Well, it’s all happening, isn’t it?
That’s if you believe what’s being said in the media.
First and most important, is that we’ve done a deal with the tax man.
There’s no surprise there, as his only aim is to get the money. It doesn’t suit anyone to close the club down.
Whether we can meet the tight payment dates is a different story and Xia has apparently had to get a loan, to give us a brief respite.
What we have to pay tax for is a question in itself, given that we’ve lost millions for years, But I don’t do the books.
You’d have to assume it’s VAT.
Next, there’s the rumour that because we will have to sell everyone, we might be forced to bring Gabby back.
I nearly wet myself laughing when I read that one, as you might as well sign me.
Hence that one is totally ignored, although I do appreciate someone’s sense of humour.
It seems we have six clubs interested in signing Jack Grealish.
While I’m not at all convinced that we’ll let him go, so I’m also convinced that we might not have a choice.
The word is that Jack is willing to give us another chance and will stay for the next season.
To which, I say fair play.
That’s the true Villa fan in him coming out and is pretty much what I’ve asked of him.
If we fail next season, he’d be fully entitled to walk away, with my blessing.
Steve Bruce is apparently being chased by Leeds.
Their fans apparently don’t want him, but it seems it doesn’t matter anyway, as the club are now close to agreeing terms with Bielsa.
Was that one designed to make Bielsa’s agent get a move on? Probably.
Chester is also being chased at around £8 million, which I’d say isn’t too bad a deal.
I’d be disappointed if he left, as I think he’s been excellent for us, but if needs must etc….
Bjarnason is also wanted and if he’s not going to feature regularly, that’s a good thing too, although I’d rather see Jedinak leave if it comes to cutting costs.
I think there are rumours that Southampton want to totally take the mick, in wanting our kids on the cheap.
I’ll bet money that it won’t happen and I didn’t even bother looking past the headlines.
Oh, we might sell the car park on Tame road. There was planning permission granted for housing a while back, but we didn’t do anything about it.
That might bring in a few million, but it won’t happen quickly, so would have to be forward-sold again, if we truly are that desperate.
From memory, we had about £25 mill worth of land we could possibly flog off, but I wonder if at least some of it might be contaminated?
There was a rumour that we might sell BMH, but if we do, I’d guess that would be more down to HS2.
Whatever, as I suggested in the last post, we haven’t gone boobs up just yet and I don’t think we will, at all.
Something will happen to prevent it, trust me.
If the Villa were to go bump, it would be a massive admission that the whole game is ruined, after all.
The Mirror said basically the same thing, albeit from a totally opposite point of view.;
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/aston-villas-reckless-pursuit-premier-12663802
We’ll be okay.
We aren’t quite asking the fans to paint the stands, as happened with our last crash, just yet, are we?
Que sera sera.
other than that, everything is hunky-dory down at villa park
Blimey Badger, I had forgotten that dire crisis in the 60’s when we were virtually bust. If I remember correctly it was Pat Matthews that bailed us out supported by First National Finance and wasn’t Ellis involved as well – but then memory is a funny thing!
Excuse my French, but what a f*cking mess. It’s the same with BHS, Carillion etc. Absolute idiots allowed to come into an established business, suck it dry and just piss off leaving others to clean up the mess and out of pocket. These people need shooting. (Metaphorically).
i think chester will go, if we get a decent fee, which we will. so who will we have at centre back ??? Axel Tuanzebe i believe in him. he has the attributes, to be a real solid defender. if we can partner him with a defender with similar pace. we will no longer be defending so deep, as we did last year.
this area is a real worry for me. i don’t believe our youth players are up to scratch in this position. they might improve this year. but we might need to find another loan or free transfer. preferable with some pace not huth. hes another less mobile defender. championship league you really need to be more mobile than we was last year. especially in defence, also if you have a holding midfielder he has to be mobile, because part of his roles is to cover players who are out of position.
personally i don’t think we need to play with a holding midfielder, unless your playing against a players like grealish. which in championship there are not many off. we need to be more on the front foot. so that starts with having mobile defenders.
All the shit that’s going on and season ticket sales are up 161% on this time last year.
Over 17000 sold so far!
Our supporters are simply fucking amazing.
UTV.
Well done the fans. i really don’t know what to think of the mess we are in. We’ll just have to wait and see though.
I suspect Bruce will remain at the helm. The last thing we would be looking to do is pay compensation for a new manager. That would just leave the ones out of a job. Same old same old.
Think it’s time we made a completely fresh start.
I supported Bruce from day one and I genuinely thought he was the man to take us up. Whilst he has no doubt re-united the dressing room and the team with the fans, I feel he has had his time.
I would like to see him replaced with a manager who will play youth and build a solid foundation instead of just a team for a season. If it means us staying in the championship for a few years then so be it but the powers that be can’t continue to run the club the same as it’s been run for the last decade or so.
A lot, including myself, have mentioned Dean Smith. His record at Brentford is excellent.
I also believe had we of gone up it would of only delayed things and maybe, just maybe, as daft as it sounds that defeat at Wembley 2 weeks ago could turn out to be a blessing.
Regardless of what happens I’ll support whoever is in charge.
UTV.
Gollini gone then, £4. 2 million if you can believe that. Hey ho and sales gone up on tickets 161% on this time last season, we must have the best fans in this country.
Sorry B6 you posted that 161% my post got delays on it,
Hey Lads, read this, Tottenham have agreed £18.5 million with loan of 3 players for the season, what the hell that all about.?
i am all for new starts. but as for attracting smith to his club, i don’t believe even that is possible. lets all put ourselves in his position and be honest. how many would swap job security and satisfaction at brentford. he is probably only halfway through his goal there, he will be looking to reach playoffs this season and bookmakers rate there chances good
swap all that, for the chaos at villa park. not knowing what players you can plan your season around. we are over estimating the villa attraction. is smith a better prospect than bruce i think so. but bruce wants to be here, smith i doubt anybody would be that mad to join a asylum willingly.
one thing is for sure, this mess is sidetracking the new season. other teams in championship all knew they were in the league,long before us and they have been preparing, we on the other hand had been dreaming of premiership. i doubt we had any plans for the championship. we need to quickly draw up plans for another hard season. or we will be following teams like portsmouth sunderland further down the leagues.
Burying my head in the sand so can’t see or hear any rumours about how clubs I detest are going to buy our best players for a song.
make sure you go deep hitch,. these rumours will never end until the window shuts. spuds are the worst team to deal with. you won’t get a fair deal, even if you were in the black. they are a small club trying to act big. they make a living stealing off clubs like us, clubs that are desperate for cash.
our only hope is to reduce the wages selling off lansbury types taylor. because if we just sell our best two chester and grealish we will have enough money to pay off current debts. but with our high wages it will be only temporary. its gonna be a long hard summer and season.
Nath, Spurs big advantage is that they have Daniel Levy, who is the best dealmaker/negotiator in the game.
My god, how I wish we had someone like him.
Perhaps we wouldn’t be in the state we are now, if it were so.
Whereas our dealmakers over the last few years need proverbially shooting in the face, several times.
Aston Villa will have to pay manager Steve Bruce £3million if they decide to dispense of him this summer.
The veteran manager – who has four Championship promotions on his CV – is in limbo at the moment, as is virtually every member of the club’s senior playing squad.
Villa are in financial ruin following their play-off final defeat to Fulham. Tony Xia gambled on promotion to the Premier League by paying big transfer fees and wages – and it’s well and truly failed.
Not a bad job being a football manager, you be a millionaire in a season, its his style that gets me in being defensive minded manager.
thats another good point bill the costs of relieving him from the role and replacing him. you also would have compensation to pay to brenford if we did try get him.
WHAT AN ABSOLUTE MESS – Dr Xia has shown he is not experienced enough to run our great club and runs it like its a hobby, he can’t be arsed to jump on a plane for our most important ever board meeting – too busy eh !!!
Because of his desire and ridiculously irresponsible spending, we now have to get rid of all of our best players, just to stay afloat, and get loans just to pay our tax bill.
Shove your pathetic Twitter comments up where the sun doesn’t shine Tony, and sell the club for a £1- you are not responsible enough to lead our great club.
I feel better now 🙂
i am starting to think dr X is the reason for the new carnage. we seemed to have gambled everything last year. now he won’t sell, until he recovers his losses. he will just sell all the top players all two of them to asset strip. then sell club next year, when we are in sunderlands league
we all saw the championship as easy league, before we ended up there. for those that still think its easy,they will get a rude awakening next year. it could go horribly next year. if this uncertainty continues. we need to snap out of this and deal with it.
if you changing manager then you need to do this now and get the squad in to work on asp. the youth i don’t believe are ready so they will need time and patience. we need a good pre season with much less stress from stuff off the field. dr X needs to separate this. or league 1 is much closer then premiership
Completely agree Nath, one of the major factors last year was our teams unity and a bit of stability – thats out of the window for next season (best players sold & loans gone back) nobody will be left except the greedy mercenaries and a few kids.
Next season will be our most difficult in our history!!
just been reading that a board meeting which will discuss everything from manager will be held of all places in london. drX will not be present only by video conference.
i thought of another replacement for bruce, which makes sense if they are using the youth players. Kevin MacDonald will probably be the best man to utilize them in best way. no compensation other than releasing bruce. then you wait for the right manager to become available.
Dr Xi
💰+💰+💰= 🆘😱😭
Recent Villa Leadership
🙊🙈🙉=🤡
If we do go bankrupt should we do a fan’s buyout like Portsmouth did.
Deadly Doug said last time we nearly went out of business “never again should we be owned by so few”. We did not learn. Firstly when Doug got back into the club he destroyed the Ron Saunders legacy. Then he sold out to foreign ownership. Our last two foreign owners have run us into the ground through incompetence. Let us fans unite. If 20,000 of us could put £1,000 in = £20m for 50% ownership and the other 50% owned by larger investors, then maybe we could get our club back and have a significant checks and balances on how our club is run.
Aston Villa – the fans club.
rant alert.
i am sick of reading the same bulshit. grealish is a risk or grealish is not worth 40 mill. he hasn’t performed in premiership. all this is nonsense. its all a ploy to reduce the asking price to suit the buyer not seller.
grealish is only as good as the team around him. when he was in the premiership he had the worst team mates in villa history. but even then he ripped pool to shreds in cup semi.
you can see the lad can play. premiership would suit his game more than championship. where their are more reckless challenges more suited to a rugby field. in premiership the teams defenses offer skilled players more room. they stand off more.
so clubs all want him. experts think hes not worth it so why do they all want him. fook off hes ours. i would slap a 50 million tag on him to piss them off more. pay up or shut up
We can’t afford to pay compensation for Bruce considering our current circumstances. With all the chopping and changing this summer a managerial change would probably see us imitate Sunderland. I would like Dean Smith eventually but timing is important. With luck we won’t be completely asset stripped and stuff getting more loans from Spurs or Man Ure. It’s time to blood our own and save on wage bill. Bruce himself will have to adapt his style of preferring experience for the greater good of being self sustainable. For too long now we have become a feeder / academy club for top six and it pisses me off big time. Try to offload as many big earners as possible like Richards, McCormack, Hogan, Whelan or Jedinak plus Lansbury and Taylor. Do whatever it takes to keep Grealish, Chester and Kodja. Supplement them with Hepburn Murphy, Davis, O’Hare, Doyle-Hayes, and Clark. Next season will be tough regardless of any changes that happen and we might have to be satisfied with survival rather than promotion.
A friend of a friend met Bruce on holiday just after the play offs. He was told about the finances before it hit the news stands. Bruce hadn’t a clue if he was to remain manager, or what was happening with any of the players. Can you imagine, all the talk of one of England’s biggest clubs disappearing over the past few years, that it could be us! Appalling.