Why are the Media so Anti-Villa?

[remy]

The bullshit, bollocks and badly researched ramblings of certain so called pundits and hacks really does boils my piss. Why is it that certain sections of the media show such utter contempt for our club?
What have we done so bad to be sneered at for spending £18 million on a player that is the third highest league scorer in the last three seasons?

We really do seem at odds with them..

I agree with you mate. All yesterday on the footie websites it was as if they couldnt be arsed to report with a little bit more enthusiasm or use any kind of Capital letters to promote a headline. If it had been Everton or Spurs the wankfest would have been immeasurable.

It also seems fashionable to sneer at this purchase wheras Spuds had bought him for £1.5m less 2 years earlier. The problem you have is there are too many ManUre, Liverpool and new age romantics (i.e. chelski and arse) fans in the media and therefore a club like ours to win the league would still be sneered at by the press.

[Billy Walker]

Have a read of this from the London Standard:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-sport/football/article-23915521-as-aston-villa-sink-their-pond-is-just-the-right-size-for-darren-bent.do

I can only assume the author is a Mackem living in London...if not, words fail me!

[holte hero]

Have a read of this from the London Standard:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-sport/football/article-23915521-as-aston-villa-sink-their-pond-is-just-the-right-size-for-darren-bent.do

I can only assume the author is a Mackem living in London...if not, words fail me!

I did enjoy the one and only comment on that piece crap journalism though. What a sour w***er.

[Michel Sibble]

Your a tool my good sir, Sunderland are ahead of villa for the first time in 4 years and you think going to villa is a step back just because they are ahead of us in the league??

We have been top 6 3 years in a row, and are in a transitional season after mon walked out on the club and left us in the shit, with a useless overpaid bench of players whose value has halved.

Jordan henderson will be off, wellbeck will be back to utd after his loan, onouho isnt guaranteed to sign, so the wheels can easily come off the sunderland bandwagon, villa will emulate spurs, whose postion before redknapp was precarious. This is a great signing for us with more quality to follow.

Good day sir, this is more gutter press.

- greg, Brum, 19/01/2011 13:24

Mr Nash, is this you?

[pauliewalnuts]

Everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that all of the reporters left the press meetings with Randy in the summer with phrases like "sell-to-buy", "sustainable business" and "balancing  the books" in their notepads.

Did they all simply misunderstand Randy?

Which press meetings with Randy?

I remember one piece in the Independent, and him talking to a couple of journos over a meal at the HH once, but that's about it.

The person I remember speaking most about sell to buy was Martin O'Neill.

I also don't remember reading anytihng anywhere about "balancing the books"

They're not attributing those sentiments to Martin O'Neill, they attribute them to Lerner. Perhaps it was the piece in the Independent and "a couple of journos over a meal", I'm not sure.

Collymore was talking this evening about being with national and local journos today (he mentioned Henry Winter) and he described them referring to their notes of meeting with Lerner and the phrases "sell-to-buy" and "balancing the books".

Why would they make it up?

So, what it comes down to, is something you've heard Stan Collymore say, which now "everyone seems to be ignoring".

Right-o.

[MoetVillan]

Id be more than concerned if the Daily Mail were Pro-Villa.

[Merv]

It's always been there, I feel. You still read the odd piece about the title winning team of '81 and can't escape the creeping 'they were lucky to win it, Ipswich should have won it' theme.

Much of it centres around the managers. They love Harry Redknapp because he dishes out no end of soundbites and quotes for them, so they love Spurs. When MON was with us, the interest in us noticeably grew and lifted us out of ordinary a bit - in their eyes. Funny, really, when you consider what O'Neill gave the media; barely anything in terms of information. On TV he came across quite well, but even then a bit... eccentric.

I agree with Dave - most of it is down to laziness, a lot of them are ill-informed and a lot of journalists these days don't make an effort to look into things; much like the opinion that went round that Houllier lost face by recalling Petrov, Reo-Coker to the team after dropping them for a couple of months (when in fact they were injured, as everyone else knew). They decide an agenda and go with it. There's perhaps a bit of annoyance that we've gone against the script:

Villa Sell Star Player
Brilliant Manager Quits In A Fury
Owners Don't Release Any Funds
New Manager Out Of His Depth
New Manager Drops Senior Players
New Manager Forced To Grovel And Recall Senior Players
Villa Plunge Towards Relegation
Villa Smash Transfer Record To Sign Top Class Striker.... HANG ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pauliewalnuts]

Nearly all the journalists bought into the "sell to buy" policy when it was anything but that.  That they have been proved totally incorrect is a tad embarrassing for some of them so now we get the "why did they not give MON the funds" from the likes of Holt etc.  It's not that they simply just don't get it.  They don't appear to want to get it.

Absolutely spot on, Bren.

Back then: "He's effectively forced MON out by stopping investing"

Whilst looking for a manager: "Who is going to want to go there seeing as they have to sell to buy?" and "the new appointment is going to have to sell Ashley Young as one of his first acts"

When we got a manager: "They're realising that when you stop spending, you slip down the table" (I think i saw this one as recently as last week from that cocksocket Oliver Holt) - the implication being that spending money correlates directly to points (more on this in a moment) ***.

When the transfer window opened: "They've got no money to spend to get out of this mess, they'll have to sell Ashley Young AND Stewart Downing to fund it"

When we sign Darren Bent: "It's an act of desperation" / "They've offered him loads of money" (which is never a problem when anyone else does it) / "Why didn't they give MON that money?"

Of interest on the last point:

1. We spend a lot of money, so the first thing they think is not "Hmmm, maybe Lerner hadn't pulled the plug at all, and we were wrong?", it is "Ah, they should have given MON that money, there's another stick to beat him with"

2. Whereas previously, as mentioned above ***, they said that continually supporting MON with further money would have guaranteed moving up the table in the same way that not spending was inevitably pushing us down, for some reason spending big on a proven goalscorer now somehow does not count. Convenient.

For any other club - no doubt including Spurs if, inconveniently, he hadn't already played for them - signing the third highest scorer in the PL over the last five years for that amount of money would be hailed by them as a stunning display of intent, but for us it just gets turned into something to have a go at us about.

[Billy Walker]

Your a tool my good sir, Sunderland are ahead of villa for the first time in 4 years and you think going to villa is a step back just because they are ahead of us in the league??

We have been top 6 3 years in a row, and are in a transitional season after mon walked out on the club and left us in the shit, with a useless overpaid bench of players whose value has halved.

Jordan henderson will be off, wellbeck will be back to utd after his loan, onouho isnt guaranteed to sign, so the wheels can easily come off the sunderland bandwagon, villa will emulate spurs, whose postion before redknapp was precarious. This is a great signing for us with more quality to follow.

Good day sir, this is more gutter press.

- greg, Brum, 19/01/2011 13:24

Mr Nash, is this you?

Nice one Greg.

[Monty]

They'll say absolutely anything which avoids the inevitable conclusion that their mate Martin wasn't quite as good as they, or he, thought he was.

[Michel Sibble]

Reading the i newspaper with an article saying "Bent attacked for £24m Villa move"

It is overwhelmingly negative stuff, basically a huge piece on Potatohead's hatred of the striker, with the last paragraph of six with Bent denying it.

I love the i paper, but on this, they can go f*** themselves.

[JJ-AV]

They're not. We've been on SSN almost non stop since the Bent news. They're showing his goals in training ffs...

[Villa'Zawg]

Everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that all of the reporters left the press meetings with Randy in the summer with phrases like "sell-to-buy", "sustainable business" and "balancing  the books" in their notepads.

Did they all simply misunderstand Randy?

Which press meetings with Randy?

I remember one piece in the Independent, and him talking to a couple of journos over a meal at the HH once, but that's about it.

The person I remember speaking most about sell to buy was Martin O'Neill.

I also don't remember reading anytihng anywhere about "balancing the books"

They're not attributing those sentiments to Martin O'Neill, they attribute them to Lerner. Perhaps it was the piece in the Independent and "a couple of journos over a meal", I'm not sure.

Collymore was talking this evening about being with national and local journos today (he mentioned Henry Winter) and he described them referring to their notes of meeting with Lerner and the phrases "sell-to-buy" and "balancing the books".

Why would they make it up?

So, what it comes down to, is something you've heard Stan Collymore say, which now "everyone seems to be ignoring".

Right-o.

No, that was a description of how the reporters responded when Stan put to them the same point you are trying to make i.e. that Randy didn't really say/mean those things. They showed him their notes from their press conference interviews with Randy in the summer. 

It may have been one big misunderstanding but I don't think it was a misunderstanding based on an elaborate conspiracy within sports journalism to undermine Villa in support of Martin O'Neill.

[midnite]

We managed to migrate from the inner back pages to the actual back pages quite a few times with MON. The amount of times we were mentioned on the Sunday supplement with actual regard was quite surprising. A few even said we might hit top four and how nice it would be for a change.

then MON left. Apart from the odd account and this morning with bent we hardly ever make back pages. I'm not bothered. I kind of prefer it that way. We have to except we'd have to go the whole season unbeaten, win the league and two cups followed by a repeate performance the year after adding to it the champions league for the media to say we might be alright. But even still I would be surprised if we still wouldn't be taken seriously.

The piece Oliver holt did not long after MON left completely sums the media as a whole up. That twat still makes my blood boil every time he appears on tv. They are lazy pure and simple.

Dave (I think it was. Could of been paulie) mentioned on another threat about SHA and how no one was really bothered about the old board. But now they're up to their usual shinanigans at west ham, the media are now interested. Because it's London, because life doesn't exist outside Watford and because most of them support the club.

So by the looks of it having a movie star, the prime minister, future king of England and head of the bank of England isn't enough. We need chief sports editors too. Only then might the negativity change.

[Chris Smith]

How long will it take before I read an article about Villa that doesn't mention M***** O'N****?

A lot sooner that we see a thread on here that doesn't.