Questions for Mr. Lerner Sir

[Legion]

Article written by Villa fan Denis_B:

We have all read a lot of things lately about what we ‘think’ is going on at Villa Park but unfortunately the wall of silence, unlike the Berlin Wall is still intact.

The B6 equivalent of Pravda has recently issued a letter to the valued Season Ticket holders wherein Randy and Paul probably well assisted by Price Waterhouse Cooper or similar have tried to deliver a smoke and mirrors communication straight out of the manual ‘How to run a Football Club and piss off the fans’ first published by Doug Ellis in 1984. But what about the 10′s of thousands of non season ticket holders around the globe, what do they count for?

We read about the Europs top 20 Financial League and how we are going to increase turnover etc etc etc….. bean counter speech all of it. As a non-season ticket holder I am not sure whether I was allowed to read it or whether I should even comment on it.

Simple things actually need answering as far as I am concerned. IF Ged Houllier had not suffered a heart attack we were led to believe he was going to rebuild the squad. Sadly that was not to be so what happened?

We managed to rid the club of 12 players in recent months, replacing them with 2.

We received about £35,000,000 for 2 alone and have spent about £13,000,000. allegedly we have repaid Randy some £15,000,000 in respect of a loan leaving us with at least £7,000,000 left BUT the manager has no money to spend. Bent and Makoun were purchased with the Milner cash in a moment of panic when things did look bad and relegation was a strong possibility.

So what would have happened if the club genuinely offered improved contracts to Ashley Young and Downing? Would that have left us well and truly impoverished and on the verge of significant financial problems?

Or is it likely the club had no intention whatsoever of keeping either of these 2 and just lied to us?

These questions have been asked of the oracle of all good in Randys world, good old Colonel Sanders, sorry General Krulak but on the odd occasion he can drag himself from his 24/7 job at some US seat of learning he manages to sidestep the issues.

The club sent out the Colonel to sell us the brand and the ideas and sow the PR seeds regarding how good Randy was for all things Claret and Blue so what has happened? A man who is supposed to be a non-executive Director, part of the Board running a multi million pound business can’t find more than a few minute a fortnight to speak to the plebs via 3 websites. How on earth can he contribute to the running of the club?

The whole thing is rapidly going pear shaped and I for one cannot see where it is going to go from here. Is he going to sell? Is he going to let things drift and hope the Arabs, Gilletts or Romans all get bored and then hope we can then challenge?

I can certainly accept we are not going to challenge seriously in the short to medium term and any ambition to do so is ridiculous so why not re-introduce yourself to the English language instead of the fluent gibberish in the letter and make some sort of address to ALL fans?

Remember Randy you are privileged to be the custodian of an old English institution, Aston Villa Football Club, the fact you do not like publicity is in all honesty too bad. You have put yourself in this position and you owe it to us the fans to come out and speak. The fact you only managed to attend about 10 games last year doesn’t bode well.

Discuss.

[JJ-AV]

That's the thing I don't get about it all. The board have told us that improved terms were offered to Milner, Ashley and Downing - the latter two looked like signing and then stalled... Then at the end of the season both are gone pretty quickly.

What would have happened had they accepted the contracts on offer and signed?

[hawkeye]

nice one Leeg, have you sent it?
Is it now understood that RL is a lot less wealthy than he was or thought he was 5 years ago?
I dont think that there is much we dont know except for RL long term intention and he is hardly likely to disclose that, particularly if he wants out.
It is pretty obvious that the strategy now is to try to break even whilst maintaining a place in the PL, in fact these are mutually inclusive.

[sidcowans10]

Some very good points. I have never felt so indifferent towards my beloved club as I do now. I watched yesterday and all I could think was " God theres another 9 months of this"

[Somniloquism]

nice one Leeg, have you sent it?
Is it now understood that RL is a lot less wealthy than he was or thought he was 5 years ago?
I dont think that there is much we dont know except for RL long term intention and he is hardly likely to disclose that, particularly if he wants out.
It is pretty obvious that the strategy now is to try to break even whilst maintaining a place in the PL, in fact these are mutually inclusive.

Has Leeg written that? I would be surprised as referring to Gen Krulak as Col Saunders is something I wouldn't expect from him, especially as he has met him on several occasions in the Bartons.

[PaulWinch again]

I agree with a lot of it, but the Col Sanders bit is a bit too disrespectful.

[Risso]

So we still need to reduce wages, and we can't afford a loan signing unless we offload players again.  Yet we offered Downing and Young improved terms?  Hmmmmm.

[andyh]

Missing from the outgoings are the multi millions paid to either release or compensate Lerners managerial appointments.
That probably takes up the remainder.

My question would be simple.
How is Randy using his business accumen to increase revenue at the club ?

[Nigel Macdougall]

Who or what is that a "quote" from ?

[eamonn]

''Col Sanders'' and ''Mr Lerner Sir''...not exactly going to win their respect taking the piss out of their names.

[Salsa Party Animal]

No name/piss taking.

Think we got room to spend on wages after cutting so much back.

[Quiet Lion]

Typical load of moaning bollocks you read on all sites these days.

The only way we are going to compete is to get a middle eastern sovereign wealth fund to buy the club and pump money in.

Randy is not Abramovich, get over it

[Woofles The Wonder Dog]

Written by an evictee from here and published on a certain blog...

[VillaZogmariner]

Typical load of moaning bollocks you read on all sites these days.

The only way we are going to compete is to get a middle eastern sovereign wealth fund to buy the club and pump money in.

Randy is not Abramovich, get over it

Maybe so, but there are still questions that need to be answered.

[PaulWinch again]

Typical load of moaning bollocks you read on all sites these days.

The only way we are going to compete is to get a middle eastern sovereign wealth fund to buy the club and pump money in.

Randy is not Abramovich, get over it

Maybe so, but there are still questions that need to be answered.

Correct, a lot of what has happened of late makes no sense.