nick76

What's worse is Gabby, Lescott and Richards are supposedly Villa fans

Yellow card to take off your shirt is to protect the sponsors who pay money to be on the football shirt and at the key moment that gets the most publicity i.e. goal and following celebration is where it gets most audience viewing and if a player takes off his shirt then they lose that exposure Yellow card for celebrating with the fans has been viewed as exciting the fans too much which could lead to trouble.....weird way of looking at it but apparently true. The other celebrations seem to be fine

If it is RDM and has been agreed, i bet in the background they have been working up plans for next season so when it is ratified a lot will already be planned.

Yeah takeovers take time, from every man and his dog wanting their pound of flesh who are involved in the consulting process i.e. everybody aside the Villa and Dr Xia charging endless money to assist with the process and generally lingering it to get more dollars, to government and regulatory bodies in this case FL and PL being not really designed for this kind of activity added to their endless bureaucracy. It's not going into a store and purchasing a TV, it takes time and it goes quiet while people are doing their jobs. No news is neither good news or bad news, it's just no news......everything else provided by the media/individuals unless backed up with fact is likely just to be rumour mongering just so something is said or to get attention to the individuals/companies media page

So? it's a team game and he was not very good. Don't care what his team does, and I doubt he was totally responsible for it. He just wasn't a good player and I'm glad he left and no iwouldnt want him back now

You have to remember the Chinese business world is very different to anything we are used in the West. Now I'm currently living in Australia and working in the finance sector which has more links with China than UK the lack transparency of him or his companies is not surprising especially outside of China or accessing outside of China. I don't think that can give us an indication of whether this is good news or bad news at all. Frustrating for us as fans I know especially those that have never dealt with China before but I definitely don't think it's an indication either way. Anyway after the last incumbent it will be actions for Aston Villa will be how I judge him

Really, the only way you get better is by getting players better than you already have, getting players better than your current position in the league. Therefore you have to concede on somethings in hope that with some other players you can move up to that level and those players dont leave or if they do you can then attract players on the next step above that. Plus we didnt expect, despite recent league positions to be relegated. Also some of the other concessions we may have had to give may have been worse than this i.e. silly wages, which lock you in for the term of the contract and then you have the Zogbia situation. At the end of the day we didnt expect at the start of the season to be relegated and then we go and get relegated, there lies in our problem because it was an easy concession.

Mugs or a team that constantly fights relegation trying to attract one of the top young French left backs and knew if we didn't concede on some things we wouldn't get them

They might have done well with us, ok, that's a tad optimistic. But you can't judge how players do at other clubs as that could've been different for us because of styles, formations along with many other conditions. How many players have gone from one club to another and been awful....Torres, Benteke etc. it's all about fitting in as well. Plus I don't want our owner and board to think that way

I agree, even if he is ineffective there the defenders cant take that risk and will have to track him which should leave holes for other players to take advantage of

King whose a Villa fan and former Governor of the Bank of England and Bernstein, ex head of the FA I currently would take their side on this matter. Woodytom while I can see you are trying to balance the books, you are doing it not taking into consideration any history which seems naive doesnt it. You are basing your balancing the books based on an isolated incident which is fair enough but taking into context the history of Lerner, Kind and Bernstein adds a whole new perspective to this and you can easily argue for the abuse that Lerner is getting over this. Without details on the emails which we are never going to get we are never going to know. From the outside we know what Lerner is like and we know the reputation of Kind and Bernstein who I am assuming before this have never done business together before Villa so for both of them to take this decision as a joint decision speaks volumes. You earn a reputation, which is based on your past performance, which taints current/future activities which I know is unfair but Leopards very rarely change their spots. If it was so off why hasnt Lerner in some way refuted, commented or done something.

The opposition goal mouth as its an area hardly used

To be fair the grass never really got a pounding as our players barely walked around during matches nevermind tear up the turf. Some of the turf in my Nans back yard got more of a workout than the Villa park pitch and she can't walk. obviously a bit of a joke, congrats to the groundsmen, outstanding job as they do every year

I love your idea and years ago players were part of the community but now they are not. Through pay, fame and ego their connection to the community has long gone. Their reality is not our reality, their loyalty is to themselves evidenced by what they say and do

Why??? I'm going to be controversial but why should they. Like one of the earlier posts we have heard of very rare incidents when a company has done it but it is very rare. The reasoning that is being suggested is that it is the players fault we are being relegated and thus need to reduce cost. The players can easily afford it in one pay being distributed to the employees rather than taking it themselves. While all very good in theory and from a third party like us the fans but again why should the players do it? I'm assuming the players probably only have met a handful of the likely people and even more so if told the person name couldnt pick them out in a line up so they dont know these people so why should somebody forfeit their weeks wage for somebody they dont know because of peer/fan pressure? While you can argue the relegation is the players fault, we have been teetering on relegation for the last how ever many seasons and a lot of these players are new to the cube, should we be asking ex recent players to contribute as well? the senior management are as just as much to blame, especially the ones that have been fired. Without doubt the owner is to blame. Also instead of us fans wanting "twenty is plenty" prices, we pay an extra £1 per game (or whatever the figure is) so these people can keep their jobs, the fan pressure to keep prices down or reduce them further will also be a reason for redundancies. It's us the fans that want the people to keep the jobs, the vast amount players will more than likely be gone before the new season starts especially the ones at fault. Also you can argue (never mind how bad we are playing) that it's us the fans who are also making the people redundant as our dwindling attendances means overall crowds are down and thus the need to close off area's. If we were selling out then this wouldnt be happening. I know this is unfair to blame us given the football but it's true, if we were there then there wouldnt be redunancies. People have to remember the only people that care are us and the people close to the people losing their jobs. Expecting anything else, you are hoping for a miracle which could happen but highly unlikely because if they did forfeit a weeks salary, then in a month or two's time we will have forgotten and still want them out of the club because they are awful/lazy players and why would players feel the need as the relegation is not just their fault so why should they be the only ones to suffer just because they earn money than us.

I liked the letter, like the timing and the content was fine by me. I'm starting to like Hollis what with the changes at board level and this letter, it's a good start.

Strange how many of the most underachieving players at the club over recent years have been Villa fans.....Collymore, Gabby, Richards, Lescott

Well unlike the Villa other teams generally start preparation for next season before the previous season ends, especially as we have all but been relegated for some time. Only the Villa start preparing once the season ends, followed by holidays and then into preseason and then we'll think about doing something

I dont understand what the point of him is as he's getting paid to do nothing different. He doesnt want the job, we are relegated anyway why not have a bit of fun if I was him. I'm not talking about 6 strikers upfront or anything daft like that but mix it up a bit, dont play what hasnt been working with players that hasnt been working. Let's attack, let's try a few different players, let's not worry if we do lose 5-0 on the off chance that we win 4-3....at the moment it's just opponent 1,2,3,4 - Villa Nil, game after game.

I've been thinking about this for the last few days who I want as manager and I've come to the conclusion that I dont care. Sounds pretty strange but my thought is that there is good and back with all the options presented above and none of them stand out as a clear front runner for me. I know who I dont want and that's the best I can do but for picking a manager that I do really want it feels like I'm picking which queue to get in and I always pick the queue that looks like it's going to be the best but end up being wrong. They all have many positives but equally they all have many negatives, I actually feel sorry for the new board on this as it's their first real test and it could so easily go wrong

I dont know what to make of Jack, some very brief flashes of talent but also so many times of ineffectiveness. Are we as fans so desperate for something to grip onto that we make a few flashes something more and 15 minutes every half a dozen games we hope can turn into consistent excellence every game or is he really just a player with a few tricks that sometimes work but nothing more than that. I'm not sure we have enough evidence for either yet. History suggests the latter, my hope is the former

This is it for me (aside from the woman beater) he his having a go and to fair he different didnt perform just like the current idiots....so it's a little funny that he is so vocal although to be fair he is more vocal about the running of the club in most of the stuff I've seen from him. Still doesnt matter, he is one of us and had a chance at we all wanted to do but squandered his immense talent

I have no issue mid season players having a break, no problem them having a good time but I do have an issue mid season that a player who has gone to a country that is roughly 3 or 4 hours time difference ahead and then going to a middle of the night party with the the type of smoking they are doing. A party like that would take me a couple of days to get over, which added to the time difference and your body out of sync with a normal day and I'm an average Joe. Gabby is supposed to be an elite athlete whose body shouldn't be used to this and to perform at peak performance shouldnt have these substances in his system and is also on a good regular sleep pattern (an athlete standard). Yes his next game isnt until the next weekend but his training isnt, that is the next day or so and his performance wont be up to scratch then, his body is trying to rid itself of that stuff, mentally he wont be quite there (no jokes please) or at the peak he needs to be. Thus we lose a real effective training day, maybe that lasts two days.....that affects preparation for the game at the weekend and so on......... I dont begrudge a break, I dont begrudge enjoying themselves but these guys need to look after themselves whether they are at the bottom of the league or top of the league. We are more miffed because of how these guys are playing and where we are in the league and all that. I think in any case I would be miffed, not because of the situation we are in, not because of the embarrassment to the club but we are paying these players incredible amounts of money to be elite athletes for our club. Anything else they do is up to them but they have a responsibility to be at the peak of their fitness for us as that is what we are paying for them. Just as if a player came back 10 kilos heavier for preseason, we know that will affect player ability and thus we have a go because his health is less than it should be then smoking and late nights affects health as well so the treatment from us should be the same.

I was always told never go back and every time I have it was worse than before......heaven help us!

People talking about keeping and selling for championship, I pretty much think some of these guys will force their way out of Villa and I expect us to be a bit of a pushover because we'll think we can get different players more suitable for the championship. Amavi will only stay because he has been injured, if he had been fit somebody wouldve come and pinched him. Vertout, Gana, Ayew and Adama, I assuming at least half of them gone because I cant imagine they enjoyed their first season here, they still have reputation in Euorpe for their prior performances to Villa and will blame the team rather than themselves and clubs can pick them up for $5m ish, which is cheap for young talent. I'm also sure that whoever is the manager of Villa in the summer will want some changes, so more than half the team is likely to change Despite contracts, we have little control of players if they want to leave. We have experienced that in the past as you know.