The official word is that Jack Grealish knows nothing about any move and everything is being left in his advisors’ hands.
But does anyone else think that the above picture, that I think was sent via Jack’s Twitter account, is nothing more than a hint that he knows what’s happening and is indeed on his bike?
I’m still willing to believe he’s staying, but I have to admit, it’s not looking good.
When you add in that the Express are saying that Tony Xia is willing to sell a controlling interest in the club for £40 million, you have to guess that things are looking bleak.
Hmm, I was put onto this by “Hitchens60”, but had already seen the headline myself, early this morning.
It would seem the story has been pulled.
Which is interesting, but makes perfect sense to me.
I was wondering where this story came from, as even though it might well be true, I’m sure that this wasn’t intended to get out.
If indeed Xia sells a majority share, it’s an admission of total defeat and I don’t believe that’s the Chinese or indeed Xia’s game at all.
But if it does actually happen, we are indeed in major trouble.
I don’t see for one minute how Xia would be able to work with someone else calling the shots.
But I also don’t see anyone coming in with a decent enough offer to take total control of the club either.
What would be an acceptable offer?
Didn’t Xia pay around £80 million for the club?
Then add in maybe £50-60 million of his own money? (total guess, off the top of my head).
A £40 mill controlling stake would suggest Xia values the club at around £75-80 mill, which seems decidely rich if I’m honest, considering we’re about to start our third season in the Championship and don’t have a pot to do the proverbial in.
There’s no chance anyone will see that valuation as realistic and unless he comes up with some serious money quick, I’m wondering where the club has left to go?
As I type this, I have to confess that I’m pretty despondent.
I’ve always tried to think that it can’t possibly be true: that no way would anyone want to risk the future of the club on a 50/50 gamble that we get promoted.
But the Chinese are renowned for their love of gambling aren’t they?
Prove my suspicions wrong Dr Xia and get us out of this mess, which is frankly of your making.
I’m now coming round to thinking we’re in the proverbial 🙁
well jack won’t get far on that bike.
omg Germany were lucky then.
on villa its crazy situation. we are in limbo, nobody knows jack shit. experts are guessing, manager doesn’t sound like he knows whether hes staying or what his playing budget will be. which players he has available to him. other clubs are all planning ahead, at this rate we av conceded the promotion and fighting for our lives at the normal end for us of late, back to the bottom
We’re doomed I tell you doomed (in a Scottish accent for those that love Dad’s Army)
The silence surrounding Bruce is a big worry. Xia is still the owner so should have made a decision by now, and should let fans particularly the 20,000 season ticket holders what the hell is going on. Regarding comments on playing our youth, I think it is time for some of them to get game time next season. Problem is offloading players on high wages to create chances of youngsters being picked. For Doyle-Hayes and O’Hare we need to offload Whelan and Lansbury at least. For Davis and Hepburn Murphy we need to offload McCormack and Hogan. Defensively we already are lacking in experienced players and I wouldn’t be surprised if Elphick plays a part next season, especially if Chester goes. I think Green will be playing from the start now Snodgrass has gone. We need to maybe bring in a goalkeeper and another centre back probably on loans to get us through next season. And as for Grealish I think he will be gone, and along with it our hopes of promotion. So if we get £25m for him, is that better value than getting promoted? We should be busting a gut to get rid of high wage earners first, even Kodja if needs be. So to summarise I’m totally pissed off with silence from Xia. It’s like having Lerner back again.
to add to holte66 wage bill reduction
if we don’t reduce the wages, money received for selling grealish will all be wasted on paying the wages and not replacing him. same goes for chester.
we have to use all the squad if we cant sell them. for example mccormack can play the grealish role. we are paying him so play him and kiss his arse. same with richards and elphick no point getting another oldie and adding to the high wages. use these two. along with the utd loanee and our youth defenders
i think fans are being told nothing so not to hamper the tickets sales. which is scandalous. if they were told we are in the shit. they would have still bought their tickets. but it would be nice to know the club is sinking fast without lifeboats.
Holte, your comment immediately made me think “where’s the ST money gone?”
But then I did the sums and 20000 STs at say, £400 average only equates to £8 million.
Which is peanuts in the scheme of things and just goes to show how much less important the crowd size is these days.
While I agree that getting rid of the highest paid players would be ideal, we also need to consider that we will actually need to retain some experience if we’re actually going to survive in the Championship.
Nath, no way should we play McCormack, imo.
Bruce doesn’t strike me as the sort of bloke who wants a player out on a whim and I’m trusting that he thinks McCormack is ruinous to the squad.
Hence I don’t think he will get a look in under Bruce and rightly so.
Badger, you obviously didn’t pick up on my point, I mentioned the 20 thousand tickets that had been sold and that alone made me wonder, I honestly think they have bad accounting in the club and will make a statement I’ve seen it in the past on gates received. Villa are not on top of the inside accounting .
Bill, my point is yes, we have large attendances.
But it’s nothing in the scheme of things.
It’s much more about the TV rights these days.
Badger, ? You only get the best if your good enough, Villa showed willing up to a point, Sky popped in with 3 or 4 extra TV appearances towards the end of the season. Where is that money?
No, Bill, we get good crowds because we’re the Villa and the other local clubs are just pretenders to the throne of “Biggest club in the Midlands” regardless of what league we’re in.
Haven’t you noticed that most of our televised games are when we play away?
That’s where the TV money is.
Piss poor attendances at home for most clubs, compared to us, but we pay to watch 😉
No matter.
It seems to me Xia gambled every penny we might have coming in.
And lost.
Ok, are you saying we don’t share tv rights ? I would think that’s an agreement between the club’s, have to admit I’m not sure on that.
Oh, England 5 up at HT.
Who’d have thought it?
Who’d have thought Ashley Young would be a key player for England, at left wing back? or right wing back now? Southgate has Englamd playing some good controlled football, with young players coming through. Sterling has been pants again though, Rashord should be starting imo…
Agreed CA.
Mind you, I thought Lingard was pants last game and I might have dropped him, but he was great today.
Funny old game etc
Great game today and I’m glad Panama got the goal, especially with it being the goalscorer’s last game.
It’s nice to see that scoring against England is still a big achievement in some places.
And the smile on their manager’s face as he shook Southgate’s hand was absolute class.
Exactly what the game should be about, imo.
On a different note, I’m off to Lanzarote on Thursday and have only just realised I’ll be in the air while we play Belgium.
Gutted 🙁
Just been looking at Villa’s retained player list – i.e. players still under contract. The old faithful are still there McCormack and Richards both bleeding the club dry!
Interesting though that Amavi, Gollini and Gil on the list although the list was published before Gollini completed his move to Atlanta. It was reported that Amavi’ s transfer had been agreed (£7m?) but apparently it doesn’t take effect until July so I assume we will be receiving funds for that next month which is helpful. We should also be able to secure some funds for Gil.
So maybe not all bad news
season tickets sales and merchandise are important more now than ever. yes its less important if you are collecting 150 million, but we aren’t swimming in funds now. so cutting your clothes is important. like also using mccormack and richards two players collecting about 80k p/w between them, if bruce can’t use them he should walk away. you can’t always have your cake and eat it
richards was a decent player, if he has got over the injuries, then there is no reason, nott to play him whilst you introduce youngsters, that might not quite be ready. or you could sign another fossil and you pay two wages you cant afford.
would be foolish not to involve them or anybody. one more reason is richards is entering his final year, so has to perform to try get another contract elsewhere, mccormack plays well and he might get a move away. another reason is beggars cant be choosers,clean slates and good will to all mankind and all that b/s
Nath, that £8 mill has already been spent.
Agreed about merchandising, but it’s still pennies
I’d have no problem with Richards playing.
By all accounts, he’s a team player and gets on well with the squad, keeping spirits up.
He still trains with the first team, which backs up what I’m saying, in that Bruce will retain a player if he has at least some use.
As I said, if Bruce has bombed McCormack out, I suspect there’s a very good reason and “Gategate” is only a small part of it.
If you remember, he refused to apologise about his behaviour, albeit he might have had good reason for being an idiot at the time.
For me, the only way he gets a look in is if he basically gets on his knees and sucks Bruce’s proverbial.
And i don’t see that happening.
Oh and no McCormack doesn’t play well.
At least under the system Bruce plays.
It’s why Hogan looks poor too.
Which all makes me wonder who actually signs our players.
As i’ve suggested before.
If you believe reports Bruce wanted Jordan Rhodes but couldn’t ‘afford’ him. Hogan came instead – was it a Bruce choice – good question Badger.
I feel we should keep Kodjia and offload Hogan if we can get most of the fee back and play Davies / Murphy and Green.
I also agree no way should McCormack play again – we owe 6m on him and would be lucky to get a bag of scratchings for him. Even if he’s on £40k per week then we can’t afford to sell him for less than around £4m because we would immediately materialise a larger loss then is currently being accounted for although it would help the cash flow. Same with Richards- perhaps they should take a leaf out of Hutton’s book and take a pay cut!
What is the going rate for a tea boy?
I think we should do everything sensible to resolve the cash flow problem and worry about FFP later.
so what are you suggesting we continue to pay mccormack wages regardless, that may have been acceptable last season, when we had options in the forward department. but next season i can foresee less options,
we need to tighten up our spending and use what resources we have, mccormack is a player who has score more championship goals than most. if the current manager can not work with him. its simple he should go seek life elsewhere. mccormack is a resource that needs to be utilized.
personally i don’t rate him, but at fulham his record was impressive. enough for us to splash out the silly amounts we did. its the manager job to use the players available to him, to make a winning team. maybe its bruce thats the problem not mccormack
i remember the gate but thats so last year, bruce has to suck it up. ideally somebody would come in and sign them both. but if nobody does then we have to use all the players we can. pull together.
thou you say the money generated by season tickets and merch is only pennies. its how you look after them pennies, now we can’t afford to throw bundles of cash on the open fire. i guess we will need proper business men running the show. finally get the club spending only what we generate and not spending on dreams we might reach the promise land
I believe it would be best if McCormack moved on; what your post suggests is, as. I was trying to articulate, that we are stuck with him because no one else will take him for a figure we could afford to let him go for and therefore we have to play him. That sounds like a recipe for disaster.
I’ve not slated Hogan, I just believe Kodjia is the better option if we have to sell a high priced forward. Also Kodjia was injured most of last season which I believe will negatively affect his transfer fee.
Di Matteo was an absolute disaster for our club.
*Better option to retain
hitch i wouldn’t have bought him personally. but now the guys here and we are going to be lightweights up top. he has to be considered IF the guys still around. its called using all your resources.
if the manager can not use hogan and mccormack then maybe its time he did move on. because the manager needs to be able to use all players and get the best out of all the players.
its criminal how hogan and mccormack came to villa with impressive scoring records at much smaller clubs. but those that created better chances and their records shows how fruitless it is playing for villa.
Fair points Nath but players with good records move and then fail to replicate that form at their new clubs – it’s not just a Villa phenonomen.
I think the other point you make is relevant – at smaller clubs – where perhaps (certainly in Hogan’s case) the team was built around them. I also think really good players can and should be able to adapt to the playing style of the club. As it happens I think Hogan’s performances have been hampered since he joined us, to some extent by a series of injuries – particularly the stomach problem he suffered.
With McCormack I think there’s more to it than just his failure to show any real form and the last thing we need is a disruptive influence in the dressing room or around the club. If we can’t sell him then we need to try and loan him out again.
If we could afford to keep Hogan and Kodjia then I would be very happy. I was only making the point that if we’re forced to sell one then it might be better to let Hogan go.
Nath, would you suck it up, if you thought someone was a total prick?
No chance and Bruce won’t do it either.
If he does, I’ll see it as a sign he’s looking for an out.
i’d play a 16 YO over McCormack, simple, as my opinion says he’s toxic.
Proper business men spending what we generate?
We’ll end up about 15th then, if we’re lucky, after we’ve sold all of our good players at a loss, while still paying their wages.
It just doesn’t work like that with footy, imo.
if we sell all our good players, i reckon it will be dark days indeed. you can take just chester and grealish to achieve them dark days. the rest are pretty much ordinary.
look if i thought mccormack was a better player than x y and z i would suck it up for sure. its about the long game badger. we need to sell players like mccormack and banishing him to coventry will not achieve that.
mccormack is a player who can pick out a good pass,he’s a dead ball expert. he has scores goals for fun and hes under contract. its a simple puzzle, while hes being paid with villa dough, he should be around if hes better than we have. if we sell kodjia and grealish he will be worth a place.
if players fail to turn up for training then you should be able to sack them. seems the problem is with bruce and mccormack and they should be able to work things out. or bruce should do one. same with hogan sick of fans slating somebody because the team don’t play to his strengths,
Regarding TV money in the championship, just read that last season every club received £6.4 million regardless of how many times they appeared. We received an additional £520,000 which equates to £100,000 for each home game and £10,000 for each away game. There were 4 home games and 12 away games we appeared on TV last season. The debate on McCormack and Richards is probably dependant on if Bruce is still in charge. I can’t see either being anywhere near first team under Bruce. Richards might be a good character around the training ground, but surely is motivation to want to play football is not as important to him as is extortionate wages. At his age knowing he has no future at Villa surely he should consider lower wages to get game time. If not then he is everything that stinks about modern day footballers. You can also blame the idiots at VP for the stupid contracts negotiated on him and too many others. Let our kids come in now and supplement them with a few experienced pros like Jedinak. Assuming Grealish goes we need to look to a long term plan combining that with getting our house in order.
Good call Holte 66, it now means use what you spent in training and reap the rewards, Villa has wasted money over the last decade by imploying second grade accountancy , the likes of Man utd and others had university students in to move the club into the future, we stood still, and its still going on at Villa, we are behind the times in many fields. Today its raised its head Villa are behind the times.
totally agree in we villa stood still. we have lived on past success on and off field. look were its taken us. exactly were we belong. you may grumble, but look back at our record in recent years. we are a championship club now, but paying premiership wages to has beens. its ok to have experience which you need to blood in the youth of the team. show them the way in difficult times. but we now have amassed a squad of experienced pros all looking to retire here.
off field scouting has been rubbish, managers that can not utilize the playing staff. creation of bombs squads. what do they expect. you send a player who cost you over 10 million to coventry. then expect other clubs to bail you out and give you 10 million plus for him. it doesn’t work like that. it never has done. mccormack was told by bruce to lose weight. thats how i recall it. he was carrying timber bruce claimed, but so has bruce during his career. mccormack has always been carrying that timber and he scores shit loads of goals.
its unprofessional to sign players like hogan and mccormack and not use them, you are creating your own problems,even before you get on field. its not just the transfer fees of these two players,its their wages of their contracts.
grabbon was brought in on loan last season, when hogan was finally showing some form. there was not much to choose between them both. but bruced fancied grabbon more. hence hogan was left pissed off again. his stock sinks further another10 million plus striker with zero esteem and sell on value
iran have really impressed me in the world cup.they are a limited team, but what they lack in ability they exceed in tactically astute. they were very unlucky against spain and nowsame with portugal. iran just lack something in final third. no lack of effort too and their fans never give up. they seem to coped well agaisnt two better teams in comp
I watched Spain – Morocco.
Good game and Spain really don’t look all that.
But they’re the one’s you have to watch, imo.
Oh, it’s worth watching the highlights for a Morrocan effort that bent both ways, but hit the corner/ stanchion.
Great backheel flick from Aspas though. Still think that Spain will be there or thereabouts
iran could have knocked Portugal out, but they fluffed their finishing at the death. would have been a injustice but who cares. i also spilled my beer when they missed it what a sacrilege, my mate would have made me drink it up from the floor had he been here.