The chelsea interim manager that won them the champions league for the first time is likely to be the manager of aston villa after the club announced Xia Jiantang;chinese billionaire as the new owner this week.

Xia Jiantong: Profiling Aston Villa’s new owner

Who is he?

Xia, a 36-year-old millionaire, was born in Quzhou, situated near China’s eastern coastal area.

Something of a child prodigy, he left for university in Beijing at the age of 14. After graduating, five years later, he would be part of the initial 25 highly-rated students out of 1,000 sent to study overseas.

He spent six years at Harvard and MIT, including a five-month study experience at Oxford University, before returning to China to develop Recon Group, a holding company based in Beijing and Hangzhou. Today it has the controlling interest in five publicly listed companies on the Hong Kong and Chinese stock exchanges.

For a while Xia has planned to buy an iconic football club as the cornerstone of his Sports, Leisure and Tourism Division. Before arriving at Villa, one of eight clubs considered in England and who he became a fan of “many years ago”, Xia looked in Italy and Spain.

Transfer targets

Once assuming control, the deal is subject to Football League approval, Xia plans to give their new manager between £20-50 million for transfers before the new season.

“I think we will add six to seven players in maybe six or seven positions [before the start of the season],” he told the Guardian.

It’s hard to envisage, despite the considerable money available, elite players turning up at Villa Park; instead any funds should be used on those with experience of playing Championship football.

Managerial appointment

When it comes to the next Villa manager, Xia has revealed that the club was already considering specific candidates after more than a month of searching, and an announcement could come within two to three weeks.

“We have several very good candidates … I have talked to all of them,” Xia added. Roberto Di Matteo, the preferred favourite, and Nigel Pearson were among 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.”