Hello, I am a French journalist working for sofoot.com, a French website of football, culture and society. I make an article about the season of Aston Villa in Championship and I'd like to ask some questions to a representative of your fanzine (by phone or email if it is more convenient for you). Thank you in advance Florian Lefèvre
- Are you surprised by the first results of your club this season ? Yes I thought we would win most of the games.- Do the Villans deserve to be 19th in the table ? Yes. Table never lies.- Do you think that the precedent season still has an impact on the results of the club ? No. We appointed a Restaurant Manager as our Head Coach.- Are you satisfied by the new players arriving during the transfer window ? No. We bought some very bad players however Kodjia is going to be good.- When Tony Xia said : "I hope in five years, or after five years, we will talk of this club as Madrid or Barcelona", how did you react ? Silly man.- Does his project for the club seems to be sound, solid ? I like his general approach.- Was Roberto di Matteo a casting error ? And why ? He is not a good team manager and not a coach other than that he is OK.- Does Steve Bruce could be capable to bring back Aston Villa to the Premier League in may 2017 ? I am not a fan of this man however he should at least organise us properly. I hope he still has some "promotions" left in him. Personally I would have preferred a younger new age coach to build the club up again.
- Are you surprised by the first results of your club this season ? Yes. Expected to be upper mid-table and getting better, both results and performances. Instead we started poorly and got worse- Do the Villans deserve to be 19th in the table ?Yes. From the games I've seen we've been mostly rubbish but giving maybe 20 minutes of decent performance most games. That's not going to win you games at any level. - Do you think that the precedent season still has an impact on the results of the club ?No. This is the cumulative effect of 3 or 4 years of incoherent strategy from the previous owner and the numerous assortment of coaches allied to cost cutting that went too far. As a result hardly any of the squad have a feel for the club or each other. You don't change that in 12 weeks. - Are you satisfied by the new players arriving during the transfer window ? As individual signings, mostly OK. As a coherent strategy to rebuild the squad and make us competitive at the top of the league no. Midfield is too weak and lacking bodies to give cover for injury/suspensions. In defence the central pairing still doesn't look strong enough.- When Tony Xia said : "I hope in five years, or after five years, we will talk of this club as Madrid or Barcelona", how did you react ?Oh dear- Does his project for the club seems to be sound, solid ? If I'd got to pick one word I'd say ambitious, which on the surface is refreshing. I'll remain a little uneasy about where the money is coming from until we've seen a couple of years worth of accounts- Was Roberto di Matteo a casting error ? And why ? Definitely. The results speak for themselves. As to why? He didn't seem very engaged or interested, which may be doing him a disservice, but on the pitch his solution to any problem seemed to be to force another attacker onto the pitch and usually make the problem, large holes in midfield, worse.- Does Steve Bruce could be capable to bring back Aston Villa to the Premier League in may 2017 ? He's got a better chance than de Matteo had, although I think we may have to settle for 2017/18
- Are you surprised by the first results of your club this season ? Yes I thought we might have trouble adjusting to the division with lots of new players but only one win is disaster.- Do the Villans deserve to be 19th in the table ? Yes- Do you think that the precedent season still has an impact on the results of the club ? Without doubt, the 6 years of neglect is hard to turn around- Are you satisfied by the new players arriving during the transfer window ? It allways is a gamble to buy that many players in a such a small period of time.Still to early to see how they will progress, but the team looks unbalanced and centre midfield remains an obvious problem. Not too sure how the attacking players will fit into a cohesive attack.- When Tony Xia said : "I hope in five years, or after five years, we will talk of this club as Madrid or Barcelona", how did you react ? With incredulity and did not take it seriously.- Does his project for the club seems to be sound, solid ? No idea, still to early to tell, it does appear that we have a more solid structure than in the past.- Was Roberto di Matteo a casting error ? And why ? The concerns were allways the rumours that he is not a hands on manager, when things did not go well he did not appear to have the wherewithall to react.- Does Steve Bruce could be capable to bring back Aston Villa to the Premier League in may 2017 ?a very tall order from where we are now, so no i do not think so