Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: SoccerHQ on February 18, 2016, 10:17:35 PM
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Apologies if this was already posted on another thread...not often a fans forum gets a shout out in a national newspaper anyway....Gold star to Damo 70. ;)
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Sport Football Aston Villa FC
Brian Reade column: Players, managers and fans are what the game is about and has ALWAYS been about
20:00, 17 FEB 2016
OPINION BY BRIANREADE
Mediocrity is what you get when you let the ad men and the number-crunchers run the only side of a club that matters — the footballing one
It's rare to see measured intellectual musings on fan forums after a team has taken an almighty hiding, so I doff my bobbled-hat to the Heroes & Villains site.
There, on Monday, in the wake of Aston Villa's biggest home defeat at home since 1935, was a scholarly discussion about The Peter Principle.
That’s the management theory which states that executives are chosen on past performance rather than suitability for the job on offer. And that they only stop being promoted when they can no longer perform effectively, thus finding “their own level of incompetence”.
Meaning, in some organisations, it reaches a point where the entire executive hierarchy is filled with incompetence.
On Heroes & Villains it was being applied to the beyond-dismal management set-up at Villa Park, which appears to have surrendered so meekly a great club’s Premier League status, crushing en route, a decent coach in Remi Garde.
The executive taking most stick is CEO Tom Fox, an American marketing man who admitted to having seen only two football matches before working as commercial director at Arsenal.
Two months ago, former Pepsi honcho Fox attempted to placate angry fans with these comforting words: “It’s easy looking at the table. But I look at everything. We’ve generated more revenue on both our shirt and kit deals and in our ability to control costs. We’re making progress.”
Way to go, Tom.
That’s the same analysis being spouted by one of Fox's fellow marketing men, Ed Woodward, to show how Manchester United are progressing off the field under his astute leadership.
Meanwhile, on it, they’re facing FC Midtjylland on Thursday night in the same Europa League they will probably be in from the start of next season.
This is a potted version of how forum poster Damo 70, summed up Villa’s mess: “I’ve lost track of all the comings and goings behind the scenes in terms of coaches, scouts, CEOs and sporting directors.
"I remember when we used to have Ron Saunders. Now we have an ever changing cast of thousands.
"If it was a film, Cecil B DeMille would question if we actually needed all these people.”
It’s the same sentiment you hear from Liverpool fans about FSG and their faceless transfer committee, whose genius managed to splurge most of the £120million earned selling Luis Suarez and Raheem Sterling on dross.
The key word in Damo 70’s analysis was Ron Saunders. The last man to build a truly great Villa side.
That old Shankly doctrine about clubs having a Holy Trinity - the manager, players and fans - with the directors only there to sign the cheques, is as valid today as it’s ever been.
To be successful, you need a manager who is very good at what he does, takes no notice of the noises coming from above (the board) below (the players) or sideways (the fans) and just gets on with implementing his vision.
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It’s also why Arsenal fans really do need to be careful what they wish for whenever they try to get Arsene Wenger sacked.
Why Tottenham are lucky to have Mauricio Pochettino because, as Andros Townsend found, he’s his own man and you take him on at your peril.
Why Liverpool stand a chance with Jurgen Klopp because, unlike the weaker Brendan Rodgers, he will ignore that transfer committee and do his own thing.
ReutersArsenal manager Arsene WengerLike a boss: What lies in store for Arsenal once Wenger is no longer their manager?
Maybe Chelsea would have had more than one Champions League trophy to show for Roman Abramovich’s 13 years if he’d grasped the notion that when you have a winner in charge, you back them to the hilt.
Maybe, if Randy Lerner had looked past Martin O’Neill’s faults and believed in him, Villa fans may have been on flights to Europe this week — instead of working out how to get to Brentford and Milton Keynes next season.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/brian-reade-column-players-managers-7387970
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Pity about the final sentence.
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I may have to ban anyone that quotes that opening post!
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Yes, it was going so well until the end...
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Nice mention for H&V or not, a sizeable chunk of the piece is still lazy, misinformed bollocks.
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Pity about the final sentence.
I read it early evening and that is precisely what I said. Obviously didn't spend long enough on the site.
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And absolutely no mention of the African Car Reverser. Talk about missing the point.
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I hadn't realised getting to Milton Keynes and Brentford required special planning four months before the fixtures came out. Is it only possible to get there by walking?
Maybe I should stay in the south after the Arsenal game.
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I hadn't realised getting to Milton Keynes and Brentford required special planning four months before the fixtures came out. Is it only possible to get there by walking?
Maybe I should stay in the south after the Arsenal game.
Can't speak for Brentford but 4months to prepare to enter the most boring, bland and uninspiring town in the country sounds about right.
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And absolutely no mention of the African Car Reverser. Talk about missing the point.
Not to mentions no questions about why Gareth Barry didn't take the penalty and why owls are cooler than gibbons
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I suppose the article is one way of filling column inches on the cheap for them. A bit like when SSN report on Twitter responses.
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I hadn't realised getting to Milton Keynes and Brentford required special planning four months before the fixtures came out. Is it only possible to get there by walking?
Maybe I should stay in the south after the Arsenal game.
Can't speak for Brentford but 4months to prepare to enter the most boring, bland and uninspiring town in the country sounds about right.
Brentford is convenient for when Lerner flies into Heathrow
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I suppose the article is one way of filling column inches on the cheap for them. A bit like when SSN report on Twitter responses.
There's a bit of a difference between here and Twitter.
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I hadn't realised getting to Milton Keynes and Brentford required special planning four months before the fixtures came out. Is it only possible to get there by walking?
Maybe I should stay in the south after the Arsenal game.
Can't speak for Brentford but 4months to prepare to enter the most boring, bland and uninspiring town in the country sounds about right.
I hope that the MK trip is in the first half of the season. My Bletchley Park ticket doesn't run out until late December
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H and V is actually far better than he makes out. Damo's piece was very good and hats off to him, but if Reade wants to see an H and V power play he should go to the exchanges of posts on Off Topic following the Paris bombings then come back for dessert to the African Car Reverser.
Reade's last sentence spoiled a well intentioned but lazy piece of journalism.
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I suppose the article is one way of filling column inches on the cheap for them. A bit like when SSN report on Twitter responses.
There's a bit of a difference between here and Twitter.
Maybe so, but ultimately it is all accessed on a screen. It's all an easy option to gauge an opinion on whatever. No legwork, no need to leave the office.
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Or indeed, go to the office in the first place.
I thought it was that twat Holt who had the O'Neill obsession.
Still, I have to admit, he did a great job at Barcelona after leaving us. Oh no, it was Sunderland. Who gave him a fortune to spend on British dross and sacked him when he proved his incompetence.
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I thought it was all rather good. Including the last sentence.
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That one final sentence just undermines the whole thing. Trying to bracket MON with the likes of Wenger, Klopp and Pochettino is truly risible.
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I hope that the MK trip is in the first half of the season. My Bletchley Park ticket doesn't run out until late December
Good point, Bletchley Park is fantastic.
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I thought it was all rather good. Including the last sentence.
So he should have overlooked his inability to get anything approaching par from a squad he'd spent over £100M on?
He should have overlooked that his "style" of play had been found out and he hadn't got an answer to any team coming to play deep, despite having the best squads available in 10-15 years.
He should have overlooked that another 2 or 3 years of MON would have left us even deeper in the hole and no closer to the CL payday that would have righted the finances, which would probably have needed 2 or 3 consecutive years to really do the trick.
Unless you really think he'd have cracked in one of the following 2 or 3 seasons as Man City started throwing a couple of hundred million a year at it.
Other than sulking because he couldn't get his own way, he pissed off because he knew it could only go downhill from there. As evidenced by his disastrous time at Sunderland despite throwing similar amounts of money at it.
I don't know about giving him more time. In hindsight we should have binned him 12 months earlier.
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That one final sentence just undermines the whole thing. Trying to bracket MON with the likes of Wenger, Klopp and Pochettino is truly risible.
A bit early to be placing Pochettino in the same bracket as those two as well.
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That one final sentence just undermines the whole thing. Trying to bracket MON with the likes of Wenger, Klopp and Pochettino is truly risible.
It is, but more risible is the very idea that Randy failed to believe in or financially back MO'N. Lerner's guilty of many things, but starving the litigious one of funds is not one of them. It beats me how a professional journalist can make such a comment when the evidence proves it so utterly wrong.
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That one final sentence just undermines the whole thing. Trying to bracket MON with the likes of Wenger, Klopp and Pochettino is truly risible.
A bit early to be placing Pochettino in the same bracket as those two as well.
Fair point but my point was really that each of those three are in a different league to MON albeit Pochettino has yet to really prove himself. He did very well at Saints and anyone who can get Spurs looking like genuine title contenders without having spent ridiculous amounts must have something about him.
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That one final sentence just undermines the whole thing. Trying to bracket MON with the likes of Wenger, Klopp and Pochettino is truly risible.
A bit early to be placing Pochettino in the same bracket as those two as well.
Fair point but my point was really that each of those three are in a different league to MON albeit Pochettino has yet to really prove himself. He did very well at Saints and anyone who can get Spurs looking like genuine title contenders without having spent ridiculous amounts must have something about him.
He didn't do too badly at Espanyol.