Tony Xia (no longer involved with AVFC)

[Dr_Pangloss]

2 hours ago, Dick said:

Get the next appointment wrong and we become the new Forest.

If we get the next appointment wrong then Xia can get the hell out of this club.

[GENTLEMAN]

2 hours ago, Eastie said:

Or Leeds or Sheffield weds or Ipswich - there's a lot of once big clubs down here for a few years  

You can compare with other clubs too, some who started to get their act together (going down to League 1 in some cases) - Leicester/Southampton/Man City/Middlesbrough. It is all about having a plan and supporters sticking together through shit times. I personally think we are light years ahead of clubs like Sheffield Wednesday/Ipswich/Forest/Leeds in terms of infrastructure, but we just haven't played like a team for many years. I am convinced it will turn for us, it may take a year or two more (like Fulham), but we will get back to the Prem with or without Tony.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

16 minutes ago, GENTLEMAN said:

You can compare with other clubs too, some who started to get their act together (going down to League 1 in some cases) - Leicester/Southampton/Man City/Middlesbrough. It is all about having a plan and supporters sticking together through shit times. I personally think we are light years ahead of clubs like Sheffield Wednesday/Ipswich/Forest/Leeds in terms of infrastructure, but we just haven't played like a team for many years. I am convinced it will turn for us, it may take a year or two more (like Fulham), but we will get back to the Prem with or without Tony.

To be fair, almost all of those clubs, Leeds, Man City etc got shafted by their owners, and financial, administration, losing all their players etc.

NONE of them had the resources and squads we have.

In our cases the sentimental need time etc applies much shorter time i'm afraid.

We essentially came into this league as a newly taken over Man City, and are now operating like Wimbledon.

This is solely down to our poor management choices.

We have the infrastructure, finances and squad most at this level would kill for.

Growing pains, understandable, yes, even Man City did not become world beaters over night.

However they also never finished 13th, or hovered at 18th with almost every other team in the league inferior.

 

[Jareth]

10 hours ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

If we get the next appointment wrong then Xia can get the hell out of this club.

Good luck with that demand, given he owns the club. 

[DaveAV1]

13 hours ago, Stratvillan said:

We need a progressive younger manager. Our squad should walk this league if they're not hamstrung by outdated styles of play. Dr Tone is trying, there's never a guarantee. On an aside, and I ask this genuinely, for our older listeners, what was the reaction when Saunders was appointed, it was before my time (just). 

I was quite young myself. I'd started going with my Dad when we were under Vic Crowe in the third division. To be fair Vic had been popular and I think the reaction to Ron arriving was fairly underwhelming. Obviously he changed all that as we now all know. He was of course a fantastic manager, he could build a team, not just buy players. He knew what was needed to achieve his aims and knew how players would fit in. I remember being deflated when we sold Andy Gray and then when we bought Peter Withe I recall no great feeling of joy and the reaction of most fans was again underwhelming. What do we know?!!!!

He was also a great man manager. I recall him saying some players needed and arm around them and some a kick up the backside. He said that if he hadn't given Tony Morely a bollocking by 10.30 he thought he'd fallen out with him .

Steve Bruce couldn't lace his boots. If Ron in his day had this squad we'd be flying by now. Find us another Ron please Doc.

[AvfcRigo82]

12 hours ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

If we get the next appointment wrong then Xia can get the hell out of this club.

Easy tiger.

I don't blame Tony Xia.. or Round and Wyness either.

They are now one a piece in terms of managerial **** ups granted.

But I will agree.. the 3 of them need to get this next one bang on and a case of 3rd time Lucky.

Just make the next appointment the correct one ffs!

[Lerner's Driver]

12 hours ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

If we get the next appointment wrong then Xia can get the hell out of this club.

U ok, hun?

[Dr_Pangloss]

6 minutes ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

Easy tiger.

I don't blame Tony Xia.. or Round and Wyness either.

They are now one a piece in terms of managerial **** ups granted.

But I will agree.. the 3 of them need to get this next one bang on and a case of 3rd time Lucky.

Just make the next appointment the correct one ffs!

I'm fed up of the most important decision of them all getting screwed up time after time. Buck stops with Xia, it is getting farcical. 

[AvfcRigo82]

You're posts are a tad premature mate.

I feel we should let them appoint the new manager first before we jump to conclusions.

But I agree.. god help them if they **** this next one up!.

[markavfc40]

44 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

I'm fed up of the most important decision of them all getting screwed up time after time. Buck stops with Xia, it is getting farcical. 

I don't think he deserves much, if any, criticism for the appointment of Bruce. Going for an experienced manager with four promotions on his CV, the last of which was 3 months before his appointment, a man who had captained the biggest club in the country so had experienced the pressure of being a leader at the biggest fish in the pond, seemed like a decent appointment at the time. Even if he wasn't close to being your first choice you could never say it was a diabolical one.

Even though I wasn't overly pleased with Di Matteo I could also see some merits in that.

I have said before but I think Xia has done very little wrong. He has appointed two managers, both of which had their merits, and he has backed them.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and as things stand today it looks as though the appointment of Bruce will have failed. That doesn't re write history though and mean it was a poor appointment at the time because for where we were/ are now, and where we initially need to get to, a manager with Bruce's success in this division and overall experience made sense.

Appointing any manager comes with varying degrees of leaps of faith. There a no guarantees they will be a success and there is no guarantee the next one will be.

[sidcow]

31 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

I don't think he deserves much, if any, criticism for the appointment of Bruce. Going for an experienced manager with four promotions on his CV, the last of which was 3 months before his appointment, a man who had captained the biggest club in the country so had experienced the pressure of being a leader at the biggest fish in the pond, seemed like a decent appointment at the time. Even if he wasn't close to being your first choice you could never say it was a diabolical one.

Even though I wasn't overly pleased with Di Matteo I could also see some merits in that.

I have said before but I think Xia has done very little wrong. He has appointed two managers, both of which had their merits, and he has backed them.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and as things stand today it looks as though the appointment of Bruce will have failed. That doesn't re write history though and mean it was a poor appointment at the time because for where we were/ are now, and where we initially need to get to, a manager with Bruce's success in this division and overall experience made sense.

Appointing any manager comes with varying degrees of leaps of faith. There a no guarantees they will be a success and there is no guarantee the next one will be.

Excellent post sir and sums up exactly my thoughts on the matter. 

[sne]

For me pretty much every football decision so far under Xia has turned out to be a bad one.

From managerial appointments, other staff and down to transfer strategy and so on.

However I'm not sure I actually blame Xia for this, even though as owner it obviously boils down to him in the end.

As many have pointed out we are not 100% sure exactly what it is Wyness and Round specifically does and what decisions they are responsible for, but I am highly uncertain about them regarding football matters. I'm all for giving people a chance, but a lot of our appointments seem to have their first go at the jobs they are assigned to here. Not sure that is a smart way to handle things.

 

As far as I understand Di Matteo was someone Xia wanted? 

Bruce was a "safe" and logical choice at the time. but it was also a very uninspired, lazy and worrying appointment. His flaws are obvious and exactly the opposite way I was hoping we'd go when we got a new owner.

On the transfers we've spent money like a SHA fan who's just won the lottery. £100m, bam! Gone in less than a year.

Whoever is responsible for blowing all that money on Championship strikers and middle age ex Pl-players on stupid contracts should be tared and feathered. Pretty much non of our players have sell on value higher than what we paid for them. Some of them are even total write offs.

Yeah you never know with transfers, but paying PL money for Championship players is beyond stupid 99 times out of 100. and signing players with questionable attitude and dodgy injury history is also a great way to lose money and matches.

 

I'm still holding Round, Wyness and whoever else is making the football decisions at the club responsible for our demise. But as I've said before.

Xia needs to act NOW. And every point dropped from now on (or a few weeks ago) I lay at him for not getting rid of a manager clearly not working out.

 

 

 

[DaveAV1]

1 hour ago, markavfc40 said:

I don't think he deserves much, if any, criticism for the appointment of Bruce. Going for an experienced manager with four promotions on his CV, the last of which was 3 months before his appointment, a man who had captained the biggest club in the country so had experienced the pressure of being a leader at the biggest fish in the pond, seemed like a decent appointment at the time. Even if he wasn't close to being your first choice you could never say it was a diabolical one.

Even though I wasn't overly pleased with Di Matteo I could also see some merits in that.

I have said before but I think Xia has done very little wrong. He has appointed two managers, both of which had their merits, and he has backed them.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and as things stand today it looks as though the appointment of Bruce will have failed. That doesn't re write history though and mean it was a poor appointment at the time because for where we were/ are now, and where we initially need to get to, a manager with Bruce's success in this division and overall experience made sense.

Appointing any manager comes with varying degrees of leaps of faith. There a no guarantees they will be a success and there is no guarantee the next one will be.

As a wise man once said, "Success has many fathers, but failure is always a bastard."

[peterms]

2 hours ago, markavfc40 said:

I don't think he deserves much, if any, criticism for the appointment of Bruce. Going for an experienced manager with four promotions on his CV, the last of which was 3 months before his appointment, a man who had captained the biggest club in the country so had experienced the pressure of being a leader at the biggest fish in the pond, seemed like a decent appointment at the time.

If that's all that was known about Bruce at the time, then I would agree.  As the much-quoted Guardian article shows, the things for which we now criticise Bruce were well known in football circles before we appointed him.  Which leaves me wondering, did the people who advised on his appointment not know all this, or did they think it didn't matter or could be overcome?

I didn't know it, and I'm sure many others didn't either, but the people advising on his appointment really should have.

[villabromsgrove]

4 minutes ago, peterms said:

If that's all that was known about Bruce at the time, then I would agree.  As the much-quoted Guardian article shows, the things for which we now criticise Bruce were well known in football circles before we appointed him.  Which leaves me wondering, did the people who advised on his appointment not know all this, or did they think it didn't matter or could be overcome?

I didn't know it, and I'm sure many others didn't either, but the people advising on his appointment really should have.

I knew it, not because I'm clever (which I'm not lol), but because being retired I spend far more hours than is good for me browsing everything with the remotest connection to Villa. That probably makes me an elderly nerd.

I was so disappointed when Bruce was appointed, as I felt that with a bit more money and effort we could have got Wagner. Who knows where we'd be now if DW or a similar manager had been appointed?

 

[markavfc40]

15 minutes ago, peterms said:

If that's all that was known about Bruce at the time, then I would agree.  As the much-quoted Guardian article shows, the things for which we now criticise Bruce were well known in football circles before we appointed him.  Which leaves me wondering, did the people who advised on his appointment not know all this, or did they think it didn't matter or could be overcome?

I didn't know it, and I'm sure many others didn't either, but the people advising on his appointment really should have.

You on about the one that does the rounds every few months that was written six years ago when he left Sunderland? He had achieved two more promotions since then the last one 3 months before he arrived here. I am sure Bruce is very well known with in the game and is very well thought of by some and not so well thought of by others. I am sure the same applies to 99% of managers.

Based on his record, both recent and overall, I still think it made sense even if he wasn't your first choice. It seemed a safe choice in terms of what we initially wanted/want to achieve which is promotion.

Edited September 16, 2017 by markavfc40

[TRO]

9 minutes ago, villabromsgrove said:

I knew it, not because I'm clever (which I'm not lol), but because being retired I spend far more hours than is good for me browsing everything with the remotest connection to Villa. That probably makes me an elderly nerd.

I was so disappointed when Bruce was appointed, as I felt that with a bit more money and effort we could have got Wagner. Who knows where we'd be now if DW or a similar manager had been appointed?

 

We are in the same boat.....you clever thing

[TRO]

49 minutes ago, DaveAV1 said:

As a wise man once said, "Success has many fathers, but failure is always a bastard."

Never a truer word spoken.

[peterms]

11 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

You on about the one that does the rounds every few months that was written six years ago when he left Sunderland? He had achieved two more promotions since then the last one 3 months before he arrived here. I am sure Bruce is very well known with in the game and is very well thought of by some and not so well thought of by others. I am sure the same applies to 99% of managers.

Based on his record, both recent and overall, I still think it made sense even if he wasn't your first choice. It seemed a safe choice in terms of what we initially wanted/want to achieve which is promotion.

Yes, that one.  The article and the comments raise so many of the things which have turned out to be problems in his time with us.

I wonder whether the 40 page dossier examined these things and gave grounds for reassurance, or whether it was more a case of "Four promotions!  Wowzer!".

[markavfc40]

7 minutes ago, peterms said:

Yes, that one.  The article and the comments raise so many of the things which have turned out to be problems in his time with us.

I wonder whether the 40 page dossier examined these things and gave grounds for reassurance, or whether it was more a case of "Four promotions!  Wowzer!".

You could say the same when Hull appointed him but he had relative success there with two promotions, one off the back of a relegation he managed, and getting to a FA cup final. I guess if they had based their opinion of him on that article they would never have appointed him. Like us I guess they took into account a lot more than that and looked at his record overall, what they wanted to achieve, and thought he was the ideal choice. For them, unlike us at the present time, it proved to be a very good appointment.

Edited September 16, 2017 by markavfc40