Christian Purslow

[VillaChris]

2 hours ago, VillaParkAvenue said:

Hodgson was given a 3 year contract by CP, but sacked by FSG after being at the club for 6 months. Some expensive safe hands.

At the time his stock was high, had just guided Fulham to europa league final and top half in premier lesgue.

It just didn't work out, Hodgson not a great manager in spotlight, exactly like Moyes at Man. United.

[Peter Griffin]

2 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

At the time his stock was high, had just guided Fulham to europa league final and top half in premier lesgue.

It just didn't work out, Hodgson not a great manager in spotlight, exactly like Moyes at Man. United.

Rafa is a very strong personality and has a bit of a reputation for being quite political and underhand. I suspect Purslow wanted rid of Rafa from early on as he had the potential to cause too much noise during a sale or due diligence. Roy would be perfect for putting in front of a potential investor / buyer and much easier to manage imo

[Zatman]

11 hours ago, Peter Griffin said:

Nice tactical change of wording from 'employ' to 'find' 

It would be very surprising if the club did not also seek outside advice from a consultancy company when looking to 'find' a new manager. This is normal work practice. But it is absolutely should be the CEO's job to make the final decision and employ them as they report into the CEO

Seriously wtf are you talking about.

We all know this didn't happen, why would we seek outside advice to hire Purslow mate

Edited September 10, 2022 by Zatman

[Zatman]

2 hours ago, Peter Griffin said:

Rafa is a very strong personality and has a bit of a reputation for being quite political and underhand. I suspect Purslow wanted rid of Rafa from early on as he had the potential to cause too much noise during a sale or due diligence. Roy would be perfect for putting in front of a potential investor / buyer and much easier to manage imo

Sounds like Purslow **** up akd showed his weakness

[VillaParkAvenue]

4 hours ago, Peter Griffin said:

And FSG didn't want a safe pair of hands as they wanted to improve the football and bring the club forward from a footballing perspective. CP wanted to sell the club

Improving the football would have made the club easier for Purslow to sell.

You’re painting yourself into a corner here, but you seem to enjoy it so why not.

[Tomaszk]

Some absolutely ridiculous self-righteous comedy gold in here.

Top tier stuff.

[Tommo_b]

Not fully understanding the Purslow bashing, other than appointing Gerrard and not sacking him when some fans want him too, what has he done wrong? 

[WHY]

1 hour ago, Tommo_b said:

Not fully understanding the Purslow bashing, other than appointing Gerrard and not sacking him when some fans want him too, what has he done wrong? 

Personally think he got the appointment of Lange wrong as well, good appointment for him but not the club. I would much prefer it if Purslow just dealt with the commercial side of the club, rather than dabbling in the football side of it. 

[Xela]

7 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

Some absolutely ridiculous self-righteous comedy gold in here.

Top tier stuff.

Everyone is a successful CEO in here. 

[DCJonah]

2 hours ago, Tommo_b said:

Not fully understanding the Purslow bashing, other than appointing Gerrard and not sacking him when some fans want him too, what has he done wrong? 

I think football wise there's a lot to question. Our recruitment strategy first year back up was almost a disaster that sent us straight back down. 

With how last season ended I think it's fair to question whether it was right to sack Smith when he did and clearly the appointment of Gerrard is highly questionable. 

To spend the money we have and then sack a popular manager, to see us finish 14th and then look like a relegation fighting team the season after, deserves questioning. 

[Tommo_b]

53 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

I think football wise there's a lot to question. Our recruitment strategy first year back up was almost a disaster that sent us straight back down. 

But the flip side of that is that it didn’t send us back down, we came up with a championship squad, we stayed up… that’s all any promoted club could want that came up through play offs?

 

55 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

With how last season ended I think it's fair to question whether it was right to sack Smith when he did and clearly the appointment of Gerrard is highly questionable.

This I can agree, sacking Smith I was not on board with, but o could understand why. 
Gerrard appointment is a gamble but one you could argue was to bring in a manager whose stock was high at the time, remember the Rangers fans were devastated losing him to “little Villa”, I think success leaves breadcrumbs, does Gerrard  HAVE To turn it around, absolutely, can he, that remains to be seen, I don’t doubt he has the ability too, I just worry his stubbornness might be his and our undoing. 

 

57 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

To spend the money we have and then sack a popular manager, to see us finish 14th and then look like a relegation fighting team the season after, deserves questioning. 

Yeah, again I can agree on this, I loved Dean Smith as our manager. 

Really hoping Gerrard turns a corner, I think he will now he has seen his system is a bit of a disaster for where we are at. 
 

I get the frustration at Purslow for not taking swift action, to be honest I can see it from both sides, both have pros and cons. 

[DCJonah]

1 hour ago, Tommo_b said:

But the flip side of that is that it didn’t send us back down, we came up with a championship squad, we stayed up… that’s all any promoted club could want that came up through play offs?

 

This I can agree, sacking Smith I was not on board with, but o could understand why. 
Gerrard appointment is a gamble but one you could argue was to bring in a manager whose stock was high at the time, remember the Rangers fans were devastated losing him to “little Villa”, I think success leaves breadcrumbs, does Gerrard  HAVE To turn it around, absolutely, can he, that remains to be seen, I don’t doubt he has the ability too, I just worry his stubbornness might be his and our undoing. 

 

Yeah, again I can agree on this, I loved Dean Smith as our manager. 

Really hoping Gerrard turns a corner, I think he will now he has seen his system is a bit of a disaster for where we are at. 
 

I get the frustration at Purslow for not taking swift action, to be honest I can see it from both sides, both have pros and cons. 

Absolutely. But we went into the season with Wesley and Davis as our only forwards. Suso ended up losing his job. I give a lot of credit for our survival down to super jack and Deano using the covid break well to get us sorted. 

I'm not anti purslow and don't think he should be sacked. I do think he should be questioned and I don't buy into this idea that he seems untouchable. 

 

[nick76]

1 hour ago, Tommo_b said:

But the flip side of that is that it didn’t send us back down, we came up with a championship squad, we stayed up… that’s all any promoted club could want that came up through play offs?

 

This I can agree, sacking Smith I was not on board with, but o could understand why. 
Gerrard appointment is a gamble but one you could argue was to bring in a manager whose stock was high at the time, remember the Rangers fans were devastated losing him to “little Villa”, I think success leaves breadcrumbs, does Gerrard  HAVE To turn it around, absolutely, can he, that remains to be seen, I don’t doubt he has the ability too, I just worry his stubbornness might be his and our undoing. 

 

Yeah, again I can agree on this, I loved Dean Smith as our manager. 

Really hoping Gerrard turns a corner, I think he will now he has seen his system is a bit of a disaster for where we are at. 
 

I get the frustration at Purslow for not taking swift action, to be honest I can see it from both sides, both have pros and cons. 

I have no real issue with Purslow, I think off the pitch it seems from the outside he’s doing a fabulous job.  The football manager employment is just one part of his role and like you and DC I think the timing of Smith’s sacking was questionable and even more so the hiring of Gerrard.  

I still think Purslow was seduced by the idea of bringing in Gerrard because the pros and cons of appointing Gerrard wasn’t favouring him.  I think though on the whole Purslow seems to be doing otherwise a fantastic job and uses his contacts within football world to try to benefit Villa.

The coming weeks and months are likely to test Purslow a lot on the football side and will likely lead to him firing somebody he has a lot of belief in.  I think though we mustn’t forget the huge positives Purslow brings as CEO and for me he shouldn’t be bashed currently.  I understand why some fans are doing that and that will be tested more if results continue as they are.  There will be a lot of pressure on Purslow and even more so on his next managerial hire but for what he’s done elsewhere with the club I think he should not be forgotten and should be appreciated.

[Peter Griffin]

2 hours ago, DCJonah said:

Absolutely. But we went into the season with Wesley and Davis as our only forwards. Suso ended up losing his job. I give a lot of credit for our survival down to super jack and Deano using the covid break well to get us sorted. 

I'm not anti purslow and don't think he should be sacked. I do think he should be questioned and I don't buy into this idea that he seems untouchable. 

 

Where is the idea coming from that he is untouchable nor should be questioned? I haven't seen that on here, is it somewhere else?

[DCJonah]

43 minutes ago, Peter Griffin said:

Where is the idea coming from that he is untouchable nor should be questioned? I haven't seen that on here, is it somewhere else?

I think the idea of a villa fan, claiming to know why he made certain decisions at Liverpool whilst dismissing the criticism of Liverpool fans at the time, to state he was a success, all in order to defend him on a villa forum, gives the suggestion he's untouchable. 

[NoelVilla]

1,0 ppg must be the progress Purslow wanted.

[lexicon]

Owners need to be putting a lot of pressure on him. The expectations created do not come close to what we've seen. Talk is cheap. 

[AshVilla]

What a great CEO we have.

I seen him recently on the beach in Malaga, i tried to ask him about his best mate Steve but he wasn't very responsive to my questions.

I could hear some faint grunting coming through the sand which sounded alot like "Were amazing and won 1 - 0 so get fukt"

Edited September 20, 2022 by AshVilla

[DaveAV1]

Which ever way you look at it, we were generally moving along in the right direction. A few hiccups along the way, injuries, Joe leaving but nothing unavoidable or dramatic.  
 

Suddenly ROK a long term associate and friend  of Deano leaves and less of a shock but largely unexplained at the time JT also left. This all seemed to unsettle us and the season pretty much petered out.  The summer saw us pretty quiet in the market and the next season started poorly, resulting in a popular manager being sacked. Nothing too shocking there but his replacement now seems to be more about the dreams of the CEO and not really for the good of the club. 
 

The atmosphere at the club has changed both on and off the pitch. There no longer seems to be the togetherness that there was. What appeared to be a well thought out transfer and recruitment process now looks to have been thrown out of the window, with Lange marginalised. What was that on off Sarr transfer all about? It certainly wasn’t the professional way we had been operating.
 

We have a bomb squad, the old captain upset and the new captain hardly enthusiastic about his new roll. All a completely unnecessary and disruptive situation. 
 

I initially thought that we’d started to go downhill when SG arrived, but I don’t think that’s right. He’s a relatively young and inexperienced manager that has walked into a situation, I’m not sure exactly what, where some sort of internal struggle is going on. Not surprisingly he’s out of his depth.
 

The club no longer feels well run with two savvy and ambitious billionaire owners and a sharp CEO at the helm. Purslow’s love of the limelight, back slapping players on the touch line and never camera shy is becoming detrimental to the club. It worked at first, with NSWE never keen on the limelight themselves but I think they need to have a serious look at what’s going on with their huge investment and probably be a little more hands on for a while. A new CEO could be a priority, with a remit to put people in place that can run the first team properly as an immediate priority. 

[tomav84]

400m spent to be a work in **** progress?

Gerrard isn't going anywhere is he...I'm getting so close to saying "purslow out"