Is this the season... (Poll reset after Albion double)

[Damo70]

I agree Paulie. He had no plan beyond 'give Martin loads of money'. He certainly didn't have any footballing wisdom around him to ask if, maybe, Martin was the right guy to keep giving that amount of cash. If you compare how we're run to how, again, Swansea and Southampton are run, it's absolutely staggering. We do practically nothing that they do, and we continue to fail while they succeed beyond all expectations, and we act all surprised that it's not working out! It would be funny, actually, were we not Villa fans.

I was going to post about Swansea. Well run by people who, as far as I'm aware, are not rich by the standards of PL football owners. And Southampton, who appear to be well run despite being owned by a woman who supposedly inherited something she had little or no interest in. But clearly somebody at both clubs is making more good decisions to bad ones.

[KevinGage]

With the amount of money we have blown on management pay-offs or killer wages to players who barely make the starting XI, you'd think we'd have looked at the possibility of headhunting the likes of Huw Jenkins at Swansea or Cortese or Rogers at Southampton.

Paying them double or even treble what they're on at present and not spunking the ridiculous sums we have since 2011 (nevermind the MON years) would have left us in far better shape.

[ktvillan]

What I find so maddening (to put it extremely mildly) about Lerner is that he manages to assemble a team of Fox and all these forward thinking people just at the time we are staring down the barrel.  He could have tried to get this calibre of personnel  in at the beginning of his ownership.  He could have tried to bring such people in when O'Neill's reign ended. 

He did. We had those slick American marketing people such as Bob Kain - I remember serious discussions about IMG bringing in players such as Ronaldo and whether we should bother trying to sign Theirry Henry - then they all disappeared without trace and for no reason.

Yep, I remember those people, too, but like you say, they didn't stick around for some reason. Maybe Lerner knew he needed top level people from the start but either they sussed him out early on and bailed or he realised he didn't have the backing to match their vision so he let them go without any idea of where to go next.  Either way, Lerner took on Aston Villa with no firm fixed plan in his head and, as a result of such poor leadership, fuzzy-thinking and decision-making, the club has started to drift and let in water. 

Tom Fox made a good point on Thursday night when he said in not so many words that Randy thought he could bankroll success himself, but then the game changed and he couldn't.

What was it about the game that changed, I wonder?  The arrival of FFP or Man City?   If it was the former it makes me wonder how on earth we have made such a poor fist of adapting to it when other established clubs seem to have taken it in their stride.  A litany of poor decision-making, bad appointments and no tangible solid plan is what has taken us here.  Maybe Bob Kain and co could see this type of thing a mile off.

At the time of Bob Cain and IMG talk, Man City were not yet mega rich and FFP was not on the horizon. A certain manager with what appears to be an all-consuming ego was around at the time.  If he demanded total control, as is likely, no need or place for anyone else to be looking at bringing players in, and no place for anyone that might cramp his style and dilute his control and influence.  That's my take on it.  And even after City got rich, that's just one additional club that we couldn't compete with.  The fact that we've been unable to compete with the likes of Stoke, Swansea and Southampton over recent seasons has nothing to do with FFP and everything to do with having Terry Fuckwit's American cousin in charge.

[PaulWinch again]

It's looking like a 4 team shoot out and we seem to be the only one incapable of getting any points.

[Rudy65]

Its no so much that they disappeared as that happens, it's the speed that they disappeared with. one minute we were hearing about our future and then one by one people we heard were great were disappearing. The early years now seem to be summed up with Nike. It sounded great and a real coup at first but late kits and peeling logos showed that it was all thrown together and not part of a masterplan to really propel us forward.

i feel cheated.

The day the money tap was turned off was the day MON walked or maybe a week or two before

[Ads]

It's looking like a 4 team shoot out and we seem to be the only one incapable of getting any points.

I wouldn't say that regarding four teams. The Albion for example have Southampton at home next. If we can finally stop the rot and pick up a win, then we go into our game knowing we can move above them if we're able to beat them at home, which we need to do.

It's very tight, which is why dropping a point yesterday is all the more annoying.

[TopDeck113]

Oh to know exactly what (1) the terms of MON's engagement with regard to spending were; and (2) the conversations that were had in the weeks leading up to his resignation. 

Napoleon's retreat from Moscow looks like an orderly, well-managed withdrawl compared to what the Villa have done since throwing in the towel on the UEFA Cup tie in the same city.   

[PaulWinch again]

Our biggest problem is that all the other teams are capable of winning and we just aren't at the moment.

[Ads]

Thugs change. You're on a bad run until you're not. Hull looked like they were taking the plunge but have managed to get a confidence boosting point and now have 7 from 9.

We have better quality than the others down there, they just need to believe in themselves.

[PaulWinch again]

Thugs change. You're on a bad run until you're not. Hull looked like they were taking the plunge but have managed to get a confidence boosting point and now have 7 from 9.

We have better quality than the others down there, they just need to believe in themselves.

Yeah but we seem to go on runs of 5, 6 or 7 games without a win quite regularly. That may change under Sherwood, but it has change very very fast.

[TheMalandro]

Squeaky brum time

[SoccerHQ]

It's looking like a 4 team shoot out and we seem to be the only one incapable of getting any points.

I wouldn't say that regarding four teams. The Albion for example have Southampton at home next. If we can finally stop the rot and pick up a win, then we go into our game knowing we can move above them if we're able to beat them at home, which we need to do.

It's very tight, which is why dropping a point yesterday is all the more annoying.

Think we need Albion to continue to have a good run. They have QPR and Leicester back to back at home at the start of April after all.

[tomd2103]

Its no so much that they disappeared as that happens, it's the speed that they disappeared with. one minute we were hearing about our future and then one by one people we heard were great were disappearing. The early years now seem to be summed up with Nike. It sounded great and a real coup at first but late kits and peeling logos showed that it was all thrown together and not part of a masterplan to really propel us forward.

i feel cheated.

The day the money tap was turned off was the day MON walked or maybe a week or two before

We paid big money for Bent the following January. 

[tomd2103]

It's looking like a 4 team shoot out and we seem to be the only one incapable of getting any points.

I wouldn't say that regarding four teams. The Albion for example have Southampton at home next. If we can finally stop the rot and pick up a win, then we go into our game knowing we can move above them if we're able to beat them at home, which we need to do.

It's very tight, which is why dropping a point yesterday is all the more annoying.

Think we need Albion to continue to have a good run. They have QPR and Leicester back to back at home at the start of April after all.

Don't they have a really bad run-in at the end of the season?

[Hairbandinho]

We are down, and Lerner is to blame. Lambert should have been fired and a new manager bought in the autumn. Too little too late sadly. I feel sorry for Sherwood in honesty