Aston Villa News 24/7
I was just catching up on the news from the last few days and I came across Tottenham’s Benoît Assou-Ekotto issuing a plea for his club to do whatever it takes to hang on to their top stars and bringing in new ones… or risk becoming another Aston Villa.
Ouch!
The way things stand at the moment, it’s not hard to at least partially agree with him and his message will definitely resonate with a fair number of Villa fans disgruntled by the recent austerity measures.
As the Telegraph points out, James Milner, Ashley Young and Stewart Downing have all moved on without high profile replacements coming in. The implication is that they haven’t been replaced at all, but that might be a more difficult argument to make if Stephen Ireland, Charles N’Zogbia and Marc Albrighton were playing closer to their best.
Never mind that though, here’s Assou-Ekotto’s take on recent events in B6:
Benoit Assou-Ekotto
There’s a lot to be excited about at Spurs now with the new training ground and maybe a new stadium. It feels like the future could be really good for the fans but if the players don’t stay, we could end up like Aston Villa.Not long ago, they were maybe two or three players away from becoming a top team. They didn’t buy them and they didn’t keep the ones who were already there and since that time, they have taken a few steps back.
Instead of being able to build on what they had, players ended up leaving Villa, so I hope Tottenham will make the right steps.
The essence of what he says is entirely correct. We were knocking on the door, we were just a little short; another couple of players might have kicked us on, and we did end up losing the ones we had rather than augmenting the squad with additional quality.
True enough. However, Tottenham have a sizeable financial advantage over us and they’ve been more or less living within their means whilst we have significantly overspent in recent years. At some point, that has to be addressed one way or another.
Turnover
I’m not a finance whiz myself, but I can tot up a few numbers; here’s the top and bottom line numbers for the two clubs over the last three seasons we have published accounts for:
| (£m) |
Aston Villa | Tottenham | ||
| Revenue | Profit/Loss | Revenue | Profit/Loss | |
| 2007/08 | 75.6 | -7.3 | 114.8 | 1.0 |
| 2008/09 | 84.2 | -46.2 | 113.0 | 23.2 |
| 2009/10 | 90.9 | -37.6 | 119.8 | -6.6 |
| 250.7 | -91.0 | 347.6 | 17.5 | |
As you can see, Tottenham earned close to £100m more than us during those three seasons, and actually managed to make a profit. Taking into account our sizeable losses over the same period, the net gap in terms of profitability is more than £108m in just three seasons.
Question: How did Tottenham make such a large profit in 2008/09?
Answer: “Player trading”.
Tottenham Hotspur plc Annual Report 2009
Profit on the disposal of intangible assets was £56.5m for the financial year (2008: £16.4m), including £23.4m relating to the sale of Dimitar Berbatov to Manchester United and £17.5m relating to the sale of Robbie Keane to Liverpool.Other significant sales in the year include Steed Malbranque, Teemu Tainio and Pascal Chimbonda to Sunderland for a combined net profi t of £7.3m and Paul Robinson to Blackburn Rovers for a profit of £2.9m.
Something else to consider; in 2010/11, Tottenham had Champions League football and did rather well. We, on the other hand, did not. The financial gap between us can only have grown last season. Significantly.
Wages
We’ve famously allowed our wages to balloon to nearly 90% of turnover in 2009/10, ending up with a wage bill considerably larger than Tottenham’s.
| (£m) |
Aston Villa | Tottenham | ||
| Wages | % of Trnovr | Wages | % of Trnovr | |
| 2007/08 | 50.4 | 67% | 52.9 | 46% |
| 2008/09 | 70.6 | 84% | 60.5 | 54% |
| 2009/10 | 80.0 | 88% | 67.1 | 56% |
| 201.0 | 80% | 180.5 | 52% | |
So, over these three seasons, we earned less money than Tottenham, but paid out more in wages. It was a Hail Mary attempt at Champions League qualification and it failed. Now we’re dealing with the consequences.
Was the failure really down to not spending enough, or just not spending wisely?
For a clue, let’s get another thought from Assou-Ekotto:
Benoit Assou-Ekotto
If a player is earning £3 somewhere and another club offers him £6, he will ask his current club to match that offer. If they don’t match it, he will move to another club, because he might feel undervalued.When you’re at Spurs, it’s like you’re with family. But you will not always refuse to better your professional career and earnings because you like the ‘family’ feeling.
The conventional wisdom is that an unhappy player must be allowed to leave, and though there are always exceptions, Assou-Ekotto doesn’t seem to feel like his contract is any obstacle to moving on.
The flip side of that is when you have a player who is earning a good chunk and is not attracting the interests of clubs willing to pay him more. Then his contract, which guarantees his salary for the duration, becomes extremely important to the player.
Take Habib Beye as an example, his contract reportedly pays him an annual salary of £2m up to the end of this season. When the wage bill gets to the point that it needs wildly slashing, and you’re unable to shift players like Beye, is it any wonder that you end up having to sell the players that other clubs do want?
And that’s the real lesson to be learned from Aston Villa in the past few seasons I think. Unless, I suppose, you happen to be a player and you fancy a little bit of what Habib Beye has been getting.
You might also like...
14 Comments to “Some important numbers for the attention of Benoit Assou-Ekotto”
Leave a Reply
Excellent unbiased article.
Excellent article, as a spurs fan, I found it very informative.
What Assou said was typically short-sighted and ill-informed for a footballer.
Firstly, football clubs have to live within their means. We have made more and that’s because our chairman is very shrewd negotiator. The stadium delays are typical of how he won’t leave any stone left unturned until he feels satisfied he’s got the best deal. Bentley aside, he’s usually worked the transfer market very well.
Secondly, the fact we didn’t sell anyone of note is more down to contractual length. Most of our players are on long term deals. When the going was good, Levy negotiated long deals for the likes of Bale, Modric etc. They would be less inclined to sign those today.
Lastly, The player’s will and integrity is very important. Modric behaved like a bit of a tit but we knew he’d snap out of it. Some players, like Berbatov and Tevez would destroy the moral of the club internally.
So I assume, that maybe Young and Downing were a threat in either a contractual or team moral respect, rather than Villa just selling as a lack of ambition.
Nice article – and while I get what BAE was saying (he was talking up spurs’ quality at the moment and suggesting it is an opportunity to build on) – perhaps Villa was a bad example for him to pick.
Villa were a cracking side a couple of years ago and it is a real shame that it has fallen appart. Few want the same to happen to spurs – but hopefully sound finances are the best route to ensuring that.
Very nice piece. BAE’s comments were surely not meant as a dig at Villa, more a slightly clumsy way of telling his club to invest. I followed the link fully expecting some kneejerk nonsense about ‘big clubs’. What I found was a refreshingly balanced assessment of why BAE’s analysis is more or less accurate, if spoken out of turn (I’d rather Spurs players spoke only about Spurs, by and large).
I hope Hutton and Jenas can do you some good. They’re both a little inconsistent but, on their day, have plenty to offer. COYS and come on the Villa.
Well written sir and balanced. I actually thought that what Benny said was well worded but I guess the reference to one’s own club probably cut to the quick. In any case, the golden rule is never let wages (salaries?) be more than 50% of your income.
It’s a tough one to balance.
All the best anyway. Love the banter between our two clubs on match day especially you singing happy birthday to us when 4-1 up on our 125th anniversary. At least we pulled it back.
Nice article… I really do feel for you villa fans, you did have a cracking side a few years ago, and perhaps with a chairman as shrewd as Levy would still be a cracking side today plus all the good players you lost would probably still be there.
Martin O’neil left coz of the selling mentality of the club, you need stability right the way through the ranks from the players to the manager to the chairman to the fans, that is the basis for success.
Anyway good luck to you for this season except of course when you play us COYS !
Great article. It’s hard to stay balanced when someone from the outside is criticising your club.
I thought you did well not to see Benny’s comments as a dig, he’s a very honest player, which is rare these days, and calls it as he sees it. As you rightly say, he’s not totally correct but there is some substance to his point.
Good luck with the rest of the season, except for against us, of course.
thanks for your comments, tottenham fans.
i don’t think there’s any offence taken from what BAE has said, quite the reverse; i think a lot of villa fans will think he’s spot on tbh.
i just think it’s important to get the context right and learn the right lessons. it’s easy to say that you don’t want to do a villa, but you definitely don’t want to do a leeds either!
as many are saying here, levy’s a smart operator so i’m sure he’ll be somewhere in between.
as for us, well we could certainly do with some of his nous.
I love disco benny but have to agree with the comments above. I feel for villa, for every Modric Berbatov and Bale we’ve picked up they’ve had Milner Young and Downing, not exactly diamonds in the rough but players who’ve been picked up and had a chance taken on them and turned out to be great. Then City United and Liverpool wave the money and off they go. Spurs have managed to hang onto the current crop but Berba and Carrick soon went. Imagine Young Miller Barry and Downing behind an on form Darren Bent, things wouldn’t look so bleak then but money on transfers is not enough, big wages, Euro football and success are the only things that make football tick, few want to be part of a historic club or a project.
Still, don’tcha wish your left back was B-A-E, don’tcha!
Great balanced article and comments. The thing with football is that it’s great when all is going well but the wheels can fall off very very quickly. Even more so now with the financial stakes involved.
Villa’s best players left because we weren’t smart enough about contracts and brought as many duds as good ones. And we couldn’t or didn’t move the duds on. Spurs have done better at that than us and that’s down to the nous of the chairman – he’s managed rednap very well when u consider what happened at pompy.
I guess the real test will be in a few years time when some of the player contracts run down and a bad year comes along. I also suspect wages will be increasing all the time. Anyway good luck spurs and UTV!
Excellent article all round and refreshing to read so many sensible posts rather than the usual “Lerner and McCleish out” from Villa fans and “villa are a selling club” from everyone else. Well done Spurs fans. I’m a very passionate Villa supporter but I am also very objective and appreciate positive and constructive criticism of the Villa, especially from intelligent rival fans and players like BAE.
I also feel that both Villa and spurs would have been qualifying for the CL for a few years now if Man C had never happened.
Why do the media, and ex pros etc talk as if their performances and results on the pitch are amazing and far superior to the other prem league teams and that this is a huge achievement , and that it takes more than money to win titles – They treat us as idiots.
Any way good luck to spurs for the season and please beat Liverpool to 4th, cos if they don’t qualify for CL, then they are in serious financial doo doo too, all their owners have done is the same as the Glazers at Man u, its all borrowed.
Can you tell me why you sing “oh when the Spurs”, very very slowly. I notice Stoke are copying you now. I find it quite annoying but then again, that’s none of my business and you can sing what you like. At least you go to the games, and as Londoners, support a London team.
Great article this, I will pass the link on.
we were making a loss because of the difference in % of turnover being used for wages. And also the money was underutilised to Spurs’ in comparison. We were never that close to being in the top four: you cant play 14-15 players for an entire season and finish that high. Nor play for years without a rightback and a plan b and expect to be in the top four.
But BAE, one of the most under-rated players in prem IMO, has some good points. We didn’t invest but transfer fees weren’t the main problem the recruitment and (non existant)scouting network were coupled with the aformentioned wages, spiralling out of control for players we were never using (and some we still dont; see habib beye £45k a week, thats £2.25m per year.) So 9 appearences for £6.75m in wages + £3.5m transfer fee, pluss any bonus’ or loyalty payments. That means he has cost over £1m per appearence for us.
Doesnt take a rocket scientist to see that harms the clubs ability to compete.
Wish there were more articles like this, very well done sir.