Christian Purslow

[Villadevon]

Lets not forget he also taught us how to pronounce Morgan Sonson.

[Steero113]

36 minutes ago, ozvillafan said:

yeah - bin dunne

Something I was advocating for a couple years before he was finally released on a free in 2013. 

[Tomaszk]

2 hours ago, M_Afro said:

The five years of Purslow as CEO were the only time in my 40 years as a fan that Villa have been run effectively as a professional, ambitious club that realised its importance in the football pyramid and didn’t take a backwards step. He will get some stick and he was far from perfect but our football operations over the past 5 years have improved immensely. He has achieved a good deal in that time.

I do trust NSWE and expect that we will continue to move forward but Purslow deserves our respect and gratitude. We have a season ticket waiting list of 30,000 now. That was unthinkable 5 years ago. 

He did an adequate job.

Had funding beyond most clubs and used it well to sort out a lot of departments that had been left to rot under amateurs. There's things he could have done better, like smarter recruitment appointments, but the effort was there. 

Gerrard killed him. Allowing Gerrard to make stupid signings killed him. Gerrard, Coutinho and Digne are going to cost the club ~£110-120m all in. People are saying it's "one bad decision". Well it's a big one, and financially it cost us. And it was stupid at the time, they were not evidence-based decisions made considering risk.

If he could have stepped back from football, he might still be in a job. He wants to be involved though, (despite not having a clue) so good luck to him.

Just as the morons before him don't make him a great CEO, if the one after is a chump, that won't either.

[thunderball]

2 hours ago, Pinebro said:

Stripping him off footballing decisions is the best thing the club has done for a long time.

We will only improve from here and it gives me much more confidence in our project.

 

You cant have that, you need to make recruitment around sporting principles and not commercial ones, its much better when there is a clear divide. This is why Spurs are a mess, because Levy cant help himself.  

But who will be responsible for setting the budgets, how does Emery know how much we can afford to bid for and reward players? If Emery is looking after the mens football side what about all the other strands of the business?

 

[mikeyjavfc]

I don’t mind Purslow but his legacy is flattered slightly by the unbelievable job Emery has done since his appointment, which was a Nassef hire. If Purslow had left the same day as Gerrard then he would be looked on much less fondly than now after Emery salvaged the season for him. Truely Gerrard was a terrible decision that has basically led to a total reorganisation of the club leadership structure.  
That being said I don’t begrudge him; getting out the championship at first time of asking, avoiding relegation and getting established in prem was no mean feat after the state Toby Xia left the club. The infrastructure upgrades have all been welcome too. I would say much like the sacking of Dean Smith he has simply hit his ceiling as a CEO and it’s time to pass it over to others and a different structure to progress Villa into a consistent top 8 team. 

[The_Steve]

7 minutes ago, Rds1983 said:

I love Emery and what he's done for us, he was my number one choice after Gerrard. 

But I keep thinking back to when we last let a manager have almost unlimited control (MON) and whilst that was great for a while the spiralling wages and his departure is what helped prompt our slide to the Championship. 

The anxiety is understandable - but NSWE are very serious and ambitious owners. We’ve got all the redevelopment to come. They aren’t losing interest like Randy was. MON isn’t an elite manager either and Unai needs the infrastructure around him to make it work. 

[thunderball]

From John Percy at the Telegraph:

"The former Liverpool executive is understood to have been sidelined from football business since Emery’s arrival, with the head coach taking full control of operations.

Emery also goes direct to owner Nassef Sawiris, who has assumed a more significant role since Steven Gerrard's dismissal last year.

It is understood Purslow was offered the opportunity to take a different role but he has stepped down. Newly appointed Chris Heck will run the business side at Villa Park."

 

Reads as though the performance wasnt good enough and following the Gerrard debacle, where we could have been relegated, NSWE made the decision to change direction i.e. Purslow's influence was greatly reduced. I have no doubt if things had worked out and they hadnt needed to intervene, Purslow would still be there. It also reads as an ego thing as he was clearly valued enough in another capacity to want him to stay on?

In fairness to Gregg Evans, he has for while been stating that Emery is now employee #1, with the most power at the club. The imagery you are shown at seasons end was very much Nas, Wes and Unai.

Edited June 12, 2023 by thunderball

[Zatman]

I think people are going a bit OTT about this news. He did a fine job until summer 2021 when he started a nightmare 15 months or so. City absolutely spooked him with the Grealish saga then sacking Smith which followed Clowngate one of the worst periods supporting us also while hiking ticket prices and bringing in another gambling sponsor

Since then he has cut a low profile compared to his media loving from last year

[Demitri_C]

Does make me wonder we did the wholr sky interview marlaky a few weeks ago then we just part ways?

[Stevo71]

1 hour ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Things have already improved since he's left. Bloke was holding us back. The new bloke even has us recieving offers for players we don't even own, pure genius!

 

 

When David Cameron writes your tweets...

[Thug]

1 minute ago, Demitri_C said:

Does make me wonder we did the wholr sky interview marlaky a few weeks ago then we just part ways?

Interviewing/advertising for a new job?

[Vive_La_Villa]

Am I the only one that doesn’t care he’s gone?

[Pinebro]

7 minutes ago, thunderball said:

"The former Liverpool executive is understood to have been sidelined from football business since Emery’s arrival, with the head coach taking full control of operations.

Emery also goes direct to owner Nassef Sawiris, who has assumed a more significant role since Steven Gerrard's dismissal last year.

It is understood Purslow was offered the opportunity to take a different role but he has stepped down. Newly appointed Chris Heck will run the business side at Villa Park."

As I suspected.

It's a very welcomed change that Nassef has started to take charge more.

We've only gone upwards too since Purslow was stripped off the footballing side of things.

[pete101]

Was told no more Liverpool signings and tried to sneak Oxlade-chamberlain in and got caught 

[Pinebro]

6 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Am I the only one that doesn’t care he’s gone?

Gerrard out

Purslow out

Hopefully Coutinho is next

Edited June 12, 2023 by Pinebro

[Vive_La_Villa]

Reading up on Chris Heck it sounds like he previously did everything a CEO would do but had the title of President. There wasn’t a need for Heck and Purslow. 
 

[villan-scott]

Probably saves is a few million in wages to be fair as Heck will be paid via V Sports I guess rather than Villa!

[sne]

1 hour ago, Steero113 said:

Something I was advocating for a couple years before he was finally released on a free in 2013. 

 

[ender4]

23 minutes ago, villan-scott said:

Probably saves is a few million in wages to be fair as Heck will be paid via V Sports I guess rather than Villa!

To comply with FFP, Heck's salary should be split depending on how much time he spends on Villa stuff compared to V Sport stuff.

As it stands, V Sports is basically just Villa and Vitories (minority share) with the Vegas deal having fallen through.

[BOF]

I think he's done a really good job for this club. He knew the English game and FFP inside out. We badly needed that at the time. He laid the foundation for getting out of the Championship and he was a steady hand on the tiller when building the 3 sides needed to get where we are (come up, stay up, move upwards). He was a relatively outspoken voice in Premier League meetings. Giving Villa a voice and making us a prominent influence. Raising our profile back to where we belong to be. Which obviously would have had us looking after our own interests and the interests of 'the other 14' in an effective manner. He made us more relevant on the Premier League landscape than a quieter CEO would have. I liked how he conducted himself. He would not be bullied. Always got the impression we were in safe hands with him and that he possibly knew more (not in a sinister way) than he was letting on at times. I liked how he handled the Grealish sale. How he communicated with the fans. People keep mentioning the Gerrard hire as if there's a CEO out there who's never hired a bad manager. Smacks of Captain Hindsight to me. That won't have defined his legacy. It happened and we've corrected it.

My concern with him gone is that we've lost probably the only person in our off-field hierarchy that knows English football.  That's a calculated risk. Heck doesn't know football and specifically doesn't know Premier League football. City have shown you probably don't need to know the English game if you hire good enough people, but they're obviously a very specific example of how to run a football club. We've lost a respected voice at Premier League board meetings. I think those shoes are quite big to fill. I'm happy enough that NSWE know this, and will do what is required. It doesn't mean the next few months and even the next season or 2 won't be relatively uncharted waters though for some in the upper echelons. I hope and trust the club can continue to excel on and off the pitch in his absence.

I wish him well and I know he'll land on his feet. It'll be interesting to see whether he jumped or was pushed. Thanks for everything Christian. A very important piece in the rebuild of this club.