Aston Villa

[Alex Moss 2,165]

11 minutes ago, Midlands Yellow said:

They also don’t limit the purchasing to Poundland, Lidl and the VG on payday. 

Lot’s of good deals to be found in such places if you look carefully, not everything you buy at Waitrose is necessarily brilliant.

[Icecream Snow 761]

Bit of a puff piece on former owner Randy Lerner, but thought this was interesting

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-nfl-owner-who-got-chewed-up-by-english-soccer-1543587247

The total of Villa’s annual operating losses over the 10 years of Lerner ownership came to more than $260 million. He had sold the underachieving Browns in 2012 for a reported $1 billion. Because Lerner’s personal assets were so spread out—and because of the U.S. tax code—he was able to offset many of those Villa losses against profits elsewhere. But the surrender stung.

[Budapest Canary 152]

I doubt we'll ever follow the "Villa model". That said I'm not sure what model we are follling at the moment. A while ago, I remember, we were supposed to follow the Charlton model, then the Huddersfield model, although I'm not sure wherther we still follow it, or that it is a good idea to follow it. Perhaps we should take a look at City's "partner club" Ferencváros, who have made it to the CL's group phase with a squad valued at 23 m euros to face Barca (tomorrow), Juve and D. Kiev in group G.      

[YellowYawner 6]

The only problem is had we have spent like Villa last season would we have stayed up? and if so where would Villa be this season?

Villa won their gamble but they will need to keep doing that season after season with greater and greater risks. You only need to lose once to become the next Sunderland.

Things can change quickly in football,  in fact just looking at the league table this season who can afford to go down? What happens to the likes of Burnley, Brighton or Sheffield United should they drop? Big wages and reduced income, massively so if they drop down. Are they set up for this? Could be seeing a very different side to Chris Wilder soon.

This doesn't change the fact that we really could have done a bit more last season to improve the first team but Villa aren't the go to example I'd use.

[Alex Moss 2,165]

Still think it’s massively overlooked that we could have gone with the wishes to spend relatively big and bought Amadou, Fahrmann and Duda alone for a considerable amount of money and been left right in the shoite. As it happens, I personally think we’ve spent a hell of a lot less this time around but got far more bang for our buck - though time will tell of course.

[Dr Greenthumb 749]

8 hours ago, hogesar said:

God you're weird. 

"Buh u suportz tha cl4b so urz a happyz clap4rz m8!!"

Nothing weird about wanting my club to have success....

[corbs 147]

They had had a nice little run after hanging on last season. Let’s see how it goes. Keeping the excellent Grealish helps. Oh, as far as comparisons go things haven’t changed. Villa are a very big club, in the 2nd City, the only surprise has been how badly they have faired comparatively these last years. Ex European Champions. My team, Norwich, medium sized provincial side, punched above our weight these last few decades. 

[Indy 3,300]

6 minutes ago, corbs said:

They had had a nice little run after hanging on last season. Let’s see how it goes. Keeping the excellent Grealish helps. Oh, as far as comparisons go things haven’t changed. Villa are a very big club, in the 2nd City, the only surprise has been how badly they have faired comparatively these last years. Ex European Champions. My team, Norwich, medium sized provincial side, punched above our weight these last few decides. 

I think you’ll fine it more like half a century, 1970’s to 1996 we had something like 20 seasons out of 23 in the top flight!

[Capt. Pants 4,234]

3 hours ago, YellowYawner said:

The only problem is had we have spent like Villa last season would we have stayed up? and if so where would Villa be this season?

Villa won their gamble but they will need to keep doing that season after season with greater and greater risks. You only need to lose once to become the next Sunderland.

Things can change quickly in football,  in fact just looking at the league table this season who can afford to go down? What happens to the likes of Burnley, Brighton or Sheffield United should they drop? Big wages and reduced income, massively so if they drop down. Are they set up for this? Could be seeing a very different side to Chris Wilder soon.

This doesn't change the fact that we really could have done a bit more last season to improve the first team but Villa aren't the go to example I'd use.

Villa are already 11 points clear of relegation and the bottom 5 look pretty set already. Things don't change very much at the bottom EPL during the course of a season. They can look forward to a nice payout next season and who knows are smaller league as well.

[nutty nigel 7,536]

9 minutes ago, Capt. Pants said:

Villa are already 11 points clear of relegation and the bottom 5 look pretty set already. Things don't change very much at the bottom EPL during the course of a season. They can look forward to a nice payout next season and who knows are smaller league as well.

So the Sheffield Utd love affair was very short lived. Good job there was no marriage...

[hogesar 9,674]

1 hour ago, Dr Greenthumb said:

Nothing weird about wanting my club to have success....

I agree. I have no doubts you want our club to be successful.

But just because I don't criticise the current board doesn't mean I also don't want our club to be successful. We just have different ideas on how that could, or most likely could, be achieved.

[Nuff Said 5,141]

1 hour ago, Capt. Pants said:

Villa are already 11 points clear of relegation and the bottom 5 look pretty set already. Things don't change very much at the bottom EPL during the course of a season. They can look forward to a nice payout next season and who knows are smaller league as well.

Yeah, I don’t know why most seasons don’t stop after 5 games, the table is pretty much set in stone now.

[Feedthewolf 4,846]

44 minutes ago, hogesar said:

I agree. I have no doubts you want our club to be successful.

But just because I don't criticise the current board doesn't mean I also don't want our club to be successful. We just have different ideas on how that could, or most likely could, be achieved.

Nail on head. The more people in all positions on the dichotomy accept this fact and treat each other with a bit more respect, the better. We're all NCFC fans, and that should be something to bring us together in these horribly difficult times. Roll on tomorrow night and three more points!

[Midlands Yellow 3,985]

3 hours ago, hogesar said:

I agree. I have no doubts you want our club to be successful.

But just because I don't criticise the current board doesn't mean I also don't want our club to be successful. We just have different ideas on how that could, or most likely could, be achieved.

No one should criticise close family members😉

[wcorkcanary 4,334]

6 hours ago, Midlands Yellow said:

No one should criticise close family members😉

So that's the whole of Suffolk  being supportive of each other then, oh and Waveney. 

[Jim Smith 2,319]

On 18/10/2020 at 23:44, PurpleCanary said:

Villa were teetering on the edge financially. Their CEO said as much. They gambled (and it was a gamble - not a calculated risk, which is an oxymoron) on spending even more to stay up. Which they did by the skin of their collective teeth. Thanks in part to the single most obvious officiating/technological clanger of the whole season. By way of that they have seemingly got themselves into a position in which they can spend again. Fine. We could not have afforded (literallty) to take such a perilous gamble in the first place. But then neither in any sane universe could Villa.

 

On 18/10/2020 at 23:44, PurpleCanary said:

Villa were teetering on the edge financially. Their CEO said as much. They gambled (and it was a gamble - not a calculated risk, which is an oxymoron) on spending even more to stay up. Which they did by the skin of their collective teeth. Thanks in part to the single most obvious officiating/technological clanger of the whole season. By way of that they have seemingly got themselves into a position in which they can spend again. Fine. We could not have afforded (literallty) to take such a perilous gamble in the first place. But then neither in any sane universe could Villa.

They also actively sought (admittedly their hand was forced) and very quickly found (In about two weeks as I recall) extremely rich buyers who have given them renewed financial clout and seems to want to run the club in a responsible way at the same time.

but of course there is nobody out there who wants to buy our football club. Just every other football club. 

[Midlands Yellow 3,985]

16 hours ago, Alex Moss said:

Lot’s of good deals to be found in such places if you look carefully, not everything you buy at Waitrose is necessarily brilliant.

M&S is great for food though. 

[wcorkcanary 4,334]

Just now, Midlands Yellow said:

M&S is great for food though. 

I live fifty miles from the nearest M&S but make sure whenever I'm in Cork, or any  family members for that matter are in the City that M&S Melton Mowbray Pork pies are not forgotten. Sided with Piccalilly ,they  are my guilty no so secret now. Their Belgian Chocolate milk  is outstanding too. Honourable mention for their dine in for two meals..... one of the few processed foods we eat, sometimes it's nice to just open a packet and bung it in the oven.

[king canary 7,607]

15 hours ago, Alex Moss said:

Still think it’s massively overlooked that we could have gone with the wishes to spend relatively big and bought Amadou, Fahrmann and Duda alone for a considerable amount of money and been left right in the shoite. As it happens, I personally think we’ve spent a hell of a lot less this time around but got far more bang for our buck - though time will tell of course.

It's massively overlooked because its a nonsense argument.

[king canary 7,607]

On 18/10/2020 at 23:44, PurpleCanary said:

(and it was a gamble - not a calculated risk, which is an oxymoron)

No it isn't.

[PurpleCanary 5,562]

1 hour ago, wcorkcanary said:

I live fifty miles from the nearest M&S but make sure whenever I'm in Cork, or any  family members for that matter are in the City that M&S Melton Mowbray Pork pies are not forgotten. Sided with Piccalilly ,they  are my guilty no so secret now. Their Belgian Chocolate milk  is outstanding too. Honourable mention for their dine in for two meals..... one of the few processed foods we eat, sometimes it's nice to just open a packet and bung it in the oven.

I miss the M&S Bombay Potato.

[PurpleCanary 5,562]

1 hour ago, Jim Smith said:

 

They also actively sought (admittedly their hand was forced) and very quickly found (In about two weeks as I recall) extremely rich buyers who have given them renewed financial clout and seems to want to run the club in a responsible way at the same time.

but of course there is nobody out there who wants to buy our football club. Just every other football club. 

'Seems to WANT [my emphasis] to run the club in a responsible way;'

They brought in a CEO who was publicly horrified at the mess he faced, I grant you that, but then went on a spending spree that pundits who know Villa and its financial position said would have crippled the club if relegated. The CEO:

'On the 12 signings we actually spent £127million of fixed fees. The difference of £127m and £144m (reported figure) I suspect is your estimates of the so-called add-ons or bonuses.'

 

[Alex Moss 2,165]

17 minutes ago, king canary said:

It's massively overlooked because its a nonsense argument.

How on earth is that nonsense?

None did any good for us, yet we could quite just as easily have spent the best part of £50mil on them collectively rather than loaned them initially.

£50mil straight down the drain. 

[hogesar 9,674]

25 minutes ago, king canary said:

It's massively overlooked because its a nonsense argument.

I don't know about all the players (none of us do) but we certainly enquired abot Duda in pre-season and decided £16 million was too much. We could have paid that and not really been better off.

[hogesar 9,674]

1 hour ago, Midlands Yellow said:

M&S is great for food though. 

Ah but Lidl do their own version of Percy Pig's now, so all is not lost.

[king canary 7,607]

9 minutes ago, Alex Moss said:

How on earth is that nonsense?

None did any good for us, yet we could quite just as easily have spent the best part of £50mil on them collectively rather than loaned them initially.

£50mil straight down the drain. 

Its nonsense because if we had £50m to spend it doesn't follow that we'd have spent it on those players.

[chicken 2,625]

23 minutes ago, hogesar said:

I don't know about all the players (none of us do) but we certainly enquired abot Duda in pre-season and decided £16 million was too much. We could have paid that and not really been better off.

Amadou was a loan to buy as well, I think 15million Euros was quoted/rumoured at the time. Something like that.
 

18 minutes ago, king canary said:

Its nonsense because if we had £50m to spend it doesn't follow that we'd have spent it on those players.

I think it's relatively clear that we wanted Amadou but didn't want to pay the money up front. Duda similar. And there were a couple of others I think that we we priced out of. Didn't we enquire about James for example? He ended up at Man Utd.

I think the argument is fair both ways. It is possible that had we had the money we would have signed Amadou and Duda permanently. We may also have signed the likes of James and possibly not signed Drmic.

However, one thing is dead certain, money cannot guarantee you success. We rarely had the same two CB's to pick from for more than a couple of games on the trot, especially after Zimmermanns horror tackle from Haller. If we hadn't spent some of that £50million on another CB we would still have been screwed. If we had decided to go for Drmic and spend the money elsewhere, we still would have had the same issues going forward.

If's, buts and maybe's.

What that premier league shake up has done though, is suggest that the future for football for the vast majority of clubs in the English leagues is pretty uncertain right now. The writing is on the wall in regards to TV money, and I think it is likely that we may well have seen the last of the big TV money paydays. There might be one deal left in it maybe, but I'm pretty sure a number of clubs will have looked at that 6 game thing and thought "yeah, if Sky can pay that much and still make profit on it, then we can have our true slice of it". Only time will tell if that is the route that is taken but if it is, there will be far fewer clubs with the ability to spend big money on players and their wages.

[king canary 7,607]

17 minutes ago, chicken said:

Amadou was a loan to buy as well, I think 15million Euros was quoted/rumoured at the time. Something like that.
 

I think it's relatively clear that we wanted Amadou but didn't want to pay the money up front. Duda similar. And there were a couple of others I think that we we priced out of. Didn't we enquire about James for example? He ended up at Man Utd.

I think the argument is fair both ways. It is possible that had we had the money we would have signed Amadou and Duda permanently. We may also have signed the likes of James and possibly not signed Drmic.

However, one thing is dead certain, money cannot guarantee you success. We rarely had the same two CB's to pick from for more than a couple of games on the trot, especially after Zimmermanns horror tackle from Haller. If we hadn't spent some of that £50million on another CB we would still have been screwed. If we had decided to go for Drmic and spend the money elsewhere, we still would have had the same issues going forward.

If's, buts and maybe's.

What that premier league shake up has done though, is suggest that the future for football for the vast majority of clubs in the English leagues is pretty uncertain right now. The writing is on the wall in regards to TV money, and I think it is likely that we may well have seen the last of the big TV money paydays. There might be one deal left in it maybe, but I'm pretty sure a number of clubs will have looked at that 6 game thing and thought "yeah, if Sky can pay that much and still make profit on it, then we can have our true slice of it". Only time will tell if that is the route that is taken but if it is, there will be far fewer clubs with the ability to spend big money on players and their wages.

As you say ifs and buts but I don't think it follows that because we signed Amadou with a fee agreed, it follows we just would have signed him if we had the money.

What bugs me with this 'we could have signed Fahrmann/Roberts/Duda/whoever permanently instead and we'd be in the ****' is that it is a total non sequiter.

If we'd had £15m to spend on a defensive midfielder then the market is pretty wide- Amadou may be an option but likely not the only one and possibly not the main one.

If you've only got £3m to spend then Amadou is pretty much the only option.

[chicken 2,625]

4 minutes ago, king canary said:

As you say ifs and buts but I don't think it follows that because we signed Amadou with a fee agreed, it follows we just would have signed him if we had the money.

What bugs me with this 'we could have signed Fahrmann/Roberts/Duda/whoever permanently instead and we'd be in the ****' is that it is a total non sequiter.

If we'd had £15m to spend on a defensive midfielder then the market is pretty wide- Amadou may be an option but likely not the only one and possibly not the main one.

If you've only got £3m to spend then Amadou is pretty much the only option.

Yes and no. Sometimes player value is determined by their wages as well. We would have to have cut out a lot of £15million (it was euros I think but meh, doesn't matter) players out due to the sorts of wages they are on. This is why I think we have signed a fair few from Europe, because we can compete wages wise.

It's a bit of a moot point in either case because we will never know for sure without asking Webber. Whether you think so or not, it is an alternative to what you are projecting and it is just as valid. Webber may well say that they wanted to sign Amadou outright but couldn't afford the gamble at the start of the season and had they had the money they would have done. Equally like you say, had they had the money perhaps they would have considered other options more seriously.

The point still remains, which is the one that was made, that we could have signed £50million of players and still not stayed up. Like I pointed out, if we had £50million is there any evidence they would have signed another CB? Or paid for a striker rather than got one in on a free in Drmic?

We do have the advantage of hindsight in this case and I don't remember them looking for a CB option at all. And, well, we would have tanked in that department all season as we did last season.

And lets not forget, £50million isn't a lot. It buys you 2-3 good players at best, probably extending your wage bill by the best part of £5-10million a season in doing it. 

[Alex Moss 2,165]

1 hour ago, king canary said:

Its nonsense because if we had £50m to spend it doesn't follow that we'd have spent it on those players.

Despite the grumbles on here for not spending up front, it was very obvious that the Amadou and Duda loans were made with a view to becoming permanents should we have been happy with their contribution and also retained Premier League status.  I’m fairly sure that was mentioned quite clearly from the outset when we signed Amadou - loan with the option to buy. And how wise were we to do that. There is more evidence to suggest that these were players actually identified by Webber and Farke than others that you talk of that have no name - obviously, because we actually brought them in. Don’t discount there could have been others in the mix, but better to work with what we actually know to be true. An upfront spend to satisfy some would have been disastrous but as it turns out, Webber and Farke played it exactly right. Same players, less risk. And not counting the cost this season from wasted fees on those two alone.

I believe we have done exactly the same with Ben Gibson and Xavi Quintilla this season, who thus far look like they’ll very much work out as we had hoped Amadou and Duda would’ve last season.