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Author Topic: From todays Express  (Read 1853 times)

Offline wookster

  • Member
  • Posts: 383
  • Location: Leeds
From todays Express
« on: August 27, 2012, 05:49:05 PM »
Quote
ASTON VILLA 1 - EVERTON 3: RANDY LERNER’S ON BRINK OF DESTROYING VILLA

Monday August 27,2012
By John Wragg

DAVID MOYES has had 10 years to make Everton into an impressive force to be reckoned with. Paul Lambert will not have 10 months at Aston Villa if this malaise is allowed to fester.

Since Martin O’Neill walked out on owner Randy Lerner in August 2010 when he was told the money was no longer there to achieve what he signed up for, Villa have slipped to the edge of crisis.

It’s not Lambert’s fault, but he is the one carrying the can. After this inept performance, if Lambert cannot get significant money out of Lerner when they meet this week, Villa are likely to be relegated and he will be out of a job.

Where Villa will be, two years and three managers after they were fighting for fourth in the Premier League and Champions League football, in a League Cup final and an FA Cup semi-final, does not bear thinking about.

But it is likely to be Millwall on a wet Tuesday night in the Championship.

Villa’s situation is that serious.

But it is likely to be Millwall on a wet Tuesday night in the Championship

Lerner’s cost-cutting has left them with a weak, inexperienced squad of young players, a lot of them not good enough for the Premier League.

Of the experienced ones who remain, goalkeeper Shay Given looks past his best, Richard Dunne, currently injured, the same. Stephen Ireland you would not rely on in the trenches, Charles N’Zogbia is ineffective, Darren Bent is not Superman. Gabby Agbonlahor, also injured, does not score enough goals and Stiliyan Petrov is recovering, thankfully, from serious illness.

It is dismal.

Do not let Karim El Ahmadi’s 30-yard goal, or Andreas Weimann’s late shot that hit a post paint a rosier picture. Villa were taken apart and held up for ridicule. Everton should have won 6-0.

It is Villa’s worst opening home defeat for 15 years since losing 4-0 to Blackburn and the first time they have lost their opening two games of a season since 2002-03, when David O’Leary was starved of finance by owner Doug Ellis as he prepared to sell up to Lerner.

Taking in last season, when relegation loomed under Alex McLeish, Villa have won one of their last 18 league games, taking 11 points. They have won once at home since November. This is what

Lambert has inherited and so far been given £7m net to solve.

McLeish lasted one season after being briefed by Lerner to cut costs and still provide a winning team. Lambert will go the same way.

The problem is not with the managers, it is with the ownership. And we cannot ask Lerner what he intends to do because he never speaks to anyone.

Moyes has survived at Everton through some difficult times because his chairman, Bill Kenwright, is up front.

He has explained that he has tried to sell the club to more wealthy owners, but cannot find the right buyer. He has admitted there is little finance for Moyes and taken the pressure off him through doing that. And he has built a good relationship with public and manager that is now benefiting the club.

When O’Neill was managing Villa they were the ones trying to break the cartel of the Premier League’s top clubs. Lerner whipped that rug from under him and Spurs and Newcastle have taken that over.

This Everton team could be the next one to have a crack at it. Where Villa were tepid, grey and weak, Everton were strong, confident and dangerous. Steven Pienaar scored at the end of a good move in less than three minutes, Marouane Fellaini’s header, courtesy of Given’s botched save, brought the second after 31 minutes and Nikica Jelavic made it 3-0 before half-time.

Where were Villa when Pienaar and Jelavic were available to be bought last season? Nowhere.

Lerner has recently sold his American football club Cleveland Browns for $1billion. Where will Villa be if his Scrooge financial policy is not scrapped?

Forgotten, with the rest of the dead men that used to be Premier League clubs in the drudgery that is the Championship.

Personnaly I see it as a decent article, hopefully sense will prevail and its sorted out

Offline dave.woodhall

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