Do you want me to look for positives and throw huge amounts of optimism at you. Do you really want me to try and make you feel good when we sit bottom of the table. I can if you want me to, because it's the easy thing to do. I could be your prostitute and I could prostitute myself.
Close your eyes and look for a thread. Now gently pull that thread. You want to feel like you're talking in a room with a lot of people and they're all listening to you and they agree with everything you've ever said. They are your audience and they will, regardless of what you say, agree with you and believe in you. Maybe you can salute them at the end or punch the air. Too far?
Sod it. That is what our new Chairman did yesterday when he started talking about continuous improvement, process and culture. I used to talk a lot about those things 15 years ago and I still do sometimes, usually to demonstrate why there are better ways. Continuous improvement is actually about survival, it's not about leading or challenging, it's about making sure you're still around in 5 years.
What we have in Stan Hollis is another Tom Fox and as a result, a waste of time. Fox has his MBA and can sell a can of coke, but this is a Football Club. And what we've got with Stan is a PR machine, just like I thought we'd get and yesterday, he got it so fundamentally wrong. The business of football is very different to other businesses and by saying that he basically aligned himself with Fox. Clueless.
We need to adapt or die
Aston Villa have about 500 employees in two locations and we're a football club with a chairman talking about creating a winning culture, processes and continuous improvement. Does this not ring alarm bells for anyone? We're a football club, talking about creating a culture of winning. Think about that for a moment.
Today, you need to be responsive to what is happening around you and it's not about creating a process. While you create that process, you've been relegated. The process is created when you do something. Every time you do something it's different. Things change too quickly these days and our current CEO and Chairman are not the men to lead this club. It's also worth pointing out that one has had long enough to try and get us out of this mess and he's failed.
We need football people at the club and the appointment yesterday of Stan Laurel basically confirmed that we're lost at sea. This is 2016 and we've got someone talking 90's strategy for something nothing connected to football wanting to create a winning culture. Football isn't rocket science and we should have appointed David Moyes and let him have what he wanted. But Tom Fox didn't want to give up control.
I'm sorry to write this, but with the appointment of Stuart Hollis, Randy Lerner has basically confirmed he doesn't care. I know this to be true, because nobody can see this as a good appointment. It's now no longer about bracing for impact because Aston Villa is sinking.
