Tony Xia (no longer involved with AVFC)

[TrentVilla]

3 minutes ago, KSV said:

or the fact that were not signing as many players as we thought we would. 

Ok. So here is a question. 

Why is the blame for that being attributed to Xia and not Di Matteo? Some people seem to think that it is justified to think Xia is lying about his weatlh and/or the financial backing of the manager without the slightest consideration that it might actually be Di Matteo that is not spending money provided.

It is perfectly reasonable to think that this might be an alternative explanation but nobody is offering that, those frustrated with the lack or perceived lack of action have attributed that to Xia.

That isn't questioning that is judging and that is what a number of people are doing and others are taking issue with.

[villa4europe]

8 minutes ago, ToonVilla said:

Yes, Xia said '3-4 be informed next week to farewell the old days'. So it's one thing being told you are going to leave and another actually leaving. 

It's also another thing where our part of the deal is done and dusted but the buying club still have a week of negotiations with the player

Fans apparently had his release clause met on Wednesday, 2 days later he's still a villa player, that's absolutely nothing to do with us

Could be the same with another couple of players 

 

[Jareth]

4 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

Judging by his twitter, the blokes a clown. 

Sorry, Lerner didn't communicate much so I'm not allowed to say this.

Yep, some clown, billionaire owner of AVFC. 

[HanoiVillan]

8 minutes ago, Godders said:

Would we need to win the CL multiple times? The guy who started posting on here after Tony took over, Deisler I think it was, suggested that a lot of Chinese people would have an alliegence to Villa if we had a Chinese player in the team.

I think Tony said something along the lines of maybe top 3 in the world inside 10 years. He didn't say top 3 by Domestic or European titles won. If he means top 3 by fanbase, then I would think cornering the market for talent in both China and India could well send us that way without the need to win the CL each season.

Okay, so the idea here is instead to become top three globally in terms of 'followers on Weibo'. I mean, maybe, but then that's not a very interesting or notable target is it. It might well not even require much improvement on the pitch. Companies have a number of ways to increase their followers on social media without changing or improving their product. 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

2 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

Ok. So here is a question. 

Why is the blame for that being attributed to Xia and not Di Matteo? Some people seem to think that it is justified to think Xia is lying about his weatlh and/or the financial backing of the manager without the slightest consideration that it might actually be Di Matteo that is not spending money provided.

It is perfectly reasonable to think that this might be an alternative explanation but nobody is offering that, those frustrated with the lack or perceived lack of action have attributed that to Xia.

That isn't questioning that is judging and that is what a number of people are doing and others are taking issue with.

I've tried to raise this point a few times by likening RDM to O'Neill. I may be way off base with that, but it's just as reasonable an assumption, even more so I would say, than Xia being a fraud. 

I know we're Villa fans and we often like to catastrophize to the nth degree, but could it not be a simple case of RDM taking the time to assess the squad, as he said he would, then wanting to shift a few players before bringing others in to an already bloated and unmanageable squad, as he said he wanted to?

You know, could it not be even remotely possible that the manager has been telling us the truth all along?

[BOF]

31 minutes ago, Richard said:

Not at all saying I posted my response above to make that point by the way,  it was a legitmate challenge to the opinion that it is too early to judge

It is too early to judge.  It's not too early to genuinely "question, debate, discuss & opine" as you say, but to 'judge', absolutely yes it's too early.  And it's when the judgements come along on here that they quite rightly receive the backlash.  Whether those judgements are positive or negative is immaterial.  The finality of a(ny) judgement at this stage, by definition means that the poster has made their mind up, which is precisely the point I was getting at from the beginning.

[villa4europe]

5 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

Judging by his twitter, the blokes a clown. 

Sorry, Lerner didn't communicate much so I'm not allowed to say this.

Judging by his Twitter the blokes making a load of noise and trying to get himself noticed, noticed by the likes of us? Dunno, is it working? Again I dunno, not sure how many followers he's got or who they are 

[useless]

I think in part his twitter is his version of 'Randy's tattoo'. An attempt to ingratiate himself with the fans. Not saying it's bad thing, as I quite like reading his tweets.

[DCJonah]

53 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Leicester's target was 'winning the league', not 'becoming one of the three biggest clubs in the world'. They have achieved one - in a miracle that few people expect to be repeated any time soon - but aren't even vaguely worth mentioning in the context of the other. We would have to do so much more than Leicester to become 'one of the three biggest clubs in the world'. 

Questioning this isn't daft, the only daft thing is even entertaining the possibility for a fraction of a second. 

It would take a miracle but really what's the major issue with stating such a high ambition. And it would take much much more than Leicester but it's still something he said he wants to happen in 10 years and it's only been 6 weeks. The fact that's been jumped on just shows how some are desperate to criticise. 

[Godders]

2 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Okay, so the idea here is instead to become top three globally in terms of 'followers on Weibo'. I mean, maybe, but then that's not a very interesting or notable target is it. It might well not even require much improvement on the pitch. Companies have a number of ways to increase their followers on social media without changing or improving their product. 

I agree it's not that interesting if that's the end itself. But as a means to an end it could be very interesting. All that extra merchandising that would be sold, extra sponsorship for the club etc equals more money in the clubs coffers which can be used to grow the club further etc. Perhaps Tone has identified a business model to bring sustainable success to the club based on tapping into these markets and growing the fanbase there.

[NeilS]

Of course I have my reservations about Dr Tony, I know very little about the guy so doubts will always slip into my conciousness. However, fighting against my doubts I am going to reserve my judgement on him for at least a couple of seasons at least. My reason for this is that there is a lot to do to reverse the slump of the previous seasons, and that is not going to be achieved in one or two transfer windows. Firstly, we need to halt the slump/slide downwards which was happening at an alarming rate last season, and make ourselves a solid outfit again. Only then can we expect to see bells and whistles applied to the squad, and then we will see if Dr Tony is true to his word, as then it will become apparent as to whether he has the financial clout and knowhow to attract the better players that will carry us further than we managed under Randy Lerner. I have no idea whether he will be able to achieve this, but I see no point in worrying myself after two months as I always knew it was a longer job than that.

[rodders0223]

14 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Yep, some clown, billionaire owner of AVFC. 

Didn't stop Randolph!

[Jareth]

1 minute ago, rodders0223 said:

Didn't stop Randolph!

Aye, that is correct. 

[briny_ear]

1 hour ago, meme said:

It's been two months and we're already at each other's throats over Xia...

I'm impressed.

I'm surprised it's taken as long as two months to be frank.

[HanoiVillan]

17 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

It would take a miracle but really what's the major issue with stating such a high ambition. And it would take much much more than Leicester but it's still something he said he wants to happen in 10 years and it's only been 6 weeks. The fact that's been jumped on just shows how some are desperate to criticise. 

You're right, I am criticising it. I'm not 'desperate' to do so, but I will criticise when I see something to criticise. Aims and targets should be SMART, ie. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. His target meets the last two criteria (relevant to Villa, yes) and time-bound (yes, ten years) but it isn't specific (we don't know in what way we will be one of the three biggest globally, as my conversation with @Godders shows it could be anything from 'trophies won' to 'social media followers'), and therefore it is not measurable, and if it involves being better on the football pitch than all of Juventus, Bayern Munich, PSG, Atletico Madrid, both Manchester teams, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and whomever else all at the same time it isn't achievable either. 

You ask 'what's the major issue with stating such a high ambition'. The answer is that studies show employees (read: players) find unrealistic targets demotivating. They breed an attitude of 'well, we'd never achieve what management want anyway, so why bother trying'. A more sensible, more motivating target might have been 'get promoted from the Championship at the first time of asking', which could have been failed but would still have been plausible. 

On the 'only 6 weeks' point, you don't need to wait until a target has been failed to say that it is a bad target. 

EDIT: To develop this point further, the other reason ridiculous targets are demotivating is that they suggest management have a poor grasp of the industry, which is an impression Xia would have done better to avoid giving in his first interview. 

 

Edited July 29, 2016 by HanoiVillan

[bannedfromHandV]

1 hour ago, Richard said:

Do we blame a gun when it shoots someone or the person pulling the trigger ?

If it's in America they probably just blame a black person 

[briny_ear]

Perhaps it would help if someone could say who are the top 3 clubs in the world at the moment and by what criteria they are judged to be top 3. 

At least then we would know what we are aiming at and what we might have to do to get there in 10 years.

[bannedfromHandV]

5 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

You're right, I am criticising it. I'm not 'desperate' to do so, but I will criticise when I see something to criticise. Aims and targets should be SMART, ie. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. His target meets the last two criteria (relevant to Villa, yes) and time-bound (yes, ten years) but it isn't specific (we don't know in what way we will be one of the three biggest globally, as my conversation with @Godders shows it could be anything from 'trophies won' to 'social media followers'), and therefore it is not measurable, and if it involves being better on the football pitch than all of Juventus, Bayern Munich, PSG, Atletico Madrid, both Manchester teams, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and whomever else all at the same time it isn't achievable either. 

You ask 'what's the major issue with stating such a high ambition'. The answer is that studies show employees (read: players) find unrealistic targets demotivating. They breed an attitude of 'well, we'd never achieve what management want anyway, so why bother trying'. A more sensible, more motivating target might have been 'get promoted from the Championship at the first time of asking', which could have been failed but would still have been plausible. 

On the 'only 6 weeks' point, you don't need to wait until a target has been failed to say that it is a bad target. 

 

You say it's not measurable or achievable and yet, if it's based on trophies won or social media followers (to quote) then it's very measurable and as for being unachievable, Leicester City say hello.

[DCJonah]

5 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

You're right, I am criticising it. I'm not 'desperate' to do so, but I will criticise when I see something to criticise. Aims and targets should be SMART, ie. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. His target meets the last two criteria (relevant to Villa, yes) and time-bound (yes, ten years) but it isn't specific (we don't know in what way we will be one of the three biggest globally, as my conversation with @Godders shows it could be anything from 'trophies won' to 'social media followers'), and therefore it is not measurable, and if it involves being better on the football pitch than all of Juventus, Bayern Munich, PSG, Atletico Madrid, both Manchester teams, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and whomever else all at the same time it isn't achievable either. 

You ask 'what's the major issue with stating such a high ambition'. The answer is that studies show employees (read: players) find unrealistic targets demotivating. They breed an attitude of 'well, we'd never achieve what management want anyway, so why bother trying'. A more sensible, more motivating target might have been 'get promoted from the Championship at the first time of asking', which could have been failed but would still have been plausible. 

On the 'only 6 weeks' point, you don't need to wait until a target has been failed to say that it is a bad target. 

 

New owner goes over the top first time he talks to the media. What a terrible thing

You have no idea the targets he's set internally to his staff. I'm sure he communicates with them individually rather than hoping they read his press statements. 

[Richard]

22 minutes ago, BOF said:

It is too early to judge.  It's not too early to genuinely "question, debate, discuss & opine" as you say, but to 'judge', absolutely yes it's too early.  And it's when the judgements come along on here that they quite rightly receive the backlash.  Whether those judgements are positive or negative is immaterial.  The finality of a(ny) judgement at this stage, by definition means that the poster has made their mind up, which is precisely the point I was getting at from the beginning.

Depends.  Am I judging that he is a failure for Villa or that his time at Villa is a failure? Or am I judging the current pronouncements / actions? I am not doing the former but I can do the latter.  Not sure why that is not allowed