To What End?

[Chris Smith]

On a side note, now the anger has calmed from last night I would interested in a poll on whether people still want randy as our owner...

How can you answer that question when you don't know who will replace him? If we could guarantee that we would get an owner who would honour the traditions of the club and do the things that we can rightly be proud of such as the Acorns involvement, but provide a greater level of investment, then I wouldn't be against it, if the alternative is someone who wants to change the club name or colour of our shirts, as at some other clubs, then I would prefer to stick with what we have.

[Rudy65]

August2011, the last time we signed an outfield player from a premier league side.

Great bit of research, but equally depressing at the same time

[Virgil Caine]

On a side note, now the anger has calmed from last night I would interested in a poll on whether people still want randy as our owner...

How can you answer that question when you don't know who will replace him? If we could guarantee that we would get an owner who would honour the traditions of the club and do the things that we can rightly be proud of such as the Acorns involvement, but provide a greater level of investment, then I wouldn't be against it, if the alternative is someone who wants to change the club name or colour of our shirts, as at some other clubs, then I would prefer to stick with what we have.

Which raises an interesting question: do we, the supporters, want success and a really competitive team at any price? If a purchaser wants to put significant finance in but for reasons mainly to promote their business ( I cannot think of any other reason why they would) does an acceptance of name changes, ground identity and loss of the soul of our club follow?
The Sky and BT franchise is only going to get bigger and forays into growing economies such as China means that ownership and control of a Premiership club appears to be a good way to market.

Proud History, Realistic Future?

[Rudy65]

I posted n another thread that one thing I do trust Randy to do is sell us to a buyer who has the where with all and interest to take us forward.

Much as I'm disappointed with the last few years i also believe Randy would do the best for us- unlike those previous chancers that infected the Sty for 15 years before selling them out to a penniless chancer.

I hope you're right

However, i think he will just take the best price. Why should he really care, he doesnt now.

The danger we end up with an SHA type owner,but right now that is a chance id take

[Ad@m]

August2011, the last time we signed an outfield player from a premier league side.

Scratching my head to think who this was. Given's a goalie. Alan Hutton?

Hutton it is.

To be fair, that would put me off signing players from the Prem too!

[richard moore]

On a side note, now the anger has calmed from last night I would interested in a poll on whether people still want randy as our owner...

How can you answer that question when you don't know who will replace him? If we could guarantee that we would get an owner who would honour the traditions of the club and do the things that we can rightly be proud of such as the Acorns involvement, but provide a greater level of investment, then I wouldn't be against it, if the alternative is someone who wants to change the club name or colour of our shirts, as at some other clubs, then I would prefer to stick with what we have.

Winning something and being entertained would be nice. I love all of what you say Chris about our club but I've recently begun to realise it just means we are getting left further and further behind. I have the least amount of interest I've ever had in the club in 50 years and repeat what I said earlier in the season. It's utterly boring. One step foward, three back the whole bloody time with some owner who I now regret ever selling my shares to. I don't really see how he is honouring the traditions of the club by making is into shit mid table fare and, Acorns aside, I also don't see much to be very proud of at all right now. I'm frequently more embarrassed and ashamed by the footbal that we play than I am every proud

[mattjpa]

On a side note, now the anger has calmed from last night I would interested in a poll on whether people still want randy as our owner...

How can you answer that question when you don't know who will replace him? If we could guarantee that we would get an owner who would honour the traditions of the club and do the things that we can rightly be proud of such as the Acorns involvement, but provide a greater level of investment, then I wouldn't be against it, if the alternative is someone who wants to change the club name or colour of our shirts, as at some other clubs, then I would prefer to stick with what we have.

Winning something and being entertained would be nice. I love all of what you say Chris about our club but I've recently begun to realise it just means we are getting left further and further behind. I have the least amount of interest I've ever had in the club in 50 years and repeat what I said earlier in the season. It's utterly boring. One step foward, three back the whole bloody time with some owner who I now regret ever selling my shares to. I don't really see how he is honouring the traditions of the club by making is into shit mid table fare and, Acorns aside, I also don't see much to be very proud of at all right now. I'm frequently more embarrassed and ashamed by the footbal that we play than I am every proud

I honestly wouldn't be scared of a new owner - I don't think anyone would change our name or colours and tbh, I would accept "the Red Bull Villa Park" if it meant pride was restored on the pitch. Maybe it's a shallow view but I've never seen us win the league. I'm lucky enough to still remember the season we fought Man U for the title and won the coca cola cup in 1994. wembley in 1996 was one of the best days of my life but there are a generation of younger villains who have never seen us achieve any success.
Read the tag line at the bottom of my quote. It's time for him to go I think, if nothing else than because he simply hasn't made it work and I don't see it ever working whilst we bob along as the non existent, ambitionless also rans that we currently are

[Mazrim]

Good post Brian and I'm totally in sync with it. This club is wandering aimlessly. There is:

- Terrible communication between the board and the fans. Then again, if they don't know what's going on as I suspect, how or what can they say? And when we do get something from a CEO as aloof as our owner, it's a cringe inducing load of corporate speak bullshit that misses the point with impressive consistency. There is no football nous behind the scenes. Nothing.

- No conceivable plan to improve matters. Player recruitment involves a scatter gun approach at budget bin foreign players with the odd success but ultimately the squad has more holes in it and more questions than answers. And when our one chance to improve it before the end of the season comes, we decline to do anything about it with some bollocks about January not being the best time to do business. Fine, but when you don't do the right business in the summer, tough shit. I think a calculated risk that we should just about be o.k gas been taken. Thus there is no ambition to move up the league, merely to survive in it at minimum outlay.

- No youth players are coming through any more. The same players that are failing are played week in, week out and the only way we can change it is to bring young players through. But we'd rather buy young and hungry than bring our own through. How can you win the next gen series and ignore those that won it? I understand it's not guaranteed that they will come through but we've stopped trying.

- We have no tactical flexibility at all. Nothing. If it's not counter attacking, it isn't anything. We cannot and will not look after the ball. Possession isn't everything but our stats are just embarrassing. This is a proud club, a huge club. And we surrender possession to every team we face. We can have periods when we have a real go at teams and recently has been promising. It's probably our only strong suit. So why then try and sit on a lead instead of attacking, a tactic which almost never works for us? And it seems we've reverted to last seasons situation of needing to score two goals to get anything from a game.

I'm very depressed with this club at the moment. Maybe it's because none of my other sporting loves are providing any relief. It could be worse of course, but it's been a sustained period of sadness with Villa with very little clarity on what the future hold. I hope something happens soon and I hope we're still a top flight club when it does.

[achilles]

Perhaps I am in the minority concerning Randy but I don't really have any issue with him. He has pumped money into Aston Villa, he has given money to the managers perhaps in the past not prudently but he has always backed them. Randy wants to get the wages to a manageable position but that has not stopped him sanctioning buying players on wages higher than he would have liked (i.e. Gareth Barry, Lambert did not want him). Its better the devil you know than the devil you don't know, be careful what you wish for!
The bottom line in all this lies squarely at Lambert's feet, the players at Villa Park are much better than what they are showing in the majority of matches. In patches the players show what they are capable of and those glimpses are an eye opener of what could be achieved. Lambert is worse than MON for his pig-headed stubbornness and will not be swayed from what he thinks is the right way irrespective of what he actually sees on the pitch and the players at his disposal. I feel that the modern day manager needs to be adaptable, flexible and innovative in his approach, all of which Lambert is none.

[Mazrim]

I don't dislike or have any problem with Randy and don't doubt that his intentions have always been honourable. But you can't get away from the cold hard facts of it. Too many mistakes have been made and under his custodianship we are now, relatively speaking, struggling. Regularly.

[bob]

Agree about the 'no-glory' bit.

I am certain that survival in the Premier League is our only ambition. I'm not privy to any inside information but it seems obvious that this is the case. Lerner does not have the money to compete with the multi-billionaires. The correlation between amount of money spent and position in the league becomes stronger every year and until more investigation is done into the creative accounting/cheating that Man City are currently getting away with the situation will remain http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/how-are-bigspending-manchester-city-set-to-pass-uefas-financial-fair-play-rules-9097609.html

I don't watch a lot of football these days because it is boring. It is not competitive. If you have got the most money, you win. What's interesting about that?

I was thinking about some of our players last night. I look at Delph, because of his injuries, still as a player with potential. I am greatly encouraged that he is starting to show it more consistently. He is still likely to make mistakes and for a player that cost £6m who has suffered serious injuries that is a fair expectation. He is, however, our second most expensive outfield player. A Premier League team whose most expensive midfielder cost £6m will do well to finish in the top half.

Benteke is our most expensive, at £7.5m. The last time our most expensive player was less than that was just before we signed Angel? That’s a long time ago. Benteke is our star player. He is still very young and unless you are exceptional at his age you are certain to struggle to maintain consistent form.

How much did we spend on Westwood? Lowton? Bacuna? A million each?

I love seeing players like Gabby and Weimann play well, that’s when we’re at our best. They can’t do it all the time. They’re just not quite good enough to do it every week, few are. They both have terrific attitudes and as a result deserve nothing but my absolute support. As these players came through the youth system I like them more than others.

I think that Lerner has been looking to sell for a few years. Who knows what kind of crook or shyster or heir to billions will one day arrive to buy us and get everyones' hopes up for a bit? Perhaps we will strike oil like Man City. Then we can buy success. I’m not convinced that would be all that more interesting than Aston Villa in 2014. I don’t expect everyone or indeed anyone to agree with that, but it’s how I feel. If we were taken over tomorrow by the richest man in the world and won the league next year I don't think I'd take a great deal of satisfaction from that.

I think the team are doing well, when you consider how much they cost. I know you don't think Lambert is a particularly good judge of player, Brian, but I would argue he's done alright with the amount of money available to him. I agree there is absolutely no chance he will be sacked, even if we were relegated. I think the reason for this is Lerner thinks he is doing a good job too, certainly compared to the other managers he has worked with.

The problem is the significance of money in the game as a whole. It's not going to be much fun until something changes, such as UEFA banning Man City from the Champions League, thus perhaps the correlation is shaken somewhat.

The owner and chief executive could have made some better decisions in recent years. The decision to stop wasting money and try to build with cheap, young players was one of their better ones. We could have signed another defender this window, but given our current model it's difficult to be sure we would have acquired someone who could make much impact for the remaining months of this season. By then, we hope Okore will be back. We need a creative midfielder and went for Hoolahan but it didn't work out. In summer maybe we will sell Benteke and be in a better position to strengthen.

This is not exciting but I think there is a realistic chance this is the extent of our plan. This is football in 2014.

[achilles]

I don't dislike or have any problem with Randy and don't doubt that his intentions have always been honourable. But you can't get away from the cold hard facts of it. Too many mistakes have been made and under his custodianship we are now, relatively speaking, struggling. Regularly.

Can't argue with that, I am just extremely worried who we could end up with (i.e. Cardiff as an example)!

[aj2k77]

We surrender possession against almost everyone because we don't have the midfield to fight for it. 4 transfer Windows and we have el ahamadi and Westwood. We've had 3 goes at getting a left back who can follow basic instructions, a right back who cannot defend and spent most of our budget on a substitute so if our main long ball outlet is injured can be replaced.

Lerner with his lack of footballing knowledge, surrounded by toadying yes men have yet to make a single decent managerial appointment and as soon as the slide began he fucked off with his right hand yes man Krulak. No one associated with Lerner has the heart to fight for the villa because the do not care at heart.

[mattjpa]

I don't dislike or have any problem with Randy and don't doubt that his intentions have always been honourable. But you can't get away from the cold hard facts of it. Too many mistakes have been made and under his custodianship we are now, relatively speaking, struggling. Regularly.

Can't argue with that, I am just extremely worried who we could end up with (i.e. Cardiff as an example)!

For all of Cardiffs problems, they have an owner who is active in the club, there every week stood in the stands wearing a Cardiff shirt. He managed to convince solskjaer to come when rl and pf couldn't. He cares and seems driven to succeed. Ok, so maybe he breaking a few eggs but I look at the two owners and how they are performing and to be frank, I'd probably swap about now...

[mattjpa]

I don't dislike or have any problem with Randy and don't doubt that his intentions have always been honourable. But you can't get away from the cold hard facts of it. Too many mistakes have been made and under his custodianship we are now, relatively speaking, struggling. Regularly.

Can't argue with that, I am just extremely worried who we could end up with (i.e. Cardiff as an example)!

For all of Cardiffs problems, they have an owner who is active in the club, there every week stood in the stands wearing a Cardiff shirt. He managed to convince Solskjær to come when rl and pf couldn't. He cares and seems driven to succeed. Ok, so maybe he has been breaking a few eggs but I look at the two owners and how they are performing and to be frank, I'd probably swap about now...