It's not Sherwood!

[adrenachrome]

An interesting interview with SVC on Talkshite on Sunday

[tomd2103]

If we are going down the DOF route and also with Fox now in position

I'm not sure we necessarily need a DOF, just a nucleus of people at the club who have sufficient football knowledge to put proper plans together.

[villasjf]

Perhaps snaffling some of Southampton's youth talent spotters or youth coaches would be a good start.

[SamTheMouse]

I fail to see how going through a succession of managers to end up with Tiny Penis is consistent with the way Swansea and Southampton do things.

It may be childish, but this still makes me titter every time I see it.

[LeeS]

Long term isn't one manager. It's a line of managers, but you've got to have a consistent ideology they'll all adhere to.

But what if that ideology is wrong? Or it was right but it failed for other reasons so was deemed a failure and ditched too soon?

There are a million reasons a club can succeed or fail. Even those who succeed for a bit will probably suffer a period of failure before long. But then comes along a club who succeed for a longer than expected period and we all hold it up as a "model". But there could have been other clubs who tried that model and failed so they fall by the wayside.

You see it in business all the time where successful companies are held up as models to imitate. But the model fails to recognise that 1,000 other companies followed a very similar route but failed, because that's what happens in life.  Its called survivor bias and its dangerous to assume you can just copy something that succeeded in one or two cases and assume it will always succeed.

[Dante Lavelli]

Long term isn't one manager. It's a line of managers, but you've got to have a consistent ideology they'll all adhere to.

But what if that ideology is wrong? Or it was right but it failed for other reasons so was deemed a failure and ditched too soon?

There are a million reasons a club can succeed or fail. Even those who succeed for a bit will probably suffer a period of failure before long. But then comes along a club who succeed for a longer than expected period and we all hold it up as a "model". But there could have been other clubs who tried that model and failed so they fall by the wayside.

You see it in business all the time where successful companies are held up as models to imitate. But the model fails to recognise that 1,000 other companies followed a very similar route but failed, because that's what happens in life.  Its called survivor bias and its dangerous to assume you can just copy something that succeeded in one or two cases and assume it will always succeed.

That's weird I was reading about survivor bias the other day but had not applied it to football.  Regardless of your valid point I think an alternative of not identifying any mid/long term strategies and relying on one individual to oversee everything is more risky (I'm not saying you're suggesting that). 

[paul_e]

Survivor bias does have some merit in this but there are certain things that are almost impossible to argue against.  Setting up a structure that ensures you have a good supply of  talent is one, having a strategic vision that people are employed to follow rather than employing someone and letting them dictate the vision is another.  All good companies do these things, the companies that do these things and fail do so because the underlying product isn't good enough or because whilst they followed a good model they didn't recruit well enough to pull it off.

Companies with a good business model, good staff and good products rarely fail, it's if one of those pillars is wrong that things don't work out as they should.

In a football sense you have to switch those 3 around a touch, so staff becomes coaches and players and product becomes everything else, so training facilites, ground, commercial revenue, etc.  This is why Villa should be a decent bet for a new owner/investor; we've got the latter largely in place, the staffing is now looking like it has a decent base, and with the youth and reserve setup we have that's also fairly solid it's the business plan that's held us back.

[Salsa Party Animal]

and using money wisely for football whenever it is investing in coaching, scouting, management, player wages and transfer activity and policy.

[paul_e]

and using money wisely for football whenever it is investing in coaching, scouting, management, player wages and transfer activity and policy.

but all of that is a result of poor planning for how we were going to get where we wanted to be.  The plan for the first 4 years consisted of: Employ MON + throw money at him + Magic = Champions League.  The 3rd bit is the problem and leads to the 2nd bit having no direction to it.

[frank black]

He's constantly in the press talking about Tottingham and Harry Kane this Harry Kane that.

I just hope he doesn't do a houllier if they beat us.

Just saying..

[Ian.]

He's constantly in the press talking about Tottingham and Harry Kane this Harry Kane that.

I just hope he doesn't do a houllier if they beat us.

Just saying..

Hopefully once he's got a couple of seasons under his belt he'll be saying this about our young players.

[Taylor]

He's constantly in the press talking about Tottingham and Harry Kane this Harry Kane that.

I just hope he doesn't do a houllier if they beat us.

Just saying..

Think that's a bit unfair. Pat Murphy keeps asking him the questions, he's just answering them. Murphy just kept banging on about spurs, like most BBC presenters.

[Damo70]

He's constantly in the press talking about Tottingham and Harry Kane this Harry Kane that.

I just hope he doesn't do a houllier if they beat us.

Just saying..

I think that is bigging his role at Spurs up more than Spurs themselves. He actually grew up an Arsenal fan didn't he? Plus his best times were at Blackburn so I doubt Spurs are the love of his life.

[Toronto Villa]

He's constantly in the press talking about Tottingham and Harry Kane this Harry Kane that.

I just hope he doesn't do a houllier if they beat us.

Just saying..

Is he? Or is he answering the questions thrown at him and instead of publishing the entire conversation we only see snippets that are decided for us. I'm pretty sure he isn't saying "I wants to talk about Harry Kane again"

[adrenachrome]

He's constantly in the press talking about Tottingham and Harry Kane this Harry Kane that.

I just hope he doesn't do a houllier if they beat us.

Just saying..

Is he? Or is he answering the questions thrown at him and instead of publishing the entire conversation we only see snippets that are decided for us. I'm pretty sure he isn't saying "I wants to talk about Harry Kane again"

Timeh is all about Timeh, and could not give a rat's ass about Sperms unless it reflects on him. If it is the case that Sperms' board wanted to flog several young players and he put his foot down, and a journo asks him a question relating to this, then there is no way that he will shirk the issue.

For now, you could not get anybody more Villa if you tried.