Phumfeinz Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Well he's certainly saying all the right things Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodders Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 10 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/may/19/tony-xia-revamp-aston-villa-top-three-world-owner? Tony Xia hopes revamp will turn Aston Villa into one of top three clubs in world • New owner tells fans ‘forget the past; we are going to enter into a new age’ • ‘Attitude is more important than talent, so that will be my advice to new coach’ Read more Speaking on Thursday afternoon at his 19th-floor office in Beijing’s financial district, Xia said he was preparing to embark on an extensive revamp of the club in an effort to secure immediate promotion back to the Premier League. Once that was achieved he would fight to turnAston Villa into a global footballing force. “My ambition is to bring Villa to the top six in less than five years and I hope it can be [one of] the top three in the world – even the best well known in the world – in less than 10 years,” Xia told the Guardian in one of his first face-to-face interviews since the deal was announced. “At least [until] now what I have planned [in my career] everything has been achieved. Nobody believe in the beginning but I made it happen no matter how many years it took.” Asked for his message to Villa fans, Xia said: “Forget the past and think we are going to enter into a new age.” However, Aston Villa’s new chairman admitted his immediate challenge would be fighting a way back to the top flight. “The first priority is to get promoted. I feel a lot of pressure. I think a lot of Villa fans are eager to get back up to the Premiership, so the next one year will be very tough for me. I hope we can do it.” Xia said his main concern was finding the best manager and confirmed he had held discussions with a number of candidates, including the former Chelsea and West Bromwich Albion manager Roberto Di Matteo and the former Southampton and Leicester City manager Nigel Pearson. “We have several very good candidates … I have talked to all of them,” Xia said, adding that the decision would be made in the next two weeks. “The most critical thing now is to get the right manager … [We] need a really good coach who knows how to play in the Championship. It’s even harder than the Premiership. We need to figure out how to reorganise the team.” The incoming manager would be given transfer funds of between £20m and £50m, depending on how many players he believed were needed, Xia said. “For now, I am confident. I think we will add six to seven players in maybe six or seven positions [before the start of the season] and we are going to bring some young talented people from the academy to play in the first squad … I think a lot of them can play very well in the Championship.” The businessman, who returned to China from England this week, said he hoped the devastated Villa fans would look to the future and throw their support behind his plans. He defended the highly unpopular Randy Lerner and said some of the abuse directed at him by fans was “unfair”. Randy Lerner is a nice guy and does have a passion for this club. He really wanted to make the club much better “Actually, he is a nice guy and he does have a passion for this club. He really wanted to make the club much better. He invested a lot of money.” However, in an admission of the toxic relationship that developed between Lerner and fans, the new Villa chairman recognised he would need to build a much better dialogue with fans than his distant predecessor. “Communication will be a very important part,” he said. Having watched Villa’s last home game, against Newcastle United on 7 May, Xia said he planned to become a well-known face at Villa Park and would move to Birmingham with his wife and 18-month-old daughter in an attempt to win over fans and help with the push for promotion. “I am going to spend a lot of time there, especially in the first season,” he said, adding: “I think I will buy a house maybe in the next month.” Xia was born in Quzhou, a mid-sized city about 400km south west of Shanghai, to an agricultural technician father and a housewife mother. “I grew up in a very normal family,” he said – but according to reports in China’s domestic media he was far from a normal child. They describe Xia, who was one of three children, as a child prodigy who left home to study at university in Beijing at the age of 14. Five years later, aged 19, Xia packed his bags and crossed the Pacific to spend six years studying at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also spent five months as an exchange student at Oxford University in 2002, during which time he said he had become a fan of Aston Villa after watching a game at Villa Park. “I’ve been a fan of the English football league for many years,” he said. Asked about his first match at Villa Park, the entrepreneur said: “You know the feeling there. It’s not like excitement, it is like a shock when you are in that environment.” Xia said he made his fortune working on infrastructure projects across a rapidly urbanising China and had taken over Recon Group, the Beijing and Hangzhou-based holding company behind the purchase of Aston Villa, in 2004. Perhaps appropriately for the new owner of a crisis-hit football club, he said the company’s name was an abbreviation of the word “reconstruction”. According to the Financial Times Recon Group has controlling stakes in companies that include a soap maker and a Shanghai-based company that produced 150,000 tonnes of the food additive monosodium glutamate (MSG) last year. That firm reportedly made a net loss of $77.7m last year. In an interview with Sky News, the former Villa midfielder Ian Taylor described Xia’s takeover as “great news” but admitted he was “a bit reserved about the qualifications of the new owner”. Speaking on Thursday, Xia insisted he was the perfect man for the job. He described himself as a hard-working, self-made millionaire who would have little patience with overpaid players who were not pulling their weight. “For a lot of Chinese now, they think the only way you become rich or become successful is because you have grown up in a rich family or you have a whatever daddy – a rich daddy, a powerful daddy or whatever,” he said. “At least from my experience, if you keep working hard you still have a chance … I think attitude is more important than talent. So that is one of the basic principles for me to give advice to the [new] coach to choose players to revamp the team.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romavillan Posted May 19, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted May 19, 2016 Is he any relation to Gary Xia? He's certainly gone balls out in the first interview, not exactly cautious is it? Top 3 in the world, most famous club in the world in 10 years? Top 6 in 3 years? If he's half as good as his mouth we should be laughing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Razor Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Wow! After reading that and the interview with Hollis confirming he has government backing i am seriously excited. This could be beyond all our wildest expectations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post JPAngel Posted May 19, 2016 VT Supporter Popular Post Share Posted May 19, 2016 Wow. He couldn't have said anything better than he did in that Guardian interview could he? Up to £50mil in transfers available this season - CHECK Wants to communicate better with fans - CHECK Wants to integrate quality youth team players into the first team - CHECK Plans to sign 6/7 players in 6/7 positions - CHECK Planning for the long term, not burning through cash like Citeh - CHECK I think I'm in love 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Thomas Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 1 minute ago, JPAngel said: Wow. He couldn't have said anything better than he did in that Guardian interview could he? Up to £50mil in transfers available this season - CHECK Wants to communicate better with fans - CHECK Wants to integrate quality youth team players into the first team - CHECK Plans to sign 6/7 players in 6/7 positions - CHECK Planning for the long term, not burning through cash like Citeh - CHECK I think I'm in love But still we get some saying they are not liking this one bit ! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarpie Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Just now, Gary Thomas said: But still we get some saying they are not liking this one bit ! In before: "He's just saying those things to please the fans!" 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midian Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 All media saying £60million obviously dont have a clue at the price. We all need to get behind him and the club this could potentially be huge for Villa and bring back all our proud history. Tony Xia's Claret and Blue Army! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phumfeinz Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 It's just a ploy to sell season tickets etc 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duck Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Get him on VT! I'm sure he'd fit right in! From the midlands today interview he seems quite quiet and a little bit out of his depth... Although could be due to the language barrier. Comes across much better in print. Time will tell I guess! Work starts in two weeks then Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharkyvilla Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Just now, midian said: All media saying £60million obviously dont have a clue at the price. We all need to get behind him and the club this could potentially be huge for Villa and bring back all our proud history. Tony Xia's Claret and Blue Army! Somewhere mentioned £75m if we don't get promoted, £100m+ if we do. I guess it was about £60m up front, hence why it seemed to get done quite suddenly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bose Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 4 minutes ago, JPAngel said: Wow. He couldn't have said anything better than he did in that Guardian interview could he? Up to £50mil in transfers available this season - CHECK Wants to communicate better with fans - CHECK Wants to integrate quality youth team players into the first team - CHECK Plans to sign 6/7 players in 6/7 positions - CHECK Planning for the long term, not burning through cash like Citeh - CHECK I think I'm in love it's very promising but at this point it's just talk. But we deserve to be a bit optimistic IMO given the shit season we've had. Lets hope it's still like this in August! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcowans21 Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Great interview, sounds very promising! What i do really like is this part " He described himself as a hard-working, self-made millionaire who would have little patience with overpaid players who were not pulling their weight." For too long some of the lazy overpaid players have got away with it. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAMAICAN-VILLAN Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 3 minutes ago, Jarpie said: In before: "He's just saying those things to please the fans!" He's just a front man for the ticket office. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fightoffyour Posted May 19, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted May 19, 2016 22 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/may/19/tony-xia-revamp-aston-villa-top-three-world-owner? Tony Xia hopes revamp will turn Aston Villa into one of top three clubs in world • New owner tells fans ‘forget the past; we are going to enter into a new age’ • ‘Attitude is more important than talent, so that will be my advice to new coach’ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted May 19, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted May 19, 2016 3 minutes ago, Jarpie said: In before: "He's just saying those things to please the fans!" Well obviously he is, even if he means it. But talk is cheap. From our mess to world domination in a few years? Blowhard. But we'll see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butterfingers Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 I'd guess that there is a compromise regarding the debt, dependant on how next season goes. If we win promotion at the first attempt, the price rises around £30mil to reflect the debt. Seems like win, win for the Dr to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Thomas Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 19 minutes ago, Bunnski said: Well nobody can knock his ambitions that's for sure, biggest team in the world within 10 years haha love it! So refreshing. We all know it is unlikely to but to have the balls to say it publicly and possibly the money to back it up. Last week people would laugh you out the room if you said Villa top six in 3-4 years - many predicting free fall. Suddenly doesn't sound so impossible or ridiculous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ender4 Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 29 minutes ago, JPAngel said: Wow. He couldn't have said anything better than he did in that Guardian interview could he? Up to £50mil in transfers available this season - CHECK Wants to communicate better with fans - CHECK Wants to integrate quality youth team players into the first team - CHECK Plans to sign 6/7 players in 6/7 positions - CHECK Planning for the long term, not burning through cash like Citeh - CHECK I think I'm in love i am excited... but i'm sure the Venky's said something similar so lets not get toooo excited. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozvillafan Posted May 19, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted May 19, 2016 Quote I think attitude is more important than talent As evidenced by Leicester this season. Sounds like he suffers no fools, which is a good thing considering the malaise at the club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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