If Randy had bought Villa five years earlier...?

[Toronto Villa]

Our biggest opportunity to be a perennial contender left when Sir Graham took the England job. We were very much on the right track to doing something very, very significant. In time, Doug would have eventually sold, and with Sir Graham at the helm with some trophies in the cabinet, we'd have been a far more attractive proposition for any prospective buyer. Randy may not have become the owner as it could have been someone much bigger. And even if Randy did, Sir Graham would have been sensible enough to work with the board and still keep pushing us on.

[KevinGage]

I'm still not sure about that 89/90 season.

Don't get me wrong, it was a great year with great memories.
But it was the bulk of the side who had nearly got relegated the year before (minus our best player in Alan McInally - but with Cowans and God coming in) and we were back down around the arse end of the table in 1990/91.

It might have just been that Venglos wasn't cut out for the job and the players didn't respond.  That might well be a big part of it.

But I remember an interview with Big Ron (either a few years into his reign or after his spell at VP) and he said his intention was to stick with the bulk of the squad he had inherited in 1991. Yet when he seen the state of them close up, he feared going down if there wasn't major surgery.

[Risso]

Our biggest opportunity to be a perennial contender left when Sir Graham took the England job. We were very much on the right track to doing something very, very significant. In time, Doug would have eventually sold, and with Sir Graham at the helm with some trophies in the cabinet, we'd have been a far more attractive proposition for any prospective buyer. Randy may not have become the owner as it could have been someone much bigger. And even if Randy did, Sir Graham would have been sensible enough to work with the board and still keep pushing us on.

We had another chance under Little, and to be fair to Ellis, when we bought Collymore lots of people thought that he was the striker we needed to be proper contenders.  I also wonder what would have happened if Les Ferdinand hadn't turned us down in favour of Newcastle, or if we'd paid the extra half a million for Robbie Keane.

[MoetVillan]

When we bought Stan I thought it the perfect signing.  Shows what I know.  I reckon RL would have invested in a manager touted to be the next manager at Porto at the time.  He would have got Lampard in, rather than him going to Chelsea.  A decade of glory follows, and the curve only ended now that Sheik Rattle and Roll invested billions in Sheffield United, while Roman Abramovich's Derby County attempts once more to break into the Villa-United-Arsenal Sky three.  Liverpool are dicing with relegation for the fourth straight year, knowing that life in League one will break them financially like Chelsea before them.  Ahh the memories of an alternative dimension.

[Chris Harte]

As many have said, if Lerner had bought the Villa in 2001 we should have been capable of at least securing regular 4th place finishes. However, I have my doubts that this would have happened.

John Gregory's brand of football by this point was the pits. And it wasn't as if we were playing like that to grind out results. We were now average at best. I suspect that Randy would have stood by Gregory (as someone mentioned earlier, perhaps the stat of a Cup Final appearance in 2000 would have worked in JG's favour) for a season until at least RL realised that he was a spent force.

So by summer 2002, RL might have been seeking his first managerial appointment. Not being convinced by either of his actual appointments to date its easy for me to express concern that he wouldn't have got a suitable person.

Beyond this, it's difficult to predict what would have happened - there are simply too many variables. Just that the general belief that we'd be established top four (what I suspected many would say as I wrote the OP) wasn't as cut and dried as some seem to think.

Ultimately, money doesn't buy success. Therefore I think we'd have been a consistant top six club and challenging for the cups at best by now. And maybe we'd have seen Champions League football at VP a few times in the meanwhile.

Perhaps my opinion says more about my mindset than anything else.

One thought for you - David O'Leary became available in summer 2002. Perhaps with Randy's funds he'd have improved on the consistant top six finishes he got at Leeds.

Things that wouldn't have happened. The Pound Sign protests that (may or may not have) led to the signing of Juan Pablo Angel wouldn't have happened, and we'd all be clueless at to who he is now.  And Sir Graham Taylor's second coming would never have happened - a good thing that would have preserved his reputation with all Villa fans.

[KevinGage]

We wouldn't have got close to Arsenal at their best during that era anyroad.  Probably Man U too.  But Newcastle were always in and around there, Leeds were 3rd and 4th IIRC.  And as far back as 2000, I didn't think there was much between us and the latter two.  So with the extra cash it's quite possible we'd have made CL at least once.  Probable, even.

[Toronto Villa]

Our biggest opportunity to be a perennial contender left when Sir Graham took the England job. We were very much on the right track to doing something very, very significant. In time, Doug would have eventually sold, and with Sir Graham at the helm with some trophies in the cabinet, we'd have been a far more attractive proposition for any prospective buyer. Randy may not have become the owner as it could have been someone much bigger. And even if Randy did, Sir Graham would have been sensible enough to work with the board and still keep pushing us on.

We had another chance under Little, and to be fair to Ellis, when we bought Collymore lots of people thought that he was the striker we needed to be proper contenders.  I also wonder what would have happened if Les Ferdinand hadn't turned us down in favour of Newcastle, or if we'd paid the extra half a million for Robbie Keane.

maybe because I'd left England at that time, and the internet wasn't what is today that I don't have a true bond with the Little era. I always thought that before England came calling that Sir Graham would know exactly what to do in the summer. That he also had Doug where he wanted him and could influence the board accordingly. He'd followed up promotion, got us re-established (just) as a top flight club and had just finished second playing some incredibly attacking football. Now we needed to consolidate and push on, and his departure brought all of that crashing down. I know it's fashionable to look at things through glassy eyes but I just thought given where everything in the game was, how strong we were and were becoming relative to those around us, that with a bit of planning and stability we would have been something over the past 20 years.

[woody4866]

Well if it`s anything like today he would have probably got Tevor Francis to move across the city

[Vanilla]

We were top of the league for half a season in 98-99. Then Doug refused to buy Juninhio, and we bought Steve Stone instead, and we finished 6th.

[eamonn]

Stone didn't arrive til March as I recall by which time our horrendous two month winless run (starting with the 0-2 defeat to Kevin Keegan's plucky Fulham two divisions below) had pretty much sunk us.

[TopDeck113]

What might have beens... the perennial football fan discussion.

If Randy had come in 2001, if he'd spent the same amounts of money that he did in his first few seasons and if he had a galvanizing manager in the MON mould, then I think we'd be sitting here now with a couple of Champions League campaigns under our belt.  Whether that would then have become self perpetuating on the back of the extra-income is a difficult one.  I can imagine Randy still waking up one day and deciding cutbacks were necessary.

[Mister E]

Regarding JG: he spent a net of £17.1m between 1997 and 2002 and bought in the likes of Gazza Bazza, Merson, Mellberg, David James, Dion D, Delaney, Boateng, JPA and the Hitz. So he made some decent signings as well as some dogs.

Gregory wasn't our manager in 1997 - he came in Feb 1998.   

One of the issues with him trasfer wise was that too much of the money went on older players (Dublin, Merson, Steve Stone) who were good, but had no re-sale value.  That meant that the money spent, which was largely from the floatation, gave us a quick fix and nothing longterm. 

Season started in 1997  :-)
Agreed about his purchases: I'm no apologist for JG but it's easy to write off his era as Chris did in the opening post. GB, JPA, Delaney and the Hitz weren't old rockers at all. And Boateng is still playing even though in mid career for us.
Those ageing signings weren't at all bad either but should have served us better.

[Greg N'Ash]

Hard to say really. Would anyone but Ellis have given the inexperienced Gregory the money he did after witholding it for managers with much better managerial records? I'd like to think Randy would have wanted someone better to spend his money, but then his record on selecting managers isn't much cop so far. Only thing certain is we would have had a much better chance of making top4 with that sort of money 5 years earlier given the right appointment.

[dave.woodhall]

Hard to say really. Would anyone but Ellis have given the inexperienced Gregory the money he did after witholding it for managers with much better managerial records? I'd like to think Randy would have wanted someone better to spend his money, but then his record on selecting managers isn't much cop so far. Only thing certain is we would have had a much better chance of making top4 with that sort of money 5 years earlier given the right appointment.

He didn't withhold it. The two previous managers said they were happy with what he gave them, and floatation/NTL provided Gregory's bonanza.

[Vanilla]

Hard to say really. Would anyone but Ellis have given the inexperienced Gregory the money he did after witholding it for managers with much better managerial records? I'd like to think Randy would have wanted someone better to spend his money, but then his record on selecting managers isn't much cop so far. Only thing certain is we would have had a much better chance of making top4 with that sort of money 5 years earlier given the right appointment.

Well, Doug did hand over the remnants of a European Cup winning team to the manager of the mighty Shrewsbury town.