The Takeover Thread - Recon Group - NOW WITH NEW POLL

[UK Redsox]

I'm looking forward to the lion being replaced by Kung-Fu Panda on the badge if nothing else.

Pablo "Kung Fu Panda" Sandoval makes Gabby look slim

[damon loves JT]

Let's not slash our wrists just yet. A new owner who even *tries* to make a fist  Villa will be ten times the man Randy Lerner was.

[Diablo]

Fantastic.
After the credit card yankee pretender with his war-criminal mate departs  we get a chinese moneylaunderer led into the deal by a known criminal representing the worst kind of private equity usurers (expect the club up to its eyeballs in future secured debt) who is expected to appoint an known asset stripper as chairman.

And they are going to rename Villa Park. 
Theater of Broken Dreams? (sp. deliberate)
ReConned Park?
New Day Same Shit Stadium?

Still, could have been worse could have been the Russians or the Sauds.

bloody hell, you're a barrel of laughs aren't you ? 

It's been a long hard few years.

I hear ya

[itbrvilla]

I'm not sure if its been said yet but I suspect that one of the reasons Gay Tony has chosen Villa is their pink shirts. Where better to be gay than at the Villa. But if he spends his pink pounds in Aston i'm sure nobody will mind.

We're all enjoying your continued delusion

Have fun spending your £50m and sacking your managers

lots of love from everyone in Small Heath

XXX

Continued delusion? Coming from you ******. Were still bigger than you. Get over it and get behind your own club for a fucking change you fucking ape.

[Mellin]

Just ignore him. Was a swing and a miss anyway.

[Walmley_Villa]

Wonder if the blisters on his palms have gone down since our relegation.....?

[Percy McCarthy]

I'm not sure if its been said yet but I suspect that one of the reasons Gay Tony has chosen Villa is their pink shirts. Where better to be gay than at the Villa. But if he spends his pink pounds in Aston i'm sure nobody will mind.

We're all enjoying your continued delusion

Have fun spending your £50m and sacking your managers

lots of love from everyone in Small Heath

XXX

Notice us. Please. Somebody. Anybody?

[Comrade Blitz]

Found this photo of Thongs and his brother on his FB page:

[john e]

If this season proves nothing else it's that nothing in football is permanent.

Indeed. I recall being laughed out of town for predicting the 'eternal' top four (Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea) would soon be dotted about the top half of the table. (2nd, 5th, 8th, 10th this season). I think Liverpool have qualified for the Chumps League once since I predicted they were most at risk of losing their place.

I can remember your posts on that a few years ago now
I wasn't one that laughed I thought you made some interesting and unique points at the time

looks like you were not far wrong

[anton hillman]

Not too sure about Di Matteo as the new manager. Would he be strong enough to kick the malingerers into shape, if the new owner fails to pay them off? Might be another Remi... We don't need a nice guy at this point.

If only there was some way of judging him. Like if, say, he'd taken over a team that had just been relegated having finished in rock bottom position before.

Oh wait, he did. He got them promoted.

Agreed. He did achieve promotion with a team that had finished 'rock bottom' but no way dis he uto take on Gabby and Richards
Being "strong" doesn't just mean being able to strangle opponents and call journalists "ostrich".

Agreed, he did achieve promotion with a rock bottom team. However,what he didn't have to contend with is the toxic characters that currently inhabit the AVFC dressing room. Would he be able to overcome Gabby, Richards etc? I doubt it. If they are already gone or on their way out then maybe he could do something for us.

[frank black]

Thongs, seems like a bright lad doesn't he. I shall use his post as an example to my two lads of what can happen if you don't focus at school and get tempted by substances.

[KevinGage]

This one can type, at least. Sort of.

If you give enough Small Heathens enough type writers one of them will eventually develop a mini series for the BBC.

 

[oldhill_avfc]

Fine to have that sort of idea for a contract (if that is a legitimate quote) a bit less fine if you are broadcasting it for all and sundry to hear.

As others have mentioned, it immediately reduces the appeal of the job.  You can talk about rewarding failure, but the average life expectancy for any manager in the top two divisions is about two years now. Paul Lambert was third longest serving manager in the PL at one point.

Even good managers aren't immune from a 4/5 game losing streak, which will immediately have the knives out for most managers these days.   It is a precarious job, so it is an extremely hard sell without compensation. 

The key is picking a manager who has a bit of pride in himself and isn't attracted to the job for that reason alone.

All this shooting from the hip is fine, but talking about these kind of high performance winning standards doesn't ring true for me.  I come back to the earlier point that if this chap does want to make us a major player in the world game (and has the resources to do so) why wait until we have dropped out of the most high profile league in the world?   Why risk the complication of having to gain promotion and the two lots of rebuilding it will need (this summer and then having a team fit for the PL) when he could have gone in with a higher purchase price in Jan (or even last summer) and banked the new TV deal?

The 'We will spend £30, £40 or £50 million' all sounds a bit vague and Carson-esque to me too (not saying he will go on to be a rotter of Yeung-like proportions, mind).   There is a big difference between £30 and 50 million. 

Paul Winch and a few others have mentioned that there are reasons to be concerned with this deal, but that another year of Lerner and co would have seen us plummet even further, and that is a fair point.

I don't think this will be a long-term fit.  But If it is a venture capitalist-style deal and the aim is to invest heavily in the first year or two, get us up and and then sell on at a profit, then so be it.

I took the transfer funds thing to mean that he has set a figure and will see what the manager wants once they're in place.  I think that is exactly the right approach for him to have at this point.

As for long-term fit I think you're completely wrong, as I've said before from everything that has been said by him and about him, a glance at the main business in his group and an understanding of where investments in rebuilding Birmingham are coming from I see this as a Man City style takeover where he wants to rebuild the whole area and use the club as a way to draw people in.

that's some massive expectation,
 and there was me thinking he was just a bullshitter

I'm with you John e.

There's more a whiff about all of this.

Mention has been made of the Chinese being interested in devloping football clubs in some sort of recipricol deal for their players but this seems to have taken a backseat in the recent news.   

The idea now being touted is this Dr of Design (town planner/architect) has a business plan which seems to be based around some sort of regeneration plan for Aston.   

If he pulls it off then great, but I just can't see what his Chinese backers would get in return, so that leaves  Birmingham Council, the government or private backers needing to pump money into the scheme.  Can anyone see that happening?

We all know where the cash from sales of assets will go and where debt will lie if it all goes tits up.  That's why I'm very sceptical.

[frank black]

This one can type, at least. Sort of.

If you give enough Small Heathens enough type writers one of them will eventually develop a mini series for the BBC.

 

CBBC

[Small Rodent]

Fantastic.
After the credit card yankee pretender with his war-criminal mate departs  we get a chinese moneylaunderer led into the deal by a known criminal representing the worst kind of private equity usurers (expect the club up to its eyeballs in future secured debt) who is expected to appoint an known asset stripper as chairman.

How many libellous comments can one person get into a sentence?