I’ve been thinking about this one for the last couple of days, but my thoughts have been somewhat superceded by the speculation that Leicester might be willing to go to £40 miilion to get Grealish.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 don’t believe anything in the papers. Over the years I’ve been involved in a large number of press releases / articles and have often wondered how they arrive at what is printed compared with the brief / facts provided!
england do lack ideas in midfield. they have the work but lack skill. its just my views, that had they taken grealish. they wouldnt struggle when a team have them in a head lock. just like they were in second half. lets be honest yesterday opponents where sub standard as well.
first half they were great. movement was first class, this tells me they are enthusiastic players wanting to do well. they jsut lack lack something all good teams have skill or cutting edge. we look lacking the tools to open up a good defence. we might open up poor defences. teams that leave the door open and we catch on break. but teams that sit back and counter, try to ctch up on break we will struggle against.
Please tell me ther’s no truth in this?
And a consortium, fronted by fitness entrepreneur and former football agent Matt Southall, are planning to bid for the Championship club.
Chinese billionaire Xia bought Villa from Randy Lerner for around £60million following their relegation from the top flight in 2016.
But he has failed to get them back up in two seasons, losing in the play-off final to Fulham last week.
And with Steve Bruce’s side now needing to slash their sky-high wage bill to avoid breaking Financial Fair Play rules, Xia wants to cut his losses.
How can that alone stop the rule we have to play by, what going on.
Its a good question Bill Does a new owner vary the amount of losses over a 3 year period when he initially injects money into a club? It seems to me that Champions League clubs have had the slate cleaned when changing hands.
Consortia are bad news because the members fall out when the going gets rough. I would rather have a single owner. I would not be surprised if Xia sold though. He bet the ranch on Bruce and I am not sure he has the patience for the no-spend options he is now facing.
Can visualise Tony selling – FFP together with stricter regulation in China regarding overseas investment has made all his plans worthless. The stadium expansion, area regeneration etc and also directly linked to these factors. Essentially he’s got not one, but two hands tied behind his back. It makes little business sense for him to stay on.
Considering he’s always been quick to deny rumours on Twitter, if theres no comment on this over the coming days there could well be an ounce of truth in it…
So much for us being up there with Barcelona within five years…
not sure we should be reflecting so long. need to get to work and prepare for next season. reading that the manager still doesn’t know if hes staying. what budget he has to work with. its good they are thinking about what direction to go and maybe if the manager is right for the club now with new directions needed to be taken. but hurry the fook up
Carlos Carvalhal was sacked by swansea, apparently they wanted to go in a new direction. they are abandoning the fancy dan football they played for many years. could he be the manager for the fans, who want better quality football.
This is Villa Nath, massive disappointment from all directions and no thought to the fans, its about time Villa make it known that its fans that keep the club, and not a load of directors sitting on there arse smoking cigars. How do fans that want seats know where they stand for the coming season, Villa as always are years away from going forwards. Come on and give us hope.
Bill I think the only hope we have for the foreseeable future is Bob or No…. not only did we fail in our mission to get back to the Premiership, our owner is looking to jump ship and our manager does not know whether he is leaving or staying – add to this our financial mess and the future doesn’t look too rosy !!
As I said – steel yourselves lads this is not going to be pretty.
One note from Xia’s statement -‘ I want to write this whilst calm’ or words to that effect.
A sh** storm is coming
One other point – on the will he (xia) / won’t he sell.
Dr T made it clear that, although he’s a Villa fan, he’s invested in a business. Have no doubt if the right offer comes along he’ll sell Villa, like any other business.
However who is going to make a sensible offer for a business facing significant financial restrictions in its operating market? Unlike OLL I don’t believe a buyer will benefit from ‘having the (FFP) slate wiped clean’
On the upside if he doesn’t sell he won’t quit on the club like a certain Randolph Learner.
We might have all been frustrated by Deadly Doug but he protected our club throughout his time in charge and can hardly be blamed for Learners poor stewardship.
Agree completely H60, I just cannot understand how such experienced business people couldn’t see this coming, most of us mere fans realised in the winter we would not get top 2, then they risk our club on a lottery of the play offs….
If it is going to be as bad as I fear, then maybe the Doctor is best off selling up !!
Now Wyness Suspended – FFS, can this get any more stupid.
Err… Wyness suspended? Xia now managing the club?
What a crazy few weeks this has been.
I’ve been chasing around the web blogs, its looking grim to say the least, your right fans didn’t have that belief that the team would go up, the club even imployed more behind the scenes people to advise, but that never worked, what killed us was that FA rule, I have a terrible mind in thinking the FA and clubs where praying that we would faulter because the money we generated to smaller clubs, we was robbed on penalties, we was robbed on sending offs, Villa was not treated right by officials in the name of football.I’ve a bad mind.
Wyness suspended for missed tax payment. I would have thought this was the responsibility of the FD so Wyness must have interfered in some way although it may be temporary while the club investigate.
Whatever it’s a kick in the teeth for us fans and does nothing to quell the growing concerns about the clubs welfare.
The nightmare scenario of years in the wilderness is scarily possible
Championship side Aston Villa have suspended chief executive Keith Wyness because of a missed tax payment, BBC WM 95.6 reports.
It is understood that the club will pay the outstanding amount within the next 48 hours.
A Villa statement added that owner and chairman Dr Tony Xia will “assume the role until further notice”.
Wyness joined Villa in June 2016 shortly after the Chinese took over at Villa Park.
Villa lost 1-0 to Fulham in the play-off final at Wembley on 26 May, meaning they will spend a third consecutive season in the second tier.
Analysis
Mark Regan, Aston Villa reporter for BBC WM 95.6
This news will come as a shock to Aston Villa fans, who are still coming to terms with the play-off final defeat. It will also do little to calm fears that the club has entered a deeply troubling financial situation after missing out on the windfall that would have come with promotion.
The club’s owner Dr Tony Xia has previously stated that Villa face “severe” challenges under financial fair play rules.
In short, Villa need a stabilising influence and they need it quickly with the squad needing drastic surgery to prepare for a third season in the Championship. Tuesday’s news will feel like salt into a wound that’s had no time to heal
Interesting…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/40133809
Bill – The BBC Sport web page actually says…
“Championship side Aston Villa have suspended chief executive Keith Wyness.
The announcement came as it emerged Villa are working with HM Revenue & Customs to resolve an unpaid tax bill, although that is in no way connected to Wyness’ suspension.”
Don’t know which view [connected/unconnected] is correct!
Ardent Villian
As far as its been reported , Wyness phone Dr Xia up to report the miss payment, it was then he supposedly suspended him . Now they saying its not connected with that incident. What a clock up.
As H60 pointed out earlier, in any normal business it would be the Finance Director who’d get the bullet for missing a tax-payment deadline, so the few details we have so far don’t really add-up for me.
Ardent – looks like the media have pit 2 and 2 together to make 5. We agree it would be highly unusual for a CEO to be suspended for a missed tax payment.
I wonder if Xia / Wyness have had a major bust up over the state of the club and its got out of hand.
All round on the face of it, it’s very bad news. It will be interesting (or should that be frightening) to see if Board (or manager ?) resignations follow
There are just too-few ‘facts’ so far on which to base any speculation, but history suggests that senior execs of any sort being ‘suspended’ rarely go back to their desks, so whatever the cause I’d imagine that Wyness is out of the door.
Question remains whether this is about finance, the future of the manager, or something ‘just’ to do with “HR-type” disciplinary matters only involving him directly?
You’re right Ardent. The other question is – was this a Board decision or did the Chairman act unilaterally. Normally it would be the former and relate to misconduct or serious failures in performance of some kind requiring further investigation.
Wow, this tax thing is the first I’ve heard about it.
A missed tax payment isn’t the end of the world and is no reason to suspend Wyness.
This is either 100% about a lack of money or a major disagreement on which way the club has gone/should go.
Either would result in Wyness’ immediate resignation (sacking), I’d have thought.
I’m confused.
If it is because of the ‘Disability’ tweet, then that’s understandable, especially in this hyper PC climate.
That was 12 months ago, wasn’t it?
I thought it was during the play off final. That’s what I read. There’s no way this would be over a missed tax payment…HMRC don’t give a shit about this sort of thing if yr a big organisation. Only if you’re an individual submitting the annual SA return….
is there a media hunt for our great club. or are we being run by a bunch of imbeciles, we are being turned from a once great club into a soap opera. i just wonder what next will be dished up in next episode at villa street
The one thing we know for sure is that there is a very serious cash flow problem – too many good sources have confirmed this and this known to be a direct result of increased and stringent regulation around Chinese overseas investment. Both Milan clubs have similar issues with their ownership albeit on a far lesser scale
The only way out now is the sale of the club by Dr Tony – which needs to happen asap IMO. This will not solve our FFP issues but it will improve our liquidity.
Without a sale we cannot cover our costs and that means a) a firesale (likely to happen because of FFP anyway) b) administration and a points deduction. We need a buyer and fast – otherwise I don’t see anything other than a very miserable 12 months ahead. Forget the discussions around Bruce, Grealish etc, they are all gone. We will be starting again either way
This is all very worrying. We are quickly becoming a laughing stock in English football and ive not seen or heard anything from Xia which gives me the confidence he has the money or brains to save our club from a sobering fall from grace. Whats next? Likely a mass exodus, players being sold less than their value to make a quick buck. Probably more fall out at the top Bruce will then walk and Xia will spend the next two years cutting back whilst searching for a buyer?…This feels like deja vu!!
Suggest you all read the following.
As suspected the restrictions in China and our failure to achieve promotion means Xia has to sell.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/american-peter-b-freund-lines-up-75m-bid-to-buy-aston-villa-2wpdkfwzd?shareToken=a080596968d54d34f2579fac10cb2d0b
Hitch Interesting reading but this all points to an issue with cash flow and the lack of funds coming in. Reading a lot of the posts and press statements I think Wyness has stood his ground for the good of the club and this is why he has been suspended. I doubt it has anything to do with gross misconduct or the Tax
bill as he would have gone straight away. Xia has obviously suspending him to give him time to justify the reason which is common practice. He could well end up paying him off?
I think in all of this Xia needs to come out and explain the situation as the media merry go round will only increase and the long term damage this will do is irreparable.
We all know that promotion was key to the financial side of the club, but then to be in this position 10 days after the final is inexcusable from the hierarchy.
If this means he has to sell at a loss to save his so called beloved Villa then so be it, as we do not need this shit.
What really hurts is the comments made by other supporters that have no interest in Villa that really does put in to reality and how low we have come and we are now perceived.
I for one never though that a return to the PL was a good thing so soon,. so I blame the Chairman for expecting this knowing that it was always going to be a 50 – 50 roll of the dice in the final especially knowing how inconsistent we have been throughout the season, and then going in to the final on the back of some average performances. It will be a difficult summer but unless we have some sort of explanation very soon then it make the situation even worse.
UTV
We will still be there when they have all gone so FFS sort it Xia.
From various reports Wyness was trying to personally chase debt just to pay staff on payday, I personally think this situation is far worse than any of could have comprehended.
We cannot afford to function as a club without Xia’s monthly contribution and he cant get that money to us any longer – unless Xia sells there is no other alternative but administration or worse !!! And who is going to buy is in this state.
Very,very frightening times to be a Villan !!
And this is the stupidity of FFP rules exposed. The most damaging aspect of any business that puts it into financial difficulties is cash flow. Of course unfinanced losses have the same effect. Villa’s main issue is the lack of funds available from it’s owner due to financial restrictions in China.
Interesting that the report refers to additional investors so Xia may want to dilute his 100% ownership rather than sell outright.
Of course we are all speculating right now.