Aston Villa's new owner Tony Xia aiming to be top-three club in the world

“My ambition is to bring Villa to the top six in less than five years and I hope it can be [one of] the top three in the world – even the best well known in the world – in less than 10 years,” Xia said in an interview with the Guardian.

Xia backed up his plans by citing his track record in business:

“At least [until] now what I have planned [in my career] everything has been achieved. Nobody believe in the beginning but I made it happen no matter how many years it took.”

The head of Recon group acknowledged that Villa had entered reached a nadir, and serious improvement was required.

“Forget the past and think we are going to enter into a new age. The first priority is to get promoted. I feel a lot of pressure. I think a lot of Villa fans are eager to get back up to the Premiership, so the next one year will be very tough for me. I hope we can do it.”

Roberto Di Matteo has been one of the possible candidates mentioned to take over as permanent manager from Eric Black, who oversaw relegation after Remi Garde left despite only replacing Tim Sherwood earlier in the season.

“We have several very good candidates … I have talked to all of them. The most critical thing now is to get the right manager … [We] need a really good coach who knows how to play in the Championship. It’s even harder than the Premiership. We need to figure out how to reorganise the team.”