John Terry - Gone

[Toronto Villa]

We're making this all about Terry. Our ultimate outcome this season will be about what we do besides this signing. Who leaves and comes, what squad do we have come September 1? Is it balanced enough to outlast every other team? And maybe the signing of Terry will help tip the balance over one or two other signings who might have gone elsewhere.

£4-5m isn't a lot today. All footballers are gambles. We've signed loads of so called "certainties" over the years to find they are anything but, and for a lot more than this. So I'm willing to give him every opportunity to succeed and the person aside hope he has enough left in the tank for one more very good season.

[TopDeck113]

Russon and Jimbo have nailed it for me and I've reconsidered.  I won't change my opinion about Terry the man (or at least the man viewed through the prism of tabloid front and back page headlines).  However, my repeated retort down the years to the footballer-as-role-model bollocks has always been, if you want role models for your kids, don't introduce them to professional football.  So it you simply view Terry as an undoubted winner in the dog-eat-dog, narcissistic world populated by more than its fair share of sociopaths that is the top level professional game, there's a good chance that he'll do a job for us. 

[andyh]

Top post Jimbo.

I have spent years building up in intense hatred of Terry. To be honest, it wasn't that difficult.
Like you, the very last person I want at our club is that tosser.

BUT, I suppose we have to be pragmatic.

If he comes, and IF he brings the much desired and missing 'winning mentality', then we should swallow our pride and, as my daughter says, 'build a bridge, and get over it!'

Terry is just one more in the long list of arseholes and tossers to be associated with our club over the last few years.

The difference with him is that we really do know he is a proven winner.

I guess we'll just have to accept he is here and wish him luck in helping us get back to where we need to be.

I now going off to wash my mouth out with carbolic soap.

[postal]

Terry has 'rolled' his sleeves up and got on with it for years...... for Chelsea.

The issue is, can he do it, for wherever he is next.

As others have said, we have to be pragmatic.

But, I don't think he would go somewhere, only to pick up a fat paycheck. He still wants to play, along with the fat paycheck. But he wouldn't want to be seen as a footballing joke.

Which is more than we can say for some who have joined Villa recently.

[eamonn]

Can this be put to bed soon re whether he's signing or not? Seems to have gone on for donkeys.

[ozzjim]

Eamon come on mate. It's Villa. Done and dusted in a few days just is not in the script.

[Pete3206]

As long as our players remember to grease their drainpipes, it'll be fine.

[The Edge]

I have posted many times that I like Tony Xia, right from the very first when there were several on this forum making comparisons with the Small Heath hairdresser.  I would go further and say that in the last twelve months he has been the only real asset the club has had.

However, to return to my earlier point, I have no doubt at all that Tony Xia has been fully involved in the pursuit of John Terry.  Because the whole operation of bringing Terry in is a gamble, I have real concerns that Tony Xia is influenced by Terry's name and Terry's past achievements.  I never mentioned glory hunting but I will say that if we are to lift a trophy I would prefer it being lifted by James Chester.

My niggling doubts are that Tony Xia is perhaps showing a bit of the naivety that caused Randy Lerner to fail so spectacularly.  The assumption that if Terry scores a couple of goals all the Villa fans will love him is as naive as Lerner jumping in his plane to parachute Alex McLeish into Villa Park.  Couple of wins and the Villa fans will forget the Small Heath history.  The naivety was that Alex McLeish was a terrible manager not that he had previously managed Small Heath.

The real problem with John Terry is that he is yet another gamble with the future of the club at a time when we cannot afford to take more risks.  To think that the 37 year old is going to be some sort of panacea for all our problems is a drift back to naivety.

I thought he was 36

[The Edge]

This can't be real surely?

If true I think this will be the most embarrassing thing Villa have done since McLeish came in, which is really saying something. I've been pretty heartbroken at how low we've sunk, it's made me fall out of love with football (I barely watch any games these days) And now this, my most hated player of all time supposedly signing for us? Wake me when this nightmare is over.

More embarrassing than relegation, countless cup defeats against lower league shite or having Chelsea, Liverpool and Southampton put at least 5 past us?

I don't particularly like the man either but like all new signings we should wipe the slate clean and give him a chance.

He's not like all new signings. He's a racist.

Let some c***s like Millwall or Lazio have him.

So signing John Terry will make us the same as Millwall or Lazio? Get a grip.

[cdbearsfan]

No. Have I said that? I think we are better than them so shouldn't be signing racists.

[AV5nobs]

Legally he's not a racist so it's subjective.

[The Edge]

No. Have I said that? I think we are better than them so shouldn't be signing racists.

That seems to be what your implying. John Terry should only sign for a racist club like Lazio or Millwall.

[cdbearsfan]

He should.

[AV5nobs]

Can't wait for JT to sign.

[olaftab]

I don't think I've ever heard Xia being interviewed on TV or the radio since the day he took over so how can anyone claim he's a glory hunting publicity seeker is beyond me. What are you basing this opinion on, his tweets?

Yes of course his  childish tweets and the facts that he:
Appointed RDM a man with absolutely zero credibility as a team building coach on the basis that Chelsea won the CL when he was caretaker totally ignoring that he had been an abject failure in his last job.
He appointed Bruce ex manu multi trophy winning player who has never done any better than average 1.8 points per game on the second division as a coach.
And now this😟