Life in the Championship

tonyp wrote:There is something hiding at Villa that has put every potential buyer / invester off. I can't be the asking price as they would have known that from the beginning so what is so wrong underneath that makes us unbuyable ??

I think you've already answered this. We've been flirting with relegation now for six years and this year we're likely to go down. If you pay £150million now, you need to be ready to gamble £30million to £50million on the players needed to keep us up, assuming they want to come, or less if you can offer good enough incentives to loan players (you know, a million quid each to five top drawer loan players) and pay £50k to £60k per week each for the ones we'd be borrowing.

It's likely the club will be relegated, so save yourself £50million and the cost of all those players, plus let Lerner get rid of (and take a loss on) all the players who'll leave in the summer, and have your £30million to £50million, or £10, or sod all, to invest on rebuilding the team.

The downside with gambling on relegation is that we'd find ourselves fighting for the three promotion places with Championship teams that know what they're doing/already have the promotion specialist managers/confidence and investment and so on, plus two other clubs smaller than the Villa like Newcastle and Chelsea but with war chests and players similar to ours.

Going back to West Ham's relegation in the summer of 2011 (we finished ninth that season, ah, the glory days...), they went down with Blackpool and our dear friends at Small Heath. They kept a lot of their players but only gained promotion through the playoffs, and came back up again with Southampton and Reading, while of the other two relegated teams, Small Heath are floating around in the Championship and Blackpool are heading to League 2. The Saints had been promoted the season before and were riding a wave of confidence and investment. They have a bloody good stadium, with 32,500 capacity, which they fill most matches, I went to see them a few times when in League 1 and the Championship and the crowd levels were really high with excellent support. Reading also have a good stadium but the team wasn't that good (by Christmas 2010 that season they were down in about 16th, they won virtually everything in 2011 to take the title by some kind of luck, I was at St Mary's for their clash with Saints and Reading won completely against the run of play) and they had virtually no investment to stay in the PL.

There we have three clubs coming into the PL three different ways. The Saints one involved financial disaster and rebuilding from scratch. We have the same high level of facilities but our 42,000-capacity stadium has 10,000 too many seats in it for the level we're playing at. On the other hand a potential buyer could see the gains from filling those seats, even if they have to charge less for the tickets. Reading's promotion was more down to good luck, involving Lerner's favourite policy of investing as little as possible. West Ham on the other hand involved keeping most of a squad bad enough to be relegated and only just good enough for promotion. I have a feeling if we do go down Lerner will try to keep as many of the cheaper players as possible and augment them with some cheap signings and players from the academy, and risk it to luck. We'd be lucky to follow West Ham back into the PL after one season away.

Even if you were interested in buying the Villa when it's the in Premier League would the team being in the Championship put you off? By which I mean if we were happy in 10th, or doing an Everton, surely they're the clubs to buy if you want to invest? If you're limited on what you can spend once you own the club, surely it's better to buy a more expensive club in a good position with better players and invest wisely on select positions than buying a cheaper club needing a lot of quality players to even get it up to the level of the other club? If you're waiting for the club to be relegated are there better teams in the Championship that would cost less to buy and would cost less in investment to get them into the Premier League? Southampton's not a massive city and has Portsmouth and Bournemouth close by, with Reading to the north east. They still easily fill a 32k stadium. What about Brighton? They could well be in the PL next season, and if they're not they have a lovely new stadium they seem capable of filling, a large enough fan base and catchment area and everything ready for investment to promotion. It's also only an hour or so from central London.

So many reasons why no one will come in to buy the club now, and why if Lerner screws this up we could be really fucked.

Spot on, Foxy. If Randy wasn't prepared to invest enough into the club to keep us in the Premier League, what makes you think he'll invest enough into the squad next year to get us back to the Premier League? He's going to find that level where the club sustains itself, and with our budget, it'll probably be mid table Championship.

I'm just hoping Lerner will slip into a long sleep so his sister and mother can take us over and sell us, as both are more astute businesswomen than Lerner will ever be from what I've read

tonyp wrote:There is something hiding at Villa that has put every potential buyer / invester off. I can't be the asking price as they would have known that from the beginning so what is so wrong underneath that makes us unbuyable ??

Maybe some financial irregularities?? There was that exclusivity period that came and then went very quiet.

'Negative due diligence' were the words that I heard.

Friday night football will soon be with us. Some cracking away days to look forward to. Sod the Premiership. Lets win some games in the Championship and enjoy a season or two for once.

NARLA24 wrote:Friday night football will soon be with us. Some cracking away days to look forward to. Sod the Premiership. Lets win some games in the Championship and enjoy a season or two for once.

That's the spirit NARLA - let's imagine we tear up the league.

And think of the party when we get promoted...

Ive said before but I honestly think that one day in the not too distant future we would welcome floundering around in the Championship.

Dions_Bald_Head wrote:

NARLA24 wrote:Friday night football will soon be with us. Some cracking away days to look forward to. Sod the Premiership. Lets win some games in the Championship and enjoy a season or two for once.

That's the spirit NARLA - let's imagine we tear up the league.

And think of the party when we get promoted...

Oh yes mate

[quote="FoxyAV"]

tonyp wrote:?..but our 42,000-capacity stadium has 10,000 too many seats in it for the level we're playing at...

Does this all mean Lerner WON'T be rebuilding the North Stand?

Trotters wrote:

FoxyAV wrote:

tonyp wrote:?..but our 42,000-capacity stadium has 10,000 too many seats in it for the level we're playing at...

Does this all mean Lerner WON'T be rebuilding the North Stand?

He could always knock it down and replace it with a giant screen showing a film or whatever. That'll solve the undercrowding issue and guarantee there's always something interesting to watch.

We are lucky that crowds have remained as high as they have. In previous relegation seasons, we had much lower attendances.

Dions_Bald_Head wrote:

NARLA24 wrote:Friday night football will soon be with us. Some cracking away days to look forward to. Sod the Premiership. Lets win some games in the Championship and enjoy a season or two for once.

That's the spirit NARLA - let's imagine we tear up the league.

And think of the party when we get promoted...

Whilst playing in the championship is becoming inevitable, i won't be thinking it'll be for just the one season and that it'll be a formality for us to return to the premier league. If it means we see the back of Lerner as an owner then i'd take relegation now and the football club could rediscover it's identity for a while in a lower division, the fans could get "their" Aston Villa back. I'm an Aston Villa fan no matter where the club plays it's football, i just want Lerner and the crap that surrounds him gone and the club to start the process of rebuilding.

Dazzle wrote:

Dions_Bald_Head wrote:

NARLA24 wrote:Friday night football will soon be with us. Some cracking away days to look forward to. Sod the Premiership. Lets win some games in the Championship and enjoy a season or two for once.

That's the spirit NARLA - let's imagine we tear up the league.

And think of the party when we get promoted...

Whilst playing in the championship is becoming inevitable, i won't be thinking it'll be for just the one season and that it'll be a formality for us to return to the premier league. If it means we see the back of Lerner as an owner then i'd take relegation now and the football club could rediscover it's identity for a while in a lower division, the fans could get "their" Aston Villa back. I'm an Aston Villa fan no matter where the club plays it's football, i just want Lerner and the crap that surrounds him gone and the club to start the process of rebuilding.

Lerner isn't turning out to be a very good owner in terms of running the club properly in the Premier League but there's nothing to suggest he's not doing what he promised when he said he would only sell the club to a buyer with the correct intentions. The one thing worse than Lerner continuing to run the club is to have someone/a group of people/a company in charge without the wishes of the supporters at heart. Sure, until we all stump up £10k each to buy the club from Lerner we have to accept that it will be bought as a business, so we have to hope that even though Lerner has failed he and his advisers are savvy enough to identify people able to do a better job than he has.

Terry Derry wrote:'Negative due diligence' were the words that I heard.

That sounds like there might be some skeletons hidden in the closet.

thegaffer6 wrote:More home games for your season ticket money on the bright side I guess!!

Lerner will probably try to increase season ticket pricing when he figures this out

Chelsea sack Mourinho!!!!!!Get the fucker in now!!!

Management wise i think we need to stick with Remi. Great first game but went off the boil a bit after that BUT I think that's down to the players rather than him.

Hilarious, just been reading all the latest drum beating from Tom Fox & co about how the club is prepared for relegation and it wont break us, saying we will keep Garde and come back stronger basically.

Not surprising really as we have clearly been preparing for relegation for the last 5 years...we must have been as i can't for the life of me fathom what else we've been preparing for!

Yet again we hear words not backed up by actions

When oh when will this club finally start to walk the walk for a change?

NARLA24 wrote:Chelsea sack Mourinho!!!!!!Get the fucker in now!!!

Now see that's how an ambitious club acts, If he had been here we would have rewarded him with a new contract probably for being so high up the table!

The Utterer wrote:Hilarious, just been reading all the latest drum beating from Tom Fox & co about how the club is prepared for relegation and it wont break us, saying we will keep Garde and come back stronger basically.

Not surprising really as we have clearly been preparing for relegation for the last 5 years...we must have been as i can't for the life of me fathom what else we've been preparing for!

Yet again we hear words not backed up by actions

When oh when will this club finally start to walk the walk for a change?

Probably when we're at Crawley Town away christmas 2018

I'm stuck in a dilemma, I don't want to feel the pain of relegation and I'm not one of these fans who believes Relegation could be good for us, also the odds are firmly against us bouncing back, the problem I have though is if with survive especially under Lerner's regime - what are we going to do in the Premiership just constantly attempt to survive how dull and draining is that, I have also come to the conclusion under this regime - no manager will change our futures, you can't keep signing players on recommendations of business experts it doesnt work, you need to sign proven quality to have us fighting at the top half of the table again. My point is yeah - we'll lose money and be in a lesser league but maybe we can have the enjoyment of winning more games than we lose again.

Waiting to see what Remi does in the transfer window (basically the first week) before totally throwing the towel in, as with the right additions we might yet have a slim chance of getting out of this mess.

Personally I think if we could remain in the PL this season with Remi in charge we might make some progress, albeit not startling progress but mid-table obscurity!

Maybe it's the emotional eye of the storm but us anyone else feeling strangely calm about our current predicament?

Gone is the angst. We've reached rock bottom (apart from the relegation bit) and things can't get any worse.

Trying to view it all with detached interest. What will Lerner do in January? New players? Exiting players? Club sale at a knock down price? Remi stays or goes? Approach to the summer? Etc etc.

Thinman wrote:Maybe it's the emotional eye of the storm but us anyone else feeling strangely calm about our current predicament?

Gone is the angst. We've reached rock bottom (apart from the relegation bit) and things can't get any worse.

Trying to view it all with detached interest. What will Lerner do in January? New players?  Exiting players? Club sale at a knock down price? Remi stays or goes? Approach to the summer? Etc etc.

I've already come to grips with relegation, and judging by comments from Tom Fox and Remi Garde, so has the club. I'm completely numb to any Villa related news, good or bad, at the moment. That said, I don't share the common perception that we're going to go down and will never come back up, aka pull a Leeds. Even with our tightassed owner, Villa will still have more financial clout in the Championship than almost everyone else, and we'll be exempt from a lot of the Financial Fair Play regulations of the Championship for a few seasons. We'll go into next season the bookmakers favorites to bounce straight back, and with a few solid moves in the transfer market, I think we can do it. I also don't think we'll lose 90% of our team either as everyone is fearing. Newcastle kept a lot of their key players when they went down a few years ago, and I can see most of our key players sticking around too. I'm looking forward to a season where we're actually in the running to win a trophy, as opposed to hoping for mid-table at best. Having the realistic prospect of winning most of our games over the course of the season is something us as fans have needed for a long time. I just hope the club decides to finally upgrade AVTV to allow livestreaming of all the club's matches, like so many other clubs do, so all us Villans abroad can partake in the excitement.