Did you see what I did there, given that it’s currently Shakespeare season?
Hmm, moving quickly on;
Aston Villa seem to be flavour of the month when it comes to news and it’s no wonder after the comedy of errors we’ve seen lately.
Anything is seemingly possible at the club, as we’re in such a state of disarray and it leaves us wide open to speculation.
Speculation that might be miles off the mark, but can’t instantly be written off as total rubbish.
In other words, the press are loving it, as it gives them a chance to make up any old crap just to fill column space.
The perfect example of this comes in comparing The Mirror, where “no saviour is on the horizon yet”, as opposed to The Telegraph, where “chairman Steve Hollis is understood to be talking to three parties about a potential sale.”
It’s total conjecture which always comes about at this time of year, it would seem.
Purely designed to sell season tickets?
You might very well think that; I couldn’t possibly comment (anyone else remember “House of cards”?).
Anyway, the point is I don’t believe a word I’m reading.
Likewise, the Mirror saying in the above article that we’ve now had two conversations with Nigel Pearson.
But you never know and it makes for good reading if you’re a fan of the club.
All that said, the Telegraph article is great because the main part of it is that the supposed Chinese consortium that wants to buy us is proposing to bring in Damien Comolli.
Now that’s a bloke who is as Marmite as it gets, in my opinion.
If you look at his CV, it really is pretty good.
He speaks fluent Spanish, French and English.
And apparently knows everything about everything to do with footy, with him having qualified for a coaching badge and having a law degree.
Except pretty much every proper football manager and possibly chairman who ever worked with him seems to have detested him.
For every Luis Suarez that he signed, he also had an Andy Carroll.
I could add that he was responsible for bringing Hutton and Bent to Spurs, but that might be unfair of me.
Anyway, it’s probably another made up story based on the fact that he can probably converse with the foreign players in our squad. Most of whom probably won’t be here for much longer anyway.
I really don’t know why I countenance all this rubbish.
But I know some of you love it.
And fair play, it makes for better reading than how we’ve performed this season.
I really do hope some of the positive stuff, as in a takeover ends up to be true.
Ha, I swear I’ve only just realised the “comedy of errors” part of the post as another Shakespeare thing!
It just seemed the perfect description when I was writing the post.
Pat57,
You have mail on the address you signed up with.
Ta Badger and thanks
if we are to be takeover, then it really needs to be quickly. not like lerner has only just thought about this, he claims to have wanted out since quit. one word comes to mind when ppl see villa rudderless, no leadership on the field and off
the weekend game is or should be winnable, both clubs have similar ability, both are on dismal form, another record defeat sequence might happen is it 11 if we lose?? but watford are too on poor form, losing semi finals will also end there season. its like a championship game but in premiership lol might be a good test, if black used the game to test some kids with pros
whoops mistake ( wanted out since MON quit) should read
Express now saying that Pearson might be going to Celtic.
http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/664715/Celtic-Aston-Villa-Nigel-Pearson-Premier-League-transfer-news-gossip-rumours
However they also say ‘ the Celtic board are still at the very early stages in their search for a new manager’ which seems to somewhat contradict the ‘exclusive’ headline.
Ho hum – be glad when we get some proper hard news, all this fluff that’s going about at the moment is just to fill column inches.
Last week we had takeover imminent, with major news in the next 48 hours – well that came and went didn’t it, its more bullshit being leaked by Villa…. I won’t believe a word until Lerner has departed the building !
Saddened, treating us fans as children, the whole club is rotten to the core, they have no feelings . Don’t buy till they come clean.
Agreed Bill, he relies on us being loyal customers, to keep his cashflow going, therefore drops little pieces of info out to the media to keep us interested and spending our hard earned cash…. I hate him with a passion.
Question
If an American billionaire was to buy the club and bring Martin O’Neil back.
would you say yes or no.
I am a no
Definite No from me.
A no from me, but it won’t happen anyway – Randy will sell us down the river, once he has ruined the club even more than it already is, by asset stripping it to the bare bones
Unfortunately you may well be right saddened. Not that I think he is doing it deliberately. He is just incompetent.
He is incompetent DS, and insecure, which is why he has always hired yes men, and as soon as anyone questions him, they are removed…. Sad we have a spoilt child running our once great club!
In your post Badger you declared Andy Carroll as one of Comolli’s mistakes, I agree that he didn’t work at Liverpool, but in my opinion he is a beast of a player, I would have him in the England squad for the Euros and would crawl over broken glass to have him at Villa!
I agree Dave, he’s a good player.
But he wasn’t worth £35 mill at the time, imo and he did prove a desperate signing for Liverpool.
Agreed too that I’d love him at VP.
still no news on takeover ???? i just seen reports on agents touting amavi and gana so frustrating. end of the day if villa get shut of lerner. sell these french league import for around the same money we paid, then we got off lightly and can reinvest. but we need this damn takeover so frustrating. we could end up missing managers and players if this drags on and on.
ps whos the phantom disliker 🙂 i bet he has a blue nose
you say we have had a second meeting with Pearson i hope it was to say “i told you once now fuck off”
People are really believing the 48 hour rumours? Seriously? Do people not know how takeovers work? They take weeks, if not longer to finalize. It’s not the fault of Lerner you actually believed one or two supposed “itk’s” about some 48 hour rumour, when everyone knows it takes a long time for takeovers to go through.
we know every time the end of the season closes. lerner dreams about selling the club he claimed he loved. but this never materializes, but this also means he doesn’t need to fulfill his obligations, to leave the club in the same way as he bought it. with a full house of passionate fans to now a half empty stadium of disillusioned fans watching a unfunded club with poor quality of CHEAP options.
another words he bought a top proud club with no debts, players worthy of the premiership hey we even had the odd internationals and we were run in a business like way you could say professionally. then come lerner and bang we are a joke laughing stock who else is to blame
just looking back at this season alone forget the other fruitful years. sacking sherwood brilliant idea pay him how many millions, then hire garde and give him the same broken tools. pretend to phone players agents, claim gardes targets dont want to come, spend NOTHING then sack him pay him off. now four manager, black WON how many games. lerners got this business running smoothly, anybody who lacks business sense or takeover knowledge its him. cant wait for the prick to fook off so forgive me or us if we cant wait for him to disapear
I get people don’t like Lerner for many different reasons, however it just makes me laugh how this is supposedly fake because they mistakenly believed some 48 hour bs. Every take over takes a while, months even. Just because fans don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. Until Hollis says otherwise (why else would he of all people claim it was happening, as has Little to multiple fans), make the claim? He’d just leave like King and Bernstein if it wasn’t going too.
makes me laugh when ppl think a takeover has started when he hears about it in the press. for he knows the takeover could av been in the pipeline for MONTHS before being released. or another version that the takeover was purposely released to press to appease angry fans.
andrew fans of villa have seen a slow death of their love for 6 seasons. so we are wise to the lerner antics and know how he manipulates fans press to his needs. = so if theirs a sale happening. he better hurry up and sell.
if this drags on over months you claim, then we will be another bolton and drop another level, because we have been funded poorly for too many years to miss another opportunity to strengthen
You can’t just hurry up and sell, and that’s what fans don’t get at all. There’s timelines for different processes the sale has to go through. It’s not oh we reached an agreement, you can have it tomorrow, or the next day, or in a week. After what’s happened with Birmingham and Fulham and such, it’s an extensive process to sell the club. Hollis has talked to fans and confirmed he’s been in talks with different groups. They’re trying to do their bit and if fans are impatient, that’s their problem because they seriously can only do this so fast.
It is fake Andrew, because Lerner and the club have bullshitted us so many times before, normally around new signings or takeovers, and nearly always when season tickets are to go on sale…. We are now customers not fans, and they/he will try anything to bring in cash….
I wouldn’t trust Lerner to tie my shoelaces – as soon as anyone realises what a mess the club is or how incompetent his tenure has been, he gets rid of them or makes their job untenable…. What chance have we got of finding decent new owner/s.
Except no one at Villa has ever said they’ve been in talks to sell the club. Lerner said he put it up for sale. That’s the extent of information fans have been given. For someone to come out and say they’ve been in talks is something completely new to us, because we’ve never been communicated too. Hollis is communicating to the fans and as much as you for some reason don’t want to believe it, he and Little have continued to communicate that Villa are in talks to sell the club.
A message of support from Tom Hanks –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/36143291
Now you’d think that he’d have enough spare change to buy us wouldn’t you?
That interview sounded and looked scripted, don’t buy a word of it when it comes from a personal friend of Lerner
Geoff Vowden 75 today now there was trier. If our players even had 10% of his grit we’d wouldn’t be where we are now.
They linked to a goal he scored against Bournemouth but the one I remember was the one he scored against Mansfield to get us a draw and promotion out of Div 3. 12,000 crowd and 11,000 were Villa supporters.
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/nostalgia-mansfield-scene-famous-revival-7431981
It’s funny but I always remember our season in Div 3 with some fondness. May we all think the same about next season in the Championship.
Happy birthday Geoff!
Blimey Pat57, your nearly as old as me an Oohah, Yes remember Geoff and that division 3 , I travelled with my mates to away games and boy did we get into some scrapes and that was in clubs. Happy birthday Geoff and many of them.
@Bill
First match I attended was in 1956 when my dad used to sit me on the little wall with my legs through the railings. Can’t remember who it was against as I was only 5!
Used to love Peter McParland as he ran up and down the wing. Still my hero now.
Pat57, first match for me was Billy Boffin (bandy legs) crowd used to hand me over their heads down to th little railings right hand side of the holte. Oh happy days.
Goffin, not Boffin…..
Yes just read up on him, a Tamworth lad too. A few years before my time though.
And yes if we were a bit late they used to hand me and my brother over their heads to the front so we could sit on the wall. An early form of crowd surfing really!
I see Lambert has “exercised” a clause in his contract to leave Blackburn at the end of the season. More like “jump before he was pushed” Funny that he wants to thank all the officials and fans at Ewood Park for their support and wishes them well for the future, yet he can’t resist any opportunity to stick the knife in with Villa even though he was useless.
From the official statement…
“Gabby has also advised he wishes to relinquish the role of Club captain.”
Sounds like an odd statement, so, was he told to give up his status as captain or did he do so willingly?
How is flabby fit to play from Monday?
Last I looked he was 3 stone overweight, not fit enough to play,put on fitness program yet was caught partying in middle of it
Who is running this club flabby or Lerner
No idea how Gabby could be considered match fit right now, but I think we can all take comfort in knowing Black would never dream of changing his winning formula to accommdate Gabby into the line up.
Villa is toxic, has been for a long time, but the two constants in this slow decline of standards – on and off the pitch – have been Gabby and Lerner. Correct me if I am wrong but I think Gabby has had at least one bust up with ever manager since MON?
He’s literally not fit to wear the shirt.
That’s if the shirt fits him in the first place!
If we have the under armour kit next season Jabba the gut ain’t a hope.
So Gabby is now available for selection? What a complete shambles this club is.
Will he relinquish the £58k a week he has been paid while not being good enough – PR shit because they can’t sack him.
Benno – I read it as saying that Flabby’s suspension ends after the weekend and he is therefore technically ‘available for selection’. Nowhere did I read that he is fit enough to play or that he would be selected.
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/flavour-what-steve-hollis-told-11258461
Interesting and good news.
At least someone in the club recognises that the new manager comes AFTER the new owners [whoever these “Americans” and “Far Easterners” are] !
Apparently Ellison and some Chinese guy. The Chinese are being linked to like every club nowadays.
Is the spelling correct??? Or should it be Ellis’s son??
Dunno, did Ellis make a few trips to the US for some fun time?
Read that as well. At least it looks like it is a reasonable possibility that we will be sold. I think we all agree that Villa will not move forward under Lerner, and even Lerner himself feels the same.
I don’t like Oracle business practices, but I wouldn’t be upset if Ellison was involved. We are all desperate for a change of owner, but it’s still possible that we will end up with the wrong one.
It’s a bit like transfer deadline day, checking the internet for some good news every 10 minutes. I think I need to get a life!
Wouldn’t bother checking for news every 10 minutes! – Any takeover will take a few weeks even if the will is there; nobody in their right mnd will spend $75-$100m without doing proper Due Dilligence.
Given all of the deep-seated ‘poison’ that’s been rumoured to have happened at VP over the last five or six years, I’d think that any sensible would-be owner would want to find out exactly what’s been going on and what action is needed to cut it all out, before commiting any cash.
Agreed Ardent and if I were buying I would be seeking warranties from the seller which would allow me to recover up to the full amount of the price in the event statements or information provided by the seller (during dd) proved false or misleading. I can imagine negotiation over warranties being quite difficult!
Due diligence. Funny phrase that. Having witnessed this process, when a large organization or big privately owned business is involved, the accounts are pretty well in order, unless there is a major discrepancy the facts are in front of you. Any delay is more likely down to bartering and haggling over the price. Rich people get rich by squeezing every last penny out of every situation. Buying Villa would not be that complicated. This sort of shit can be sorted out in a couple of weeks if the desire is there, but I guess people have to be seen to be earning their commission…ho hum…
Except even a simpleton such as myself doesn’t believe the accounts for one minute and has consistently said so for 3-4 years.
Even if I’m miles off (and really don’t think I am, having taken an admittedly very amateur interest in this), if I have doubts, I’d be expecting that the accounts aren’t in order, as a buyer.
And we all know proper accountants don’t come cheap and are bloody slow at the same time, because there’s too much money at stake.
Hence any sale will not be straightforward, imo.
That said, I reckon the losses are nowhere near what they’ve been announced, in reality.
Which should make us a better attraction.
Which is why I don’t believe the supposed reduced £75 mill asking price and is why I don’t believe the club is up for sale at all.
No doubt we’ll see.
I guess the issues are around playing staff and contracts, assessing future losses through players leaving etc. Don’t forget the 500 redundancies as well. The cost of those will be argued over, plus any potential liability from unfair dismissal cases.
The decision of the club to reduce costs was probably independent of any pending sale. Just Lerner trying to stop losses from escalating. I would imagine the buyer has no issue with that as they can claim it was nothing to do with them, but it would make life a bit easier post sale.
As some have already said here, there is no point Villa appointing a new manager, unless it is sanctioned by a buyer committed to taking over.
Highly unlikely but I wonder if Elton John ever recorded a cover version of “Sweet Sixteen”? It would be appropriate for the teams to run out at Vicarage Road.
Remember though we are in the BS season and all positive news from Villa Park should be treated as a lie until proven otherwise
@OLL
Couldn’t agree more. Looks like the silly season is starting early at Villa Park.
Having said the whole season’s been silly anyway!
There’s going to be weeks of speculation now, probably best to just wait until a contract is actually signed. If it ever happens that is.
I’ve said it and mean it, dont buy till positive things happen at Villa, they can come out with new shirts, cheaper seats , and well known has Been’s I’ll still hang back till sure we are aiming to get back to the top. I don’t trust clubs that take its fans to the cleaners.