The Tom Fox Thread

[smetro]

It never ceases to amaze me what an easy ride this guy gets - to me he seems to get almost everything wrong:-

Last November - probably his most costly mistake - David Moyes and Tony Pullis unemployed - Tom Fox sits on his hands and lets them find other clubs whilst our manager flounders

Then he comes out with his now infamous false narrative speech

The way we ended last season suggested that although Tim saved us, was he actually the man to take us forward ? - It would seem this thought never even entered our CEO'S head - he then lets a manager who has never signed a player loose with the cash windfall from the sale of our biggest assets. This was a golden chance to put the club back on a sure footing - instead a complete rookie was allowed to run amok like a kid in a sweet shop - its early days but theres growing evidence that the £50m has largely been wasted.....

However a glimmer hope - Big Sam , a man seasoned in beating relegation with meagre resources was still available, as Aston Villa clocked up defeat after defeat - incredibly Tom Fox still sat on his hands - the double whammy of this is that this relegation beating man - was allowed to join one of our relegation rivals

Popular rumour has it, that Sherwood must win tomorrows game to keep his job. Bizzarre really ....what would an unconvincing home win against another poor side tell Tom Fox that he doesn't already know ? - if we win tomorrow, we all know our next victory is another 5 or six games away - Either Tims our Man or he's not - we learn little from Tomorrow

Sure Lerner and Sherwood will get all the flak - but this guy is a joke of a CEO - he is very highly paid and yet seems incapable of making decisions.

Should we loose tomorrow - he should pack his bags along with Sherwood....

[Trotters]

I was impressed when we first landed Fox and assumed that he was a new owners man....no way would he be the kind of bloke to work for someone like Lerner after leaving Arsenal.

I guess he was.

Then the interview where he seemed to understand what Villa were really all about and where we should be (or at least be headed).

But I guess he really didn't.

When Lambert started setting all manner of awful records, the pin should have been pulled regardless of the cost of paying him out. This has probably been Fox's best move yet in getting him to sign a contract with a relegation spot clause that ultimately got Lambert canned.

I felt sorry for him in a way that his job was to bring in some big-spending sponsors to add much needed funds to pay for a squad that Lerner had little interest in paying for. That he didn't have the foresight to see how things were going to pan out for us on and off the pitch was probably the first indication that, whilst he might have a sparkling CV with some fantastic results working with clubs that were "already there", he really wasn't up to doing the same thing at a struggling club.

Sherwood: I think we were all surprised by that name and there were a few objections and a few stories about "Tactics Tim" that none of us really knew whether to believe or not. And when he saved our top flight status and got us to the FA Cup final playing football that Lambert could never even dream of, then I think - for a fleeting moment - that Fox's choice was the right one.

But cleaning up someone else's mess under no real pressure (if we'd gone down, no one would have really blamed Sherwood) is a lot different to running your own ship and, the minute the pressure was on, Tim has been found severely wanting. That he's still in a job for this weekend tells us one of two things:
Either Fox is clueless or he's talked Tim into a position where he'll offer his resignation on a reduced payout due to poor performance should we lose against Swansea - and maybe he has a proper manager already lined up to drag us out of this mess.

He's intelligent enough to have pulled off the latter but, given the shit state the club is in, I'd not be surprised if Sherwood is still around in 6 months.

The Collymore story should never have happened and that really is a poor indictment of the man at the top.

From what I've seen, Fox seems to be a bloke that's comfortable in a role that only focussing on a very narrow aspect of a club. But as his job has become all-powerful, it seems to me that it's simply too much for him. Maybe if things had worked out for Sherwood and he'd dragged us up into the top half and things were going week, the Fox would be a star performer.

But it's pretty clear that he cannot operate on a level that we seem to be stuck on. Not with Lerner having the final say on spending, anyway.

I give him a C-

[EbeneezerGoode]

Sure Lerner and Sherwood will get all the flak - but this guy is a joke of a CEO - he is very highly paid and yet seems incapable of making decisions.

Paul Faulkner got £250K for being clueless this guy gets £1.5million. He comes from a commercial background and has never been a CEO before so is an inexperienced CEO to go along with our inexperienced players and inexperienced manager.

I felt sorry for him in a way that his job was to bring in some big-spending sponsors to add much needed funds to pay for a squad that Lerner had little interest in paying for. That he didn't have the foresight to see how things were going to pan out for us on and off the pitch was probably the first indication that, whilst he might have a sparkling CV with some fantastic results working with clubs that were "already there", he really wasn't up to doing the same thing at a struggling club.

I thought that commercial stuff was the responsibility of Charlie Wijeratna? Fox might be experienced in this area but it seems it is delegated to another guy at Villa leaving Fox in charge of overall strategy and making the big decisions.

Our (Fox's?) strategy is unworkable. We bring in a manager who has gone on the record saying he would not like to work with a director of football and then bring one in above with predictable results. This gives a guy who has perhaps one of the biggest charlatans to walk into a premier league club an excuse for his poor performance. 'They're not my players, honest guv!' and all kind of leaks to the press to that effect. Would we be any worse if Timmy the Clown had a free reign? Perhaps but he would not have the excuse and he would not be mumping and moaning to the press about it and would be sulking a bit less.

Fox as the figurehead has made the following moves

Kept Lambert on too long
Appointed Sherwood
Created a structure that was never going to work with Sherwood
Kept Sherwood on too long

What the fuck has he managed to get right?

[Thinman]

I'm glad that someone has at last raised a thread on Fox because for some time I have also believed he is very much part of the existing problem.

EG elegantly summarises his faults so I won't repeat them but except to say, remember the 'false narrative' statement?

What utter f*****g arrogance to say that the fans were wrong in calling for Lambert's head and then a month later he agrees we were right all along and sacks him - no apology to the fans.

To cap it all he takes the easy way by appointing the current useless chancer that is Sherwood.

Fox needs to eat humble pie and resign or I fear for the future of this club I really do.

[Trotters]

Fans gave their thoughts on McLeish and they were right.
Fans gave their thoughts on Lambert and they were right.
Fans have given their thoughts on Sherwood and, guess what? The club, again, sees fit to ignore.

You could randomly pick two seats anywhere in the ground and you'd have more insight from the fans sitting in them than the entire Villa board of directors. And I include children in that. Quite why this club cannot see when things are going wrong is beyond me.

I do, however, empathise with their position (albeit self-induced) that the only kind of manager they're likely to attract is a stop-gap/save-our-arses type that isn't the sort of manager to build a long term footballing philosophy around. And so the vicious cycle continues.

And it'll keep going until Randy throws an acceptable amount of money at the problem or fucks off and let's someone in who WILL throw money at it.

I wonder what dollar value the club is at now???

[Trotters]

And I wonder how the club's directors will feel about Sherwood revealing this...

[smetro]

Apparently Tom Fox declined to do a phone in on WM !!!!!!

What hope of him poaching another clubs manager if facing a few spotty villa fans over a telehone line has him cowering under the covers !!!

How much do we pay the useless sack of sh*te !?

[smetro]

Take a look at the table Tom Fox - then do the honourable and resign, go back to selling coca cola, or nike t shirts - because you are a million miles out of your depth here

[KMitch]

Extremely unfair to blame Sherwood's failures on Tom Fox. Regardless of how things turned out for us this season, Tim Sherwood was a masterstroke appointment last year. He galvanized the team, saved us from certain relegation, and brought us to the FA Cup final. After that kind of start, NOBODY and I mean NOBODY was calling for Sherwood's head this summer and we all wanted to see what he could do with a decent transfer kitty and a full preseason under his belt. The overwhelming majority of us were extremely exited about Sherwood's signings this summer and thought once this team "gelled" we'd be comfortably mid-table. I don't think anyone could have predicted how much of a calamity this season would be. Hindsight is 20/20, but blaming the CEO for not seeing this coming is ridiculous.

[Trotters]

Blaming him for not seeing this coming last season is ridiculous.
Blaming him for letting us get to the end of October on 4pts...probably isn't.

It may be the case that he wanted to protect the club against any kind of MoN-like law-suit, protect the club against any media backlash and to make sure the fans weren't thinking it was a knee-jerk reaction to fire Sherwood.

But fact is, the public perception is secondary to ensuring that we remain a premier league club. And on that front he did fail. It only may have been reasonable to have gotten rid of the manager a few games earlier but those few games could well make the difference of survival - and unbelievable money - or not.

[EbeneezerGoode]

I think that you could see what would happen with our beloved manager Tim before we appointed him. The complaints from the Spurs fans were all exactly the same ones we were making. I agree that we all thought they were wrong after how he kept us up but that came from how he gave an injection of enthusiasm after Broken Man Lambert and how he got Benteke playing again. There was no way that a team with players like Benteke and Delph should have been in the position they were in when Sherwood came here.

Its a bit like how DiCanio kept Sunderland up. It was a car crash appointment that had a predictable end but it still resulted in them being saved before it all went tits up.

[smetro]

Extremely unfair to blame Sherwood's failures on Tom Fox.  Regardless of how things turned out for us this season, Tim Sherwood was a masterstroke appointment last year.  He galvanized the team, saved us from certain relegation, and brought us to the FA Cup final.  After that kind of start, NOBODY and I mean NOBODY was calling for Sherwood's head this summer and we all wanted to see what he could do with a decent transfer kitty and a full preseason under his belt. The overwhelming majority of us were extremely exited about Sherwood's signings this summer and thought once this team "gelled" we'd be comfortably mid-table.  I don't think anyone could have predicted how much of a calamity this season would be.  Hindsight is 20/20, but blaming the CEO for not seeing this coming is ridiculous.  

Actually I was - and a few others on here predicted hed be gone by Christmas.

The Everton game set the alarm bells ringing - we totally played them off the park, they were mid table and not bothered - but still managed to score 2 goals...... - Flimsy defence - and it just got worse from there.....

[KMitch]

Extremely unfair to blame Sherwood's failures on Tom Fox.  Regardless of how things turned out for us this season, Tim Sherwood was a masterstroke appointment last year.  He galvanized the team, saved us from certain relegation, and brought us to the FA Cup final.  After that kind of start, NOBODY and I mean NOBODY was calling for Sherwood's head this summer and we all wanted to see what he could do with a decent transfer kitty and a full preseason under his belt. The overwhelming majority of us were extremely exited about Sherwood's signings this summer and thought once this team "gelled" we'd be comfortably mid-table.  I don't think anyone could have predicted how much of a calamity this season would be.  Hindsight is 20/20, but blaming the CEO for not seeing this coming is ridiculous.  

Actually I was - and a few others on here predicted hed be gone by Christmas.

The Everton game set the alarm bells ringing - we totally played them off the park, they were mid table and not bothered - but still managed to score 2 goals...... - Flimsy defence - and it just got worse from there.....

Whoop dee do... Congratulations, you're a better psychic than Miss Cleo. Again, how is this Tom Fox's fault?

This is a serious problem I have with Villa forums. On every board, there are guys who seem to be tripping over themselves because they're in such a rush to write off a new player/manager/tactic/anything new, just so they can brag about how they saw it coming a mile away when things go belly up.

[Villa_Dan]

Extremely unfair to blame Sherwood's failures on Tom Fox.  Regardless of how things turned out for us this season, Tim Sherwood was a masterstroke appointment last year.  He galvanized the team, saved us from certain relegation, and brought us to the FA Cup final.  After that kind of start, NOBODY and I mean NOBODY was calling for Sherwood's head this summer and we all wanted to see what he could do with a decent transfer kitty and a full preseason under his belt. The overwhelming majority of us were extremely exited about Sherwood's signings this summer and thought once this team "gelled" we'd be comfortably mid-table.  I don't think anyone could have predicted how much of a calamity this season would be.  Hindsight is 20/20, but blaming the CEO for not seeing this coming is ridiculous.  

Actually I was - and a few others on here predicted hed be gone by Christmas.

The Everton game set the alarm bells ringing - we totally played them off the park, they were mid table and not bothered - but still managed to score 2 goals...... - Flimsy defence - and it just got worse from there.....

Whoop dee do...  Congratulations, you're a better psychic than Miss Cleo.  Again, how is this Tom Fox's fault?

This is a serious problem I have with Villa forums. On every board, there are guys who seem to be tripping over themselves because they're in such a rush to write off a new player/manager/tactic/anything new, just so they can brag about how they saw it coming a mile away when things go belly up.

I'm almost sure some would rather be proven right and us be fucked than them proven wrong and something work out positively

[smetro]

Extremely unfair to blame Sherwood's failures on Tom Fox.  Regardless of how things turned out for us this season, Tim Sherwood was a masterstroke appointment last year.  He galvanized the team, saved us from certain relegation, and brought us to the FA Cup final.  After that kind of start, NOBODY and I mean NOBODY was calling for Sherwood's head this summer and we all wanted to see what he could do with a decent transfer kitty and a full preseason under his belt. The overwhelming majority of us were extremely exited about Sherwood's signings this summer and thought once this team "gelled" we'd be comfortably mid-table.  I don't think anyone could have predicted how much of a calamity this season would be.  Hindsight is 20/20, but blaming the CEO for not seeing this coming is ridiculous.  

Actually I was - and a few others on here predicted hed be gone by Christmas.

The Everton game set the alarm bells ringing - we totally played them off the park, they were mid table and not bothered - but still managed to score 2 goals...... - Flimsy defence - and it just got worse from there.....

Whoop dee do...  Congratulations, you're a better psychic than Miss Cleo.  Again, how is this Tom Fox's fault?

This is a serious problem I have with Villa forums. On every board, there are guys who seem to be tripping over themselves because they're in such a rush to write off a new player/manager/tactic/anything new, just so they can brag about how they saw it coming a mile away when things go belly up.

Whoaaa - rewind....

You said that no one was calling for his head in the summer. I just pointed out that myself and one or two others were.
Think the bookies had us 2nd favourites for relegation before a ball was kicked, many pundits said much the same . The results this season weren't really a surprise.

[ViewFromT2]

My only criticism of Fox in this whole situation would be that in my opinion, Sherwood should have gone after the Stoke game. A new manager would of had a free pass at Chelsea...but one with a brain could maybe of got us a point there....and definitely could of got us 3 against Swansea!

In fairness, perhaps Sherwood was told after Stoke that he was out....remember the 2 game rumour did come about after Stoke...the fact that the whole back room team bar Tony Parkes were sacked yesterday suggests that we have already appointed the new guy, and his team....bar the announcement.

I think Fox has been working on this for a while, along with Almstadt and Reilly most likely. Yesterday's sacking was clearly pre-planned....never seen Sherwood leave the pitch so quickly after a game, and he never acknowledged one fan....not one!

[Villa_Dan]

I personally gave Sherwood up until the Swansea match so I can't fault them waiting this long at all

[DelboyVilla]

Perhaps Fox should of got rid of Timmy after Stoke but that is only a small error. What I worry about most is the replacement and the way we appear to be taking a gamble with the likes of Garde.

Smetro you only ever look on the negative glass half empty side so you being right is never going to be a good thing. However you were right this time so you have got to claim your prize which is the The Victor Meldrew Memorial Cup. Congrats!

[smetro]

Perhaps Fox should of got rid of Timmy after Stoke but that is only a small error. What I worry about most is the replacement and the way we appear to be taking a gamble with the likes of Garde.

Smetro you only ever look on the negative glass half empty side so you being right is never going to be a good thing. However you were right this time so you have got to claim your prize which is the  The Victor Meldrew Memorial Cup. Congrats!  

Well we are bottom of the league and have lost 6 on the bounce - and the guy who chose sherwood is still here to make the next appointment. I will openly admit Im struggling to see the positives. Nothing 3 or wins in the next couple of months wouldn't put right though

[DaveAV1]

You're right on that one Smetro. Every team is only ever 2 games from glory or crisis!

[smetro]

Got admire Tom Foxs timing here - He missed out on Allardyce by giving Sherwood 2 more games - Then he misses out on Moyes as he becomes available approximately 1 Week after we appoint Garde.

I reckon if there were 9 good managers in the room and 1 Duffer - Fox would get the duffer !

Should Moyes go to Newcastle and save them, along with Allardyce saving Sunderland - Fox would surley have to resign.

[VTID85]

Yawn.

[KMitch]

Got admire Tom Foxs timing here - He missed out on Allardyce by giving Sherwood 2 more games - Then he misses out on Moyes as he becomes available approximately 1 Week after we appoint Garde.

I reckon if there were 9 good managers in the room and 1 Duffer - Fox would get the duffer !

Should Moyes go to Newcastle and save them, along with Allardyce saving Sunderland - Fox would surley have to resign.

Or he gets praised for pulling off a coup by bringing in Garde.

[Villa_Dan]

Got admire Tom Foxs timing here - He missed out on Allardyce by giving Sherwood 2 more games - Then he misses out on Moyes as he becomes available approximately 1 Week after we appoint Garde.

I reckon if there were 9 good managers in the room and 1 Duffer - Fox would get the duffer !

Should Moyes go to Newcastle and save them, along with Allardyce saving Sunderland - Fox would surley have to resign.

Or he gets praised for pulling off a coup by bringing in Garde.

He'll never praise him. He's convinced himself he's the devil incarnate and is too stubbornly moronic to accept Garde could be a better option that either Sam or Moyes

[smetro]

Got admire Tom Foxs timing here - He missed out on Allardyce by giving Sherwood 2 more games - Then he misses out on Moyes as he becomes available approximately 1 Week after we appoint Garde.

I reckon if there were 9 good managers in the room and 1 Duffer - Fox would get the duffer !

Should Moyes go to Newcastle and save them, along with Allardyce saving Sunderland - Fox would surley have to resign.

Or he gets praised for pulling off a coup by bringing in Garde.

He'll never praise him. He's convinced himself he's the devil incarnate and is too stubbornly moronic to accept Garde could be a better option that either Sam or Moyes

Not true - Ive praised Garde for how he set the team up v Man City - and got a point where none was expected.

I have to say Id be more hopeful for survival this season with Moyes or Allardyce at the helm - does that really justify me being called stubbornly moronic ?

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