Why the Board need to shoulder most of the blame

[cdward]

It'd be interesting to see the comparison between the likely current club value (assuming premiership survival and bouncing back to a top ten club) and the amount of money RAL has invested from his own pocket. I bet the sums are very similar.

I'm not knocking the board for the sake of knocking them, I just read so many posts where the board can do no wrong and are clearly altruists at heart with only the intention of doing whats good for villa that it narks me people are falling for such spin.  They are business people who picked this club up for a very good price, and I'm unconvinced they have demonstrated effective business management of our football club.

We all know they are interested in making money, and if they do that by building Villa into a successful club then everyone is happy.
You can't just brush over the fact there have been gains for us fans as well as the club, BMH improvements, Holte Hotel, improved facilities, better customer service,  Acorns deal, etc'
They are doing it for the right reasons, and for that i will allow them their mistakes.
If Houllier is backed in this window and we go down, so be it, it would be hard to blame the board for that if he is given the money.
The cynic in me would say if i was Houllier i would be making big demands to sign expensive players knowing that if the board say no, i would have my ready made excuse. Just a thought .

[adam#1]

I'm not brushing over those facts.

My car's got nice paintwork, tinted windows and new windscreen wipers, but unfortunately its about to pack up because I've chosen to do all the servicing myself, well intentioned, but I just don't know alot about it.

[PaulMcGrathsNo5Shirt]

I really like Randy, his approach to running the football club, and the way he respects our views. I acknowledge  and respect General Krulak, and his communication links with the club. As for Faulkner, he says all the right things but i'm not sure he really is as clued up as someone should be in that position - I may be being harsh on that one.

When Randy came in there was a lot of investment with new players, salaries, and investment in the ground, training ground. There was good PR links with the coaches to Chelsea, Scarves for Sheff Utd, and of course the investment in the fabulous Holte Pub. There are still things going on around the club that Randy and his management team can be proud of, it's certainly not perfect, but look back five years where we were and it was very different - you could barely get a grunt out of the ticket office staff, but now they are superb.

That said, they have made mistakes, the biggest I feel is Randy giving Martin O'Neill a free run in the running the club how he wished. It is clear that Randy trusted MON to pay the likes of Beye, Harewood, Sutton, Agathe, and so on the money he did. There in lies part of the problem. When Randy realised that paying players stupid amounts of money to do nothing more than sit on their arse it was clearly not acceptable. Randy wasn't prepared to back the manager in that sense (can't say I blame him) until the deadwood was gone. We all know what happened then.

There is a very fine line I feel, between being allowed to manage the team and having to answer to your boss who could be argued was 'interfering'. I personally don't see Randy as the type to get involved in the football matters, but I feel he will ask the questions he did (and quite rightly) about the salaries of people who do nothing.

The appointment of Houllier (and how long it took) was a dreadful situation, we all know that O'Neill left us in the brown stuff by going when he did, but the appointment of Houllier (and the time it took) made this season a transitional season after only a few games. The lack of investment in the team of course meant we have regressed behind some of our rivals. We also lost our best player for the second successive season.

We now come to January; we look tired, predictable, dour, lacking confidence - is it much different off the pitch? Houllier tried hard to change the way that we play and his injury list has been dreadful - at times the side picked itself. The young kids coming in have done the club proud, and many feel (myself included) it is the more senior players like Carew, Dunne, Warnock, Beye, and Sidwell that have been the real disappointment. The relationships between manager and players looks at best poor, but is Houllier simply upsetting the players at the club who don't really have their heart in the club, therefore encouraging them out of the door? It could well be based on performances of those players this season!

Personally speaking I don't like Houllier, i didn't like his opening lines about us being a 7th-12th club, I didn't like his antics at Liverpool when he completely ignored the Villa fans. (I have no problem with his courteous of acknowledment of the Kop). I didn't like his 'joke' comment afterwards too. The peformance at Man City and Liverpool and his completely baffling lack of tactics last night have thoroughly pissed me off.

Problem is, what do we do? Do we sack him, take another 3 weeks to find a manager, therefore meaning we buy no new players (when we desperately need them) and then hopefully do enough to stay up? Buying players in the last week of the season of course is usually when business is done, but it gives any potential new manager very little time to assess the squad and bring in players as they see fit.  If we keep him, do we trust him with a shed full of cash to spend in January? I'm not convinced that young kids on loan from Spurs is enough to save our season. We're Aston Villa, we should be better than scrounging kids off clubs from the sky4.

After last nights game, I wanted Houllier out, I wanted Randy to act quickly. I guess he has by backing him so publically. I don't think for a minute this is one of those 'vote of confidence - then sacked after the next game scenarios'. Randy & Co have made their decision, and I think they have enough credit in the bank to trust them on this, if we do go down with Houllier in charge then Randy will have to deal with that. I feel as fans though we all need to get out of our seats and scream the Villa Boys home at Villa Park (Yes, I know the players need to do more) An intimidating, loud vocal 'Inter Milan type Villa Park crowd' is what we need for the rest of the season to show the players in the famous shirts of Aston Villa they have to play with more pride. They may not give a shit about Aston Villa, but us lot do...right??   

Randy has made his decision, I don't like it, as I'm sure many don't - but if we do get relegated then Randy and his board will need to deal with the consequence. The one thing though that we all need to consider, we were all Villa fans before Randy, we are all Villa fans irrespective of which manager is charge or what players are on the pitch. We'll all still be Villa fans long after Ashley Young has gone to a Sky4 team. Let's get behind everyone on the pitch for the rest of the season, lets chant the managers and players names before and during the game, let's fill Villa Park for every game this season because the players need all the help they can get. If it does all go tits up, then we can all turn into whinging Brummies at the end of the season. At least we can say we done our bit to turn it round...wearing a new free badge or not.

Sorry rant over

[sfx412]

Relegation so what.

Ellis dealt with it and didn't go away so have many a Villa owner and Director, many were still in charge as we climbed back to the top.
Its football its happens and I'm happy RL is in charge than some of the stars like those Muppets at West Ham, or the clowns at Blackburn, or even, whoever is in charge at Blues.

RL has not got it perfectly right on every occasion but what owner does, is there a perfect owner or Board in any of the Prem clubs.
No, they all make mistakes, they all take stick and they all own the right, to make the decisions the way they do.

I can't see Randy running away from the shit we are in, I can't see him leaving us on the day we lose a game leaving the club to some unknown who hasn't a clue.

I have never been happy with the Houllier choice but I'm happy Randy took the right precautions and made the right investigations before choosing him.

If that's an excuse to blame him, then you are sad, when the likes of highly paid players can't stream two home wins together, when 'Legends' don't even turn up for training when we are short of players, and when prima donna players literally go on strike because they don't like travelling from Manchester