Hendrik Almstadt has been appointed as Aston Villa’s first ever sporting director. Almstadt has arrived from Arsenal, where Tom Fox used to work as well, the German’s responsibilities will include technical scouting, data analytics, financial budgeting and contract management, the academy and athletic development.
“I’m really pleased to welcome Hendrik to Aston Villa.
“I was able to see first hand the excellent work he did at Arsenal and he will add tremendous value across our entire football set-up.”- Tom Fox
Bringing in a Sporting Director is almost a direct response after talks of a takeover broke down. Lerner did state in an interview a month back that if he failed to sell the club, he’d appoint a sporting director to help with the work load at the club. Tom Fox himself has a large influence over the club now and it has shown after he has been able to bring in his own man. At the same time this can act as a positive sign that Tom Fox will continue to stay and work at this club.
“I can’t wait to start my new role at Aston Villa.
“It is a club with huge potential, a rich history and deep roots in Birmingham, the Midlands, and within English and European football.
“I look forward to working again with Tom Fox and to establish a close relationship with the manager, Tim Sherwood.” – Almstadt
lerner has now realised he needs proper people in who know about football to run this club . hopefully if he gets the right people on the board we can start to improve ,move up the league and maybe even start making a profit for him instead of just stagnating in the relegation zone of the premier league every year. good to see.
Could be one of the best ‘signings’ yet!
All for it ,long overdue that, now seems Villa at long last catching up on the way to go, I’m begin to believe again. Wish you all well off tomorrow on hols utv.
Agree completely with Domingo/Pat/Bill.
Lerner’s mistake when he first came in was to rely on MON and a bunch of amateurs for anything to do with the ‘playing’ side [including transfers, player contracts, etc.] and things got done the ‘old’ way. Now at last it looks as if he’s appointing specialists for the commercial side, and for all the player -transfer and contract-related business.
Villa finally going ‘professional’ and into the 21st Century.
PS – Hopefully this means that any future signings or contract renewals won’t have petty-cash size buy-out clauses like Delph’s!
Delph wouldn’t have signed his contract without the clause, it was Hobson’s choice for Villa.
Must say that I think with the news of the ‘takeover’ ceasing to progress, and the appointment of this chap that Lerner may now be accepting we’re his for the forseeable.
Hopefully, he may make a fist of it again. As mentioned above, if this standard of professionalism was in place when he bought us, the millions he splurged may have moved us onwards and upwards permanently, rather than the rather expensive flash in the pan that was MON.
was this collymores “exciting times for villa” tweet all about or can we expect more? on another note see news now gone into meltdown again with the Liverpool backed press in retaliation for the manc papers quotes yesterday, saying they are going to match the clause in a few hours. don’t you think the first call from Liverpool would of been to villa and not the Liverpool echo
The Liverpool Echo stated that Rafa had bought Barry.
Cu**s. Red Scouse piss me off more than any other club. Best fans, atmosphere, traditions, memorials ,blah, blah, blah !
Their fans got us all banned from Europe for years, but apparently, it was everyone elses fault.
Funny you should say that Vase. Despite my living in the South, it is the Scouse Gits, not Chelsea or Arsenal who piss me off the most, for the same reason.
The Directors and Manager of Citeh, Chelsea, Manure and Arsenal hold separate ( I hope) board meetings every year with one topic. “How do we stay in the CL?” The answer they come up with is ‘scupper the playing strengths of the teams predicted to finish the EPL in 5th to 8th places’. If you have never thought of this before, it will help you make sense of some the transfers where the player finds himself on the bench not in the first XI at his new club.
Two of those team are reliably Liverpool and Spurs. The other two vary: with surprise risers like Swansea and Southampton and unexpected drop-outs like Everton. When Villa were finishing 6th they had to be targeted so Barry Young Downing and Milner would be bid for. Not because the player was the missing piece of the buyer’s jig-saw, but because taking him away from Villa would stop them reaching the top 4 places.
In this context you can see Manure shaping to buy Benteke, they do not fear Villa, but they do have to wonder if Liverpool are definitely out of it should they buy him. Hence Citeh’s ridiculous purchase of Sterling, and Manure’s reported interest in Cane. Taking Bony of Swansea was a similar move, Southampton proved resilient last year so they have been hit again. Stoke were an outside threat, and losing Begovic should be enough to halt their rise.
Originallondonlion, interesting that its like moving stocks and shares, but in football its diabolical, I dare say its going on in our world to buy out the opposition, plus break up potential threats. Now you got me wondering if its happened.
Interesting theory OLL…
However, I think that there are other factors as well: all 4 of the Villa players [Barry/Milner/Young/Downing] you mention just happened to be English, and the ‘CL4’ are always on the look-out for “English” players to put into their squads, even if they don’t intend playing them often. I believe that’s another reason why Citeh were willing to pay a stupid amount for Sterling.
Still, I don’t doubt that some of the arrogant so & so’s running those ‘elite’ clubs do target would-be rivals, and Southampton certainly look like prime victims over the last year or so.
Just a shame that players already on [say] £50k or £60k a week, feel that they’d rather sit on the bench and pick up two or three times the money than actually play – especially when their international places are at risk. [So glad that we didn’t land Begovic if that’s his attitude!]
Nothing new in that post. Its been going on forever and a day!
I agree Langford; has always pi**ed me off how these clubs buy up players to stop other teams getting them. Has a massive influence on the development of some of our younger players – and these quota rules don’t help the situation one little bit – in fact they make it worse.
i am going to buy a lottery ticket tonight but i don’t think its worth £2 if i offer £1.50 do you think it will be accepted. ps i think the evening mail is by far the worst
“Walter Sabatini (Roma DOF) is travelling to London to discuss possible sales of Mattia Destro & Adem Ljalic to Aston Villa (@DiMarzio)”
Probably the most reliable journalist in Football too.
Hope thats true. Both are young and look like quality players.
Exciting now isn’t it?
Definitely is. Hard to say with Destro, he’s rejected Monaco and West Ham already, and wants to stay in Italy so will take a lot of convincing for him. Roma wouldn’t be hard to convince, desperate to sell so they can sign Dzeko.
Yep that would be exciting.
I find the transfer market more interesting proposition again than for the last few years. EPL players are a premium to EPL clubs due to ‘proven’ quality, whilst English players are a premium due to nationality and needing X number in squads…but a key change and prevalent at present is the dive in the value of the Euro from nearing parity at a £1 to 1Euro a couple of years ago to £1 to 1.4+Euros today. That has big implications for EPL clubs buying foreign talent once more, and a reason why i would be looking to push greater recruitment from our perspective from these areas now.
Look at Amavi, if two years ago they would have wanted 15m euros for him that would have set us back £15m quid… but now 15m euros sets us back just over £10m…
I can’t see this one happening.. Especially with Amavi coming over for a medical and to finalise that deal, which could take up our weekend.
Can definitely do more than one player during a weekend.
Seems Cissokho is going to Fiorentina according to Di Marzio so a great replacement in Amavi.
Maybe, I’d still be pretty surprised to both happen though. If true still nice to see us trying.
Not sure if it’s this weekend even to be fair. Seems more likely to just be Ljajic, but he’s quality, can play out wide, behind the striker or up front. Much better than Sinclair.
Pete Colley has just said that if reports about Liverpool getting ready to activate Benteke’s clause were true, then he wouldn’t be watching him train with the rest of the team in Portugal right now.
So last night it was United, today it was Liverpool.. I’m guessing tomorrow it’s back to United?
This really is a mess. I stopped looking at NN the other day because it was just becoming to much. Even if Liverpool did meet the asking price, I’d hope the club had a Plan B in place try and move him abroad instead of selling to a direct competitor, ie Roma.
How are Liverpool our direct competitor. Granted they are not sky 4 anymore but we will finish nowhere near them in the league.
Same league and ultimately they are chasing the same dream as us.
Yes but they are more likely to reach sky 4 than us. Also there are 3 leagues within a league. The sky four, Liverpool and Spuds then everyone else.
Agree, but it’s splitting hairs – the point was that it would be better to have Benteke out of the league rather than scoring goals against us next season. Abroad he would at least have a bit of a guarantee first team football and Champions League games. Personally, Liverpool would be a gamble for him and who is to say Rodgers will last the season.
That’s true proves it’s a load of bollox him wanting to join a CL team. I think he will bang in 25 goals at least for them tbh but will only stay with them for a couple of seasons if they don’t get CL
micky quin on talksport said he knows for a fact liverpool offered us £25m plus Enrique and lambert and we told them £32.5m and no players in exchange .
we are playing hardball with the bindippers.
Amavi, gueye & Austin = 33mil benteke sale should easily cover that
If Benteke leaves without an adequate replacement then Villa have shot themselves in the foot yet again. I hope they realise that every player they enquire about will be at least 20% more expensive……please dont let this become yet another example od blatant mismanagement…..get a fucking grip before its too late!
Largely depends on who they go for. Destro, Roma really want to get rid of, so they won’t raise the price. Most clubs probably won’t.
A good piece of business at the right price. Benteke had one unfortunate effect on Villa in that he totally supplanted Gabby. They wanted to stand on the same blade of grass. He was also in that Dressing room at Wembley when Sherwood lost it with the Losers.
No doubt we need to buy some scoring power, and I wonder if we will renew an interest in Callum Wilson. Sherwood’s comments about Gil on the official site are interesting, because Gil was not a typical feeding winger of the Young or Albrighton type and so not best suited to feeding Benteke. A smaller and more mobile forward to play with Kozak may be the answer.
This post shouldn’t land here test
I would have thought Charlie Austin was the answer as he has a good all round game as well as being a proven goal scorer – but apparently we have cooled our interest. Thoughts?
Not sure about Austin I certainly wouldn’t pay more than £8m for him
That’s why you’re not a football manager
He might be worth more than 8M but Austin is effective if given the ball on or inside the 18 yard line. Other players have to get the ball that far. Wilson is effective from the half way line. Perhaps we are going to change to an Arsenal style.
Did you watch Austin’s no look cross to Phillips? He’s far more than just effective in and around the 18 yard line.
I also have my doubts we want Wilson.
Sherwoods good MATEs with Ramsey so you never know what’s going on behind the scenes.
Would really love Austin and Emenike as a pair with ljajic out wide. Fuck off Benteke. Fed up of the long ball tactics anyway.
Sexy football here we come 🙂
That’s some remit that Almstadt has got, in “technical scouting, data analytics, financial budgeting and contract management, the academy and athletic development”.
So Sherwood is left to concentrate on coaching the squad and choosing the players he wants.
And Fox becomes basically a salesman and er, perhaps makes the tea?
After all, there isn’t much left is there?
I wonder how happy Sherwood really is about this, given that I think he’s previously spoken out against the Sporting director role, but if he is genuinely happy about it, then so am I.
OLL, that’s a pretty decent theory you have, imo.
I was thinking just yesterday about why the top clubs pay stupid money for English players, when they could just buy lesser English talent or even promote their own kids at much less money.
After all, the point is they don’t get to play much, do they?
Crippling other clubs would certainly be an answer.
Difference between Spurs and Villa, is I think Almstadt will let Sherwood have a say, as will Fox on who comes in and who leaves. Baldini didn’t, he had all the say in who was signed.
Don’t underestimate Fox’s role.
Villa’s commercial activites need to step fully into the 21st Century – at home and abroad – since FFP rules wouldn’t allow Lerner to keep pumping cash into the club even if he wanted to.
There are lots of things that the club could be doing to establish or beef-up it’s presence and attractiveness to sponsors on many fronts and I’m sure Fox has plenty on his plate. [-although ultimately of course, off-field success will always depend to a large extent to that on-field]
Oh, I don’t underestimate it for one minute Ardent.
It’s apparently the way to go.
But I’m a bit old fashioned in this sense and for me he’s a salesman, simple, seeing as I can’t see what else is left, the odd phone call to Lerner apart.
Although what we have to sell, I’m not sure.
We’re not based in London, which makes even Fulham and QPR saleable; we don’t particularly appeal to certain sectors, as in Arsenal and Spurs and we don’t have megabucks, like Citeh and Utd.
Let’s just say I’m interested to see how this role goes.
That said, if the change in structure works, he’s done his job, I suppose.
I’m hopeful, but sceptical; is probably the best description.
It’s easy to be negative about what Birmingham has to offer – born and raised in B’ham I’m familiar with the habit!
So we’re not ‘glamourous’ like Barcelona or Madrid, and thanks in part to the BBC’s shocking London/Manchester bias the city doesn’t get a lot of positive exposure in UK media.
But with the NEC/ICC, Stratford on the doorstep, etc, we’re also one of the most-visited cities in the UK; Villa still have supporters clubs in various parts of Scandinavia and Ireland [just to mention two places]; Villa Park is half an hour’s cab ride from an airport that can get you to and from many European cities in less than two hours…
For years I’ve had the feeling that the club hasn’t really done much to try and ‘work with’ the City council in many areas [we seem to have had a bad relationship there since Deadly’s days?] and it’s always seemed to me that the club could do a lot more to build links with the investment/tourism side of what the city has been trying to do internationally, even if it’s a long process.
Spot on Ardent, we have inherited a bad taste with the Bham city council, and it was from Deadly days, it started with the Holte pub and restructuring of the houses across the road, there was a person on planing that hated Villa, she blocked as much as she could, things start to get better with a Irishman when he became leader of planing. If you look back Birmingham was a dead city in nightlife when other cities moved forwards like Manchester and London. We have never recovered over lacking vision on going forwards for peoples needs, we are trying with things now like German markets and city centre restructuring. Our two football grounds have no interest to our city and never get marketed to the world. Utv.
I don’t think true businessmen sr that shallow Badger. I think they look at the logistics and location and challenge. We fulfil all three…
As a kid my first away game was at anfield in 1979 and i was told never take my hands out of my pockets for fear of getting robbed.
Whenever i go liverpool now either through business or football i still leave my hands in my pockets.
Hold habbits die hard.
Steve….how do you manage to drive in thst position? 🙂
He takes the train…