Dean Smith - Confirmed

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The new owners. Just as crap as the last owners.

It's all about opinions I suppose but that is just utter nonsense and one of the more bizarre things I've read on here over the years.

You thought that the chances of us going into administration were similarly crazy, I seem to recall, so with with all due respect, I'll take your opinion with a pinch of salt.

All the new owners have done so far is buy the club, put a poorly functioning management structure in place, waste a huge amount of money, and get us relegated.  Exactly the same as Lerner, just in double quick time.

You must have missed them getting us promoted.

And a cup final. And maybe even survival.

[ChicagoLion]

I would take a performance and point against Southampton rather than Final appearance.

[Risso]

Getting promoted was good work by Smith, but football is littered with managers who got teams promoted but then weren't good enough for the top league.

Either Smith is a great coach who has been hamstrung by woeful recruitment that he had little say in, or he's not good enough to keep a team in the Premier League.  Either way the owners have kept people in their posts who have contrubuted to our likely relegation.  January was absolutely abysmal in terms of doing anything about our plight, easily as negligent as anything Lerner did during his latter years.

[dave.woodhall]

I would take a performance and point against Southampton rather than Final appearance.

In this sentence, so football dies.

[Ad@m]

Do you honestly think that Mcginn / Mings / Grealish / Luiz etc. will want to play in the championship - not a chance, they will be looking for a way out as soon as relegation is confirmed.

The policy of the club was to buy players who would have a sell on value, and that is what we will be doing.

The players who know that they wont get the money they get paid at Aston Villa anywhere else, will be the one's we are left with, such as- Lansbury / Hourihane

Do you honestly think our gazillionaire owners give a shit either about the money or whether a players "wants" to stay or not.

They're contacted to the club unless they have release clauses. I'd be telling them that they've got one season to get us back up and show what they're capable of. If they arse around no one else will want them so they'll be motivated to get us back up.

In an ideal world, that would be great but what's the point in keeping players if they don't want to be there? I'd imagine one or two have relegation clauses as well if it comes to that.

Remember Grealish wanting to leave when Spurs came calling?

Later that season he got us promoted.

[Clampy]

Do you honestly think that Mcginn / Mings / Grealish / Luiz etc. will want to play in the championship - not a chance, they will be looking for a way out as soon as relegation is confirmed.

The policy of the club was to buy players who would have a sell on value, and that is what we will be doing.

The players who know that they wont get the money they get paid at Aston Villa anywhere else, will be the one's we are left with, such as- Lansbury / Hourihane

Do you honestly think our gazillionaire owners give a shit either about the money or whether a players "wants" to stay or not.

They're contacted to the club unless they have release clauses. I'd be telling them that they've got one season to get us back up and show what they're capable of. If they arse around no one else will want them so they'll be motivated to get us back up.

In an ideal world, that would be great but what's the point in keeping players if they don't want to be there? I'd imagine one or two have relegation clauses as well if it comes to that.

Remember Grealish wanting to leave when Spurs came calling?

Later that season he got us promoted.

I don't think he wanted to leave, he nearly had to. Had the new owners not come in, it would have been out of his hands.

[Ad@m]

He really did...

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/11510848/jack-grealish-admits-disappointment-over-failed-tottenham-transfer

[Clampy]

I think the deal was so far down the line given our financial state, his head was set on leaving, that's probably what it was. What I'm trying to say is, I don't think he asked to leave, at the time he had to.

[ASHTONVILLA]

Getting promoted was good work by Smith, but football is littered with managers who got teams promoted but then weren't good enough for the top league.

Either Smith is a great coach who has been hamstrung by woeful recruitment that he had little say in, or he's not good enough to keep a team in the Premier League.  Either way the owners have kept people in their posts who have contrubuted to our likely relegation.  January was absolutely abysmal in terms of doing anything about our plight, easily as negligent as anything Lerner did during his latter years.

We really have not been blessed in the post Ellis era, three billionaires in row that have all appointed poor chairman and terrible managers and spunked fortunes on poor players with big contracts. Lerner gave us some good years initially, but it all went wrong when he couldn't appoint a decent replacement for MON.

FFP is the big problem, as any new owner (current incumbents included) is restricted in spending our way out of problems. This means recruitment really has to be better than it has been, and we may already have spent our way into a corner which will be hard to get out of. We are again going to saddled with a dreadful squad full of overpaid players that we can't get back the book value on.

We need to find a far better manager than Smith who is simply not good enough to get us promoted minus Grealish, and has proven himself incapable of finding a system that suits the players at his disposal, coaching players or motivating them.Curre

The owners have massively screwed up in sticking with a set up that clearly was not working. The next appointment needs to be 'Graham Taylor' and not an 'Alex McCleish'. Smith reminds me of Graham Turner and Paul Lambert, nice men that shone at a small club but who are completely out of their depth.

[Drummond]

That bloke at Newcastle's doing ok.

[AsTallAsLions]

Getting promoted was good work by Smith, but football is littered with managers who got teams promoted but then weren't good enough for the top league.

Either Smith is a great coach who has been hamstrung by woeful recruitment that he had little say in, or he's not good enough to keep a team in the Premier League.  Either way the owners have kept people in their posts who have contrubuted to our likely relegation.  January was absolutely abysmal in terms of doing anything about our plight, easily as negligent as anything Lerner did during his latter years.

Can't help but agree with this.

I would say the owners did well last season to keep us afloat as a business and arguably Purslow was a shrewd appointment at the time as he understood the mechanics of FFP and steered us clear of the wolves in that respect. Collectively those 3 then pulled the plug on Bruce when the time was right and put in place a manager who, to all intents and purposes, played the type of football the fans wanted to see. We know the rest.

This season could not be more of a contrast. To a man they've all failed to steward the club intelligently. At the moment we are hoping (and failing) to be the least shit of 3/4 clubs still fighting for survival. Based on points, we should be relegated already.

I'll be shocked if we stay up. At which point we can all, I hope, admit to what a disaster the season has been.

[Ad@m]

The thing with owners is you can't have it both ways.

After years of HDE's meddling we were pretty much to a man crying out for a billionaire who would appoint a decent manager and stay out of it other than to write cheques. At the time, Lerner and O'Neill was that combo.

Obviously hindsight teaches us it was far from ideal but I'm not sure going back to an owner who's constantly sticking his oar in is the right way to go either.

The owners appoint a CEO to run the club. If mistakes are made, he should carry the can, not the owners. The owners responsibility should be limited to identifying when a CEO isn't up to the task and then change them for a new one.

[Risso]

The thing with owners is you can't have it both ways.

After years of HDE's meddling we were pretty much to a man crying out for a billionaire who would appoint a decent manager and stay out of it other than to write cheques. At the time, Lerner and O'Neill was that combo.

Obviously hindsight teaches us it was far from ideal but I'm not sure going back to an owner who's constantly sticking his oar in is the right way to go either.

The owners appoint a CEO to run the club. If mistakes are made, he should carry the can, not the owners. The owners responsibility should be limited to identifying when a CEO isn't up to the task and then change them for a new one.

That isn't going to work in reality though.  The CEO in our case is just as culpable as everybody else.  He put the Smith/Pitarch structure in place, and he'd then have to admit he's fucked up badly, which from his general demeanour I dont imagine is high on his list of priorities.

[SoccerHQ]

The “ we will be ok if we go down” is fantasy, we won’t. This squad is not set up too deal with Division 2 and the heart will be ripped out of it.We will end up with some expensive, cant get rid of players which does nothing for squad harmony and togetherness and need to replace many key players.
As well as the psychological blow you have the huge reorganisation required.
We then have the worry concerning our owners appetite.

Same happened last time didn't it? Infact I'd be amazed if anyone was to argue the 2016 squad was better than this one. Yet we came up within three years (could've been two if we'd turned up v Fulham). Also Jordan Ayew was our best attacking player that season and he stayed although ironically he didn't do much in the championship.

How did we bounce back so quickly? Three years really isn't that long when you see Forest, Sheff Weds and Leeds have a combined 57 years out of the top division now.

People forgetting we will be a big fish in small pond again and can actually attract better players than being a premier league struggler. Last time out we signed Chester, Kodjia, Adomah, Jedinak in that first transfer window. All were involved when we won the play off final but for one reason or another couldn't contribute in the premier league.

Think that's what we need to learn for next time. The 4-5 we sign to freshen up and improve the 11 need not just to be standout players in championship but also have the potential to be good players in premier league.

[SoccerHQ]

The thing with owners is you can't have it both ways.

After years of HDE's meddling we were pretty much to a man crying out for a billionaire who would appoint a decent manager and stay out of it other than to write cheques. At the time, Lerner and O'Neill was that combo.

Obviously hindsight teaches us it was far from ideal but I'm not sure going back to an owner who's constantly sticking his oar in is the right way to go either.

The owners appoint a CEO to run the club. If mistakes are made, he should carry the can, not the owners. The owners responsibility should be limited to identifying when a CEO isn't up to the task and then change them for a new one.

I personally think Wes Edens had a lot to do with direction of last season's transfer policy (Nas is a bit of a mystery to me with his intentions so seems more of a silent partner). Keep on going back to this interview which unnerved me a bit:

https://www.tribalfootball.com/articles/aston-villa-co-owner-wes-edens-reveals-new-plans-for-transfer-policy-4322821

No idea how we're going to become a serious force in premier league within next five years just signing mediocre young players from Belgium and Turkey all the time.

We had a better strategy in summer 2015 but in true Villa timing decided to finally do it when we'd just lost our three most influential players.

Also praising Arsenal's transfer policy is pretty odd.