I’ve been thinking about this one for the last couple of days, but my thoughts have been somewhat superceded by the speculation that Leicester might be willing to go to £40 miilion to get Grealish.
Not that it matters, as although Grealish’s sale would probably ease our FFP worries at a stroke, it quite simply isn’t going to happen; at least at that money.
Ok, the footballing world is totally mad, when it comes to money, but why would anyone pay anywhere near that amount?
The answer is you simply wouldn’t if you believe the stories that say we are right on our uppers and have to get the money in at any price.
I’m sure we said we were skint last season, yet we still managed to sign John Terry at around £3.6 million a season, if you believe what the Birmingham Mail says. That’s £70k a week. For a championship player!
As much as he might have improved things around the club, that’s massive money.
You can argue about if it was well spent or not, but the point is that considering we had very little to spend, we still managed to come up with a contract like that.
Shenanigans at play, to say the least.
Moving back to the important point, when we were talking about Grealish being looked at, at around the £20 mill mark, it seemed to me, that it was a Birmingham Mail led thing, that was suggesting that we should sell him because we’d be holding him back wrt his aims of playing for England and he’s simply too good for the Championship?
But as much as I like Jack as one of our own, so I also have to ask why we’d let him go so easily?
The simple answer is I wouldn’t.
Let’s look at the facts.
Ok, Jack had a great Semi-final game against Liverpool, but what else had he done before and up to christmas just gone?
Yes, he’s been a revelation in the second half of this season and has looked our only threat at times.
But is half a season enough for us to say he’s served the club brilliantly, as is being made out?
I believe Jack’s agent is his dad, isn’t he?
Maybe that’s why the Mail are suggesting he should leave, because there are things being whispered in ears?
Surely not.
But I’m not wearing it, by a long chalk.
I’d say it’s the total opposite and Jack owes us big time, for bringing him though.
It wasn’t so long ago that I was slating Jack as a bit-part player, because of his lack of effort, after all.
The way things are being portrayed, Jack’s time is running out if he wants to make the England squad and he’ll never do it in the championship.
I say Bullshit!
If he consistently plays well enough, he’ll be picked, because he’ll be be promoted with us or bought by a Prem club further down the line.
But do you know what the annoying part is?
He’s only 22.
If he was 28-30, I could understand the concern.
Of course, if it’s really true that we have no choice but to sell him, that’s a different thing.
He gets a fat contract, we get good money and it’s all good.
Except we’ve just lost every sign that we’re aiming upwards.
If we let Grealish go, I’ll know that Xia has given up and wants out.
Hence Grealish will stay, in my opinion.
I just don’t see how we owe Jack much at all, up to now.
He’s a kid and should stay with us a while.
That apart, are we still seeing problems with posting?
I just can’t replicate the problem now, regardless of where I post from.
I’ve just read an article in the Daily Mail which I hope is ok to link to:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-5792685/Powered-spite-vultures-tearing-Aston-Villas-carcass.html
It is essentially about ffp and selling Grealish, and the more I read the more I found myself agreeing with it.
Back to your question, if Grealish goes because he wants to further his career then I would not hold it against him. However, if he has to be sold just to balance the books for ffp, then I would consider that a disgrace to football.
How can Villa try and compete when we are not allowed to compete? Unless it is ‘fair’ that a great club like ours should be stripped to its bones in order to make it into a generic struggler in the second division. Meanwhile of course the man utd’s of the football world are ready to splash 60 million euros on Fred and supposedly £52 million + Martial to buy Bale. Yet we can’t even afford a pot to pee in just in case we upset the ffp rules.
Sorry if I sound naive or bitter, but this whole scenario of so called fairness just make my blood boil. Actually, it disgusts me.
UTV
Any link is fine, as long as it’s relevant 🙂
Seems fears about FFP were based in fact. They ensure only the wealthiest clubs can spend well, and alternative investment for other clubs is penalised. Turkey’s voting for Christmas? And in the meantime, clubs like Citeh cam get away with stupid sponsorship deals for The Etihad. Pure corruption and favouritism.
FFP is poorly considered, geared to make the richer and powerful more so and totally illogical. It’s not for the football administrators to introduce arbitrary and generalised financial regulation of clubs which, after all, are businesses like any other and subject to the Companies Act etc.
The only way they can get away with it is by arguing these are the ‘rules’ applicable to playing at any ‘professional’ level of European football – agree or you can’t play.
The outcome is businesses (clubs) are forced to dispose of the very assets that create income and future growth.
They argue it’s in the interest of and to protect the clubs and ultimately the fans to which I say bo**ocks!
We need to keep jack at all costs. IMO We need to keep Kodjia, Grealish, Bjarnason and Chester if we have any hope of getting out of this league..id love for us to sign Johnstone too but id happily blood Sarkic and throw him in.. bring in likes of Bree, O’hare, Green, Blacket-Taylor, Mitch Clark, Hepburn-murphy, keinen Davis and start building a team with youth and energy. Its the perfect time to finally give them solid 1st team experience. We have nothing to lose trying that. We wont go down but if it does work and we somehow get up, we are in very solid position to build and stay there.
I think he should give us one more year and if we don’t go up, then he should leave to put him in with a chance of going to the Euros.
But i have to say after reading the doctors statement, again and again 🙂 he is very negative and I think trying to prepare us all for the nightmare that is upon us, which includes selling JG.
Like others have said, I cannot believe an experienced businessman and CEO, have gambled everything on going up last season – surely there is a plan B.
If Grealish is sold because of financial issues then as much as it is gut wrenching it’s life, shit happens. However should that be the case then Wyness, Round and Bruce should also leave due to sheer incompetence of not having a plan in place to prevent the sale of our star player. Having said that Wyness went on BBC WM a few months ago and categorically stated a plan was in place should we not get promoted. I, or we, should have no reason to disbelieve him.
If Grealish want’s to go that’s a completely different story, which I’d find astonishing.
Xia, Wyness, Bruce and Round would of no doubt come up with a plan. Whilst the media will write anything to generate a story I won’t believe any hype until I hear or read it directly from AVFC.
UTV.
I think Grealish owes us another season. After all we have only had half a season from him, and if he is a genuine Villa fan then he would give us one more season after all his foolish antics last year. If we sell him because of FFP for less than £40m given there probably isn’t a clause in his contract then that would be a joke. Questions have to be asked of the chairman and his naivety which has got us to this point. Appointing Di Matteo was a disaster and Bruce was left with the fallout. Now we need to get youngsters blooded and whether Bruce is the best manager to do this is open to opinion. I suggested he should have till end of November, and if we are not in or around the top 2, I would consider bringing in Dean Smith.
You know what, last night I read that Lampard was to be the new manager of Derby, straight away I said to myself Tery will end up their, and he is, just been said on the web, he wanted to go into management so why didn’t we offer a roll at the club. Reading all about what’s going on at Villa I’m begging to think times up for me to see them back in my lifetime, another depressing time to come.
Don’t think it will happen Bill. After all surely Derby have to play FFP rules. Would Terry be happy playing second fiddle to Lampard? Even if it does they will need to restructure club and it took a year for Bruce to implement his own ideas.
I’m guessing Derby haven’t had the same level of losses in the last two years that we have. That may mean they can put a bit more money into it. Really not sure of their financial backing though.
Absolutely spot on, Jack is going nowhere. It’s no coincidence that some financial expert says we need around 45 million, and then suddenly Leicester are supposedly readying a 40 million bid. Clutching at straws. Grealish, Chester, Kodjia, Jedinak, Birkir, Hourihane, Adomah have all been brilliant when called upon, and they are the type of players we need to have next season if we are to show any ambition.
Another reason I’d struggle to believe any transfer rumours at the moment is our manager situation, we don’t know if Bruce is staying or he could well be gone already. This absolutely needs to be addressed first, and soon I’d hope.
FFP is a bag of bollox. Big clubs flout the rules all the time. Xia could sponsor Villa via Recon at a fairly high level and defend that fairly easily. That would ease the pressure on the P&L and reduce losses to a point that meats FFP rules. If he doesn’t it’s because he:
a) doesn’t have the cash (personally or within Recon)
b) doesn’t have autonomy within Recon to do it
c) doesn’t want to
When I said throughout this season that we needed to get promotion or be in real trouble plenty on here thought I was talking rubbish. I never believed Bruce had what it takes to get the team promoted and I think that is even more the case now. November or whenever he goes if we are trailing will be too late. Xia is taking a risk whatever he does, and I’m glad it’s not my neck on the block.
I expect Grealish to go. That’s a massive shame, but it’s a perfect storm – failure to get promotion, FFP putting pressure on finances, Grealish’s own performances at the tail end of the season, him being the real jewel in our squad and worth serious money, his dad will be pushing him to get into a better team for his international prospects and personal financial rewards.
Promotion next season is very unlikely as things stand. A change of manager with no real backing (but maybe better tactically, motivationally and braver) or Bruce with no real backing. Doesn’t look good either way.
DS – you make a very good point in regard to ‘big’ clubs flouting FFP – example the Man City sponsorship farrago. I suspect Xia would have a problem sponsoring Villa through Recon as he’s probably the major shareholder and therefore the deal wouldn’t be ‘at arms length’ A more creative sponsorship structure would be needed.
I don’t think arms length is an issue. As long as any sponsorship wasn’t ridiculous it could be defended for raising Recons profile over here. ManCity fell fouls as the sponsorship was colossal and out of kilter with clubs like Man Utd who were a massively larger brand at the time
*meets
Yes, but £20m is chicken feed, especially to somewhere as wealthy as ManU. That would be a fecking joke. I can’t see him letting Villa get ripped off. Relevant the paltry sum ManU paid for Young?
Jack was the only shining light last season. If he goes and bruce stays (with his negative anti youth tactics) what will we have as fans worth watching.
Hey, he’s our magical player, we nurtured him, we own him , if they want him slap our price on him, the big six have to understand it was them that ran away with the market, feck the lot and slap 50 million on and sit back.he has the talent don’t bow down to other teams that robbed us of other Villa player’s. Feck em.
i think it was obvious to most fans,that we were gambling all in last season, i saw many posts, saying just that. we failed by the smallest margins. whether it was the correct thing to do, gambling with the club future. we did that gamble all on black and now we are very much in the red, with much less income than last season,
we need to cut our cloths accordingly. or face what ever punishment the league hand out to us, for failing to get our house in order for three seasons in a row. unless they do sell grealish i very much doubt its possible to not face any sanctions. i accept the renaming villa park or training, but that really is only delaying the inevitable.
i do hope they can sell players on high wages. but look around the squad. they are all players with vast amounts of experience. but all are almost at the end of the road. they certainly came to villa for the money, not for the joy of playing for villa. not saying they all avent given their best. but they haven’t got much more to offer. at least higher level in premiership. so which championship club will buy any of our players. i very much doubt we will sell any of the players on high wages.
finally chester has done a great job at villa but i hear he is on 40k and he is wrong side of 30 i reckon a premiership club will look to him and a figure over 5 million will good business for us in our situation. thats life our best players will be picked off i just hope they get a good figure, drive a hard bargain.
they have got shut of three players i think so hopefully they can continue to sell of the deadwood on high wages before selling our assets
We have no hope of selling the likes of Richards or McCormack.
Even if we loaned them out we’d probably have to pay the vast majority of their wages.
Interestingly, I think it’s the Peterborough owner that’s come out and said we can get round FFP, by just paying the fines.
This makes some sense, as I don’t think anyone’s been penalised for breaching FFP before, have they???
If that’s true, I doubt the powers that be would go in heavy straight off, as in being docked points or denying promotion.
Although, haven’t some clubs had transfer embargoes placed on them?
I just thought it was an interesting thing for a lower club’s owner to say.
It would seem even they aren’t keen on FFP.
somebody should draw up a list of players in our squad, with our best guesstimated wages and we can all asses, who we have a chance of selling or failing that we could hire a hit man JOKING
off top of my head the two you mentioned are the biggest worry, because they offer nothing back for their wages. but we have i guess about 15 players on 25k and above 40k wages chester and jedi and probably whelen.
we do need to get shut of them and the club is trying, it would be refreshing if some players actually said, i will leave even if i have to accept less wages. but thats not gonna happen too many times.
great news westwood has earned villa another 800k for reaching some many appearances for the mighty burnley. who would have thought that. he was a tidy player lowton was too. they have forged good careers higher than we are currently. well done to them
on your point of punishment = you can remember leeds and villa launching complaints last season about wolves. if their are any doubts on villa next season every other club in the championship, will be complaining and they would be in their rights too. rules are their for all to obey. or it would be anarchy in the championship
“15 players on 25k and above”
Nath, If I read it correctly, there’s an article that says it’s believed the average wage amongst the playing staff at Villa is £30k a week.
Now consider that’s the whole squad, not just the top players.
As for the other clubs complaining; absolutely.
We can’t be two-faced about that.
But the point is, they complain, then we pay the resulting fines.
Except I don’t believe there’s a hope in hell of it happening.
I’d expect Xia respects the rules of the game.
And he must be well pissed off, having wasted so much money, as it is.
RDM.
What a disastrous appointment he turned out to be.
Although many of us knew it at the time, which makes you wonder.
This summer we’re going to see a massive change in the team whether we like it or not. Xia may still be deciding how far he wants to take his rich man’s hobby. Until he decides, our future is in flux. The next few weeks of transfer activity will give us hints for sure.
As for Grealish, we know that his heart is in it. He was born in claret and blue. However, the financial crisis the club has put itself in will stretch even his commitment and decisions may even be made to sell him without his consent.
We are in a big, big hole. A bigger one than any we had before because we took the risk on Terry et al, and we got really close but not close enough. Our universe didn’t take us down the path of victory and unfortunately the punishment is great.
The one good thing out of this who season is that we seem to have expelled the
bad dressing room karma so evident in seasons before. I think Terry may have had a lot to do with this but even with his departure, I think we have a good start. Also we still have the bones of a team that is used to winning and can compete next season. The summer transfer activity will be crucial.
UTV
i have seen a list of player contracts a few days ago, but with age i forget most of the details. cant remember where i saw it too. but i remember thinking thats crazy. somebody has been handing out very good contracts. i believe the average wage of the first team squad is above 25k if my memory is correct and if the wage post was accurate.
that is why i believe we can’t continue with last season squad. also if we can agree on players we want to leave but won’t be leaving. like richards who must have been given a 10 year contract thats how long he seems to have bee doing nothing. as long as we have players on 30k and 40k the new squad will be small and dependant on our under 23 or free players which will accept lower wages which is not normal
its true this summer will be really hard to negotiate, we need to lose players. i think the plan is to have our best players remaining and selling the shit off. but i think that will be really hard. great start thou 3 players could be going and all were on the list of 25k and above players,
RDM mistake badger lol
he was disastrous. yes we all knew that would be the case. but somebody appointed him. but what damage could he do in such a short period. answer seems to be loads. makes you wonder who we need to congratulate for two great managers remi garde and RDM one got us here and another looks to have bankrupted us. both will struggle to get another job is football. their teams both had things in common. they didn’t know how to defend without the ball. they didn’t have unity in the dressing room. in fact i cant remember teams of villa being ever so bad than under them two.
https://7500toholte.sbnation.com/2018/5/30/17407010/aston-villa-financial-fair-play-jack-grealish-james-chester-albert-adomah
I hope this links to the article in 7500 to Holte referred to in a previous post. It’s worth reading and provides a good basis for objective debate over Villa’s FFP position and how we’ve arrived there.