Hitchens60 asks an interesting question;
The position Director of Football or Sporting Director – what’s in a name; aren’t they essentially the same roles? -raises an interesting dynamic.
For the Head Coach the role provides a degree of protection; if the players don’t come up to expectation (or more importantly show improvement) it’s because the DoF failed to recruit the right players; for the MD who makes the appointment, given the same scenario the DoF has failed in the role expected of him and can be removed.
Sound familiar?
On that basis the DoF appears to be firmly positioned between a rock and a hard place and any opportunities to succeed appear limited!
Of course the role of DoF encapsulates more than just player recruitment and includes areas such as developing a culture and playing styles that are recognisable throughout the club from the first team through the U23’s right down to the youngest of the junior teams and, of course, the women’s team. It also includes developing and improving sports science which now has a prominent role in all professional sports.
Villa, of course have an unenviable record in this area.
First there was Gary Karsa. Sacked after two years.
Henrik Almstadt then teamed up with Paddy Riley and the reaction was – at last an identity and new modern thinking direction for the club. Sacked within a year.
They were followed by Steve Round and the so called ‘Villa Engine’. Another new identity – surely we now have the right new direction but no, within two years Round is sacked and Suso is appointed with the strong Spanish and European scouting network – finally this must be it; the new direction we’ve been looking for – again sacked!
Now Johan Lange, the best there is in Europe with his highly successful FC Copenhagen model.
There’s a familiar pattern developing here – yet another new direction but this has to be the one!
The question is – is it?
There is a world of difference between FC Copenhagen playing in the Danish Superliga and Villa in the EPL. Yes, they win trophies and regularly qualify for the Champions League – but then they should be if you believe the recent analogy with Celtic in the Scottish Premier League. Like Celtic they rarely make it through the group stages and more often play in the Europa League – not that we should knock that from our 17th position – but the point is generally still valid. Copenhagen are known as a ‘feeder club’ which has been successful in developing local talent and selling them into the German and Italian leagues for values in and around £10m. These are functional players sold at inflated prices who don’t necessarily go onto better things – don’t we already have plenty of these? – not that I’m knocking it, if that’s the limit of our ambition.
Our owners’ stated ambition though is very different – to improve from our current lowly position to be regularly challenging the top clubs in Europe (where have we heard that before?).
The point is they don’t just want us to be a feeder club so Lange is therefore operating in a very different environment from that at Copenhagen. His challenge is to respond to much higher expectations than at Copenhagen and in a tougher, more competitive market place. Can he do it? – well at least he has previous experience of living in the West Midlands and English football as assistant manager at Wolves – albeit for six unsuccessful months!
But what of our two other summer recruits – Craig Shakespeare and Rob MacKenzie?
Both have excellent CV’s and a lot of experience in the EPL – particularly with helping Leicester City break the mould.
When Pearson was being suggested as Villa manager, many fans wanted us to go for his assistant Shakespeare instead.
Mackenzie is credited with playing a pivotal role in signing Kante, Knockaert, Mahrez and Vardy for Leicester – just now, I suspect, most of us would take just one of those signings at Villa.
I think these are both very savvy signings. It’s clear we don’t just need quality and EPL knowhow on the field; we need it to reinforce a very inexperienced management team and it’s something which both Shakespeare and Mackenzie can provide. Will they prove to be more valuable acquisitions than Lange?
Only time will tell.
Lads Grealish is going nowhere, Steve you’ve hit the nail on the head, why would Villa let its greatest asset walk out the door with half the team following. It’s not going to happen. As for that waist of printing ink and paper the Birmingham mail is a disgrace to the Villa fans in printing lie after lie. I’m happy to sit back and get 3 payers in that Villa are almost signed Monday Tuesday we will all know , Utv.
Player’s frigging text..
New away kit awful looks like a decomposed body with the claret stripes worst ever
Maybe we neef to concentrate on buying some decent players as well rather than concentrate g on championship and players we have never heard of
Anyway enjoy the weekend villans soz for being negative
I actually like away kit. Much better than last season. As for transfer activity…YAWN!
i cant keep up with the number of players we signed lmao. i predicted last week we would sign players well at least somebody. frustrating massively but after the duds we usually buy nice to see us taking our time and trying to do good sound business for once. instead of our usual kid in a candy shop approach.
i like what i am hearing about the youth being played in the back up team under 23. usually we play a mixture of rejects and youth who are 20 to 22 aged, now it seems like we are buying up the talented kids, instead of nurturing them all ourselves from the early ages. we are trawling the skillful kids better and that has to be beneficial to our club.
also having them play directly in the under 23 means they will be playing at higher level than youth footy. they can be used in our first team as backup or sent to a lower league loan,solely with the aim to be fast tracked into our1st team fianlly producing our own again.
finally i am not endorsing grealish sale. but consider this man utd SCUM have been sniffing around grealish. we put a figure of 80 million on his head. that sounds like a decent figure but when you are quoted 20 million for a player who has never played in premiership. 80 million sounds too low. 25 million is a normal figure for a average player nowadays. so i urge villa to start value our own players more than we do. bree sold for 1mill hopefully we include a sell on clause very high too. cause bree just never got his act together at villa but he was a decent player at barnsley. he is worth more than 1mill. too replace grealish it will cost us 40 million easy and that will be for a player who is untried at our level
Nath, I agree, getting the kids into the second string seems a good idea on the face of it. But I wonder what happens if the kids don’t show any signs of making it when they hit their 20’s?
Do we just get rid of them, or do we keep them until they’re too old for the U-23’s?
Either way we’d be no better off than what we have now.
It seems to me that to make it work, they’d have to be seriously on the fringe of the squad or doing well, on loan to a Championship club at age 20 or even earlier.
The cynic in me says I’m not convinced in the slightest, because managers are usually just too scared to risk kids, unless a game doesn’t matter or the team is romping the league.
The problem seems to be the gap between those in the lesser squads and the first team.
Heck, we’ve seen that experienced players in the other European leagues often struggle to adjust to our game, after all.
Then again, I’ve often complained that the system we had wasn’t working, so I’m happy to see us at least trying something different.
As for Bree, we might think he’s worth more, but who’s going to pay it?
Our attitude ought to be, “you’re robbing us, so we want a fat sell on clause inserted”.
Would that work though?
Buying clubs at lower level must surely have a possible sell-on fee in mind?
Oh, we ain’t going to replace Grealish for £40 mill. At least not immediately.
i believe we have let ourselves down regarding the youth team. we were once one of the elite clubs producing good youth players and then we stood still on our past glory. clubs like southampton have taken the youth set up to another level. we had to shake ours up and i think we will see the benefits soon.
we have bought decent 16 year old players all we need to do is nurture them correctly, they along with our best youth players, will not be playing youth footy which is such a slow game. but they will be playing what used to be the reserves. so getting a earlier chance to test themselves and improve themselves against players who are premiership class. also with them all being in the same team, they will grow together like they fergie fledglings. pushing each other to break into the 1st team
its also down to the way we manage them and challenge them. i believe we mothered our youth too long. send them out more to play the mans game. i seen enough youth games to see its a totally different game, no real tackling is allowed, its like a basket ball game you attack then us.
i was amazed at the youth we had and now its gone. murphy and ohare too really good youth players but they never progressed. one player i really thought was decent was Jake Doyle-Hayes but he was another that never took the step up. maybe they were too comfy and stopped progressing. best decision was to use the 16’s to 18’s in the under23’s instead of our over paid bomb squad players. players we over paid for and they are just hanging around to collect wages. or our youth players who were clogging it up aged 21 22 when they should be in our 1st team on merit if they were any good.
Spot on. If they’re not performing by age 20, get rid and save the time and money ready for someone else to come in. The outgoers should still be good enough for the lower leagues so we’ll still be doing our bit for the game generally.
In other news, apparently Trippier is dumping Atletico to come to us 🙂
Oh, and Ramsdale has gone back to Sheff Utd.
Still no new signings! Why is it so complicated to get players in these days? Answer, agents!
I was hoping that with the season starting without fans, we would be able to watch all games on either Sky, BT or other channels. Unfortunately it looks like a large amount of games will not be on live! For season ticket holders it is a double whammy. I dare say Sky and BT will look after the big 6 clubs fans however.
Holte, a question that’s entered my mind is, I wonder if there’s a risk that quite a few fans will lose the habit of football?
You’ll always get the diehards, who’ll attend whatever, but I’ve often heard it said (particularly amongst Villa fans over the last few years) that they attend because it’s basically a habit.
Break that habit……..
Holte66, we will know tomorrow about signings, I feel confident we are close.
Bill, do you know something we don’t? Hmmmmmm… (scratches chin thoughtfully)…
Following the web Bum Bum , not that rag Bham Mail . Just seen a bit on Twitter saying a certain defender turning down West Ham and wanting the Villa . Smith is in talks. It’s close Bum Bum . Should be soon .
This guy has made it known to West Ham ,he wants the Villa …
In those outings, the 21-year-old averaged 36.7 passes per game with an
impressive completion rate of 80.95. He also averaged 1.4 tackles, 1.6 interceptions, 1.3 clearances and one dribble per game (Who Scored).
McKennie is young, hungry and supremely talented. In other words he is exactly the kind of player David Moyes has repeatedly said he wants to sign this summer.
So if the American does move to Villa instead, it will be a big blow for the Hammers.
The 21-year-old is industrious, robust and technically gifted. He seems to be ideally suited to the Premier League. And if Aston Villa do end up signing him they will have a seriously good player on their hands.
It will also serve as further evidence of just how far we are falling behind the teams in and around us in the table
Get ready lads, Southgate announcing the England Squad today!! Is he or isn’t he. My bet he’s not.
No place for Grealish in the England squad. A poor decision and one that may influence Grealish in feeling he needs to move to a “bigger” club.
Poor Grealish! What a joke!
I’m disgusted. truly disgusted. the England selection policy is a joke and corrupt to say the least. Sad for Jack as he deserves his call up. Wish he had stuck with Ireland now. I hope we lose these games coming up and Southgate gets the sack.
There was some talk over the weekend that if grealish was called up he would stay at the villa.
Maybe manure are picking the england team now. ???
Philips ahead of grealish is a joke
Southgate obviously has something against Jack, Villa or he aint picking the team.
Seems to me like Southgate has done man United a favour and kept Grealish price tag down!
Greenwood?? Dier????? Winks??? Rice??? Maguire??? I’d love to see some injuries now from this lot!
Truth, Southgates a joke. He’s been a lucky England manager having to not worry about club players performance, either Villa done him a bad turn at sometime or he’s a Man u supporter in keeping in with the club or banks. Your right Tom Grealish will not get honoured at Villa Park in the England team. I hope Southgate fall on his Arse in the coming months. Wanker. Better days to come for us and our Captain. …
Apparently Southgate never picked grealish for U21s so its personal.
Southgate when playing for villa questioned our ambition (cos collymore was on more than him ??) and went to boro !! Where he was also a shit manager – relegation.
Sucked up to be england U21 and main manager. I didn’t succumb to hype of us getting to the world cup semis. Luck of the draw. Any decent team beat us.
Read this lads, , Southgate asked the interviewer not to mention Grealish in asking why? Just shows he’s hiding something. . Swine.
I lost respect for Southgate today.
Grealish could not be selected for England last year as he was not in the Premier. Hey ho Phillips from Leeds gets selected. Southgate contradiction!
Grealish had to prove himself in the Premier. He played virtually every match, scored and created many goals. Southgate contradiction!
Grealish falls into the Hoddle category. England managers never know how to utilise truly talented players.
Jack, go speak to Paul McGrath and get yourself signed up to the Republic of Ireland. As an Englishman I would not blame you at all.
I look forward to you next year making a complete mockery of Southgate as you help Villa improve to a higher level.
Southgate is a hypocrite and a terrible manager. He gets praised for beating pub teams in qualifying matches before tournaments and praised for scraping their way to semi final of World Cup before going out against the mighty Croatia. I couldn’t care less if England ever win another game under this traitor. I only care about Villa and I hope Jack tells the media and Southgate who are trying to force him to move to Man Ure, to do one!
I’ve said it on here a few times that I’ve never rated Southgate as a manager.
He’s just the right sort of FA man, that’s all.
But, what we shouldn’t forget is Grealish’s shenanigans a few months back.
I’m pretty sure I said then that it would cost him a place in the squad and so it’s proved.
Frankly, it’s his own fault, but it is a shame.
What’s interesting here is that Southgate said he supports Maguire for now, earlier. Fair enough, innocent until proved guilty and all that.
But surely this should also apply to Grealish?
It transpires that Maguire has just been found guilty of aggravated assault, resisting arrest, and repeated attempts of bribery.
This should now be enough for Southgate to drop Maguire from the squad immediately, even if the player is going to appeal.
If he doesn’t drop him, this stinks and Southgate should be forced to explain why Grealish wasn’t chosen.
If the explanation is that Southgate thinks Grealish is flawed in some area of his game, fair enough.
But if no explanation is forthcoming and it probably won’t be, well…..