“Joining Aston Villa was a huge privilege for me and, while I’m bitterly disappointed by results this season, watching the club compete at Wembley in the FA Cup final last year is a memory I’ll cherish. “Aston Villa is a proud and storied club which deserves to be among the elite in Europe and I have every confidence that it will once again find its way back. “Regarding my resignation, the owner made it very clear last summer that he and I would seek to recruit a board that would put the club in a stronger position in the event that a sale didn’t happen. “As the board has taken shape, however, it has become clear that my role also has changed. While I am supportive of where the board is trying to take the club, it is my feeling that, given the changes they are making, it makes sense for me to seek another challenge. “I have accepted the board’s invitation to remain available during a period of transition to ensure a smooth handover. I would like to thank the many among the Villa family that have been very kind with their time and support and generous to me on a personal level during my time with the club.” Marketing man Tom Fox jumps his CEO ship after a dismal record of failure. “The board would like to place on record its appreciation to Tom for his many contributions and commitment over the last 18 months. “While the results this season have been disappointing, he and his team have worked hard to put in place many changes necessary to put the club on a more sustainable path for the future. He leaves with our best wishes for the future.” Steve “who?” Hollis. “Aston Villa Football Club can confirm that sporting director, Hendrik Almstadt, has left the club by mutual consent with immediate effect. “As part of the board’s continuing assessment of [the set-up at the] Bodymoor Heath [training ground] it intends to conduct a thorough recruitment process to find a replacement.” Club Statement. “Let’s see where the review goes. Let’s not pre-empt anything. Let’s give the process the time it needs to make the decisions. They’re not going to make knee-jerk decisions. “Rémi is fully engaged. He is spending a lot of time with Mervyn (King) and Brian (Little) and David. I’m leaving it to them to see what works best. They will come up with their recommendations. “There’s no vendetta going on here. This is about turning over every stone in the club and no-one individual is bigger than the club, including me. “What we will do as a part of the review is look at everyone’s role and see how that fits in as a part of the package that we are going to be putting together than takes this club forward. You can’t say it’s gone right. These kind of organisations are about winning football games. We’ve not been winning football games and hence we have been very open that we’re trying to take action and put things right. Hopefully we will return to better times. “Rémi Garde, when you look at his CV, is one of the top managers in Europe. He has joined an organisation that needs fixing and it is one of the toughest jobs in the Premier League. “But David, Mervyn and co are working closely with Rémi and the team. Let’s see where David and the team get to. I don’t want to fall into the trap of ‘this is what I think’. It’s a board who are doing this review and it’s the board that will make the decisions and communicate when it’s ready.” “I was very clear when I took the chair: ‘If you want some poodle who’s just going to be your mouthpiece, you’ve got the wrong bloke, because I’m not doing that. You’re a board member, Randy, and I’ll respect you as a shareholder but that’s the relationship we have.’ It’s brave. It’s part of his family assets and he’s handed over the stewardship of that asset to a new board team. “No1 is stability and clarity around what the strategy is. “If you want to fix something you have to take a bit of pain along the way. “Villa will have one of the strongest balance sheets in the Championship. “We have a business model which works through for the next two or three years. “The one thing I do see is there’s a pent up frustration from supporters which is understandable and what they want is a quick fix. “I keep saying never waste a good crisis. Use this as an opportunity to call the bottom and then put in place things to do which will see better times to come.” “I’d like to think so [the ‘bottom’]. I’m a businessman not a football man. If you remember in the financial crisis every one was trying to predict the bottom. It takes a brave man to predict the bottom in any swing or cycle. I’m not going to fall into that trap. Hopefully it is at the bottom. We just need to work hard at it.” Steve Hollis… no we don’t know who he is, how he is there, what his qualifications are or why he is now representing a 141 year old institution, plays Billy Big Time to make a bad situation worse but hey Villa will have “one of the strongest balance sheets in the Championship”… except they won’t and will face financial oblivion and extinction within two years. “Once again it is frustrating to get nothing out of the game. That is something we could not afford in our situation and unfortunately that is the end.” “We deserved a bit more. When we controlled the game, we were not dangerous enough to score a goal. I didn’t think they were very threatening for us.” *On the departures of chief executive Tom Fox and sporting director Hendrik Almstadt this week:* “We showed as a team that we were not too much affected by all this stuff. “This football club has had a lot of problems in the last few years. We are all in this situation today. The problems are within the club and we have to fight until the end.” Rémi Garde, Saturday, 19 March 2016.