I’ve been thinking about this one for the last couple of days, but my thoughts have been somewhat superceded by the speculation that Leicester might be willing to go to £40 miilion to get Grealish.
Not that it matters, as although Grealish’s sale would probably ease our FFP worries at a stroke, it quite simply isn’t going to happen; at least at that money.
Ok, the footballing world is totally mad, when it comes to money, but why would anyone pay anywhere near that amount?
The answer is you simply wouldn’t if you believe the stories that say we are right on our uppers and have to get the money in at any price.
I’m sure we said we were skint last season, yet we still managed to sign John Terry at around £3.6 million a season, if you believe what the Birmingham Mail says. That’s £70k a week. For a championship player!
As much as he might have improved things around the club, that’s massive money.
You can argue about if it was well spent or not, but the point is that considering we had very little to spend, we still managed to come up with a contract like that.
Shenanigans at play, to say the least.
Moving back to the important point, when we were talking about Grealish being looked at, at around the £20 mill mark, it seemed to me, that it was a Birmingham Mail led thing, that was suggesting that we should sell him because we’d be holding him back wrt his aims of playing for England and he’s simply too good for the Championship?
But as much as I like Jack as one of our own, so I also have to ask why we’d let him go so easily?
The simple answer is I wouldn’t.
Let’s look at the facts.
Ok, Jack had a great Semi-final game against Liverpool, but what else had he done before and up to christmas just gone?
Yes, he’s been a revelation in the second half of this season and has looked our only threat at times.
But is half a season enough for us to say he’s served the club brilliantly, as is being made out?
I believe Jack’s agent is his dad, isn’t he?
Maybe that’s why the Mail are suggesting he should leave, because there are things being whispered in ears?
Surely not.
But I’m not wearing it, by a long chalk.
I’d say it’s the total opposite and Jack owes us big time, for bringing him though.
It wasn’t so long ago that I was slating Jack as a bit-part player, because of his lack of effort, after all.
The way things are being portrayed, Jack’s time is running out if he wants to make the England squad and he’ll never do it in the championship.
I say Bullshit!
If he consistently plays well enough, he’ll be picked, because he’ll be be promoted with us or bought by a Prem club further down the line.
But do you know what the annoying part is?
He’s only 22.
If he was 28-30, I could understand the concern.
Of course, if it’s really true that we have no choice but to sell him, that’s a different thing.
He gets a fat contract, we get good money and it’s all good.
Except we’ve just lost every sign that we’re aiming upwards.
If we let Grealish go, I’ll know that Xia has given up and wants out.
Hence Grealish will stay, in my opinion.
well that was very informative hitch and i will admit that mostly flew right over my head. but saying that it has made the muddy waters a little clearer i hope to god we don’t sell grealish. because he is the difference between mediocre and being a very good side.
all this smart accounting aside, we do need to stop wasting money like it grows on trees. i don’t mind us spending money on good quality players. but sometimes we bought crap and paid them top wages. when we have kids that could have filled their places in the squad and we wouldn’t have lost out on ability, just saved ourself lots of money.
richards how long a contract has he had ?? why did somebody at villa sanction the length and high wage for a player that came with appalling injury career also a player who had not shown his best form for years before. it would have been safe to say, not many other clubs would have been challenging for his signature at the time. so why give him 5 years if it was 5. that has to be bad management.
with mccormack i can see why they gambled. because he was a good championship striker who scored many goals over 2 or 3 years. but he has been another disaster. was a awful big gamble that backfired. who makes these calls and are they still at the club,
I’ve said before highlighting the word ‘Allegedly’, it was well known in Fulham circles about McCormack. The clubs research sometimes stinks…
Yep, Billy big bollox, who thought he could do what he liked.
Interesting Hitch, all that is on player values over a season in or out, wages was a large factor in many case’s , where does the actual running of the club come in?, ie commercial sales, gate receipts , Villa this year had the highest attendances than most clubs. You have to think the renting of Bars, corporate entertainment, surely we must have excelled in that income to the club. Just a thought.
Because of Sky, all of that doesn’t count for much these days Bill.
A BLUE FRIEND Chelsea news: John Terry ‘agrees to sign’ for ex-Blues team-mate Frank Lampard at Derby
Veteran defender JT left Aston Villa this week but has been persuaded to have another crack at winning Championship promotion with the Rams
GOSSIP
By Gary Stonehouse
2nd June 2018, 11:55 amUpdated: 2nd June 2018, 1:11 pm
JOHN TERRY is reportedly set for a shock reunion with Chelsea buddy Frank Lampard at Derby County.
The 37-year-old left Aston Vila this week after failing to help get Steve Bruce’s side back into the Premier League.
Who said it wouldn’t happen…
More importantly, the Express are saying that Tony Xia has actually sanctioned Grealish’s sale and we’ve had preliminary talks with West Ham.
I can imagine how that conversation went;
WH: We’re inquiring about Jack. How much?
AV: £40 million
WH: We were thinking £20 million.
AV: Well keep thinking it and bugger off until you can come up with a proper price.
You might have stitched us up when you nicked our kit and colours, but it isn’t happening with Grealish……
Apparently, Xia might even be willing to sell the club, if you believe this codswallop.
Bloody papers 🙁
https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/968410/Transfer-news-Jack-Grealish-Aston-Villa-West-Ham-Tottenham
iam getting bored now of this stuff,the non footballing stuff. i wished we could just talk football, off field we have been non professional. 80% and more of income going on wages. its no wonder we are in the shit.
grealish will be sacrificed, but if the idiots running the show don’t learn from this. he won’t be the last. we will all hate what we become a selling club. taking the piss that a small shitty cocky club west ham utd, are cherry picking our players.
i was reading the former crystal palace owner. i can honestly say i don’t know the ins and outs of this finance fair play bull. but he does and he says we are also in the shit. we can discuss solutions. but unless we get our house back in order, we will never move on.
grealish is our one real chance off achieving on the field. so he is worth more than 40 million. clubs in premiership know that grealish is a proper good player and they are desperate to get him. but they will use our desperation to get him on the cheap. we need to grow some bollocks and do some strong negotiating.
i watched england earlier and they did good first half. good movement but second half, when they switched to same formation. we looked like we needed a jack grealish. thats why clubs want him. southgate missed the boat not picking him. he would have given england more than the players he chose in midfield. they are good players ali gets goals makes good runs. but isn’t as good as grealish with the ball. the other midfielder lingard is not a patch on grealish. he has imagination to open up defences and runs at defenders. thats one thing they hate. england 2nd half lacked everything jack does
On that showing Nath, England going know where, very poor in midfield and your right, Grealish type of football is what’s missing , I’m so pissed off that the FA can treat a club like Villa with history and a founder member of the English game in such away it can ruin the club. Having heard the way they ran semi final they need to be looked at how they employ so many foreigner on cheap wages, some couldn’t speak our language correctly. I’ve said the same we own him ,we made him, slap 50 million and two finger up.we love our club , they don’t.
I don’t believe anything in the papers. Over the years I’ve been involved in a large number of press releases / articles and have often wondered how they arrive at what is printed compared with the brief / facts provided!
england do lack ideas in midfield. they have the work but lack skill. its just my views, that had they taken grealish. they wouldnt struggle when a team have them in a head lock. just like they were in second half. lets be honest yesterday opponents where sub standard as well.
first half they were great. movement was first class, this tells me they are enthusiastic players wanting to do well. they jsut lack lack something all good teams have skill or cutting edge. we look lacking the tools to open up a good defence. we might open up poor defences. teams that leave the door open and we catch on break. but teams that sit back and counter, try to ctch up on break we will struggle against.
Please tell me ther’s no truth in this?
And a consortium, fronted by fitness entrepreneur and former football agent Matt Southall, are planning to bid for the Championship club.
Chinese billionaire Xia bought Villa from Randy Lerner for around £60million following their relegation from the top flight in 2016.
But he has failed to get them back up in two seasons, losing in the play-off final to Fulham last week.
And with Steve Bruce’s side now needing to slash their sky-high wage bill to avoid breaking Financial Fair Play rules, Xia wants to cut his losses.
How can that alone stop the rule we have to play by, what going on.
Its a good question Bill Does a new owner vary the amount of losses over a 3 year period when he initially injects money into a club? It seems to me that Champions League clubs have had the slate cleaned when changing hands.
Consortia are bad news because the members fall out when the going gets rough. I would rather have a single owner. I would not be surprised if Xia sold though. He bet the ranch on Bruce and I am not sure he has the patience for the no-spend options he is now facing.
Can visualise Tony selling – FFP together with stricter regulation in China regarding overseas investment has made all his plans worthless. The stadium expansion, area regeneration etc and also directly linked to these factors. Essentially he’s got not one, but two hands tied behind his back. It makes little business sense for him to stay on.
Considering he’s always been quick to deny rumours on Twitter, if theres no comment on this over the coming days there could well be an ounce of truth in it…
So much for us being up there with Barcelona within five years…
not sure we should be reflecting so long. need to get to work and prepare for next season. reading that the manager still doesn’t know if hes staying. what budget he has to work with. its good they are thinking about what direction to go and maybe if the manager is right for the club now with new directions needed to be taken. but hurry the fook up
Carlos Carvalhal was sacked by swansea, apparently they wanted to go in a new direction. they are abandoning the fancy dan football they played for many years. could he be the manager for the fans, who want better quality football.
This is Villa Nath, massive disappointment from all directions and no thought to the fans, its about time Villa make it known that its fans that keep the club, and not a load of directors sitting on there arse smoking cigars. How do fans that want seats know where they stand for the coming season, Villa as always are years away from going forwards. Come on and give us hope.
Bill I think the only hope we have for the foreseeable future is Bob or No…. not only did we fail in our mission to get back to the Premiership, our owner is looking to jump ship and our manager does not know whether he is leaving or staying – add to this our financial mess and the future doesn’t look too rosy !!
As I said – steel yourselves lads this is not going to be pretty.
One note from Xia’s statement -‘ I want to write this whilst calm’ or words to that effect.
A sh** storm is coming
One other point – on the will he (xia) / won’t he sell.
Dr T made it clear that, although he’s a Villa fan, he’s invested in a business. Have no doubt if the right offer comes along he’ll sell Villa, like any other business.
However who is going to make a sensible offer for a business facing significant financial restrictions in its operating market? Unlike OLL I don’t believe a buyer will benefit from ‘having the (FFP) slate wiped clean’
On the upside if he doesn’t sell he won’t quit on the club like a certain Randolph Learner.
We might have all been frustrated by Deadly Doug but he protected our club throughout his time in charge and can hardly be blamed for Learners poor stewardship.
Agree completely H60, I just cannot understand how such experienced business people couldn’t see this coming, most of us mere fans realised in the winter we would not get top 2, then they risk our club on a lottery of the play offs….
If it is going to be as bad as I fear, then maybe the Doctor is best off selling up !!
Now Wyness Suspended – FFS, can this get any more stupid.
Err… Wyness suspended? Xia now managing the club?
What a crazy few weeks this has been.
I’ve been chasing around the web blogs, its looking grim to say the least, your right fans didn’t have that belief that the team would go up, the club even imployed more behind the scenes people to advise, but that never worked, what killed us was that FA rule, I have a terrible mind in thinking the FA and clubs where praying that we would faulter because the money we generated to smaller clubs, we was robbed on penalties, we was robbed on sending offs, Villa was not treated right by officials in the name of football.I’ve a bad mind.
Wyness suspended for missed tax payment. I would have thought this was the responsibility of the FD so Wyness must have interfered in some way although it may be temporary while the club investigate.
Whatever it’s a kick in the teeth for us fans and does nothing to quell the growing concerns about the clubs welfare.
The nightmare scenario of years in the wilderness is scarily possible
Championship side Aston Villa have suspended chief executive Keith Wyness because of a missed tax payment, BBC WM 95.6 reports.
It is understood that the club will pay the outstanding amount within the next 48 hours.
A Villa statement added that owner and chairman Dr Tony Xia will “assume the role until further notice”.
Wyness joined Villa in June 2016 shortly after the Chinese took over at Villa Park.
Villa lost 1-0 to Fulham in the play-off final at Wembley on 26 May, meaning they will spend a third consecutive season in the second tier.
Analysis
Mark Regan, Aston Villa reporter for BBC WM 95.6
This news will come as a shock to Aston Villa fans, who are still coming to terms with the play-off final defeat. It will also do little to calm fears that the club has entered a deeply troubling financial situation after missing out on the windfall that would have come with promotion.
The club’s owner Dr Tony Xia has previously stated that Villa face “severe” challenges under financial fair play rules.
In short, Villa need a stabilising influence and they need it quickly with the squad needing drastic surgery to prepare for a third season in the Championship. Tuesday’s news will feel like salt into a wound that’s had no time to heal
Interesting…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/40133809
Bill – The BBC Sport web page actually says…
“Championship side Aston Villa have suspended chief executive Keith Wyness.
The announcement came as it emerged Villa are working with HM Revenue & Customs to resolve an unpaid tax bill, although that is in no way connected to Wyness’ suspension.”
Don’t know which view [connected/unconnected] is correct!
Ardent Villian
As far as its been reported , Wyness phone Dr Xia up to report the miss payment, it was then he supposedly suspended him . Now they saying its not connected with that incident. What a clock up.