Turning Points

[TheMalandro]

Moscow followed by Stoke the weekend after.

The Stoke match is a good call.

[john e]

This season- for me it was Watford at home,
we didn't play badly and probably were the better team on the day but we lost, and that's the day I thought for the first time that we would go down

Last few years - was when MON walked, didn't realise at the time but that was the day Randy through the towel in and we went on to make bad decision after bad decision

[HolmesyVilla]

Telling Steve stride they didn't need his experience around the club the general already knew everything

Yes that decision should have set off the red alert that we got some dickheads in charge of our club.
It kinda makes it feel like a mafiosa choice, 'bump him off and we can get our own secret bluenoses in to well and truly fuck Aston Villa up', if that makes sense.
Unfortunately was we doing so well that this awful decision lost its significance?

[andyh]

There was also the reported meeting between Lerner and Sir Graham that Lerner didn't bother attending.
Maybe in those early days, Sir Graham would have given Lerner wise council.

[saunders_heroes]

This season- for me it was Watford at home,
we didn't play badly and probably were the better team on the day but we lost, and that's the day I thought for the first time that we would go down

Last few years - was when MON walked, didn't realise at the time but that was the day Randy through the towel in and we went on to make bad decision after bad decision

You're being kind to Lerner. I'd say the very reason O'Neill walked was because Randy informed him he'd had enough with the club and would reel in the spending.

[NorthYvillan]

I believe that, when he bought the club, MON was presented to Lerner as a football managing genius - something we also hoped to be true. When MON resigned after being questioned about his player acquisitions/salaries/costs and then went on to win a legal case against the club, Lerner lost all love/enthusiasm for both the club and football. The rest, as they say, is history - a very sad history.

[Risso]

Signing Emile Heskey. 

On the 22 January, 2009, we were in the top 4 on 44 points from 22 games.  We were handily placed, only 3 points behind Man U and Liverpool in joint 1st, a point behind Chelsea in 2nd, and 3 points ahead of Arsenal.  Importantly, we were the form team at the time, unbeaten in 10 games in the League with 5 wins out of the last 6.

However, despite this, it was clear we needed a goalscorer to continue to fight at the top.  A forward hadn't scored in 5 league games, with all the goals coming from midfielders, defenders or own goals from the opposition.  John Carew had scored 5 goals in the league up to then, with Gabby on 9.

So what did we do?  Signed a player who had never exactly been prolific apart from one season for Liverpool several years in the past, and who had managed the grand total of 3 goals for Wigan in the season up to then.  The season before he'd scored 4 goals.  So football mastermind O'Neill offers the 30 year old lump a huge three year contract on £65K a week, and after winning his first game for us in which ironically he scored, Carew is dropped, and we one game in the next 10 and finish 6th, even allowing Everton to overtake us.

[Irish villain]

MON walking out is only a turning point because it left us exposed to Lerner's appalling grasp of the industry he was involved in.

I remember Barry looking to leave and that day really stuck in my craw. If we were pushing for top four and players still wanted to leave when would we ever crack it? The next season we managed to muddle through with James Milner emerging as the heartbeat of the team. We then sold him and ended up taking in Stephen Ireland. The night we went out of Europe, before the new manager was appointed, I remember there was this sense of foreboding. You could sense that things were not going to be as good as they had been. Houllier not being able to hit the ground running was a disaster.

Hiring McLeish was an utter, utter disaster.

However, for me, the summer of 2013 is the real tuning point. We simply did not invest in the squad to the extent that we should have and I blame Lerner, not Lambert. We finished the previous season strongly but we bought a whole load of nothing players the following summer: Tonev, Bacuna, Helenius, Tony Moon and, no offence to him intended, Libor Kozak. I have to say that was when I lost all faith in Lerner and became very strongly anti-Lerner.

We started that season so well with three very strong performances against Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. Then the appalling lack of quality in the squad became very obvious after Okore and Benteke were injured. It was clear, for instance, that Tonev was utter shite. The penny dropped for me during a mind-numbingly boring 0-0 with Sunderland that November. We were shocking and I just thought 'we narrowly avoided relegation the past two years and we have signed rubbish players!'

From December on I was absolutely certain we were in a relegation dogfight and remember having a lot of arguments with people here who were sure we were a mid-table side making progress. I just could not see it. I felt the squad was worse than what had just finished 15th. To make the point, in 1995 we narrowly avoided relegation and reinvented ourselves in the following summer. Under Lerner, we narrowly avoided relegation several years in a row and simply went on to buy cheap players and cross out fingers.

[Irish villain]

MON

Bring back MON. Three top six finishes- European football  and a League Cup stolen from us by a dodgy ref. That sounds like a good option right now. Martin O'Neill was not responsible for the players contracts. That's down to the administration.

Yes, I agree with a lot of this. I am uncomfortable with the anti-MON line fans were sold in 2010 and which was accepted uncritically. Its only in the past 18 months I have begun to soften in my attitude to MON. It wasn't his responsibility to manage the finances. His failings were not scouting further afield etc. He obviously realised he was dealing with chancers in 2010 and the fact that they went ahead and signed that absolute fool Stephen Ireland after MON left shows you what calibre of people he was working for all along.

[Jimbo]

The turning point was when Randy Lerner turned up at Ellis's office with a shiny Cleveland Browns helmet. Only now do we understand the symbolism in that gesture.

[andyh]

The turning point was when Randy Lerner turned up at Ellis's office with a shiny Cleveland Browns helmet. Only now do we understand the symbolism in that gesture.

Yes.
Him and his shiny helmet!

[in exile]

The turning point was when Randy Lerner turned up at Ellis's office with a shiny Cleveland Browns helmet. Only now do we understand the symbolism in that gesture.

Yes.
Him and his shiny helmet!

But brown!

[NorthYvillan]

MON

Bring back MON. Three top six finishes- European football  and a League Cup stolen from us by a dodgy ref. That sounds like a good option right now. Martin O'Neill was not responsible for the players contracts. That's down to the administration.

Yes, I agree with a lot of this. I am uncomfortable with the anti-MON line fans were sold in 2010 and which was accepted uncritically. Its only in the past 18 months I have begun to soften in my attitude to MON. It wasn't his responsibility to manage the finances. His failings were not scouting further afield etc. He obviously realised he was dealing with chancers in 2010 and the fact that they went ahead and signed that absolute fool Stephen Ireland after MON left shows you what calibre of people he was working for all along.

Sorry but it's hindsight that leads me to my opinion.
What about selling our youngsters - notably Cahill, Davis who now both captain their country - and replacing them with such quality as ReoCoker, Sidwell, Knight........ They all cost an arm and a leg in weekly salaries etc and have set the world alight since we eventually managed to get rid - not. MON's record since he left us hasn't exactly confirmed him as a good manager let alone a great one as we all, including Lerner, wanted to believe.
He blew a large amount of money on mediocrity and then left us in the lurch days before the season began when this was drawn to his attention and it was suggested that some of this had to be shifted if he wanted to spend yet more.

[Irish villain]

Yes, I agree MON had his limitations.

I'm just saying that the blame isn't on him. If he was such a bad manager, selling good young players etc, why didn't they sack him the May 2010 and bring in somebody decent when the market was better?

That situation was damaging because the powers that be at villa mishandled it. They should have insisted cash only for Milner, Man City had enough of it that we didn't need to take troublesome cast-off, that money then should have been ring-fenced to fill the massive Barry/Milner shaped hole in our midfield. Then Houllier, McLeish not backing Lambert...the shortlist of one. It points to deep-rooted incompetence before, and after MON left. Lerner deserves way, way more blame for  our decline than one manager.

[saunders_heroes]

Milner should never have been sold full stop. You know you're in trouble when a club buys and sells players when there isn't even a manager at the club.