{"id":91452,"date":"2015-02-14T10:32:44","date_gmt":"2015-02-14T10:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=91452"},"modified":"2015-02-14T13:40:52","modified_gmt":"2015-02-14T13:40:52","slug":"prince-william-asks-avram-grant-take-charge-aston-villa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=91452","title":{"rendered":"Prince William asks Avram Grant to take charge of Aston Villa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Second-in-line to the British throne, Prince William has asked Ghana coach Avram Grant to take charge of English Premier league club Aston Villa, the Israeli has revealed.<\/p>\n<p>Villa last Wednesday, sacked manager Paul Lambert after a poor run of form which has seen them drop into the relegation zone in the EPL.<\/p>\n<p>And according to Grant, Prince William, a fan of the West Midlands club asked him to consider taking the reigns at the club.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_37413\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-37413\" style=\"width: 634px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-37413\" src=\"http:\/\/sport.citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/257EF5A800000578-2952372-image-a-61_1423837114026.jpg\" alt=\"Grant led Ghana to the 2015 AFCON final where there were beaten on penalties by the Ivory Coast.\" width=\"634\" height=\"327\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-37413\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Grant led Ghana to the 2015 AFCON final where there were beaten on penalties by the Ivory Coast.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But the Israeli, who led Ghana to the final of the African Cup of Nations earlier this month, which they lost on penalties to the Ivory Coast, has stated that he remains committed to the Black Stars despite the request from the Duke of Cambridge.<\/p>\n<p>He told\u00a0Sky Sports: \u2018Aston Villa is a great club, with great fans and it is an honour to have my name mentioned with them, but I want to continue with Ghana for the next two years, until the end of my contract. I enjoy managing Ghana very much,\u2019 Grant told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018I met Prince William and he asked me \u201cwhy don\u2019t you come to Aston Villa?\u201d. I said \u201cwhen you become the chairman, I will come\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018As long as my name is mentioned, I feel good with this, but not more than that. I want to continue with Ghana.\u2019<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_37414\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-37414\" style=\"width: 634px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-37414\" src=\"http:\/\/sport.citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/19BC1BFB00000578-2952372-image-a-63_1423837177554.jpg\" alt=\"Prince William is a fan of Aston Villa\" width=\"634\" height=\"420\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-37414\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prince William is a fan of Aston Villa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Grant also spoke of Ghana&#8217;s AFCON campaign and the loss on penalties to the Ivory Coast, stating that the best team lost in the final.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a great experience,\u201d said the former Chelsea boss. \u201cGreat people, very passionate about football. High quality players, many of whom are playing here in the Premier League. I enjoyed it very much.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGhana have not won the cup since 1982 and no one expected us to reach the final, because it is a completely new team.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_37415\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-37415\" style=\"width: 633px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-37415\" src=\"http:\/\/sport.citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/2594100E00000578-2952372-Paul_Lambert_was_sacked_as_Aston_Villa_boss_on_Wednesday_after_t-a-71_1423838177690.jpg\" alt=\"Paul Lambert was fired as manager of Aston Villa on Wednesday\" width=\"633\" height=\"392\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-37415\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Paul Lambert was fired as manager of Aston Villa on Wednesday<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cHalf of the squad were different to the squad who went to the World Cup just half a year ago. We changed it from players who were stars of the team to players who I think will be stars of the team.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the final, we were the better side and lost after 11 penalties each. We are happy and the Ghanaian people are very happy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have just come from three days of celebrations and it was like we took the World Cup. But we did lose by the last penalty so I cannot be completely happy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #444444;\">By: Edwin Kwakofi\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"twitter-follow-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EdKwakofi\" data-show-count=\"false\">Follow @EdKwakofi<\/a><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Second-in-line to the British throne, Prince William has asked Ghana coach Avram Grant to take charge of English Premier league club Aston Villa, the Israeli has revealed. Villa last Wednesday, sacked manager Paul Lambert after a poor run of form which has seen them drop into the relegation zone in the EPL. And according to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[29,3],"class_list":["post-91452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}