Aston Villa owner Tony Xia has been making plenty of new friends on Twitter this summer with his openness and transparency with the supporters.
Having taken over from Randy Lerner earlier this summer, the Chinese businessman has reiterated his desire to return the club to the Premier League immediately and has ambitious plans for them moving forward.
Coupled with his willingness to talk to supporters about club matters on social media, it’s been a positive start to life at Villa and a refreshing approach from a club owner.
However, he may well have just taken it too far on Monday after Sky Sports released Ian Holloway’s predictions for the new Championship campaign, as seen below.
The former manager turned pundit suggested that Villa would finish 16th this season, but with the very real threat of back-to-back relegations looming large over them if they didn’t sort their squad out in the remaining weeks of the transfer window.
Here is Ian Holloway’s predicted top six in the @SkyBetChamp. More here: https://t.co/Zh2P5bVk4D #SSNHQ pic.twitter.com/f3EI0k7w9i
— Sky Sports News HQ (@SkySportsNewsHQ) August 1, 2016
That evidently didn’t go down well with Xia, who responded to a supporter’s tweet with a link included to Holloway’s assessment with a harsh riposte slamming his career.
The Villa owner, perhaps wisely, has since deleted the tweet, but it wasn’t quick enough to avoid others from grabbing a screenshot of it, as seen below.
Xia would certainly be well advised to avoid similar responses moving forward, as ultimately it doesn’t reflect well on the club as they undoubtedly have a target on their chests already this season as they look to put an embarrassing campaign last year behind them.
