Villa Takeover

wynters

FROM SKYSPORTS.COM

New era beckons for Villa
By Stephen Bateman - Created on 23 Dec 2005

Businessman Michael Neville is leading an Irish consortium looking to complete a £64.4 million takeover of the Villa boardroom, currently headed by chairman Doug Ellis (pictured), and he believes that a deal should be in place by the beginning of January.

"The deal will not be completed before Christmas but there is a possibility it could be completed by the New Year," he told the Birmingham Mail.

"It has taken longer than we thought because of the complexities of due diligence.

"But Mr Ellis has been most charming and most accommodating and things are progressing well.

"Everything is very cordial and on track. I have got no view of anything which would hinder this deal."

Should the bid go through, it would signal the end of Ellis's 23-year reign at Villa Park, and fans hope that it will herald fresh investment in the club.

"It is very difficult to replicate the pockets of Mr Abramovich," Neville continued. "But I think we will get this transaction completed.

"Villa are a big club with a big stadium. I am a bit distraught that they are where they are - I just wish that they were at the top of the table."

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At long, LONG last it looks like we're finally free of Ellis. And it's a genuine Villa fan who's taking over. 'Best Christmas present Villa fans could ever have wished for....

Joyeaux Noelle to one and all!!!!

Brilliant news.

therecklessone

Is this the guy from Galway who was linked with the club recently?

mchurl

Maybe if the deal goes through dol will be given money to spend at last!!

Töpher

He spent £10,000,000 over the summer, not including Djemba Djemba from January. He will get a significat kitty, they promised £20M a season or something, IIRC.

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned on here, but Mark Delaney handed in a transfer request yesterday.

Trampas

I think the price is a bit much. £65 million.

I would have thought around the £30 million mark would be about right.

Seaneh

You really don't know just how much info structre is involved in a football club he size of Aston Villa do you?

Put it this was, sunderlands assets are valued at more than 50,000,000.
Villa are a bigger club with a bigger staduim and an academy atleast on par with Sunderlands.

£65,000,000 for a football club with no debts is a steal.

Abramovich bought chelsea for somehting like 30 million but had to wipe another 80million in bedt and had to buy land for and build a completely new training complex, which must have cst another 10 - 12 million.

Villa have all that in place and have a much larger fanbase than chelsea, they are one of the few clubs in England with the potential to make profit!

Villain

This is great news, finally Ellis will be gone. Villa have the infastructure (well will have when the new training facility is complete), the fan base and IMO a Manager that rival any club in England except Chelski. Best of all the owners will be Irish.

Up the Villa

ButcherOfNog

irish1 wrote:

and IMO a Manager that rival any club in England except Chelski..

yer taking the mick shurely? O Leary is not a that good a manager, theres alot better than him around.

Helix

im a villa fan, and d o'l is far from a great manager

Villain

ButcherOfNog wrote:

yer taking the mick shurely? O Leary is not a that good a manager, theres alot better than him around.

Well IMO he is an excellent manager, what he achieved at Leeds was great and while Villa are having a bad season this year, he has done very well at Villa with what he has had to work with.

Töpher

He's done well enough, but the £10M spending doesn't seem to have paid off. Then again, could be Everton.... Once he still has the dressing room I can see him turning it around, whether or not that's the case though....

Getting Davis on a new long term contract was fantastic news (I know he was already on along one, but if nothing else this shows his commitment to the club)!

I'd say he'll be given till summer, or this time next year, to turn the fortunes around a bit. But of course thats just guesstimation.

Lemlin

Dave done very well with Villa in his first season and almost had them in the CL. I think with the right backing, he could be far more successful there.

wynters

O'Leary is without doubt the best man for the job.....

A club like Villa can never compete with the Chelseas, Man Utds, Arsenals, or even Liverpool and Newcastle in terms of spending power, so the only chance we have of winning anything under current circumstances is by trying to attract the best young talent to Villa. O'Leary has a '5 year plan' for the club which involved reducing the wage bill by stripping the squad of all the dead wood, and also includes the development of the best youth academy in the country (it's an £8 million project, building work on that is already underway). I don't think anyone can question O'Learys track record with younger players. Look at Robinson, Smith, Kewell and Woodgate at Leeds, or Steven Davis now.... He's great at developing young talent and will give young lads a chance. (We have 2 lads already in the youth teams who look the part, Gabriel Agbonlahor, who broke Michael Owens youth scoring record the season before last with 40-odd goals in a single season, and another guy called Shane Paul, a winger/striker who's banging them in this year, so that youth 'development plan' is already well underway.....

In terms of where the team are now, you can't really expect Villa to challenge for a Champions League place on the budget O'Leary's had to work with prior to this summer. Solano, Berson, Jambo Jambo, Hughes, Taylor and Phillips were all bought for £1.5m or less. Carlton Cole, Milner and Bakke were/are loans, Berger was a free. Compare Villas spending before this summer to other teams in that middle tier of teams in the Premiership like Boro, Spurs, Newcastle or even Birmingham City! since O'Leary took over and we're not doing too bad.... We've been plagued by injuries aswell, which O'Leary can't be blamed for. Baros and Bouma (the £10m men) are only returning from injury and getting up-to-speed now (and results are beginning to reflect that) so we'll only see the real Villa in the coming months, when we get a new centre-half in to partner Mellberg and a fully fit team.

The only 2 transfers who didn't really work out for O'Leary were Berson and Djemba Djemba. Berson couldn't settle in England and went back to France (albeit on loan), and Steven Davis has since taken the midfield place O'Leary bought Djemba Djemba for, O'Leary can't really be blamed for those 2 transfers not working out. Berson and Djemba actually played together in the Nantes French title winning side a few years back so you can understand why O'Leary moved for them in the first place.... they had a good pedigree.

O'leary is doing a good job.

Hopefully this takeover will go through in time for us to get a player or 2 in the January window. We desperately need a centre-half or 2, and a creative midfielder to supply some ammo to the strikers. There's talk of that Swedish guy Christian Wilhelmsson from Anderlecht... very good player. A new keeper wouldn't go a miss either. Sorsensen is doing OK this season, but I'll never forget his form around this time last year, when he cost us the derby game and an early cup exit to Sheffield United with outrageously bad performances....

Fingers crossed!