Villa Trust meet with Tom Fox, but CEO offers naught but pablum

The Aston Villa Supporters' Trust have met with club CEO Tom Fox to discuss a wide range of issues, from ticket prices to January transfers. Details of the meeting can be found in this post from the AVST. In brief:

• The AVST want a statement of intent from Randy Lerner (hilariously referred to as "the owner"). Fox has said that will happen at the end of the season.
• AVST want to know what's up with supporting the manager, Fox seems to still fully support Rémi Garde.
• Fox also assured the AVST that the lack of transfer activity in January was not because of lack of support of Garde, but rather because deals fell through.
• Fox assured the AVST that the board is working on a plan for fair ticket prices.
• The board will issue a statement of intent on how they plan to move forward.
• Fox acknowledged that the club is a public relations tire fire.

I'm sure you already know that I'm not a huge fan of the AVST, but they should be applauded both for getting this meeting and for asking questions that are relevant and important to supporters. There's a part of me that wants to see more push on some of these issues (why, for instance, did we only have two potential deals in January?) but giving the AVST the benefit of the doubt here, I imagine they asked something along those lines and didn't get good answers. Alternatively, they may have been trying to walk a fine line and not piss off the notoriously thin-skinned Tom Fox.

So my problem here isn't with the AVST. They're doing what they're supposed to: bring issues that impact fans to the board and try to get answers. Hooray!

My issue is with the pablum that the AVST were given. All of these are pretty standard stock answers. "Yes, we're working on trying to do better. Yes, we see there is a problem. Yes, we will do well by the fans." And very few details. How will they make things better? How will the ameliorate our anger over the past half decade?

All of the broad generalizations and total lack of specifics puts me in the mindset of the US election process currently happening. Yes, you'll effect change. We get it. But how?

And until we get that how, I'm going to remain just as pissed off as I have been for a while. This is a step in the right direction, but unfortunately there have been so many miscues this year that it doesn't even get us to the starting line of where change must occur.