Takeover rumours

[bertlambshank]

Wigan will do a bolton.

[David_Nab]

RB in football terms I have not followed other than JPA and Henry lining up for their New York team and I belive Xavi is joining next season.

My exposure to them is through F1 in which since coming in they have dominated by hiring the best people in key roles and that's perhaps the area they could improve us in.Lerner pumped in millions but we now have very little to show for it.So if RB where an option to come in and did put a good board together ,good management and fund then that is a positive move in my eyes.

Football is changing with new FFP rules we are seeing likes of Liverpool today signing deals with Dunkin Doughnuts to bring in revenue as that is the only way you can spend.So Red Bull or who ever coming in won't necessarily  translate into free spending ,though anything would be an improvement on right now.So either way I think we are looking at a slow transition to catch up with the top 6 but that would be helped by a more knowledgeable board running the show.

[Brend'Watkins]

I see no reason to be pointing fingers at the board from a commercial point of view.  They appear to have come on leaps and bounds from what was there before.

[Mister E]

RB in football terms I have not followed other than JPA and Henry lining up for their New York team and I belive Xavi is joining next season.

My exposure to them is through F1 in which since coming in they have dominated by hiring the best people in key roles and that's perhaps the area they could improve us in.Lerner pumped in millions but we now have very little to show for it.So if RB where an option to come in and did put a good board together ,good management and fund then that is a positive move in my eyes.

Football is changing with new FFP rules we are seeing likes of Liverpool today signing deals with Dunkin Doughnuts to bring in revenue as that is the only way you can spend.So Red Bull or who ever coming in won't necessarily  translate into free spending ,though anything would be an improvement on right now.So either way I think we are looking at a slow transition to catch up with the top 6 but that would be helped by a more knowledgeable board running the show.

I think this is a good point, and they will potentially also raise our profile internationally. We might also find that the clubs they sponsor start to collaborate in terms of loanees, marketing partners, etc.
In the end, it all depends what their motives might be for taking an interest in Villa.

[john e]

I've not been following this story very closely,
can someone tell me if there is any solid reason to why red bull might buy us or even where the initial rumour started from if there is one,
 thanks in advance

[cheltenhamlion]

No there is not. It is also odd seeing this regurgitated after I did an article for the mag a while ago on its first airing.

[Tucson Villain]

Collymore tweeted that it was a rumour on Monday so it all started up again.

[olaftab]

That pissed me off as well Ads. Look at the games we have on this weekend. They are great because we are showing Man City, Liverpool and Arsenal.

That's it really and it hurts me that a great football club like Aston Villa is treated like a nonentity by all out there. Sometimes I could scream.

[pauliewalnuts]

I'm realistic. I'm not demanding a top 4 finish anytime soon. But is it really that unrealistic not to be at least at Newcastle's level e.g. a team in and around the top 6 with some quality players in their starting 11?

Newcastle have a squad which is way better than ours. That wasn't the case three or four years ago, but it most certainly is now.

Ultimately, the better the players you have, the more chance you have got of doing well. It's not a guarantee you'll do well, but not having many decent players is pretty much a guarantee you won't.

For all the dramatic nonsense going on here between the one end of the spectrum with the sarcy "yeah yeah, everything's shit here isn't it, blah blah" retorts, and the other end, with that patronising "OMG PULL YOUR HEADS OUT OF THE SAND" line, the true situation is probably somewhere in the middle.

We might not have a league one squad as some seem to think we do, but - regardless of where we are in the table at this point in time, what with nothing being decided in January - it strikes me that it is nigh on impossible to look at clubs we traditionally compete with and think our squad compares favourably.

How many of our first team do we think Newcastle or Spurs or Everton fans would want in their starting XI?

And before anyone goes on about Everton and  Lukaku being on loan, so what? That's the system, they are using it. Like we are with Holt.

[SoccerHQ]

Didn't you tip them to go down this year Paulie?!

Yep, pretty much all of Newcastle's midfield would walk into ours, only one is I'd probably have Delph over Tiote.

Our midfield option are embarrassing compared to most of the premier league really.

[kippaxvilla2]

We would have signed Cabaye had Houllier stayed.

[pauliewalnuts]

Didn't you tip them to go down this year Paulie?!

Not that I remember. I thought towards the end of last season they were playing abysmally enough to have been relegated, though. Looks as if they've got their act together again this season.

I do look at some of the talent there and wonder how come we're so much weaker.

Our midfield option are embarrassing compared to most of the premier league really.

Without a doubt. I just don't see a permutation from the options that we have which will work with any permanency, either.

[Dave Cooper please]

It's easy to snigger at Southampton's ambition of CL but at least they had ambition above survival.

So did we when Lerner first came in, then he allowed O'Neill to spunk millions up the wall on three different defences and Heskey and here's where we are.

Anyway, our "ambition" isn't about survival at all, our "reality" at he moment might be though.

[NeilH]

A long time ago, probably back in the last days of Ellis, Mac wrote a very eloquent post about what we as football fans expect. The gist of it was that like every fan in from Citeh to Port Vale or Ajax to FC Telstar (had to get a cheeky reference in for my Dutch team) we need hope. Sure each of one our hopes are different, dependant on the club you support. In the case of Telstar, the hope is that we will one day sneak into the Jupiler League play-offs. So what is the hope of Villa fans right now, that we will survive another season, that we will at least try and compete, that we will take one of the cups seriously?
This for me is the crux of why I am struggling so much right now to motivate myself to watch the club I love, because the hope that followed Lerner’s arrival has been pulled from under us and we as fans are now struggling to come to terms with it. Of course O’Neill wasted a golden chance to get into the Champions League and had we had a different manager, we probably would have achieved it. However, the speed at which we crumbled and the fact that we are still nowhere near recovering from the fallout has been extremely hard to deal with.
As a football club we have got to find our place soon again and give the fans something to hope for, other than blind devotion and a dream that it can’t go on forever.

[Tayls_7]

A long time ago, probably back in the last days of Ellis, Mac wrote a very eloquent post about what we as football fans expect. The gist of it was that like every fan in from Citeh to Port Vale or Ajax to FC Telstar (had to get a cheeky reference in for my Dutch team) we need hope. Sure each of one our hopes are different, dependant on the club you support. In the case of Telstar, the hope is that we will one day sneak into the Jupiler League play-offs. So what is the hope of Villa fans right now, that we will survive another season, that we will at least try and compete, that we will take one of the cups seriously?
This for me is the crux of why I am struggling so much right now to motivate myself to watch the club I love, because the hope that followed Lerner’s arrival has been pulled from under us and we as fans are now struggling to come to terms with it. Of course O’Neill wasted a golden chance to get into the Champions League and had we had a different manager, we probably would have achieved it. However, the speed at which we crumbled and the fact that we are still nowhere near recovering from the fallout has been extremely hard to deal with.
As a football club we have got to find our place soon again and give the fans something to hope for, other than blind devotion and a dream that it can’t go on forever.

Thanks Neil, I was feeling a bit down this morning but that's pepped me right up!