As reported earlier in the Express & Star, Aston Villa Chief Executive Paul Faulkner made a statement today saying that the target of Aston Villa this season is European qualification.
Speaking regarding Villa, Paul’s verbatim statement was this:
“I think Europe sits there as a goal and this year that would be our goal – that’s what we want to try to achieve.
“It’s not easy because there’s other clubs trying to do the same, but we want to do that. I believe it’s do-able this year.
“We’ve got lots of ambition. The Premier League is a very, very tough league, but Villa is a great club and we should be up there challenging at the top of the league and we should be there pushing for Europe.
“I really do think, if we can put a good run together, we’ve got a good squad. I think this year is one where we want to be there pushing to qualify for Europe.
“Exactly where that means we’re not really clear yet, but I think that’s got to be the goal and it should always be the goal for a club like Villa.”
The Left Arm Doesn’t Know What The Right Is Doing
Now I am not someone who doesn’t believe in ambition, but I am someone who believes in reality. After repeated statements intimating that the wage bill would have to be cut yet again, Randy Lerner effectively admitted that this was a period of transition for Aston Villa. It wasn’t likely to be pretty, but it was necessary.
As fans, we understand that necessity often gets in the way of idealism and, for the balanced view, this means that expectations are changed. For me personally, I said final placement would be 8th to 12th, with 8th illustrating a significant achievement given the circumstances.
The circumstances, as we are all well aware, are somewhat restrictive. Regardless of whether McLeish is or isn’t the right man for the club in the future, financial requirements, ironically dictated to head of finance Mark Fairbrother by Paul Faulkner, have an obvious impact on how a team can expect to perform.
Just as Manchester City have flourished with investment, so many clubs fail to flourish, relatively speaking, without it. One only need to look at Arsenal to realise that financial restrictions affect league placings. Whilst Wenger historically has treated scouting as some kind of treasure hunt for the next big thing, recent years have shown that his inability to spend money, both out of choice and out of the restrictions the Emirates has had on budgets, has limited Arsenal’s title chances dramatically.
Getting back to Faulkner, making such statements is cultivating some sort of dichotomy at Aston Villa. How, in one week, can Villa simultaneously be told that expectations are lowered, only to have someone else, who works at the club, say something different?
Only recently I wrote pieces both for the Express & Star, and for Aston Villa Life, detailing that fan expectation is wildly out of line with what is currently feasible. Many fans agreed with me, saying that our last challenges for anything significant came in years goneby, and that such a challenge was unlikely to happen in the near future.
So when the Chief Executive of the football club then proceeds to fuel these wildly optimistic views of certain sections of the fans, he is clearly trying to cultivate PR by showing Villa haven’t given up.
Underpromise & Overdeliver – Never The Reverse
In business, much like in any area of life, I was always taught growing up that one should always undersell what you are going to do. Doing so then cultivates an environment where the only way you can go from where you are is up. On the flipside, those who speak of what they can do, only to follow up by not doing it, only appear to look arrogant and naive. Whether Paul Faulkner is intentionally meaning this, it is how is appearing now.
As a CEO, Faulkner doesn’t need to address fans and papers. Many times over, we’ve seen and understood that this was a man found from MBNA, by Randy Lerner, because he was a capable CEO, not a capable football man. Only the very best CEOs can be both a business man and a showman. Steve Jobs is a prime example of how things can be done when they are done well. Faulkner, however, is no Jobs. Jobs spoke with passion about his products, Faulkner speaks about them because he feels obligated to.
Taking a wild step back though, maybe Faulkner is doing this for some other subversive reason. We already know McLeish is under pressure, so piling on more is a tad devious. I would suggest that such a scheme could be done to motivate but, with what I know about how players are dealt with at the club, this seems totally the reverse.
So maybe Faulkner is doing it to move the goalposts for McLeish. Many said, even before McLeish was confirmed, that here was the perfect fall guy manager. Fans didn’t like him, so if he got sacked, it was a sad consquence of life. Not something the fans would complain about it. On the contrary, sacking McLeish would give many fans a better view of the board. Perhaps Faulkner is lining that up?
Other than that, maybe such an ambitious target is suggesting that January will bring spending. I say that because, as the team stands at present, we are not capable of getting into Europe. One only need to look at the table and see the points difference between us and the teams above us to show that a gulf has already opened, and we are firmly in the second tier below the “big” clubs.
If January does bring spending, Faulkner may end up with the last laugh. However, if January brings a continuation of the same, i.e. more rhetoric that states we are better than we are, I fear it may well be another nail in the coffin of the management structure at B6.
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