Aston Villa – An Essay

The last time I wrote for this website was on the 11th February this year. In it I spread a few thoughts around about how it was too late to sack Lambert now as the damage had been done and as such pleaded that we take the forthcoming relegation in a humble, dignified manner.

I mention this because on February 12th, it was announced that Lambert has been sacked, shortly followed by Sherwood`s appointment and survival was achieved through five or six very good results – rapidly followed by a return to the rubbish we were used to.

Sherwood`s inclusion did give Villa a bit of a breath of fresh air, and even hope for a while but over the summer something changed in him. He no longer seemed that positive, passionate coach that had emerged only months before. Now, of course – we know why – with Tom Fox bringing in not just one, but two (dare I say it….unqualified) men above him to tell him what players he`ll be signing, Tim`s passion seemed to wane.

Sherwood is not the kind of man who`ll appreciate that kind of set-up. He`s talked about it before. From that moment onwards he wasn`t going to be playing a part in the future of Villa. And it was that that point Fox should made the decision to either back Sherwood with the set-up that he felt would help him succeed (or at least give us a chance of winning a game now and then), or he to sack him explaining that he felt a change in the club`s structure was needed to strengthen its future.

That`s not to excuse Tim`s bizarre behaviour and team selections in his last few weeks though, which quite frankly felt like more to do with point scoring (but sadly not the type of points that we desperately needed) than digging ourselves out of a hole.

The whole point of this restructuring, we were told, was to make sure that the little money the club did spend on players, backroom staff etc was spent efficiently and we didn`t end up with as many duds as before.

Yet this transfer committee decided in it`s infinite wisdom that the club was in such a position where spending £7million on a raw talent like Traore, later described as not ready for first team football. They also decided that signing a player like Gestede, a one trick championship pony who already failed in the Premiership once was a good idea. They also decided not to bring in a first team goalkeeper, leaving us with ego bruised, confidence lacking Guzan after Sherwood had basically humiliated him at the end of last season. Those three decisions alone have lost us too many points this season.

So with the season shaping up to be a bit of a disaster, Sherwood is fired. But have no fear! The transfer committee is here!

Any normal person may look at the situation and suggest someone with Premier League experience, a history of a bit of motivation and a suggestion he`d be able to build the club back up afterwards.

But we had the transfer committee. This group of fine fellows had a much different idea of what was needed. For them football isn`t the end result, it`s statistics. Which is why, after at least two hours of Sherwood having been sacked, it had been leaked that Reme Garde had been approached.

Did he have any Premier League experience?
No. Oh, ok.
But he`s won relegation battles, right?
No.
Oh. erm…He has a decent amount of managerial experience?
Well, he had a few seasons at a top flight team where they finished lower than usual and improved again once he`d left.
Oh.

The transfer committee looked for something else. Three incredibly important things.

Firstly, he was French. As we`d signed a number of players from the French league in the summer, this was very important.

Secondly, he was a ‘mate of a mate`. If Arsene Wenger says to employ him, then that`s what we must do. It`s not as if Ferguson doing the same with McLeish wasn`t a bad idea.

Third and finally, he was willing to work with the transfer committee. If he wasn`t – then he couldn`t be considered. Which basically ruled out any Premier League experienced manager there and then as this set up simply doesn`t work here. But to not appoint a manager who would be accepting of this committee is like a turkey voting for Christmas – it wouldn`t happen as they would be effectively sacking themselves.

So that`s why we ended up with Garde. And whilst it`s feels harsh to write the bloke off at such an early stage, with the transfer committee`s 0% success rate so far (I bet they won`t want to include that stat in their scouting reports) I`m not too confident. I`m even less confident when I see the likes of Gestede being played over Kozak, the crowbarring of players who have let the side down time and time again into unfamiliar positions instead of giving the younger players a chance and after having two weeks to prepare getting thrashed 4-0 by a club not exactly chasing anything more than Europa League football.

Not only is the structure put in place in the summer not working, it`s actually damaged the football club and accelerated the decline.

It`s not fair to sit and point fingers at individuals. But it`s also not fair that we have to watch this tripe that has been served up at Villa Park over the past five years, so I think a little look at them isn`t totally outrageous.

First up is Paddy Riley. According to his LinkedIn profile he holds the grand title of Director of Scouting and Player Recruitment, and has been for nearly a year and a half now. With such a title you`d have to assume that he had a lot to do with the player recruitment over the summer, it`s failure, and the complete lack of understanding about what was needed.

He had previously been working at Villa as a performance analysis. Now that sounds like a bloody good job to me. You can walk into work on Monday morning, open up Word, type the words ‘Crap again`, save it down and send to whoever the manager is this week.

He then became ‘Head of Player Recruitment` at Villa between 2011 and 2012. That`ll be the time when we signed Alan Hutton, Charles N`Zogbia and Shay Given giving them ridiculous contracts which even now, continue to plague the club. With this success under his belt, our Paddy accepted an offer to become part of Liverpool`s scouting network. During his time there he was part of a team that signed the likes of Iago Aspas for £7million, Luis Alberto for £7million and a young defender called Tiago Ilori for £7million. The latter having been snapped up by Villa on loan upon Riley`s return. I think it`s not to hard to work out who the driving force in that particular summer signing was. And with two managers here deciding he`s not good enough for the first team just like at Liverpool, there seems to be a pattern emerging. Good work Riley.

The appointment of Riley to this role when you consider his history in scouting roles really is astonishing. He shouldn`t have been let anywhere near a scouting network, let alone be director of it.

Let`s move on to Hendrik Almstadt, shall we? Appointed in the summer as ‘Sporting Director`. No – I haven`t got much of a clue what that means either – but if we take that title at face value he should be responsible for the sporting output of the football club. Seeing as we are all but confirmed to be relegated with less that half the season gone, it`s not gone too well for him has it?

Almstadt we were told was going to be analysing stats. Yes. I fear the people at Aston Villa believed that it really is one big game of Football Manager. Almstadt, who is actually rumoured to have had a much more commercial role at Arsenal rather than affecting what was going on pitchside, was placed in the transfer committee just incase Paddy Riley wanted to try and purchase a ball-winning midfielder who only had 13 for tackling and 11 for aggression.

But the key to the above is the talk of being more commercially involved in Arsenal than pitchside. It`d be very interesting to know if that was the case, and if he had much day-to-day interaction with Fox, who also had a more ‘commercial role` at Arsenal as ‘Chief Commercial Officer` than the full spectrum of running the football club that he enjoys here.

Fox appears to be the third member of this transfer dream team. As chief executive, you`d hope that he is very much the contracts man rather than targeting which players to sign. In which case, you`d have to question his suitability after approving a contract that would make untried, raw, Adam Traore our highest wage earner on £75,000 after only a few appearances this season. I sincerely hope there is a relegation wage drop clause in there (See Tom – I play Football Manager too!).

There`s no chance of digging ourselves out of this hole now. Especially not when you have appointed a new manager who hasn`t even looked like winning a game in his first half-dozen. The important thing now is not the rest of this season, but preparing for next to give us a good enough chance of promotion and not end up as the next Fulham, Wigan, Derby, Sheffield Wednesday – dare I even say it – Portsmouth.

Sell whoever you can in January. Get some of the younger players bloodied ready for battle next year. Forget scouting France – identify the top players in the division where we are going to be and the one below it, identify the positions we need and get the negotiations starting early and done in time for pre-season. This patchwork, rabble of a squad is not good enough for Aston Villa and they need to be gone.

Of course, before you do that then the ‘transfer committee` needs to be destroyed. Then destroyed again just to make sure it doesn`t come back. And that`s why what this club needs won`t happen.

Have a good Christmas everyone!