QPR manager Ian Holloway tipped Aston Villa to struggle – and Tony Xia believes this undermined their progress.
It’s fair to say Aston Villa owner Tony Xia won’t be inviting QPR boss Ian Holloway into his boardroom for a glass of red after Tuesday’s Championship clash.
After all, the duo didn’t get off to the best of starts when Holloway tipped Vila to suffer successive relegations at the start of the season, Sky Sports report. And, just a few weeks ago, there was a very real sense that the Bristolian gaffer’s prophecy could come true with the Midland giants teetering just above the bottom three following an alarming dip.
However, as they prepare to welcome QPR to Villa Park, Steve Bruce’s revived side are sitting pretty in the top half after six wins in seven with their January additions starting to gel.
Villa’s recent form may not be enough to prove that Holloway is nothing more than “A failed player, failed manager and now a f***ed pundit” (Xia’s words, not ours, as reported by the Birmingham Mail). Yet, the owner can at least bask in knowing that his side have made the critics look a little foolish of late.
However, Xia insists that there was another reason for his expletive-ridden retort to Holloway’s seemingly innocent pre-season predictions.
“The reason was those kind of words made it more difficult to sign good players,” Xia admits to the Birmingham Mail. “Otherwise who cares what he said?”
The fact that Villa have spent big on proven Championship talent a la Jonathan Kodjia, Ross McCormack, Scott Hogan, Henri Lansbury and Conor Hourihane (below) do not exactly back up Xia’s claims.
But you can see his point. When an experienced manager turned pundit essentially writes off the club as a lost cause, that is hardly going to help your hopes of enticing targets to the club.
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