Where to we go from here?

I just wonder what Bruce's defence is when he's called to Dr Xia's office to put his case for staying. What would he do differently next season? I'd guess that he'd intend to do more of the same
- buy, loan & keep playing the same way.

Maybe I'm expecting more from a seasoned manager who's taken over a sizeable club with a reasonable amount of money and one that's also looking to re-build. He's had a season and a half at the club and I don't know what he's achieved - stability?

I'm sure that given enough time & money, we could eventually gain promotion with Bruce; but it would happen by doing things the same way & I'm not sure that's enough for Dr Xia.

I'm seeing a lot of tweets on twitter about how we need to raise £40M in order to comply with FFP, that doesn't tally very well with a team that needs rebuilding, even before we sell players we've already lost all the loan players, and Terry and Samba have both come to the end of their contracts, so we'll need a goalkeeper, a couple of defenders and a left-back, that's pretty much an whole new back line, then the players that we're forced to sell will need replacing in one way or another.

If the above figure of £40m is true I don't see anyway we can meet it, other than to sell Grealish, which will be devastating to see happen so soon after he's finally started to live up to his potential, but we don't really have many other salable assets, only other player I can think of that we'd potentially get more than £10m for is Chester, maybe Hourihane too if a Premier league club came in for him.

It all speaks to the calamity of our scouting really since Round took over, I mean how we can spend £80m+, and not only fail to get promoted, but also have very little in terms of salable assets on the playing side, is beyond me, I guess it's what happens when you throw money at old players towards the end of their careers and not doing our background work on the characters of people McCormack, he Tshibola and Gollini cost us the best of part of £30m, between them they've only played an handful of games for us.

The current regime were critical Paul Riley and our scouting network when they arrived, but if you look at players like Amavi, Gueye, Veretout, Adama, Ayew, they've all gone on to perform pretty well, and if you were to buy them now, they'd cost a small fortune, I bet you wouldn't get much change from £100m - as I saw someone mention, it might be good for us if Adama and Vertout did move on, if we've got sell on clauses.

Don't believe the fear mongers. Xia spent a lot of money in the first season yes, but people seem to be blind to the fact that we also RECOUPED a large amount of money too.

Amavi, Veretout, Ayew, Westwood, Gestede, Bacuna, Gana etc were all sold off plus we received parachute payments. So any suggestions that "we're in trouble" is a load of bollocks. In-fact, aren't we still due 44m in parachute payments this summer?

The loan players will return to their respective clubs, some old players contracts will run out and maybe one or two players might be sold if a decent deal is put on the table. That's all that we're likely to see. Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm repeating myself but the club really need to say something, there's an absolute meltdown on twitter at the moment, with people claiming that they've been told that Grealish is going to be sold against his wishes, and they've now latched on to Percy saying that we might have to sell the training ground, so they're panicking about that now as well.

Truth is probably somewhere in between won't be as bad as some are making out, but at the same time we probably won't be keeping all our better player either.

We only get £15m in parachute payments this year, even in our first year of them when we got £40m, Xia said that it hardly covered 50% of the wage bill. When Wyness talks on how we're doing with regards to FFP he's never quite clear with what he's saying, like he says we're fine this year but there could be problems next, which doesn't really tell us if he means this season coming or the one after.

I'm dreading Terry and Bruce still being here next season, it'll signal failure and a lack of ambition, plus the latter will send out nine players to protect the goalie and one isolated striker to lump the ball too and the former is too old and slow. Both have failed to do what they were employed to do, which is key for me.

I'd honestly rather have Baker back, although it's unlikely we could afford him even if he could! I'd be quite happy with Gollini (aside from the fact we screwed him over with his coach and he probably never wants to come to England again) and Gil coming back too. Like I said before, we don't need both Hourihane and Lansbury, I'd rather we played Thor in front of the defence and waved goodbye to Jedi and Whelan. Hutton will go so we'll have Taylor on the left and Bree the right. If Bruce goes we need to draw a line under what's gone before and start again, even if it means Tish coming back (he did look good on the rare occasions he played, attitude problem or no). Elmo may as well go too, he's been ok but I'd rather have a young RB at RB plus he was brought in as one of Bruce's old boys to link up with Snoddy, who we definitely can't afford to keep. I like Hogan a lot but we need a manager who can play to his strengths, not to ignore them and leave him chasing down the goalie, hoping one day he'll make a mistake. Grabban on loan would be a very good idea and Kodjia is one of my absolute must keeps. Not least because I really enjoy watching him.

We have some good players in the academy and still have Audrey and Davis too. O'Hare, Blackett-Taylor and Green should be brought into the first team too and something I think is going to be important, they're our own players from the academy who want to play for the club.

I'm feeling optimistic. But only if Bruce goes and we have a clear out. I have faith in the likes of Bree and Taylor, they both need time to settle in to regular first team football. They were bright talents at their last clubs, we need to give them both a go.

We are Aston Villa Football Club.

We are not a tin-pot club beyond redemption.

When we got relegated, there was lots of talk and statistics about bouncing back immediately. So let's take a look at this season's Premier League failures:

Middlesborough - in some ways, they were the strongest candidate of the three to return immediately. They came close, but we played them 5 times - W1(+1)-D2-L1 - and when it counted we turned them over to progress to the play-off final. They finished 5th with 7 fewer points.

Hull City - hardly a top caliber club wrongly dismissed from the top flight. We knocked the wind out of their sails for the opening game of the season where everyone was naively expecting them to put a boot across our neck. 2 games against them - W0-D2-L0. They finished 18th with 34 fewer points.

Sunderland - oh my word. Where Newcastle are the princes of the North East, Sunderland prove themselves not fit to clean the shit from their boots. A TOTAL disaster. The double-relegation speaks for itself. We beat them in both games - W2-D0-L0. They finished 24th with 46 fewer points.

In contrast, let's look at this year's promotees:

Wolves - a remarkable season with accusations of FFP exploiting but let's be honest credit where it's due they were an excellent outfit. We hoped the arse would fall out of them but it didn't. Are they the new pride of the Midlands? Get bent. Mo Salah - record breaking goal-scorer from Egypt, you know the one - has been applauded widely for this season's performance but there has been resistance to fully-back him until he can provide this wasn't a one-off. Well if that's the case, surely the ball is in Wolves' court to prove themselves capable and dispel any notion of fluke? We played them twice and, oh that's right we turned them over 4-1 at our gaff - W1-D0-L1. They finished 1st with 16 more points.

Cardiff - Rottenbollock will have tugged himself off so furiously over pulling this one off. Got to be top candidates for immediate relegation next season and how sweet it will be. I actually thought Fulham were more deserving of a runners up medal but there you go. As with Wolves, a game a piece between us - W1-D0-L1 - with our win coming at the business end of the season with stakes arguably higher. Also of note, we ended the season with an equal goal difference, with our boys finding the net 3 more times. They finished 2nd with 7 more points.

Fulham - touted by many as the form team this season but don't forget we were also one of the top 5 form teams IN EUROPE at one point this season. Not to be sniffed at eh? An all-round cohesive unit, well-managed and bar a little wobble towards the end we have to say deservedly find themselves ascending to the Premier League. Of the three to go up, I can see them faring the best. Again, a game a piece in general play but sadly edged us out in the game that really mattered - W1-D0-L1(+1). Whilst it hurts us to face into the reality of staying a Championship club for another 12months, there are arguments to be made that they perhaps shouldn't have even had to go through the play-offs. They finished 3rd with 5 more points.

So what's my point? Well, the three relegated teams haven't breezed their way back to the Premier League, far from it in fact. They've had the boost of first-year parachute payments and where has it got them? Outside of the number of [league] games to be played, there are no guarantees in football. Looking at this year's relegated teams, is there anyone who causes concern? I'm certainly not in any fear whatsoever of West Brom, Swansea are well past their expiry date and.... Stoke? Oh my.

And who remains in the Championship with us that strikes fear in our hearts? Derby County came closest but they've just lost their 6th manager in 3 years. with a serious conflict of interests at ownership level that is likely the hamstring the club for years to come without signifcant change - the leagues bridesmaids at best! Then we have Preston, Millwall, Brentford and Sheffield United rounding out the remainder of this season's top 10. Big whoop, want to fucking fight about it? I'm getting my hair off as I type this now.

Summary - emotions and tensions are running high. As a fan-base, we've had a lot to suffer for a number of years and boy would it have been nice for this season to be the turnaround. We came close, agonisingly close. But now, the club will need to look at its options in terms of management, playing staff, board and begin the process of dusting ourselves off ready to fight again. The purse strings might be tighter but great things have been achieved with less. The corpse of this season is barely cold, let's enjoy the World Cup, ride high on the rumours over the Summer and get our heads properly screwed on for August when the carnival starts again and we will still be ASTON BLOODY VILLA FOOTBALL CLUB.

VTID85 wrote:We are Aston Villa Football Club.

We are not a tin-pot club beyond redemption.

When we got relegated, there was lots of talk and statistics about bouncing back immediately. So let's take a look at this season's Premier League failures:

Middlesborough - in some ways, they were the strongest candidate of the three to return immediately. They came close, but we played them 5 times - W1(+1)-D2-L1 - and when it counted we turned them over to progress to the play-off final. They finished 5th with 7 fewer points.

Hull City - hardly a top caliber club wrongly dismissed from the top flight. We knocked the wind out of their sails for the opening game of the season where everyone was naively expecting them to put a boot across our neck. 2 games against them - W0-D2-L0. They finished 18th with 34 fewer points.

Sunderland - oh my word. Where Newcastle are the princes of the North East, Sunderland prove themselves not fit to clean the shit from their boots. A TOTAL disaster. The double-relegation speaks for itself. We beat them in both games - W2-D0-L0. They finished 24th with 46 fewer points.

In contrast, let's look at this year's promotees:

Wolves - a remarkable season with accusations of FFP exploiting but let's be honest credit where it's due they were an excellent outfit. We hoped the arse would fall out of them but it didn't. Are they the new pride of the Midlands? Get bent. Mo Salah - record breaking goal-scorer from Egypt, you know the one - has been applauded widely for this season's performance but there has been resistance to fully-back him until he can provide this wasn't a one-off. Well if that's the case, surely the ball is in Wolves' court to prove themselves capable and dispel any notion of fluke? We played them twice and, oh that's right we turned them over 4-1 at our gaff - W1-D0-L1. They finished 1st with 16 more points.

Cardiff - Rottenbollock will have tugged himself off so furiously over pulling this one off. Got to be top candidates for immediate relegation next season and how sweet it will be. I actually thought Fulham were more deserving of a runners up medal but there you go. As with Wolves, a game a piece between us - W1-D0-L1 - with our win coming at the business end of the season with stakes arguably higher. Also of note, we ended the season with an equal goal difference, with our boys finding the net 3 more times. They finished 2nd with 7 more points.

Fulham - touted by many as the form team this season but don't forget we were also one of the top 5 form teams IN EUROPE at one point this season. Not to be sniffed at eh? An all-round cohesive unit, well-managed and bar a little wobble towards the end we have to say deservedly find themselves ascending to the Premier League. Of the three to go up, I can see them faring the best. Again, a game a piece in general play but sadly edged us out in the game that really mattered - W1-D0-L1(+1). Whilst it hurts us to face into the reality of staying a Championship club for another 12months, there are arguments to be made that they perhaps shouldn't have even had to go through the play-offs. They finished 3rd with 5 more points.

So what's my point? Well, the three relegated teams haven't breezed their way back to the Premier League, far from it in fact. They've had the boost of first-year parachute payments and where has it got them? Outside of the number of [league] games to be played, there are no guarantees in football. Looking at this year's relegated teams, is there anyone who causes concern? I'm certainly not in any fear whatsoever of West Brom, Swansea are well past their expiry date and.... Stoke? Oh my.

And who remains in the Championship with us that strikes fear in our hearts? Derby County came closest but they've just lost their 6th manager in 3 years. with a serious conflict of interests at ownership level that is likely the hamstring the club for years to come without signifcant change - the leagues bridesmaids at best! Then we have Preston, Millwall, Brentford and Sheffield United rounding out the remainder of this season's top 10. Big whoop, want to fucking fight about it? I'm getting my hair off as I type this now.

Summary - emotions and tensions are running high. As a fan-base, we've had a lot to suffer for a number of years and boy would it have been nice for this season to be the turnaround. We came close, agonisingly close. But now, the club will need to look at its options in terms of management, playing staff, board and begin the process of dusting ourselves off ready to fight again. The purse strings might be tighter but great things have been achieved with less. The corpse of this season is barely cold, let's enjoy the World Cup, ride high on the rumours over the Summer and get our heads properly screwed on for August when the carnival starts again and we will still be ASTON BLOODY VILLA FOOTBALL CLUB.

Excellent post. I think we need to not shit ourselves, we have settled a bit as a football club and have the knowledge that we can now compete at the top of this league. With a savvy summer behind us we should be good to compete at the sharp end again. Only if we have a catastrophic summer where we lose Grealish would I become concerned.

I don't think we can take comfort from Sunderland and Hull not bouncing straight back up, neither team spent any money, especially Sunderland, whereas we spent £80m+ the most a championship team as ever spent by some distance, and on top of that brought in a series of expensive loan signings, the fact that we're going to spend a third season in this division is nothing short of a shambles, and should be seen as such, it's about time we stopped accepting failure.

As to whether we can challenge for promotion next season I guess we'll know more when we know what kind of squad we have to work with and who the manger will be.

One thing I am looking forward to is seeing more of Green and Hepburn-Murphy as I think both of those can make a big impact.

Seeing a lot of suggestions that we should just ignore FFP and pay the fine, but  now the league have the power to deduct points and even relegate teams that's not going to happen.

The stories about us having to sell the training ground don't make sense, if that was going to happen then the Recon sponsorship deal wouldn't have happened, and the club wouldn't have spent time in all these meetings regarding HS2 compensation, Birmingham council have just granted us permission to extend it as well, the plans are all online. The only way I could see it happening, is if it's Recon themselves who are going to buy it for big money, as a way around FFP

deadbuzzardalive wrote:Gollini, Elphick, De Leat, Tshibola, Gardner, and Gil (was meant to be permanent, but Deportivo's relegation means they're no longer obliged to buy him),  are all names that can be added to the squad list as they all return from their loans this summer.

Correction, Gil's apparently now signed for Deportivo for £1.7m, I guess they were obliged to sign him relegated or not after all. Now just need to get rid of the others, could do with getting aging players like Whelan, Jedinak, Hutton, McCormack, Lansbury, and Richards of the wage bill as they're all on stupid money, which again speaks to the bad job that Round and Wyness have done.

Hopefully the fact that the club is deathly quiet might mean that they are sorting things out behind the scenes before they release their plan? That plan should not include Steve Bruce. He needs some credit for sorting out the professionalism at the club but criticism for setting us up the way he did with our most important games in decades. I think the nail has been hit on the head elsewhere: what will be different next season Steve? More of the same with loans and older, experienced players being brought in, no change to the style of play.

Like everyone else I was gutted after the game and most of yesterday. Our first half performance was tragic.
Having thought about it, I really don't mind being in the Championship again. The Sky Moneybag Six are going to win everything going for the forseeable future and the difficulty of competing in the Premier means a regular stuffing by most of them.
In the Championship, we are a big fish, we can compete and best of all, now Sky are taking Championship coverage seriously, we are frequently on the box (which is important for those who cannot always go to a lot of games).
I am now looking forward to seeing just how good some of the kids are next season. After all,they have just finished at the top end of their league and, if you're not going to give them a chance, why bother developing them? Players like RHM,O'Hare,Doyle-Hayes will add some young legs and enthusiasm when blended in. If Steer can recover he is good enough from what I have seen. I feel much better today.

I don't get this idea that we're better of in the Championship because we win more games, going by that we might as well drop into non league football and win every game, the longer we're in the Championship the less of a bigger fish in a small pond we'll become, you only have to look at the likes of Leeds, Forest, Wednesday and others to see that, in fact over time we'd become more likely to drop down to league one than anything else, just as happened to those teams mentioned.

Imagine fans of teams like Tottenham, Everton or even Newcastle and West Ham, being content with playing the Championship because they win a few more games, it's unthinkable, but for some reason some of our fans seem to settle for abject failure.

It's not as if we couldn't compete to some degree in the Premier league either, Leicester, Swansea, Southampton, Albion, Burnley are all clubs who've had good finishes in recent seasons, and with Premier league football obviously brings better footballers which in turn would give us a greater chance of winning another trophy at last, be it the League cup, or FA cup.

As for the youth we have a few promising ones like Green and Hepburn-Murphy, but if we promote too many of them we will struggle, they couldn't even get promoted from the second division of academy football, which is a big step down in quality from the Championship.

Failure to get promoted isn't nice, but I don't think there's any way we can spin into a positive, we've just got to hope that we will somehow find a way of getting promoted next season, I think three things that we must do is unearth a quality manager from somewhere, keep Grealish, and be very wise with how we use the loan market, learn from Wolves in that regard.

deadbuzzardalive wrote:I don't get this idea that we're better of in the Championship because we win more games, going by that we might as well drop into non league football and win every game, the longer we're in the Championship the less of a bigger fish in a small pond we'll become, you only have to look at the likes of Leeds, Forest, Wednesday and others to see that, in fact over time we'd become more likely to drop down to league one than anything else, just as happened to those teams mentioned.

Imagine fans of teams like Tottenham, Everton or even Newcastle and West Ham, being content with playing the Championship because they win a few more games, it's unthinkable, but for some reason some of our fans seem to settle for abject failure.

It's not as if we couldn't compete to some degree in the Premier league either, Leicester, Swansea, Southampton, Albion, Burnley are all clubs who've had good finishes in recent seasons, and with Premier league football obviously brings better footballers which in turn would give us a greater chance of winning another trophy at last, be it the League cup, or FA cup.

As for the youth we have a few promising ones like Green and Hepburn-Murphy, but if we promote too many of them we will struggle, they couldn't even get promoted from the second division of academy football, which is a big step down in quality from the Championship.

Failure to get promoted isn't nice, but I don't think there's any way we can spin into a positive, we've just got to hope that we will somehow find a way of getting promoted next season, I think three things that we must do is unearth a quality manager from somewhere, keep Grealish, and be very wise with how we use the loan market, learn from Wolves in that regard.

We're in the Championship and big ming said "Having thought about it, I really don't mind being in the Championship again".

I don't mind being in the Championship again either. No, I don't like it as much as us being promoted, but we have a lot of good players all crying out for a decent manager. If we can go on a promotion push this coming season and see the likes of Grealish, Adomah, Kodjia and so on play then bring it on. If we get rid of Bruce (and Terry) into the bargain then even better. We clearly weren't good enough for promotion this season, something I lay squarely at Bruce's door. I'm not sure I would have enjoyed Bruce and Terry leading us in the Premier League anyway.

No, failure to get promoted isn't nice and the positives aren't leaping out of the situation. But not everything has to be viewed in such binary opposites as there is a varying scale that connects both sides.

Understanding this isn't accepting failure, being content with mediocrity - it's waking up, opening your eyes and seeing that whilst the situation isn't what any of us want, it's not all doom and pissing gloom. We all love the Villa, it would fill us all with immense pride to have our team competing in the richest league, turning over any and all opposition but in life we don't always get what we want.

We will be doing well to have Grealish, Kodjia and Adomah all still with us next season, that would be the case even if we weren't in financial trouble, as those kind of players will want Premier league football, and if no one wants to take the likes of McCormack, Richards, Whelan, Jedinak, and so on of our hands, then we'll have no choice but to raise the money elsewhere by selling players that we'd rather not.

The only possible positive to not going up is that it might see Bruce leave, but I'm starting to doubt that that will happen, can just see Wyness coming up with some excuse like stability, for the mess the club is in at the moment he should be relieved of his duties on the football side of things as well, not sure what Round does but if he's been involved with the transfer stratagem then questions should be asked of him as well.

Bruce isn't going anywhere, the line from the club will be that we got to the play-off final and he will be the man to push us over the line next season. This is as much to do with the media and their love for Bruce as much as anything else. If we aren't top come October THEN Bruce will go.

bruka wrote:Bruce isn't going anywhere, the line from the club will be that we got to the play-off final and he will be the man to push us over the line next season. This is as much to do with the media and their love for Bruce as much as anything else. If we aren't top come October THEN Bruce will go.

People said similar last summer, but the club weren't ambitious enough to sack him, because we were in touching distance of the play-offs, and the same would happen again, if he stays, and we were to find ourselves in and around the play-offs then he'd keep his job. Expectations will be different next season, but last, as soon as it was evident that we weren't making a serous challenge for top two then he should have been replaced, us settling for a play-off spot cost us dearly, Jokanović was unsettled at the start of the season, we should have gone for him then, that's not hindsight either as quite a few said it at the time.

I would rather we stay with Bruce and give him at least 3 months, than take another gamble with signing another manager. I think in our current position it's more sensible to stick with Bruce than end up getting it wrong again and looking at league one football.

deadbuzzardalive wrote:

bruka wrote:Bruce isn't going anywhere, the line from the club will be that we got to the play-off final and he will be the man to push us over the line next season. This is as much to do with the media and their love for Bruce as much as anything else. If we aren't top come October THEN Bruce will go.

People said similar last summer, but the club weren't ambitious enough to sack him, because we were in touching distance of the play-offs, and the same would happen again, if he stays, and we were to find ourselves in and around the play-offs then he'd keep his job. Expectations will be different next season, but last, as soon as it was evident that we weren't making a serous challenge for top two then he should have been replaced, us settling for a play-off spot cost us dearly, Jokanović was unsettled at the start of the season, we should have gone for him then, that's not hindsight either as quite a few said it at the time.

Can't see it, think he will be retained with the edict that anything less than top two is unacceptable. I think Dr T is a patient man but not a stupid one.

Wyness would be too scared to sack him if were in and around the play-offs, as we saw last season, and it would be even more the case next season, as the expectations will be lowered, we've already lost a large chunk of our better players, and can't afford to replace them, and will lose a few more, so us being in top six might actually be seen as doing quite quite well.

Bruce just needs to go now, if he couldn't achieve his remit with last season's squad, he isn't going do it next season with a reduction in quality. I'm hoping we hear something positive by this time tomorrow.

If Xia asks Bruce what he will change for next season, to guarantee a better performance, what does Bruce have in his locker? The only thing I can think of is the extra motivation that losing a Wembley final might bring. Remembering the hurt and make sure it doesn't happen again. Does Xia trust Bruce? I guess we will find out shortly.

Nothing but nothing upsets me more than the fact Bruce is still in charge - not losing the play offs  (in the prem with Bruce in charge- oh lordy), not ffp, not the thought of losing Grealish, nothing.
As long as that useless dinosaur clueless sugarbag is in charge we'll be served a diet of dreadful football with old campaigners and clueless tactic-less hoofball.
Need to get rid of that fucking 2-pound-of-shit-in-a-1-pound-bag perennial bullshitter Wyness as well. That might go some was in making up for the 2 seasons of wasted time and unfulfilled promise.
I like the championship- it ain't where villa ought to be but personally I've enjoyed lots of things about it.
I'm so desperate to see us build from the bottom upwards and see some exciting progressive football with a real style that we could all be proud to identify with.
I'm not asking for miracles or to do this in a year, I am asking for an immediate removal of the dross constipating our club, and I include the list of fucking freeloaders and has been players in that, as outlined by quite a few posters.

During the dark days of our relegation to the third division and before we went from one disaster to another, eventually we got a manager in to steady the ship a little (Tommy Docherty) and move on up, which we did for a bit but then we stalled again so we brought in Vic Crowe and moved on again for a time and once again we stalled so in came Ron Saunders and off we went again all the way to the Champions of Europe. I know what you are all going to say here we go "all our yesterdays" the point I'm trying to make is the fans suffered and it was'nt nice but eventually things turned around, we should have moved on and on BUT as usual Villa management missed the boat and cocked things up, we've had some good times and bad since and now we have gone nearly full circle, hopefully if/when we get things sorted we won't cock it up again, which I don't think we will Dr Tone seems to have more about him than Deadly Doug, point I'm making is if Bruce has taken us as far as he can then he will be replaced, if he has more to give then he will stay, we can huff & puff & rant but its not up to us, management will decide, not nice but there it is.