To What End?

[Mister E]

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?

Well, I'm in the camp with those that argue that being a 'franchise' would be a bad thing.
I would like an owner who cares - for the history, the heritage, the fans, the future; but one that is not simply using their involvement as a marketing exercise.
I don't want a mega rich individual who has no soul for the club: I'd like someone like Lerner but with a little more cash, much more footballing nous and the personal commitment to own the issues and resolve them. Someone with a sustainable and credible strategy.
Someone who will put in place an operational model that focuses on excellence rather than making-do ...

This is beginning to look a little like the Trust manifesto of 2003 when Doug faced similar accusations of waning interest, poor operational controls and acceptance of mediocrity.

[PeterWithe]

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 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...

Blimey, I really couldnt disagree more strongly.

Not sure if you are serious re-readng.i

[class_of_82]

So glad most of these posters where not around the season we went into the 3rd div. but what we did then we need to do now.
And that is fill villa park to the rafters moan before the game moan at half time and moan at the end ,but for 90 minutes get behind the team like we know we can .fuck lambert fuck randy Lerner this is our club always has been and always will.
If anything this team no matter how poor needs our backing I will be doing my 300 mile round trip to cheer them on for 90 minutes lets hope another 39,999 can do the same.

Villa till I die

[saunders_heroes]

So glad most of these posters where not around the season we went into the 3rd div. but what we did then we need to do now.
And that is fill villa park to the rafters moan before the game moan at half time and moan at the end ,but for 90 minutes get behind the team like we know we can .fuck lambert fuck randy Lerner this is our club always has been and always will.
If anything this team no matter how poor needs our backing I will be doing my 300 mile round trip to cheer them on for 90 minutes lets hope another 39,999 can do the same.

Villa till I die

Lambert's had amazing support from the fans these last two seasons considering how poor the football has been, and they've turned out in numbers as well. What more can the fans do?

[Jimbo]

So glad most of these posters where not around the season we went into the 3rd div. but what we did then we need to do now.
And that is fill villa park to the rafters moan before the game moan at half time and moan at the end ,but for 90 minutes get behind the team like we know we can .fuck lambert fuck randy Lerner this is our club always has been and always will.
If anything this team no matter how poor needs our backing I will be doing my 300 mile round trip to cheer them on for 90 minutes lets hope another 39,999 can do the same.

Villa till I die

The main difference between now and then is the cost. On a game-by-game basis, you're looking at around £50 per outing. Also, there was still a feeling it was 'our' game back then. These days the fans are there to do as they're told and make it look good on TV. When you factor in our piss-poor performances and general lack of ambition or direction, I'd say our fans have been truly excellent.

[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 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...

Blimey, I really couldnt disagree more strongly.

Not sure if you are serious re-readng.i

Look at where we were 5years ago and look at where Cardiff were 5 years ago. Not sure how long he has been there but it's not hard to argue they are on an upward trend and we are going in the opposite direction. As far as I can see, we have flirted with relegation for 3-4 years and the catastrophic consequences could have made us the next Leeds United.

[Mister E]

So glad most of these posters where not around the season we went into the 3rd div. but what we did then we need to do now.
And that is fill villa park to the rafters moan before the game moan at half time and moan at the end ,but for 90 minutes get behind the team like we know we can .fuck lambert fuck randy Lerner this is our club always has been and always will.
If anything this team no matter how poor needs our backing I will be doing my 300 mile round trip to cheer them on for 90 minutes lets hope another 39,999 can do the same.

Villa till I die

which posters?!
I know Brian, My Left foot and I are certainly veterans of watching the Villa since at least the late 1960's and I suspect several others are, so be careful in your assumptions!

[Chris Smith]

If people are suggesting that we are in danger of relegation then Cardiff must be up shit creek without a paddle.

[Mazrim]

The team get nothing but support. That isn't even questioned, surely?

[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)!

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 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...

So you would allow the 'new owner' to change our colours to RED... sorry but over my dead body!!!

[Dribbler]

Lerner could have been a contender, he could have been someone...but with so many bloody mistakes in his first few years here when he was splashing the cash but with little tactical or strategic nous, he's now in the dock.

It's those mistakes that have brought us to the way the club is now being run, that, his own financial loses inside and outside of Villa and the FFP rules, among other things.

I don't think the way we are being run at the moment necessarily means he's planning to sell, but it could be. I kind of like him, he seems a decent bloke, however for someone so rich, he seems a bit dumb in the way he deals with his assets. I get the feeling that if he hadn't of inherited his wealth he would never have made it himself.

At the end of the day every company (and so football club) needs to be run in a financially stable manner, but after the last couple of years of extreme (and dangerous) prudence trying to rectify the careless overspending before that, you have to wonder where we currently are in financial terms. You would have at least of thought that we are now looking at a relatively decent wages to turnover balance.

To me there's also a big question about how much the current approach and spending is down to financial constraints from Lerner & Faulkner, and how much is down to Lambert. I get the feeling Lambert has more than embraced the approach he's been asked to take, it gives him excuses and security.

I think this summer will tell us a lot, if we stay up (by no means a given) get a good 3 or 4 signings of proper quality to address our shortcomings, and keep our current best players (including buying Bertrand), then i will be happy and hope that Lerner still does harbor some sensible ambition for the club. Unfortunately still though, sensible ambition probably equates to 10th to 5th.

Just as important however is that if Lerner does watch all of our games, and remembers back to the comments post TSM, he needs to be reminded that to watch the kind of football we've mostly been subjected to for the last season and a half with Lambert, and the season before that with TSM, isn't acceptable. Surely the fan inside him must cringe whilst he watches a lot of our games even if the owner within him thinks well that's a nice and financially prudential side that will break even and just about survive in the premiership.

[LeeB]

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.

Bob, that's a fantastic post and I couldn't agree more with everything you have said.

[Dribbler]

Oh and can someone elaborate on what this 'financial injection' into the club by Lerner was back in December? Saw a thread on it at the time, some seemed to think it was significant, but haven't really heard anything about it since.

[Monty]

The problem for me is this: for what or whom exactly do we currently exist? It may seem harsh, but middling along while playing endlessly tedious football with the odd existential relegation crisis doesn't do much for the fans. Of course there are reasons much more important than entertainment or success to support a football club (let's face it, if there weren't, not many of us would support Villa), but it doesn't make us happy that we support this club.

Under MON, a lot of us put up with the often plodding football because it looked like the results were finally there. Looking back, of course, the limited style of play was an important cause and symptom of everything to do with MON's limitations. However, the point is that truly competing for things is the minimum extent to which the results have to be good before bad football becomes acceptable to fans. Results are everything, after all.

However, if we're not competing, if circumstances find us in that bottom twelve of the Premier League, then fine, no problem, that's easy enough to put up with - it's the fact that our football is so extraordinarily uncheerable which gets us down. Swansea might be below us in the league, but they have a baseline to their style of play which is competent and might lead, not by accident, to genuine entertainment. It looks like they're trying something. Our football is a bit cowardly and quite undercooked, if reasonably well-intentioned.

The tactical problem with Lambert as I've said before isn't necessarily long-ball, it's just impatient, it's all about getting it to the front as quickly as possible. So, when there's space in the midfield, they pass the ball along the floor through the middle and to Benteke, but when there isn't that space they boof it, as the quickest way to go 'back-to-front'. It's not designed to be long-ball - that usually means things like crossing wingers for your big guy to win headers, and so on - it's designed to play goo stuff in the final third with tricky, intricate players, but either the ball doesn't get to them because we just toss it away via a Big Boof, or it does get to them but they're so over-eager to make the chance NOW that they choose the wrong option at the wrong time and lose it. The upshot is consistently failing to break 35% of the ball over the course of a match.

Good intentions, inexpertly applied and inadequately understood, yielding bad results. Honestly, from players to boardroom is there a more accurate way of summarising the whole club at the moment.

[supertom]

It does seem very much like he's setting up for a sale. Trouble is, will he be satisfied with where the club is financially come the summer? How many more years of stabilising does Randy want? Will he sell this summer, next summer, 2, 3 years?

The longer he plays this game, the more chance there is he'll be selling a Championship club and not premier league.

Benteke will be sold. Either he'll want to go to a club with ambition, or we'll want to cash in on him at the right price. Or both. But then what? Do we play that dangerous game we did when we sold Young and Downing? Substandard replacement.