There’s a major lack of news lately and as you probably know, I have very little time for media stories speculating who we might be buying, as that’s all the vast majority of them are; stories.
But there is one article that made me think a little and I’m happy to link to it, for that very reason;
http://footballleagueworld.co.uk/4-things-that-must-happen-at-aston-villa-this-summer-agreed/
Play the gallery and you’ll see the points made.
I’ll go through them one by one.
1. Building bridges with the fans
This one’s easy.
Communicate with us, for a start. Which in fairness, is something that Tony Xia seems to have done from the off.
He’s been more verbose in his comments in the last couple of weeks than Lerner has in all his tenure, so he certainly ticks that box.
Now, if he were to announce some serious plan to keep attendances up, the like of “kids for a quid” for every game, he’d have this one wrapped up.
Let’s face it, it isn’t cool for kids to support a Championship club is it?
And I’ve often commented on how the kids are our future lifeblood.
I doubt that will happen, but what a way it would be to create a bond.
2. Find players who know the Championship
Pretty much common sense, this one, but not so straightforward.
It’s about getting the balance right and while getting in a team of Championship players makes sense, so we have to have a team that are good enough for the Premier league, if we were to be promoted. It was a major problem for the Albion, for example.
Hence, my opinion says we need to keep some of our more technical players, but that’s RDM’s problem and not mine, fortunately.
3. A restoration of club identity
Not so easy, this one, as I’m not sure how you go about it.
What is our club identity?
The article talks about us having a superb history and a fantastic ground; points that make me swell with pride.
But, for me it’s about Villa park being a fortress; a place where the fans intimidate other teams.
We know we’re well capable of it, but the hierarchy need to give us something to shout about.
Winning things, or at least being seen to be challenging is of course an obvious answer too and Xia seems to have appointed a pretty decent managerial team which will give us a decent footing to work from.
Perhaps a more important thing is that we should aim to play decent footy, as the turgid, frankly boring style of play we’ve been served up over the last five years or more simply isn’t what the Villa are about for me personally.
Entertain the fans and make us want to watch.
4. Ensured stability
This one is even more difficult.
Stability is great and perhaps the ultimate example is SAF at Man Utd, who as we all know, was one game away from being sacked before his team went on one of the best long-term runs in the history of the game. Would the Utd board have stuck with him if he hadn’t won the FA cup?
The difference between stable and fickle isn’t that big is it?
What if we have a disastrous start and (god forbid) we’re near the bottom of the table come christmas?
Does that mean we stick with things as they are?
The article mentions how you don’t always need money and cites Leicester as an example, which is fair comment.
But we all know that was somewhat a fairy tale and the article also mentions that there’s a lot of money at the top of the Championship.
My viewpoint here is simple.
The more you spend, the more likely you are to be successful, on the whole.
I know that will have its dissenters, but that’s how I see it.
We’ve seen managers at the club try to buy rough diamonds on the cheap and it simply doesn’t work on average. Players are worth higher fees for a reason.
But I suspect the point raised here should have been more about our style of play.
This is where we need the stability and we need to establish the same and stick with it, through thick and thin, even if we change managers.
And stop selling our better players to bring inferior ones in, would help too.
Which all comes back to Tony Xia, where I hope his actions are as good as his words.
Or am I seeing things the wrong way?
I’m sure you’ll tell me if that’s the case.
