raised from sales of academy players)

For me it confirms much of the discussion on this and on the Lerner thread. We have had three distinct approaches firstly, decent levels of spending under MON & HOU (£80m) then deep cuts under McL and then a reset under LAM with much lower net spend (plus lower wages) and a better resale figure. The latest transfer dealings look to me to be a development from the LAM approach, still signing with a view to sell-on value but bringing in fewer but better players

My interpretation of the problem we currently face is that the money we spent under MON and HOU was mostly wasted. By wasted I mean that it didn't provide a base squad of players on which to build. We didnt balance the here and now with the need to build for the future. Whatever foundations we did have got torn down under McL (not his fault, just following orders). Net spend under MON and HOU was £80m (with a loss of £71m from players bought during that period)  Net Spend under McL and LAM was £20m (with an (adjusted) profit of £10m on players bought during that period.

The more I look at this, the more I think Lambert was on a hiding to nothing - a weak base on which to build and low wages on offer meant he was fire-fighting from day one. The signs should have been clear much sooner that this approach was flawed and that we were drifting into oblivion

For me last summer was too little too late. A net spend of £9m was not enough. We needed to find another £30m and sign two or three more quality players.  A lot of money but we would have recouped that in prize money alone, let alone the losses that could be avioded by dropping to the Championship

We have been spending around £10m net a season - for a club of our size with a turnover of £100m plus some might say this doesn't seem enough (particularly as the net spend is constantly falling whilst players prices are consistantly rising) - we're only going in one direction

As an incidental I wonder if we are getting vfm from our academy? It's main job is to provide players for the first XI and secondly to raise money by selling those not quite up to the mark. Relatively few have come through in the past ten years and around £2m a year has been rasied by sales. I've no idea of the costs of operating an academy but to me it doesnt look like it's paying for itself

(note: I'm happy to discuss what others might think around the trends that these figures show, I've no interest in debating if a particular figure should be £11.7m instead of £10m etc etc etc)

 

 

[PussEKatt]

Ok,so I know mon spent a lot of $$$ but he kept us in 6th place.

If he was still our manager and if we were still finishing in the top half of the table.Would we be better off ?

I think so.

The moral of the story is "you have to spend $$$ to make $$$"

[VillaCas]

2 minutes ago, PussEKatt said:

Ok,so I know mon spent a lot of $$$ but he kept us in 6th place.

If he was still our manager and if we were still finishing in the top half of the table.Would we be better off ?

I think so.

The moral of the story is "you have to spend $$$ to make $$$"

Losses on player dealing during MON and HOU were around £20m a season (plus maybe an additional £20m on wages compared to today's position).

£40m is around the difference in prize money between 6th and 18th

Adding in better gate receipts and better commercial revenue from a high finisn and higher profile and it seems to make sense

 

[Grasshopper]

30 minutes ago, blandy said:

No it isn't. Last season, almost every Prem Club made a profit (only Villa and one or two others didn't, I believe). In the PL, if the club (any club) is run half decently will make money - and more so with the new telly deal. The other leagues, absolutely not so.

The only level at which Villa will be sustainable is the Prem. It is also where the best sale price will be had.

Sorry to be blunt, but on the quoted point, you are absolutely wrong.

Thats ok

having an alt opinion is no reason to argue

my point is that for 5/6 years that what RL was prepared to invest has bled his ambition dry

competing for 30mill+ players is too high a stake 20mill too

hell even 15/12mill

10 is tops for him

thats not enough as his current record proves

solution - go down a division to find the level he can compete at

[Grasshopper]

.....continued

 

anyone think his ambition is to get us back up for him to fail again?

[PussEKatt]

4 minutes ago, Grasshopper said:

.....continued

 

anyone think his ambition is to get us back up for him to fail again?

No.I think his ambition is to spend as little as possable.

[VillaCas]

11 minutes ago, Grasshopper said:

solution - go down a division to find the level he can compete at

No this is wrong

RL definitly wants to be in the PL.  He is dreaming of some mythical "sweetspot" where he spends as little as possible to get the best finish as possible - ticking over £15-20m a year profit and increasing the eventual sale price of the club

At the moment he is in a hole to the tune of around £200m that will only grow in the Championship

 

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, PussEKatt said:

Ok,so I know mon spent a lot of $$$ but he kept us in 6th place.

If he was still our manager and if we were still finishing in the top half of the table.Would we be better off ?

I think so.

The moral of the story is "you have to spend $$$ to make $$$"

FFP actually happened. 

[Grasshopper]

36 minutes ago, VillaCas said:

1) No this is wrong

2) RL definitly wants to be in the PL.  He is dreaming of some mythical "sweetspot" where he spends as little as possible to get the best finish as possible - ticking over £15-20m a year profit and increasing the eventual sale price of the club

3) At the moment he is in a hole to the tune of around £200m that will only grow in the Championship

 

1) I have no problem with anyone having a different opinion.

2) IF RL wanted to stay in the PL

he would has said to SH TF HA PR & RG

"F**k the cost, find me another Darren Bent"

3) i agree, maybe in L1 a club of our size/attendances/player fee's will be able to manage it easier. Not my opinion, but a thought. RL is the dumbest businessman I have ever heard of. If its a bad/wrong decision that can be made. He's the most capable one to F**k it up.

[VillaCas]

8 minutes ago, Grasshopper said:

2) IF RL wanted to stay in the PL

he would has said to SH TF HA PR & RG

"F**k the cost, find me another Darren Bent"

This argument doesnt stack up. RL absolutely wants to stay in the PL - his mistake is he either thought he could do it without spending on another DB or he now feels that its too far gone for that