Life in the Championship

Unless we have an amazing transfer window with signings (permanent or loan) that come in, immediately settle and give us a boost in form to help us out of this mess and get at least another 30 points, then it's time to chat about what life will be like in the Championshit.

Local derby with Blues? Assuming, of course, they don't come up.
What players will leave? Who will stay? What will the club be worth (our dickhead owner will probably still think we're worth 150million). And the big question: will we bounce straight back up (I think we all know the answer to that one!).

It's a depressing thought but one, in my opinion, that we now have to realistically face - if we were in the bottom 5 looking down the table at who we think will be gone and saw another club at the foot of the league with just 1 win, 6 points, the worst goal difference, etc then I'm sure we'd all be saying that that club is nailed on to go down. Claret tinted specs ain't gonna make a difference.

More importantly, who would we like to keep. I'd say players like Ayew, Okore, Veretout, Grealish, Amavi, Richards, Gil, Hutton and Sanchez should be high on our hitlist. Controversial I know but I'd want to keep Westwood too, and Gestede has had both experience and success in the Championship. I don't really know what to think about Clark, Baker, Richardson, Gabby, Guzan etc but relegation isn't a bad time to remove some of the players not good enough or not putting in the effort needed. In my list above of players to keep, these are the ones busting their balls for the club. I'm anticipating Garde sorting out Grealish and getting him playing properly, and with passion.

I like Garde and think he's done well so far, although I'm still annoyed with the subs against Saints (although I thought we should have brought on Traore and Gil rather than Westwood and Gabby and gone on the attack, considering how weak our defence was). I think he's doing a much much better job than Sherwood, and bringing out the best in players like Ayew and Veretout.

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

Most good players will leave and Lerner will stay. Don't see the likes of Veretout, Ayew, Richards and Amavi sticking around. They'll have other top flight fish to fry and no shortage of offers. Lerner will see the value of his asset drop and stick around in the hope we can get promoted so he can get more money back. On the bright side Gestede will score shitloads of goals.

EbeneezerGoode wrote:Most good players will leave and Lerner will stay. Don't see the likes of Veretout, Ayew, Richards and Amavi sticking around. They'll have other top flight fish to fry and no shortage of offers. Lerner will see the value of his asset drop and stick around in the hope we can get promoted so he can get more money back. On the bright side Gestede will score shitloads of goals.

Amavi is injured which might work in our favour, plus bearing in mind the wage situation of late I wonder if they will leave, or if we'll be able to afford to keep them. Wet Spam did this a few seasons ago and bounced straight back.

I've spent some time watching Reading play, they're local to me and I get to borrow someone's season ticket when they're not going. The quality of players in the Championship is not that high and they're doing relatively well. I'd expect us to be able to keep at least some of the players we want and if we can give them a decent wage and the promise that they can go if we don't make it back up after one season, we might have some takers. We will also have the few shining lights in the Academy to call on, and Grealish would probably stay too, Okore is mostly unknown (well, unless he has a beast of a season, which is possible), it's unlikely anyone would buy Westwood, Sinclair hasn't done anything to prove he's consistently good enough for the PL but could help us back in the Championship; the list goes on.

Lerner sees the drop in TV revenue and cuts swathes of the playing squad to recover the money, tasking Garde with getting us promoted in the meantime who walks as the task is ridiculous. We end up stuck the the bottom half of the championship for years until Lerner sells us to any bidder who comes along and shafts us further a la Leeds

If we go down i do not think we will bounce straight back up. Sorry but i see us doing a Leeds, Forest, Wolves thing.

Or potentially Coventry, Blackpool, Wigan, Pompey...

It all depends on what happens with Lerner i fear. The guy is a disaster who has not a clue about how to run a successful sports club as he has proved both here and at the Cleveland Browns.

We have a saying in my industry which is...
"speed of the leader = speed of the pack"
Aston Villa 2015 is purely a manifestation of the quality of leadership present and it will not matter one iota which division the club is in as if leadership is poor & weak then failure will manifest regardless of what level the organisation.

So if Lerner goes i'm confident we have a good chance of coming back quickly as there will be a great opportunity to rid the club of it's issues, invest more in players due to our wealth (unless nullified by Lerner of course) than pretty much any Championship club whilst being able to attract the best players from the lower leagues too as we would be as big a fish as there is down there.

If he stays however mediocre sub standard players will continue to be bought for as cheap as he "thinks" he can get away with.

Looking at the list of names above and thinking about previously relegated teams, it becomes pretty clear that Villa will be the biggest team to be relegated from the Premier League.

So what happens immediately after the final whistle blows on the last day? Do we see our club dissected across various media platforms with in-depth analysis over what went wrong, who was to blame, etc or will the general response be one of "good riddance"?

I suspect the latter.

We've been stinking up this league for years now. Our status of flag-bearers for midlands football is all but gone and our once proud club has no identity any more. We're not pioneers of football, we're not interesting to watch, we've done nothing to make anyone sit up and take notice of us.

I'll say one thing for old Doug...whereas he may well have been the old troll preventing us from ever crossing the bridge to true success, Lerner has actively blown up that bridge and sold us down the river.

What will life in the championship be like for fans? Shitty Friday night games, little to no games on mainstream TV for those fans living abroad, REALLY shitty Channel 5 highlights (although avoiding having to watch the sugarbags on MOTD)

For me it'll be renewing my season ticket and watching home games played in front of probably 20 000 people in VP (I can't imagine the fans turn up for the championship when they aren't now, maybe if we look like winning it), it'll be going to great away games at some new places and having a belting time, but the entire time it'll be having an underlying sense of how far Lerner has sunk us

The only comfort I can take from relegation is the fact that for once in his miserable, incompetent, inherited life, Lerner is going to see the consequence of his poor governance in very stark terms.

He is going to realise that the people he put faith in have let him down badly. Hopefully it will be end of the useless Fox, Almstadt and Riley but I suspect we will be stuck with Lerner for many years to come. If he couldn't sell a large PL club he's got no chance with a Championship one. A steady decline into the lower leagues is a very real possibility.

Bent. He stumped up the cash and it worked (just). He has to balance the cost of going down (having given Garde £10million for a new striker in January) against the massive losses he'll suffer if we are relegated.

I still think we can do it. Sherwood screwed us up for the first 10 matches by not settling players, so one week someone could play well and the next week be on the bench, or by ensuring every week there's a new formation to try out and different teammates to play with. Every week was a new learning experience for the players. Garde looks good (apart from subs!) and we already have Ayew and Veretout doing what Sherwood wouldn't let them do. Illori and Kozak are making cases for themselves, Okore's back. There's a lot to be positive about.

On the other hand it's better we're talking about relegation as a real probability now and getting used to it!

The Utterer wrote:We have a saying in my industry which is...
"speed of the leader = speed of the pack"

You work in Bomb Disposal then Utterer.......??

De Kuip wrote:

The Utterer wrote:We have a saying in my industry which is...
"speed of the leader = speed of the pack"

You work in Bomb Disposal then Utterer.......??

lol! not quite

Personally I think we will just flounder in the Championship, unless Lerner goes and takes his mates with him!
The best players will leave as they will have release clauses in their contracts and we will get peanuts for them, so we will be left with the dross and no investment again!
Remi could easily leave and then we will be back in the hunt for yet another manager!

Unfortunately disaster is just around the corner (or at the end of the season)!

Life in the Championship would be awful for me and all other fans outside of England. TV coverage for the Championship is limited to one match a week on a PPV channel in the USA, and we're lucky to have that. Not having Villa in my life would be torture.

That was my first thought but I think it'd be a blessed relief.

What Randy has no doubt failed to realise is that with the wank-fest surrounding the top teams, their dominance of TV and social media plus peer pressure, there will be thousands of kids who end up supporting the top clubs like Citeh, Man Utd, Arsenal and Leicester.

Lerner hasn't just fucked this club up for the last five years. He hasn't just sold us down the river for a massively disastrous one year. What he's done now is put a real hole in our future.

Massive sugarbag.

I think Lerner knows he has completely fucked up to be honest. Fox knows it as do the other muppets involved in running...or not running more to the point...our club. This will be a financial disaster of epic proportions.

Trotters wrote:What Randy has no doubt failed to realise is that with the wank-fest surrounding the top teams, their dominance of TV and social media plus peer pressure, there will be thousands of kids who end up supporting the top clubs like Citeh, Man Utd, Arsenal and Leicester.

Lerner hasn't just fucked this club up for the last five years. He hasn't just sold us down the river for a massively disastrous one year. What he's done now is put a real hole in our future.

Blokes of our age grew up when Villa were winning leagues and cups. Now we live in an age when dads dont take their kids to games as much and top sides are no longer hours away but on the TV in the living room. If you were a kid now would you want to go to a rainy Villa Park and watch us get dicked every week by clubs like Stoke or Swansea or would you want to sit in a comfy chair in the lounge and watch Man City before getting to play as Sergio Aguero on FIFA 16?

I still haven't given up on staying in the division. We just need a run of form against the worse sides we are facing between the end of December to the start of February. With a few wins in that period people will start believing again.

I will point out however, if we don't and we're relegated.. I don't think there's a snowball chance in hell we will get promoted our first season in the championship. Firstly because I think the best teams in that division is much better than us, secondly because we lack the fighting players to do well in that division. I reckon we would need a total squad overhaul to get out of it. But that's just my opinion.

Anyway, Merry Christmas (I don't really care for it, I just love getting drunk and getting time off work).

Sorry if this has already been posted.

This is a great article.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jamie-spencer/aston-villa_b_8756922.html

Con wrote:Sorry if this has already been posted.

This is a great article.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jamie-spencer/aston-villa_b_8756922.html

Nothing to add to that. Spot on and i do not think that many, if any Villa fans will disagree.

Lerner has the month of January to redeem anything like what he wants for the club. Without the right investment in January then relegation will surely cost him almost all of what he has spent on and at Villa. We wouldn't be worth £50m as a championship side with no direction or assets. However spend even half the revenue the new to deal gives us a chance of staying up.

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 ??

tonyp wrote:Lerner has the month of January to redeem anything like what he wants for the club. Without the right investment in January then relegation will surely cost him almost all of what he has spent on and at Villa. We wouldn't be worth £50m as a championship side with no direction or assets. However spend even half the revenue the new to deal gives us a chance of staying up.

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 ??

Something is putting off a potential buyer as you say. What it is nobody outside the board will know. Lerner has to spend a fortune in January but i doubt he will. I cannot see him spending again when we are pretty much fucked already. Why would he give a shit now when he has dragged us to this level? The media are coming up with names and prices of potential targets, same as they always do but i do not see these making any difference at all. No top player is going to come to us when we are doomed to the Championship. I hope i am massively wrong but i just cannot see us getting out of this no matter what happens in January.