Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: brian green on February 02, 2014, 09:02:28 AM
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Why are we being run and managed the way we are?
I accept that some of the stumbling and bumbling which has blighted us since O'Neill jumped ship is down to human error and downright incompetence right from the top and all through Villa, but I have always considered that, in spite of the incompetence and bad decision making there was some sort of however sketchily thought out plan for our future.
Because by nature I am utterly loyal to Villa I have thought that a plan is in place but it was slow in coming to fruition. This season I started to become really depressed that the plan included a "no glory" element which allowed the board and the owner to regard the simple survival in the Premiership as a legitimate and adequate ambition so long as the gates held up and the costs went down.
With the passing of the January window my take on the current Villa situation has taken a further downward twist. The failure to address our terrible defensive and midfield inadequacies even with basic measures such as cover for Ron Vlaar and a bit, even a bit, of midfield brain and savvy, has left me to believe that two things are on the cards which are driving us towards another miserable down-to-the-wire end of season. I suspect Paul Lambert has been assured, possibly in writing, that he will not be sacked if we go down and that he must for his part make do and mend with the rag bag of players he has brought in.
That must mean the plan is to make Villa as sellable as possible. Low debt, low wage bill, low overheads. If that is the plan Randy Lerner should do the honourable thing and tell us and if it is not the plan, whatever the plan is we should be made aware of it because I am sick us watching us under perform week in week out. Sorry, but that is the way I feel.
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August2011, the last time we signed an outfield player from a premier league side.
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I'd agree Brian it's pretty demoralising to be honest, I think the board are showing absolutely no ambition at all. However that doesn't excuse us playing so defensively or our inability to retain possession of the football. Regardless of constraints we should be playing better football than we are on the whole. Our long term 'vision' appears pretty depressing, as is the football we play on the pitch.
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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?
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If that is the plan Randy Lerner should do the honourable thing and tell us and if it is not the plan, whatever the plan is we should be made aware of it because I am sick us watching us under perform week in week out. Sorry, but that is the way I feel.
This is it for me. I can take watching us get beat, I,'ve seen us win 2 cups in 28 years of supporting the villa. I can take conceding late winners, we've seen us blow leads and find ways to lose time and time again down the years.
What I can't take is watching our games turn into some weird attack vs defence exhibitions where the majority of the time we are backs to the walls looking like a lower league cup team fighting.
Where has the ambition gone? Expectations are lowered to the point where we dont even expect to keep the ball anymore.
Can anyone see this summer be the turning point or will it be more unknowns bought in?
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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.
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And he only featured in 17 league games the previous season for Spuds.
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Brian i have been saying for a long time that he is looking for a buyer, to get the best deal he can he has done what you suggested, debt free and low wages, that to me is the only logical explanation. Why should he tell us what he's doing? it's his business not ours. I believe he would have released more money but for our table position. If he doesn't sell (buyers are't falling over each other)then i think we will see more of the same in the summer, he might spend a reasonable amount on the purchase price but big wages are out, and i can't blame him after the MON fiasco.
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For me it's blindingly obvious he's setting us up for a sale and quite frankly I hope he is. We are just hanging in there, whilst he continually reduces the debt and hoping we don't get relegated in the meantime. Going nowhere.
It's not as if he's going to regain his passion for us or suddenly find an extra 100 million to throw at it.
Thanks for the initial optimism Randy but now that's gone the best thing you can do for us is sell us to a rich 'custodian' so we can move forward. Preferably one that won't lose interest after the first setback.
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For me it's blindingly obvious he's setting us up for a sale and quite frankly I hope he is. We are just hanging in there, whilst he continually reduces the debt and hoping we don't get relegated in the meantime. Going nowhere.
It's not as if he's going to regain his passion for us or suddenly find an extra 100 million to throw at it.
Thanks for the initial optimism Randy but now that's gone the best thing you can do for us is sell us to a rich 'custodian' so we can move forward. Preferably one that won't lose interest after the first setback.
Seconded!
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Well if the plan is to make the club sellable it can not be made public as that would have an effect on the sales figure and I am ok with that however please Mr Lerner get on with it PDQ.
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I was thinking of starting a new topic but it is related to this so I may as we'll post here. I don't have a lot of understanding on the financial workings of the game but was wondering; how exactly do you sell a football club? Do you hire someone in to tout it round generally rich people? Do you advertise it somewhere? Do you make it an attractive acquisition and just wait?
The reason for asking is everything about the way we are being run at the moment leads me to believe we are being sold; the cheap purchases, the investment in players on low wages, bringing in Bertrand on loan when a deal could surely be struck for a potential England international with guaranteed sell on value, the shifting of high earners, investing less in the team than we are earning off the well publicised tv money, Randy's complete loss of interest (he didn't even come when the future king of England came recently), the regression in investment in our assets such as the shelved reinvigoration of the north stand etc.
But if this is the case, surely someone somewhere would have heard something or the story would begin to be leaked by now? I know people like kenwright and Ashley announce their clubs being up for sale but they have nothing to lose - randy would become public enemy no.1 and there is chance we might be up for sale for a long time.
So back to my original question---how do you sell something when nobody knows it's for sale?
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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...
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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.
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We are another once played with toy of a spoilt little rich boy.
Hey look everybody I have just bought one of those EPL teams. We are going to have so much fun together. We are going to buy lots of players and win the league. I love them so much I am going to get a tattoo of them. They are so much more fun than the Browns.
Do I still own Villa? Really? They are so boring. I hate having to go rainy old England. I want to stay in the Hamptons and play with my new helicopter. Can't I just sell them? Anybody want to buy an EPL team? They even come with no debt and their own ground.
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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.
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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
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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?
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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
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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!
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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)!
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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.
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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...
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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...
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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.
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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
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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
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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!
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If people are suggesting that we are in danger of relegation then Cardiff must be up shit creek without a paddle.
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The team get nothing but support. That isn't even questioned, surely?
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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!!!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Spot on
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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
Fans need something in return every now and then.
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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.
You didn't cheer on Wednesday night?
As for why do we exist, and the apparent connection between that and challenging for honours, how many years in our history have we genuinely challenged for the league title? I'd suggests the number of seasons we haven't stood a chance of challenging massively outweigh those we've had a realistic chance of winning the league. And yet we're still one of the largest clubs in the country - what about all those fans of smaller clubs who've never challenged for the championship?
I don't think anyone's saying what we've got at the moment is ideal or the end product but the relentless depression of some on here isn't half wearing. We came to a very precarious financial position at the end of MON's tenure and we're lucky we had an owner who carried on putting money in whilst the operating costs were sorted out. You don't have to look very far down the road to see what happens when the owner is unwilling or unable to put extra cash in.
And just like I imagine not many people saw the financial retrenchment coming before MON left who's to say that once the wage base isn't sorted we won't start spending some serious money again? Most people who complain about Randy conveniently ignore the fact we remain one of the highest spending clubs in the league when it comes to transfer spending - we're just not paying shit players like Habib Beye £40k a week any more.
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'financial position at the end of MON's tenure'
AH, there's our Trotsky being rolled out again! Bad MON, he has been gone for the past four years, huge signings followed him (Bent, Makoun, N'Zogbia), he was let do what he did by Lerner& Faulkner yet it is still he who gets all the blame.
What is the common denominator?
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Wednesday night was great, but it was followed by the same-old. They learn nothing. If it was all like Wednesday then I'd have no problem, but clearly Wednesday was the anomaly, not the norm. Besides, even McLeish won at Stamford Bridge, and while Lambert is obviously better than him it does show that every dog has its day. Also, Wednesday was still frustratingly booftastic, and two of the goals weren't exactly the result of brilliant tactics - Lugano flicking a nice header through for Weimann, Delph borrowing Manuel Negrete's left foot - and were great fun but not really repeatable.
Anyway, if you read my post all the way through you'd know I was using the 'why do we exist' line more than a little facetiously, and I acknowledged this, but it is the kind of thing you feel when you see the club neither challenging for honours nor trying to entertain. It all feels just a bit futile.
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Whilst broadly agreeing with most of the above, here is what baffles me. Our team was always going to be inconsistent, due to consisting of bargain players lacking experience. But, why oh why is that inconsistency exacerbated by endless unnecessary chopping and changing of team selections, formations and tactics?
When players lack know-how, they succeed by being coached to do a clear job in a regular position very well. Take the success of the non English speaking coach of Southampton as a perfect example.
Yesterday, Villa played 3412 then 532 then 433. The substitutions seemed designed to lose us the match. They cannot keep the ball. They do not play through midfield. They have nothing to offer at set pieces. They can't even anticipate a knock down when playing route one to two big strikers. Sunday morning parks teams almost all have more tactical nous.
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'financial position at the end of MON's tenure'
AH, there's our Trotsky being rolled out again! Bad MON, he has been gone for the past four years, huge signings followed him (Bent, Makoun, N'Zogbia), he was let do what he did by Lerner& Faulkner yet it is still he who gets all the blame.
What is the common denominator?
I don't think I said all the blame lay at MON's door. In fact, I'm certain that in the past on here I've said the blame lay as much, if not more, at Faulkner's door. He's the CEO and had responsibility for the budget the manager (an employee) was given to work with.
So what's your point?
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I agree on the points about MON. He (as you say, along with Faulkner) was entrusted with a fuck of a lot of money from what was not a Man City-style bottomless pit, and really didn't do well enough with it. Randy's retrenchment on this makes sense to me.
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'financial position at the end of MON's tenure'
AH, there's our Trotsky being rolled out again! Bad MON, he has been gone for the past four years, huge signings followed him (Bent, Makoun, N'Zogbia), he was let do what he did by Lerner& Faulkner yet it is still he who gets all the blame.
What is the common denominator?
I don't think I said all the blame lay at MON's door. In fact, I'm certain that in the past on here I've said the blame lay as much, if not more, at Faulkner's door. He's the CEO and had responsibility for the budget the manager (an employee) was given to work with.
So what's your point?
He wasn't CEO for most of O'Neill's time.
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What Bob said.
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I can't really blame MON. Like any manager, if you're given a shite load of money to spend, you're likely to spend the lot. Randy made a mistake coming into our club without bringing in 1-2 football men to help him run it. He was naive during O Neill's tenure, and lets face it, O Neill can talk the talk. O Neill had four years of spending a lot and recouping little. Randy, with a bit more sense could and should have told him to start recouping money back on a lot the high earners we had but barely played, earlier than he did.
I'm also sure O Neill didn't come to this club purely under the idea that he'd be given license to spend what he liked and not worry about what he recouped as well. It worked out that way for four years, then all of a sudden Randy closed the tap. Quite why O Neill finally fucked off, we'll never know entirely, but I'm sure had O Neill been under stricter conditions from the off he might not have blown so much on players like Harewood who we never really needed, our finances after 4 years wouldn't have been quite so bad.
It's just been piss poorly handled right from the off. Rather than a consistent financial line, we went from spending a shite load, beyond our means, to our current situation which sees us spending barely anything on players who largely aren't good enough and never will be.
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@patmurphybbc: Paul Faulkner CEO of @AVFCOfficial has just told me he's spoken to Randy Lerner,who's rubbished stories that he's looking to sell up.
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'financial position at the end of MON's tenure'
AH, there's our Trotsky being rolled out again! Bad MON, he has been gone for the past four years, huge signings followed him (Bent, Makoun, N'Zogbia), he was let do what he did by Lerner& Faulkner yet it is still he who gets all the blame.
What is the common denominator?
I don't think I said all the blame lay at MON's door. In fact, I'm certain that in the past on here I've said the blame lay as much, if not more, at Faulkner's door. He's the CEO and had responsibility for the budget the manager (an employee) was given to work with.
So what's your point?
He wasn't CEO for most of O'Neill's time.
Fair point - he doesn't deserve any flack for MON's spending on that basis. Incidentally, do you know who was CEO between Fitzgerald and Faulkner?
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'financial position at the end of MON's tenure'
AH, there's our Trotsky being rolled out again! Bad MON, he has been gone for the past four years, huge signings followed him (Bent, Makoun, N'Zogbia), he was let do what he did by Lerner& Faulkner yet it is still he who gets all the blame.
What is the common denominator?
I don't think I said all the blame lay at MON's door. In fact, I'm certain that in the past on here I've said the blame lay as much, if not more, at Faulkner's door. He's the CEO and had responsibility for the budget the manager (an employee) was given to work with.
So what's your point?
He wasn't CEO for most of O'Neill's time.
Fair point - he doesn't deserve any flack for MON's spending. Incidentally, do you know who was CEO between Fitzgerald and Faulkner?
Hemingway? John Dos Passos?
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'financial position at the end of MON's tenure'
AH, there's our Trotsky being rolled out again! Bad MON, he has been gone for the past four years, huge signings followed him (Bent, Makoun, N'Zogbia), he was let do what he did by Lerner& Faulkner yet it is still he who gets all the blame.
What is the common denominator?
I don't think I said all the blame lay at MON's door. In fact, I'm certain that in the past on here I've said the blame lay as much, if not more, at Faulkner's door. He's the CEO and had responsibility for the budget the manager (an employee) was given to work with.
So what's your point?
He wasn't CEO for most of O'Neill's time.
Fair point - he doesn't deserve any flack for MON's spending. Incidentally, do you know who was CEO between Fitzgerald and Faulkner?
Effectively Michael Cunnah, although his title wasn't CEO.
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Effectively Michael Cunnah, although his title wasn't CEO.
There's still a gap. Fitzgerald left in Jan 2008, Cunnah left in May 2008 and Faulkner was appointed in May 2010. There's a 2 year gap there which coincided with the time things started going pear-shaped for MON.
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Quote from: perry_barr_pet on Today at 12:24:26 PM
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!
So there's 3 then
Jesus Christ no one especially not me is saying anything about the support our support in my view is up there with the best of them and considering our position it must be the best. I come out of villa park not able to speak sometimes but what I'm saying no matter how bad we playing the slagging off don't help. For one game just one game "sing your hearts out for the lads" and as for saying the cost was different back in the 3rd division that means that if you watch crap every week for 90 minutes and only pay a pittance to watch it it's ok.
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Ad@m
international
Posts: 3278
GM : Jan, 2013
Re: To What End?
« Reply #47 on: Today at 02:09:27 PM »
Quote
Quote from: Montbert on Today at 01:36:46 PM
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.
You didn't cheer on Wednesday night?
As for why do we exist, and the apparent connection between that and challenging for honours, how many years in our history have we genuinely challenged for the league title? I'd suggests the number of seasons we haven't stood a chance of challenging massively outweigh those we've had a realistic chance of winning the league. And yet we're still one of the largest clubs in the country - what about all those fans of smaller clubs who've never challenged for the championship?
I don't think anyone's saying what we've got at the moment is ideal or the end product but the relentless depression of some on here isn't half wearing. We came to a very precarious financial position at the end of MON's tenure and we're lucky we had an owner who carried on putting money in whilst the operating costs were sorted out. You don't have to look very far down the road to see what happens when the owner is unwilling or unable to put extra cash in.
And just like I imagine not many people saw the financial retrenchment coming before MON left who's to say that once the wage base isn't sorted we won't start spending some serious money again? Most people who complain about Randy conveniently ignore the fact we remain one of the highest spending clubs in the league when it comes to transfer spending - we're just not paying shit players like Habib Beye £40k a week any more.
Ad@m totally spot on mate
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PBP clearly you are having a bit of difficulty in using "quote"? or is this your preferred way of doing it?
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@patmurphybbc: Paul Faulkner CEO of @AVFCOfficial has just told me he's spoken to Randy Lerner,who's rubbished stories that he's looking to sell up.
I doubt if he'd say anything different.
Does anyone know if Lerner denied he was looking to sell the Browns before he actually did?
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It is true that I estimate at least 80% of the 68 years I have been a Holte Ender Villa have been less than good. At times they have been bereft, desperate and clueless for months on end. The big difference of the time between the departure of O'Neill and now and those years since 1946 is that however bad we were we always believed we would rise again. And we did.
When Randy Lerner bought us, like many more I thought that we would rise yet again. Until the Stoke game I thought we could win the European Cup again. Now I don't think we can beat West Ham next week. How sad is that?
I thought that the appointment of Houllier was a stupid mistake. I thought that appointing TSM was an administrative blunder of galactic proportions. But I still believed we would rise again.
These seasons with Lambert have convinced me that Villa have voluntarily accepted a place in the lower orders of the game for strictly financial reasons. The difference between us and Everton is the difference between Bill Kenwright and Randy Lerner. The former stretches his own and his club's resources to the limit. The latter talks to his accountants and takes their advice.
I would like the owner, the board or the manager to give us a sign, any sign, a word, a quip, a gesture that they believe we will rise again. All we get is the commitment that they are trying not to get any worse while balancing the budget.
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Olaftab
Ha ha I thought so to doing this on a iPad. I touch screen someone's quote goes blue and I copy then paste in my reply.
Go on then what's the right way give me a quick lesson ???
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Effectively Michael Cunnah, although his title wasn't CEO.
There's still a gap. Fitzgerald left in Jan 2008, Cunnah left in May 2008 and Faulkner was appointed in May 2010. There's a 2 year gap there which coincided with the time things started going pear-shaped for MON.
I know (through work) the person who was at 32 Red (at Director level) who negotiated their sponsorship deal with us (and it was incredibly cheap, btw, cheaper than the figures that got banded around at the time, by far).
He is also a close friend of Richard FitzGerald, and still sees him socially now.
He told me - actual face to face conversation, when i specifically asked him about it, not a random line dropped in an email - that the reason FitzGerald left was that MON pretty much refused to work with him, and made his job impossible.
As far as he was concerned, it was "his" club, and he didn't want anyone else running things.
I would assume that what happened with the CEO position was that it became clear that MON wasn't going to be having it, hence that gap after Cunnah, and when it was eventually filled, it's interesting that it was by someone who was already working with Lerner (and one assumes, would have no illusions about how MON saw his role).
This contact of mine isn't a Villa fan (although all his children now are, following the sponsorship, so he watches us an awful lot still), so wasn't speaking with any natural axe to grind, but he made it absolutely crystal clear what had happened with FitzGerald.
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Olaftab
Ha ha I thought so to doing this on a iPad. I touch screen someone's quote goes blue and I copy then paste in my reply.
Go on then what's the right way give me a quick lesson ???
It's a ball ache.
I hardly ever use my ipad on here for that reason.
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Pauliewalnuts
Thanks for that info just so much quicker and easier on a ipad
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Olaftab
Ha ha I thought so to doing this on a iPad. I touch screen someone's quote goes blue and I copy then paste in my reply.
Go on then what's the right way give me a quick lesson ???
On iPad you can go on full site version. The button is usually on the bottom for that and then you will see the "quote" button on top right hand side of every message. Click on that. On normal iPad message number based version there is a dropdown menu, 4 bars in a circle in every message, you can tap on that and then tap on quote.
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Jesus Christ no one especially not me is saying anything about the support our support in my view is up there with the best of them and considering our position it must be the best. I come out of villa park not able to speak sometimes but what I'm saying no matter how bad we playing the slagging off don't help. For one game just one game "sing your hearts out for the lads" and as for saying the cost was different back in the 3rd division that means that if you watch crap every week for 90 minutes and only pay a pittance to watch it it's ok.
We get better attendances in the modern era than we ever have done. The support is there, but the team rarely show anything at home. I don't think the level of support, or the support that the fans show, is an issue.
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@patmurphybbc: Paul Faulkner CEO of @AVFCOfficial has just told me he's spoken to Randy Lerner,who's rubbished stories that he's looking to sell up.
I doubt if he'd say anything different.
Does anyone know if Lerner denied he was looking to sell the Browns before he actually did?
But if it is true then this is one of the most depressing things I've heard for a long time. Surely we're destined for more of the same until we actually get relegated and some form of revolution has to take place.
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Agree with Bobs points.
When Randy bought us we were going backwards.
I gave up my season ticket in ODreay's last season, it was very poor.
Randy Learner has pulled up to date much of the infrastructure and invested in our heritage.
The Holte pub, training ground, the recognition of the 82 team in our history around the stadium, bringing those players back to the fold.
He did spend a lot of money but fundamently I believe he regonises we have missed the boat, by not cracking the top four in the first 3 seasons. He probably looked at the potential here and the teams at the top and had a plan which didnt quite workout. Now Tottenham, Liverpool and crucially Man city have left us behind, the chances of cracking the top four are beyond us in this league of billionaires and people like Abramovich and the city owners who have differnt agendas.
RL is probably getting the house in order to sell, and with his stewardship so far I am opptimistic he will sell to someone who will respect our traditions and history.
It has been a frustrating campaign this year and we have not spent a lot on the team, so they are probably at the correct level.
I personally hope we get a hands on new owner (but not one like Tan).
It might sound stupid to some, but I wouldnt want to be a Chelsea or Man City type club, full of plastics and a vanity project.
We are Aston Villa, we have had a rollercoaster history, but the good times will return.
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@patmurphybbc: Paul Faulkner CEO of @AVFCOfficial has just told me he's spoken to Randy Lerner,who's rubbished stories that he's looking to sell up.
I doubt if he'd say anything different.
Does anyone know if Lerner denied he was looking to sell the Browns before he actually did?
But if it is true then this is one of the most depressing things I've heard for a long time. Surely we're destined for more of the same until we actually get relegated and some form of revolution has to take place.
Well in that case lets all commit mass suicide as its so depressing!
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@patmurphybbc: Paul Faulkner CEO of @AVFCOfficial has just told me he's spoken to Randy Lerner,who's rubbished stories that he's looking to sell up.
I doubt if he'd say anything different.
Does anyone know if Lerner denied he was looking to sell the Browns before he actually did?
But if it is true then this is one of the most depressing things I've heard for a long time. Surely we're destined for more of the same until we actually get relegated and some form of revolution has to take place.
Well in that case lets all commit mass suicide as its so depressing!
I was talking in the context of AVFC -- but you knew that didn't you?
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Effectively Michael Cunnah, although his title wasn't CEO.
There's still a gap. Fitzgerald left in Jan 2008, Cunnah left in May 2008 and Faulkner was appointed in May 2010. There's a 2 year gap there which coincided with the time things started going pear-shaped for MON.
I know (through work) the person who was at 32 Red (at Director level) who negotiated their sponsorship deal with us (and it was incredibly cheap, btw, cheaper than the figures that got banded around at the time, by far).
He is also a close friend of Richard FitzGerald, and still sees him socially now.
He told me - actual face to face conversation, when i specifically asked him about it, not a random line dropped in an email - that the reason FitzGerald left was that MON pretty much refused to work with him, and made his job impossible.
As far as he was concerned, it was "his" club, and he didn't want anyone else running things.
I would assume that what happened with the CEO position was that it became clear that MON wasn't going to be having it, hence that gap after Cunnah, and when it was eventually filled, it's interesting that it was by someone who was already working with Lerner (and one assumes, would have no illusions about how MON saw his role).
This contact of mine isn't a Villa fan (although all his children now are, following the sponsorship, so he watches us an awful lot still), so wasn't speaking with any natural axe to grind, but he made it absolutely crystal clear what had happened with FitzGerald.
Well if that's the case and it sounds like we effectively had no CEO for two years then Randy has no one to blame but himself for MON going crazy with the cheque book. It's probably credit to Faulkner that within three months of joining MON had realised his game was up and pissed off.
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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.
You didn't cheer on Wednesday night?
As for why do we exist, and the apparent connection between that and challenging for honours, how many years in our history have we genuinely challenged for the league title? I'd suggests the number of seasons we haven't stood a chance of challenging massively outweigh those we've had a realistic chance of winning the league. And yet we're still one of the largest clubs in the country - what about all those fans of smaller clubs who've never challenged for the championship?
I don't think anyone's saying what we've got at the moment is ideal or the end product but the relentless depression of some on here isn't half wearing. We came to a very precarious financial position at the end of MON's tenure and we're lucky we had an owner who carried on putting money in whilst the operating costs were sorted out. You don't have to look very far down the road to see what happens when the owner is unwilling or unable to put extra cash in.
And just like I imagine not many people saw the financial retrenchment coming before MON left who's to say that once the wage base isn't sorted we won't start spending some serious money again? Most people who complain about Randy conveniently ignore the fact we remain one of the highest spending clubs in the league when it comes to transfer spending - we're just not paying shit players like Habib Beye £40k a week any more.
Lerner did not have a choice, it was not like he would let the Club go bust. He had to protect his investment. That is what he is doing now attempting to reduce cash outflows whilst retaining Prem League status. It looks like it is working or just about.
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Effectively Michael Cunnah, although his title wasn't CEO.
There's still a gap. Fitzgerald left in Jan 2008, Cunnah left in May 2008 and Faulkner was appointed in May 2010. There's a 2 year gap there which coincided with the time things started going pear-shaped for MON.
I know (through work) the person who was at 32 Red (at Director level) who negotiated their sponsorship deal with us (and it was incredibly cheap, btw, cheaper than the figures that got banded around at the time, by far).
He is also a close friend of Richard FitzGerald, and still sees him socially now.
He told me - actual face to face conversation, when i specifically asked him about it, not a random line dropped in an email - that the reason FitzGerald left was that MON pretty much refused to work with him, and made his job impossible.
As far as he was concerned, it was "his" club, and he didn't want anyone else running things.
I would assume that what happened with the CEO position was that it became clear that MON wasn't going to be having it, hence that gap after Cunnah, and when it was eventually filled, it's interesting that it was by someone who was already working with Lerner (and one assumes, would have no illusions about how MON saw his role).
This contact of mine isn't a Villa fan (although all his children now are, following the sponsorship, so he watches us an awful lot still), so wasn't speaking with any natural axe to grind, but he made it absolutely crystal clear what had happened with FitzGerald.
Well if that's the case and it sounds like we effectively had no CEO for two years then Randy has no one to blame but himself for MON going crazy with the cheque book. It's probably credit to Faulkner that within three months of joining MON had realised his game was up and pissed off.
When MON arrived almost everyone was in support of it. He was arguably the biggest name out of football management in Britain at the time. He'd never have come had Randy insisted on any kind of structure that limited his freedom at the club. We can all say in hindsight that Randy should have had that person in place but it could never have happened. Even if Randy had tried to reign things in earlier than he did MON would have just walked earlier than he did. MON had all of the power at the club and friends in the media to support much of what he did. That was also important because it influenced opinion about him and the board knew that. By the time the chairman and CEO stepped in the damage was already done.
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You are completely correct TV especially the part about O'Neill's friends in the media. His record was way way short of the level of power he was able to demand from a rookie owner. If HDE had ever had O'Neill as a manager Aston would have had the Richter scale rocking.
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You are completely correct TV especially the part about O'Neill's friends in the media. His record was way way short of the level of power he was able to demand from a rookie owner. If HDE had ever had O'Neill as a manager Aston would have had the Richter scale rocking.
Didn't HDE appoint MON?
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You are completely correct TV especially the part about O'Neill's friends in the media. His record was way way short of the level of power he was able to demand from a rookie owner. If HDE had ever had O'Neill as a manager Aston would have had the Richter scale rocking.
Didn't HDE appoint MON?
He did, but at that time Lerner was firmly in the picture.
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I still think Randy agreed to give mon 1 final attempt to go all out at it in the summer when we got Dunne, etc. I think the Barry departure had made him realise that we had to make it that year or the likes of Young and Milner would be looking to move and we'd be back to square one. I think he knew exactly what the situation was in terms of finances (GK told us repeatedly to not worry about the wage bill) but I think they saw it as an acceptable risk. I also think that mon was made well aware of that, which is why his behaviour towards the end of his last season seemed to odd. Lots of people put it down to him wanting the liverpool job, which may well be the case, but i think it was that he realised he missed out on his best chance of making the champions league with us.
Since then we've been trying to complete that 'back to square one' rebuild process and I personally think we're there now. This summer will be very interesting in answering the questions on this thread, we need 3-4 players in the £4-7m range (similar to Vlaar, Okore, Benteke and Kozak) and most of that money needs to go into the midfield and that doesn't account for replacing anyone. If he gets it right (which he generally has done when dealing with these figures)I think the bigger picture of where we're heading will become a lot clearer. So far Lambert has spent big (comparatively) money on defence and attack but very little in the middle and that's pretty obvious when you look at our weaknesses. He needs to address that this summer and I think he will be given the funds to do so, I just think his demands for an expensive midfielder are very high and he's struggling to find someone with the skillset he wants for anything like a price he's willing to pay.
I predict this summer will see 4 players come in:
A full-back (probably Bertrand)
A Delph-like box-to-box midfielder
An attacking midfielder (I think Kiyotake will be available and high on the list here)
A wide forward
I reckon at least one of them will be a lower league punt though.
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I still think Randy agreed to give mon 1 final attempt to go all out at it in the summer when we got Dunne, etc. I think the Barry departure had made him realise that we had to make it that year or the likes of Young and Milner would be looking to move and we'd be back to square one. I think he knew exactly what the situation was in terms of finances (GK told us repeatedly to not worry about the wage bill) but I think they saw it as an acceptable risk. I also think that mon was made well aware of that, which is why his behaviour towards the end of his last season seemed to odd. Lots of people put it down to him wanting the liverpool job, which may well be the case, but i think it was that he realised he missed out on his best chance of making the champions league with us.
I think Randy pulled the plug on the project and Martin wasn't happy with it. That is my understanding.
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I still think Randy agreed to give mon 1 final attempt to go all out at it in the summer when we got Dunne, etc. I think the Barry departure had made him realise that we had to make it that year or the likes of Young and Milner would be looking to move and we'd be back to square one. I think he knew exactly what the situation was in terms of finances (GK told us repeatedly to not worry about the wage bill) but I think they saw it as an acceptable risk. I also think that mon was made well aware of that, which is why his behaviour towards the end of his last season seemed to odd. Lots of people put it down to him wanting the liverpool job, which may well be the case, but i think it was that he realised he missed out on his best chance of making the champions league with us.
I think Randy pulled the plug on the project and Martin wasn't happy with it. That is my understanding.
Probably right mal.
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Well if that's the case and it sounds like we effectively had no CEO for two years then Randy has no one to blame but himself for MON going crazy with the cheque book. It's probably credit to Faulkner that within three months of joining MON had realised his game was up and pissed off.
If you look at it from Randy's point of view, though, it kind of made sense when he came here.
He starts to buy the club, hears that everyone wants O'Neill as manager. Speaks to him, and - have no doubt - MON will have told him he'd run all the football side of things for him.
It would have been perfect at the time - Randy, not knowing anything about owning a football club, presented with an accomplished, highly popular, proven applicant for the job. I don't blame him for it at all, at least not at the outset.
Let's be honest, none of us were really complaining at the time, either. Yes, we spent an awful lot of money, but we assumed the club was being run in a prudent way - enough people asked Gen Krulak about it on here, even specifically about the wage bill, and they told us "don't worry, we know what we're doing with the money".
If anything, I think it was naivety. Naivety to let the wages situation get to that point, and naivety to let the manager see off CEOs so easily and quickly.
I imagine when MON flounced, it was an enormous shock and the beginning of having to learn lots of things, very quickly. Nobody could have predicted he'd go so abruptly, but I do think their problem was that they had so much of the task of running the club invested in one single person.
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Paul Faulkner was at the club a good while before he became CEO.
I heard from someone I know who met him, that he was heavily involved in our transfer dealings long before he even became CEO.
The gist was that MON identified the playes he wanted, and PF did the deals. He was like a DOF, only MON told him who he wanted.
I never stick up for MON with regard to the way he just walked off, or that he signed a few duffers, but the money thing never sits right with me.
I don't think we can hold him solely responsible for wage budgets and transfer fees.
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While both sides are sworn to secrecy, we can only continue to think of him as the Poison Dwarf.
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I don't think we can hold him solely responsible for wage budgets and transfer fees.
Nor me, but to be honest, that's not an opinion you hear much around here in any case, pretty much everyone seems to acknowledge it was a poor show all round but without blaming any one person for it entirely.
Where we differ, I guess, is how we allocate the blame.
I think most people understand the financial cut backs since then, but I think the point at which people differ is not about whether they need to happen at all, but the pace of them, and where they've been applied.
Returning to the thread title, though, I think one of the problems is that there is a very thin line indeed between "we're going to buy young, lower wage (they won't say it, but that's what it means) players who we can improve, and combine them with academy players" and "we are going to only buy cheap players, because we can't afford much else, and maintaining our PL status is the only ambition we have".
Basically, one man's spotting of talented, promising players is another's doing things on the cheap.
I then think there's another problem in thinking that the answer lies in just buying loads of young players, in that it is a bit arrogant to assume that this is something that hasn't been tried before, firstly, and secondly, that all you need to do is buy these players and give them time, and enough of them will turn out to be good enough.
That's a very risky road to take, IMO. Lots of clubs have tried not spending big and combining players from the lower leagues with academy products, with a low wage bill, and has it ever worked?
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It is true that I estimate at least 80% of the 68 years I have been a Holte Ender Villa have been less than good. At times they have been bereft, desperate and clueless for months on end. The big difference of the time between the departure of O'Neill and now and those years since 1946 is that however bad we were we always believed we would rise again. And we did.
When Randy Lerner bought us, like many more I thought that we would rise yet again. Until the Stoke game I thought we could win the European Cup again. Now I don't think we can beat West Ham next week. How sad is that?
I thought that the appointment of Houllier was a stupid mistake. I thought that appointing TSM was an administrative blunder of galactic proportions. But I still believed we would rise again.
These seasons with Lambert have convinced me that Villa have voluntarily accepted a place in the lower orders of the game for strictly financial reasons. The difference between us and Everton is the difference between Bill Kenwright and Randy Lerner. The former stretches his own and his club's resources to the limit. The latter talks to his accountants and takes their advice.
I would like the owner, the board or the manager to give us a sign, any sign, a word, a quip, a gesture that they believe we will rise again. All we get is the commitment that they are trying not to get any worse while balancing the budget.
Dave Woodhall makes this point about Everton in today's Birmingham Press.
I started supporting a few years after you, Brian, but at a time when, as you say, we still believed that we would rise again. Until fairly recently that was still possible. But the days when a small club like Blackburn could win the league with a relatively small investment have passed - not for ever, perhaps, because nothing lasts for ever, but certainly in the short and medium term. Abramovich's and Mansour's billions have changed everything. Add to this the success and world-wide popularity of Liverpool and Man U and the astute management over many years of Arsenal and you have to admit that Villa are not in this league.
Even in this changed world we should, however, be able to compete with a team like Everton and be the best of the rest, never winning the league but perhaps in a good year competing for a CL place. We have to accept that Lerner hasn't got the resources of a Russian oligarch or an oil sheikh, but he has far greater means at his disposal than Bill Kenwright and has invested some £200m in Villa as well as underwriting our losses.
So why can't we compete with Everton? Let's not forget that at the beginning of this season we thought we would, despite the disastrous end of the O'Neill era, despite the wasted years under Houllier and McLeish. Neither must we forget that many of us thought that Lambert was the right man for the job.
I came away from Everton on Saturday very depressed by our performance and our tactics. But in the previous fortnight I have left Anfield and Villa Park very encouraged. I certainly agree that Lambert has on occasions got his tactics wrong, that the squad contains players signed by him that are simply not PL standard and that we missed an important opportunity to strengthen the squad in the latest window, but I felt last summer that under Lambert we are capable of moving up a level, to Everton's level, and I still believe that.
Whether we can rise again in the way you have hoped, Brian, is a different question. Not in the near future. Not without a takeover by a multi-billionaire or international corporation. Would we take that here and now, or will we give Lerner/Lambert a chance?
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The question for me really is whether randy is happy owning a premier club in mid table or whether he still has the ambition to put us back challenging at the top end of the table and if so does he have the finance to get us there .
If not then I'd prefer him to look for a buyer who can progress the club as we are too big a club to be languishing in this position for several years, also we will find our better players moving on to more ambititious clubs if we cannot compete at the highest level .
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perry_barr_pet
trialist
Posts: 111
Location: rotterdam and always will be
Re: To What End?
« Reply #69 on: February 02, 2014, 06:26:36 PM »
QuoteModify
Pauliewalnuts
Thanks for that info just so much quicker and easier on a ipad
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olaftab
player manager
Posts: 12423
Location: Castle Bromwich
GM : March, 2013
Re: To What End?
« Reply #70 on: February 02, 2014, 08:28:09 PM »
Quote
Quote from: perry_barr_pet on February 02, 2014, 06:04:40 PM
Olaftab
Ha ha I thought so to doing this on a iPad. I touch screen someone's quote goes blue and I copy then paste in my reply.
Go on then what's the right way give me a quick lesson
On iPad you can go on full site version. The button is usually on the bottom for that and then you will see the "quote" button on top right hand side of every message. Click on that. On normal iPad message number based version there is a dropdown menu, 4 bars in a circle in every message, you can tap on that and then tap on quote.
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Stu
coach
Posts: 5762
Location: The 17th floor of Hell
GM : June, 2013
Re: To What End?
« Reply #71 on: February 02, 2014, 09:12:46 PM »
Quote
Quote from: perry_barr_pet on February 02, 2014, 03:21:55 PM
Jesus Christ no one especially not me is saying anything about the support our support in my view is up there with the best of them and considering our position it must be the best. I come out of villa park not able to speak sometimes but what I'm saying no matter how bad we playing the slagging off don't help. For one game just one game "sing your hearts out for the lads" and as for saying the cost was different back in the 3rd division that means that if you watch crap every week for 90 minutes and only pay a pittance to watch it it's ok.
We get better attendances in the modern era than we ever have done. The support is there, but the team rarely show anything at home. I don't think the level of support, or the support that the fans show, is an issue.
37,000 v Halifax 48,000 v Bournemouth both in old 3rd div and I'm sure mr woodhall or another mod can quote a few more attendances from that year.
Yet again I'm saying our support is immense always has been butt if we get 35,000 for a home game and and 20% of them boo or slag off the team it don't help does it.
Sorry olaftab iPad so much easier
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I still think Randy agreed to give mon 1 final attempt to go all out at it in the summer when we got Dunne, etc. I think the Barry departure had made him realise that we had to make it that year or the likes of Young and Milner would be looking to move and we'd be back to square one. I think he knew exactly what the situation was in terms of finances (GK told us repeatedly to not worry about the wage bill) but I think they saw it as an acceptable risk. I also think that mon was made well aware of that, which is why his behaviour towards the end of his last season seemed to odd. Lots of people put it down to him wanting the liverpool job, which may well be the case, but i think it was that he realised he missed out on his best chance of making the champions league with us.
I think Randy pulled the plug on the project and Martin wasn't happy with it. That is my understanding.
Probably right mal.
I don't know. I tend to think the Houllier season was the last tilt at it. I'm sure one of the reasons given for his appointment was champions league experience.
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For me it's blindingly obvious he's setting us up for a sale and quite frankly I hope he is. We are just hanging in there, whilst he continually reduces the debt and hoping we don't get relegated in the meantime. Going nowhere.
It's not as if he's going to regain his passion for us or suddenly find an extra 100 million to throw at it.
Thanks for the initial optimism Randy but now that's gone the best thing you can do for us is sell us to a rich 'custodian' so we can move forward. Preferably one that won't lose interest after the first setback.
I agree with the sentiment but would argue with the notion of a rich custodian or getting someone to 'throw 100m' at the club.
The chairman/owners of Spurs, Everton or Arsenal don't subsidise their clubs. They have excellent management teams and we need the same.
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YWell if that's the case and it sounds like we effectively had no CEO for two years then Randy has no one to blame but himself for MON going crazy with the cheque book. It's probably credit to Faulkner that within three months of joining MON had realised his game was up and pissed off.
If you look at it from Randy's point of view, though, it kind of made sense when he came here.
He starts to buy the club, hears that everyone wants O'Neill as manager. Speaks to him, and - have no doubt - MON will have told him he'd run all the football side of things for him.
It would have been perfect at the time - Randy, not knowing anything about owning a football club, presented with an accomplished, highly popular, proven applicant for the job. I don't blame him for it at all, at least not at the outset.
Let's be honest, none of us were really complaining at the time, either. Yes, we spent an awful lot of money, but we assumed the club was being run in a prudent way - enough people asked Gen Krulak about it on here, even specifically about the wage bill, and they told us "don't worry, we know what we're doing with the money".
If anything, I think it was naivety. Naivety to let the wages situation get to that point, and naivety to let the manager see off CEOs so easily and quickly.
I imagine when MON flounced, it was an enormous shock and the beginning of having to learn lots of things, very quickly. Nobody could have predicted he'd go so abruptly, but I do think their problem was that they had so much of the task of running the club invested in one single person.
If you look at it from Randy's point of view, though, it kind of made sense when he came here.
He starts to buy the club, hears that everyone wants O'Neill as manager. Speaks to him, and - have no doubt - MON will have told him he'd run all the football side of things for him.
It would have been perfect at the time - Randy, not knowing anything about owning a football club, presented with an accomplished, highly popular, proven applicant for the job. I don't blame him for it at all, at least not at the outset.
Let's be honest, none of us were really complaining at the time, either. Yes, we spent an awful lot of money, but we assumed the club was being run in a prudent way - enough people asked Gen Krulak about it on here, even specifically about the wage bill, and they told us "don't worry, we know what we're doing with the money".
If anything, I think it was naivety. Naivety to let the wages situation get to that point, and naivety to let the manager see off CEOs so easily and quickly.
I imagine when MON flounced, it was an enormous shock and the beginning of having to learn lots of things, very quickly. Nobody could have predicted he'd go so abruptly, but I do think their problem was that they had so much of the task of running the club invested in one single person.
Yes, entirely my understanding and opinion, Paulie.
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I imagine when MON flounced, it was an enormous shock and the beginning of having to learn lots of things, very quickly. Nobody could have predicted he'd go so abruptly, but I do think their problem was that they had so much of the task of running the club invested in one single person.
Yes, entirely my understanding and opinion, Paulie.
It wasn't just that it was invested in one person, it's that everyone who had anything to do with the 1st team was one of his own men so they all went with him. Normally if a manager leaves with little notice you'd have his assistant or head coach to provide a bit of continuity, we had to promote a few guys from the reserves with 5 days to put together a plan to play a premier league match. Thankfully we were playing a truly shit West Ham side who made it very easy for us, and our best player who was on his way out of the club put on a bit of a masterclass. Our disarray got shown up for what it really was the next week though.
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I don't think we would have wanted any help from Walford or Robertson. They were the laughing stock of the club.
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Thankfully we were playing a truly shit West Ham side who made it very easy for us, and our best player who was on his way out of the club put on a bit of a masterclass. Our disarray got shown up for what it really was the next week though.
True but for 90 glorious minutes we were a joy to watch, something nobody could have claimed under MON for quite some time - probably going back to April 2008 when we beat the Rags 5-1 but you're right, the following week was the wake up call from hell.
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I love to think about pivotal moments. It is a form of painless thinking about Villa for me. We went to to Newcastle with KMac as caretaker manager. We got a penalty early on which Carew basted into the Gallowgate End. If we had scored a goal and got up a bit of momentum I am not saying we would have won but we would not have got the mullering we went on to get.
That result did for KMac, a coach respected and admired and trusted by the players and he was never considered for even an extension of his temporary stewardship. In my humble opinion if KMac had been able to steady the ship and a better trawl made for a permanent manager, or even KMac himself proving his worth, the last four years would have been very different. For four long years we have been running the club in crisis management mode. I include the on going obsession with thrift to be part of that crisis management ethos.
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Good post Brian, it's like a 'bunker mentality almost.
For me two pivotal moments in our recent history were the 7-1 hammering away to Chelsea in MON's last season. I've written before that we were quite poor in the league after that day and were quite lucky to beat Hull and Small Heath afterwards thanks to a couple of penalties.
Really, MON should have walked after the Blackburn game on the last day of the season.He didn't, and we know what happened next.
Another big moment, but not pivotal, was going out of the Europa League to Rapid the second time. Had we got into Europe again I think there would have been a much happier vibe around the club by the time Houllier arrived. Everything was just so demoralised that year and he didn't exactly help.
The next pivotal moment was so publicly chasing Martinez and him rejecting us. That was such a kick in the nuts for this club and I don't think we discuss it enough. That was a very humiliating week with that Dave Whelan wading in. McLeish arriving just added insult to injury and the crisis just started to grow and grow when Downing and Young left.
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The McLeish appointment was probably the most baffling turn of events i have ever witnessed andi am probably one of if not the oldest poster on here. I still cannot get my head around what Lerner was thinking, the only excuse i can find is that not being born and bred in Birmingham he didn't realise the hostility the appointment would bring. Krulak Disappearing overnight was the first indication that Lerner had given up the McLeish appointment just underpinned that view.
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The McLeish appointment was probably the most baffling turn of events i have ever witnessed andi am probably one of if not the oldest poster on here. I still cannot get my head around what Lerner was thinking, the only excuse i can find is that not being born and bred in Birmingham he didn't realise the hostility the appointment would bring. Krulak Disappearing overnight was the first indication that Lerner had given up the McLeish appointment just underpinned that view.
GK left after the AM appointment didn't he? I remember the "imagine what he'll do with money" comments, and I've always wondered just how much he regrets saying that.
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The McLeish appointment was probably the most baffling turn of events i have ever witnessed andi am probably one of if not the oldest poster on here. I still cannot get my head around what Lerner was thinking, the only excuse i can find is that not being born and bred in Birmingham he didn't realise the hostility the appointment would bring. Krulak Disappearing overnight was the first indication that Lerner had given up the McLeish appointment just underpinned that view.
Forget hostility, McLeish is just a terrible football manager.
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The McLeish appointment was Lerner showing that, he had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
and saying
I could not give a flying shit what the fans of Aston Villa think.
This is not a good combination and we are still addled with him.
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The McLeish appointment was Lerner showing that, he had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
and saying
I could not give a flying shit what the fans of Aston Villa think.
This is not a good combination and we are still addled with him.
It was actually Lerner making the mistake of thinking that a guy who is, by all accounts, genuinely a really good bloke and who talks a good game could actually change his spots and had only been held back by the quality of players available to him. As has been said before, he puts great value on personal relationships and he clearly thought that McLeish was someone he could work with for the best of the club. From the outside it looks insane and quotes from Faulkner and GK around the time suggest that the club were aware that it looked that way but they thought it could work.
I just think people on here, and more so on other Villa forums, are too eager to look at any mistake made by Lerner or Faulkner and accuse them of not knowing what they're doing, as if being American or ginger means you can't learn anything about football.
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Yesterday I would have agreed with you, Paul. Today, if the report in the Telegraph is true, I don't.
I have no problem with Lerner/Faulkner making mistakes, providing they learn from them. That doesn't appear to be the case.
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The McLeish appointment was Lerner showing that, he had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
and saying
I could not give a flying shit what the fans of Aston Villa think.
This is not a good combination and we are still addled with him.
It was actually Lerner making the mistake of thinking that a guy who is, by all accounts, genuinely a really good bloke and who talks a good game could actually change his spots and had only been held back by the quality of players available to him. As has been said before, he puts great value on personal relationships and he clearly thought that McLeish was someone he could work with for the best of the club. From the outside it looks insane and quotes from Faulkner and GK around the time suggest that the club were aware that it looked that way but they thought it could work.
I just think people on here, and more so on other Villa forums, are too eager to look at any mistake made by Lerner or Faulkner and accuse them of not knowing what they're doing, as if being American or ginger means you can't learn anything about football.
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Sorry Paul but that is a ridicuolous comment and does alot of people on here a dis-service. Not wanting these pair in charge of our club has nothing to do with nationality or hair colour. It is due to sustained mistakes, investment of huge sums of money resulting in us being worse off than before said investment. It is due to not understanding the fans and a consistent lack of openness and honesty smothered in sickly-sweet PR bullshit that means nothing. Football is escapism and the disapearance of a lack of ambition and hope kind of takes the meaning of it away.
Granted, alot of what has gone on is due to market change as well as mistakes but thats life im afraid. Thats why I thought this was the perfect time for him to sell up. But no, we get the disapointing news that not only are we going to be subjected to more relegation dog fights with the promise of mid table mediocricy as our ambition, we get told that we are going to be blessed with 30% possesion and fucking hoofball for the entire duration of it.
Lambert has got some things right and some things wrong. I get that and also understand the need for stability. But we are playing shit at the moment, the fans arent enjoying it, we have just rolled over a got our bellies ticlkled by a team we should have aspirations of being better than and there is still the threat of relegation looming combined with not buying anyone in the latest transfer window.
Now is not the time to be offering Lambert a new deal and making it public. They never bloody learn.
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Lerner has seen the table and thought, gee, I only asked him to keep us up. Hopefully I'll never experience the horror of appointing a new manager ever again (although I kinda enjoyed writing to Sir Alex).
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I am sure Lerner's ambition for this season is to own a mid-table premier League club, which chimes with the ambition of the fans for this term, at least many on here with our predictions.
This should be considered an improvement on the past three season where he has owned and we have supported, a club threatened by relegation.
The home form is clearly a massive annoyance for all and the way certain players appear to have regressed on last seasons final third promise. That said, for as much as you have read on here in recent months that "we're only x amount of points from 18th" or "we won't be 11th much longer", here we sit, irionically higher than 11th and more than likely in the position that we will finish come May. Bang on target.
People get lost in the here and now and I think there is a real msconception that whatever happens now is all there is or there ever will be. That is a fallacy.
We can make a list of things that need to be done; two midfeilders, wide forward/winger with pace, right back, signing Betrand on a permanent deal; all those things would more than likely deliver the consistency we would need to lift us about mid-table mediocrity.
I think the bemoaning and catawauling is premature. Its not easy to sit back and think long term when you have sunk £545.00 to watch us at B6, but we are exactly where most us hoped we would be. The acid test will be whether we have upgraded the first team sufficently come September 2014. I understand some people's lack of faith that we will see the requisite investment, but lets actually wait and see what happens before we get all weepy about things.
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we'll be well below 10th spot come the end of the season, I'm sure of it
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Ha ha ha!
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I note what Ads says but I don't want to be here in September saying 'wait and see what happens in January'.
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... Now is not the time to be offering Lambert a new deal and making it public. They never bloody learn.
I interpret this as the club seeking stability where the last four years have been in turmoil. Naive, maybe, to simply seek stability without an aspiration of progress or excellence.
From the club's perspective, Lambert has followed the plan of reducing the wage bill; he's bought prudently (in their terms); the team is inconsistent but eeking out results, enough; the attendances have not plummetted.
It's not pretty, or particularly aspirational or headline-grabbing; but it's doing the job they seem to currently want.
As I've said before, the challenge is: after the bomb squad is fully defused, what will the aspiration be then? - that's the killer-question for me.
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I think the bemoaning and catawauling is premature. Its not easy to sit back and think long term when you have sunk £545.00 to watch us at B6, but we are exactly where most us hoped we would be. The acid test will be whether we have upgraded the first team sufficently come September 2014. I understand some people's lack of faith that we will see the requisite investment, but lets actually wait and see what happens before we get all weepy about things.
Do you have to use emotional nonsense terms like "weepy" or "caterwauling"? It just takes away from any constructive points that they come with and it's more than a bit petty.
People are expressing their opinions. It's hardly weepy, for example, to be concerned at the truly terrible quality of football.
I'm sure most people are happyish with where we are - at the moment - but significantly less so with the lack of goals, inability to pass the ball and growing tendency to play route one football that we seem to be becoming known for.
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It is coming across as all weepy though. People are saying they are resigned to it all. We're seeing lots of little yellow sad faces following posts and people getting more and more misty eyed about the past. With each loss some get more emboldened with their Ellis revisionism.
I see it as being resigned to the perception that we will be frozen in the form, position etc of the last defeat for now and all eternity. I see posts putting a lot of emotion into the analysis, I have taken it out. I am not being petty and I am not being dismissive of criticism out of hand, in fact, if you re-read your post, ignoring the first paragraph, you agree with me or at the least, share the same concerns.
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The McLeish appointment was Lerner showing that, he had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
and saying
I could not give a flying shit what the fans of Aston Villa think.
This is not a good combination and we are still addled with him.
It was actually Lerner making the mistake of thinking that a guy who is, by all accounts, genuinely a really good bloke and who talks a good game could actually change his spots and had only been held back by the quality of players available to him. As has been said before, he puts great value on personal relationships and he clearly thought that McLeish was someone he could work with for the best of the club. From the outside it looks insane and quotes from Faulkner and GK around the time suggest that the club were aware that it looked that way but they thought it could work.
I just think people on here, and more so on other Villa forums, are too eager to look at any mistake made by Lerner or Faulkner and accuse them of not knowing what they're doing, as if being American or ginger means you can't learn anything about football.
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Sorry Paul but that is a ridicuolous comment and does alot of people on here a dis-service. Not wanting these pair in charge of our club has nothing to do with nationality or hair colour. It is due to sustained mistakes, investment of huge sums of money resulting in us being worse off than before said investment. It is due to not understanding the fans and a consistent lack of openness and honesty smothered in sickly-sweet PR bullshit that means nothing. Football is escapism and the disapearance of a lack of ambition and hope kind of takes the meaning of it away.
Granted, alot of what has gone on is due to market change as well as mistakes but thats life im afraid. Thats why I thought this was the perfect time for him to sell up. But no, we get the disapointing news that not only are we going to be subjected to more relegation dog fights with the promise of mid table mediocricy as our ambition, we get told that we are going to be blessed with 30% possesion and fucking hoofball for the entire duration of it.
Lambert has got some things right and some things wrong. I get that and also understand the need for stability. But we are playing shit at the moment, the fans arent enjoying it, we have just rolled over a got our bellies ticlkled by a team we should have aspirations of being better than and there is still the threat of relegation looming combined with not buying anyone in the latest transfer window.
Now is not the time to be offering Lambert a new deal and making it public. They never bloody learn.
no it doesn't. When Ellis made truly horrible appointments they were mistakes, Lerner makes horrible appointments and it's because "he doesn't know the game", I'm convinced that if he was from a nation which is more synonymous with football you'd never hear that comment. The ginger comment was intentionally stupid because, as I've said before, I don't really understand why there's so much hate towards Faulkner, so I made light of it. I just think there's a certain snobbishness towards Americans where football is concerned and, because we're not top 6, that is being targeted towards Lerner.
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It is coming across as all weepy though. People are saying they are resigned to it all. We're seeing lots of little yellow sad faces following posts and people getting more and more misty eyed about the past. With each loss some get more emboldened with their Ellis revisionism.
I see it as being resigned to the perception that we will be frozen in the form, position etc of the last defeat for now and all eternity. I see posts putting a lot of emotion into the analysis, I have taken it out. I am not being petty and I am not being dismissive of criticism out of hand, in fact, if you re-read your post, ignoring the first paragraph, you agree with me or at the least, share the same concerns.
It's not just weepy, we've also had references in the past to people wetting the bed / pissing themselves / whatever, it's just tiresome and not really needed.
I know I agree with much of what you say, I'm not disputing that, that's not the point, though, it's the way you say it - there's just no need for some of it. It doesn't add to the debate, and you're perfectly capable of expressing your point without it.
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One of the things that annoys me is the idea that they're not approachable (when in fact I don't know of a similar-sized club whose senior employees are more openly available) and what's summed up by the phrase "PR bullshit." Of course they put a positive spin on everything they say - every business does. As paul_e said above, when they get something wrong "they don't know football." When they do something that's not universally popular, "they don't listen to the fans."
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I think the McLeish appointment wasn't so much a sign that they don't know football, more a sign they're from a different planet.
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Agreed. I think they do get far too much flak for what is obviously almost a superabundance of goodwill, but my God they don't half make some daft decisions relating to the stuff on the pitch.
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Agreed. I think they do get far too much flak for what is obviously almost a superabundance of goodwill, but my God they don't half make some daft decisions relating to the stuff on the pitch.
They do entirely, but try contacting a director at Spurs or Newcastle before criticising their lack of openness.
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Agreed. I think they do get far too much flak for what is obviously almost a superabundance of goodwill, but my God they don't half make some daft decisions relating to the stuff on the pitch.
They do entirely, but try contacting a director at Spurs or Newcastle before criticising their lack of openness.
Oh indeed. This idea of aloofness mostly comes from the likes of Murphy or Nursey, who are just annoyed there's no 'Arry (or, dare I say it, Herbert) to feed them constant gossip. Villa have every right to keep schtum about as much as they like, really. We should only question it when we see the results - and, of course, that inevitably will lead to a lot of questions at the moment.
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I am interested to see how much is spent this summer on players - if we finish midtable then it is an improvement but I think we are way out of the league of the top 6 and the likes of utd, Liverpool and spurs who will probably finish 4 ,5, 6 have far more to spend on players and strenghtening their squads.
Would it make sense for randy to perhaps invest say £30m to try and get the side up to around 7th place and earn an extra £3m in prize money or will he be happy enough with where we are - we are not going to catch the top 6 without considerable investment .
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Net spend of £15-20m is the sensible guess, that's been the average since Lerner arrived and there is no reason to think otherwise. How that money gets spent is far more important, 3-4 okore/benteke style buys and we'll look a lot more capable.
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Net spend of £15-20m is the sensible guess, that's been the average since Lerner arrived and there is no reason to think otherwise. How that money gets spent is far more important, 3-4 okore/benteke style buys and we'll look a lot more capable.
That spend may keep us in a similar position but the gap between us and the top 6 will not decrease .
They tend to spend that sort of money on one player.
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There will come a time where we no longer need to replace large chunks of the squad. We had to recently to exorcise the demons of the last few years. Over the new next few windows the goal will likely be to only add at most 4 or 5 players a season to account for turnover and the addition of better quality players. I believe we will move from spending £20-25m on 8 or 9 players to less players better quality.
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There will come a time where we no longer need to replace large chunks of the squad. We had to recently to exorcise the demons of the last few years. Over the new next few windows the goal will likely be to only add at most 4 or 5 players a season to account for turnover and the addition of better quality players. I believe we will move from spending £20-25m on 8 or 9 players to less players better quality.
If he has £25m this summer I'd far rather it be spent on 3 quality players as you suggest tv.
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It is coming across as all weepy though. People are saying they are resigned to it all. We're seeing lots of little yellow sad faces following posts and people getting more and more misty eyed about the past. With each loss some get more emboldened with their Ellis revisionism.
I see it as being resigned to the perception that we will be frozen in the form, position etc of the last defeat for now and all eternity. I see posts putting a lot of emotion into the analysis, I have taken it out. I am not being petty and I am not being dismissive of criticism out of hand, in fact, if you re-read your post, ignoring the first paragraph, you agree with me or at the least, share the same concerns.
It's not just weepy, we've also had references in the past to people wetting the bed / pissing themselves / whatever, it's just tiresome and not really needed.
I know I agree with much of what you say, I'm not disputing that, that's not the point, though, it's the way you say it - there's just no need for some of it. It doesn't add to the debate, and you're perfectly capable of expressing your point without it.
I wasn't trying to be arsey. It's just the mood I am sensing which comes after every negative result. It's like a lot of people sighing and looking solemnly into their pints.
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There will come a time where we no longer need to replace large chunks of the squad. We had to recently to exorcise the demons of the last few years. Over the new next few windows the goal will likely be to only add at most 4 or 5 players a season to account for turnover and the addition of better quality players. I believe we will move from spending £20-25m on 8 or 9 players to less players better quality.
If he has £25m this summer I'd far rather it be spent on 3 quality players as you suggest tv.
I think - with nothing concrete to base it on - that this will be the plan.
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If you have a solid base, (and in creating that it's impossible to get every player right) then the addition of quality propels you forward that much faster. We are approaching the tail end of a very difficult period for the club. I don't think anybody there wants to see it last forever, least of all the manager.
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There will come a time where we no longer need to replace large chunks of the squad. We had to recently to exorcise the demons of the last few years. Over the new next few windows the goal will likely be to only add at most 4 or 5 players a season to account for turnover and the addition of better quality players. I believe we will move from spending £20-25m on 8 or 9 players to less players better quality.
If he has £25m this summer I'd far rather it be spent on 3 quality players as you suggest tv.
I think - with nothing concrete to base it on - that this will be the plan.
Excellent. It's what we need so badly. We have a decent sized squad, it just lacks that bit of quality in the first team.
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I think there Will be a £7-10 million playmaker signed in the summer to excite us and it will be done early. The benefits of signing one available this window. Weren't strong enough to pursue a deal with an eye on a summer target. We will start the season at home and chalk up a resounding win and finally the corner will have been turned.
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I think there Will be a £7-10 million playmaker signed in the summer to excite us and it will be done early. The benefits of signing one available this window. Weren't strong enough to pursue a deal with an eye on a summer target. We will start the season at home and chalk up a resounding win and finally the corner will have been turned.
Indeed, a 4-0 opening day home win against man utd will do nicely :)
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I'm also not convinced Benteke is gone in the summer. We are in just as strong a position with his contract which also shows a commitment on the part of the player. I don't think for a second he was somehow hoodwinked into signing that length of contract. Naturally if the big is huge and it makes sense for the club then he'll be sold but I don't think anyone will match what we'll be asking. If you then start a season with the existing base, add Bertrand permanently and 4 or 5 players in the £5-7m range, or even a couple at £8-9m then we are so much better. We lack genuine quality in 2 or 3 areas to make a difference in games and that's what those types of player brings.
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I'm also not convinced Benteke is gone in the summer. We are in just as strong a position with his contract which also shows a commitment on the part of the player. I don't think for a second he was somehow hoodwinked into signing that length of contract. Naturally if the big is huge and it makes sense for the club then he'll be sold but I don't think anyone will match what we'll be asking. If you then start a season with the existing base, add Bertrand permanently and 4 or 5 players in the £5-7m range, or even a couple at £8-9m then we are so much better. We lack genuine quality in 2 or 3 years to make a difference in games and that's what those types of player brings.
I think benteke well may stay unless he has a great end to the season and World Cup in which case he would maybe attract a bid too good to refuse - it's by no means a certainty that he will be gone as some seem to think.
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His stuttering half season will have given a few admirers the jitters I would imagine?
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I did hear a whisper there was to be a few bob available in the Summer and it was not reliant on flogging Benteke.
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I did hear a whisper there was to be a few bob available in the Summer and it was not reliant on flogging Benteke.
Well let's hope so, because we need to start adding quality now if we're going to progress.
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I think there Will be a £7-10 million playmaker signed in the summer to excite us and it will be done early. The benefits of signing one available this window. Weren't strong enough to pursue a deal with an eye on a summer target. We will start the season at home and chalk up a resounding win and finally the corner will have been turned.
Indeed, a 4-0 opening day home win against man utd will do nicely :)
Only 4-0?? Where's your ambition? This just shows how far we've fallen etc etc...
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Net spend of £15-20m is the sensible guess, that's been the average since Lerner arrived and there is no reason to think otherwise. How that money gets spent is far more important, 3-4 okore/benteke style buys and we'll look a lot more capable.
This is what I think will happen. I think the difference to the last two summers will be that because the wage bill has largely been sorted we'll be able to look at a better quality of player this summer. So like you say, 3-4 players with that money, rather than 8-9.
I also don't think Benteke will go unless he's blows the World Cup apart. Like others have said, I think his barren spell will have lowered the price clubs will be willing to pay to a point where it's lower than the price we'll accept.
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Nothing has happened today which puts to bed the idea that the club will be sold sooner rather than later. My son put if far better than I could when he said Lerner is not a football fan and he does not come to enough games for it to be a hobby. What reason does he have for not selling the club?
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Nothing has happened today which puts to bed the idea that the club will be sold sooner rather than later. My son put if far better than I could when he said Lerner is not a football fan and he does not come to enough games for it to be a hobby. What reason does he have for not selling the club?
Nothing's happened today to say that the club will be sold sooner rather than later either. As for your son's comment, surely the fact he watches every single game on a live video feed and that to date he's spent £300m on something which very few people have made money on ever would suggest he might be just a little bit of a football fan?
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Nothing has happened today which puts to bed the idea that the club will be sold sooner rather than later. My son put if far better than I could when he said Lerner is not a football fan and he does not come to enough games for it to be a hobby. What reason does he have for not selling the club?
Given that he's likely forked out more of his personal wealth on Aston Villa than all of our previous chairmans combined, I'd say he cares plenty about Aston Villa. It's a little tiring to keep hearing on just about every thread that he doesn't give a shit just because he doesn't come to games. Like a broken record.
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To put some of the financial debates into a little perspective, over 10 years Abramovich has invested just short of £1billion (including spend on training facilities and initial purchase),and last summer converted the remaining £700M of debt for equity.
The Mansoors have spent north of £500M + purchase costs since 2008 over and above City's own revenue streams to give a total spend of just under £1 billion.
That's what we're up against. The only way to beat that, even with significant support from Randy is to significantly overperform consistently relative to the levels invested,and progress that way, to a point where revenues can support a buying from the upper echelons.
The quoted figures are from a cursory Google search for Chelsea or Man City spending.
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To put some of the financial debates into a little perspective, over 10 years Abramovich has invested just short of £1billion (including spend on training facilities and initial purchase),and last summer converted the remaining £700M of debt for equity.
The Mansoors have spent north of £500M + purchase costs since 2008 over and above City's own revenue streams to give a total spend of just under £1 billion.
That's what we're up against. The only way to beat that, even with significant support from Randy is to significantly overperform consistently relative to the levels invested,and progress that way, to a point where revenues can support a buying from the upper echelons.
The quoted figures are from a cursory Google search for Chelsea or Man City spending.
And it still took Citeh three seasons to get from ninth into the Champions League.
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To put some of the financial debates into a little perspective, over 10 years Abramovich has invested just short of £1billion (including spend on training facilities and initial purchase),and last summer converted the remaining £700M of debt for equity.
The Mansoors have spent north of £500M + purchase costs since 2008 over and above City's own revenue streams to give a total spend of just under £1 billion.
That's what we're up against. The only way to beat that, even with significant support from Randy is to significantly overperform consistently relative to the levels invested,and progress that way, to a point where revenues can support a buying from the upper echelons.
The quoted figures are from a cursory Google search for Chelsea or Man City spending.
We're not going to beat that, not a prayer. Just like Newcastle and Spurs and Everton aren't going to beat it.
The problem is, whilst we're not going to beat it, we should be a lot closer to it than we are now. The last few years, the list of clubs we compare ourselves against has become the likes of Stoke, West Ham, Sunderland. The strugglers, basically.
Over that same period, step by step, even on here, expectations have been pointed so far downwards that we frequently see people talking about our progression in terms of "we're not going to go down, we'll make 40 points easily...".
That's what the problem is. Not that we're not competing with clubs who spend 1-2bn in a few years. Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal aren't doing that, or are struggling like fuck to just about manage it. Our problem is that we're increasingly ensconcing ourselves as one of the bottom feeding clubs in the league.
Look five years ago, and we had several players who other teams towards the upper end of the league would covet. By comparison, how many of our players would be coveted by other clubs now?
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Nothing has happened today which puts to bed the idea that the club will be sold sooner rather than later. My son put if far better than I could when he said Lerner is not a football fan and he does not come to enough games for it to be a hobby. What reason does he have for not selling the club?
Given that he's likely forked out more of his personal wealth on Aston Villa than all of our previous chairmans combined, I'd say he cares plenty about Aston Villa. It's a little tiring to keep hearing on just about every thread that he doesn't give a shit just because he doesn't come to games. Like a broken record.
Not really.
If he'd never come to games, then maybe you'd have a point, but the fact is, for a year or two, or more, when he bought us, they were here all the time. They popped up at away fixtures up north to lower league clubs in the league cup. They were on here, all the time. He was over here several times a year.
Then suddenly, he stopped. At the same time the financial cut backs started.
It's not so much "he doesn't bother coming to matches" as "he used to, but now he doesn't bother" - two totally different things.
Not only that, but it was about the same time we stopped hearing about things like Proud History, Bright Future. The same time we stopped seeing things like the club advertising all over town - I know that sounds lame, but if you were here, you'd have noticed it, we started acting like we really did own the city. The city really was ours.
When they weren't doing stuff like that, they were on here, telling us every ten minutes that they were here and would be so through the rough as well as the smooth - they went out of the way to tell us that.
All that stopped. At pretty much exactly the time smooth turned to rough.
it's hardly surprising people noticed it, it was pretty hard not to spot the contrast.
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Look five years ago, and we had several players who other teams towards the upper end of the league would covet. By comparison, how many of our players would be coveted by other clubs now?
Exactly. 5 years ago. Things change quickly in football and we could just as easily be back in that position in 5 years time.
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I did hear a whisper there was to be a few bob available in the Summer and it was not reliant on flogging Benteke.
Was it a Chinese whisper?
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Look five years ago, and we had several players who other teams towards the upper end of the league would covet. By comparison, how many of our players would be coveted by other clubs now?
Exactly. 5 years ago. Things change quickly in football and we could just as easily be back in that position in 5 years time.
Only if we spend a lot of money, unfortunately. Certainly more than our spending levels of late, anyway.
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Look five years ago, and we had several players who other teams towards the upper end of the league would covet. By comparison, how many of our players would be coveted by other clubs now?
Exactly. 5 years ago. Things change quickly in football and we could just as easily be back in that position in 5 years time.
Only if we spend a lot of money, unfortunately. Certainly more than our spending levels of late, anyway.
Not necessarily. Spurs didn't spend a lot of money on Bale. Everton didn't spend a lot of money on Baines. Newcastle didn't spend a lot of money on Cabaye.
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Look five years ago, and we had several players who other teams towards the upper end of the league would covet. By comparison, how many of our players would be coveted by other clubs now?
Exactly. 5 years ago. Things change quickly in football and we could just as easily be back in that position in 5 years time.
Only if we spend a lot of money, unfortunately. Certainly more than our spending levels of late, anyway.
Not necessarily. Spurs didn't spend a lot of money on Bale. Everton didn't spend a lot of money on Baines. Newcastle didn't spend a lot of money on Cabaye.
Spurs spent £7m on Bale 7 years ago, a sum which we'd consider at the upper level of our spending now.
I also said several players other teams would covet, as an indicator of squad strength, rather than just one player. It's about squad strength, and at the moment, ours is very poor. Buying pricey players is no guarantee of success, because it's about more than just acquiring players, but not buying good players pretty much guarantees you won't have success.
Everton aren't doing well because they've got Baines. They're doing well because they've got a strong squad. Ditto Spurs. We've got a poor squad, and are doing pretty mediocrely.
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On, and a good manager, obviously.
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But those teams don't have particularly high net spends, are doing better than us, and have players the rich boys covet.
I'm just saying that a lot can happen in 5 years and not only if we spend a fortune.
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I didn't say we needed to spend a fortune, but we do need to spend more than we do now, and we need to start shopping for players from a level above what we already have. That's what we should have done last summer, but didn't
Unless we're going to be amazing spotters of talent, that route is never going to pay off sufficiently. Why, if that's the way we are going, should we expect to do any better than the likes of, say, West Ham, Fulham, Stoke? What makes us any different?
We don't just have to match Spurs or Everton, we have to out perform them, as we're relatively established as a lower end of table side at the moment. They're miles away from us. We need to catch them up. There's no way of doing that without spending a decent amount of money.
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People are hard on Lerner in my opinion and where is the multi billionaire owner going to magically appear from.
Go to matches, cheer on the team
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But those teams don't have particularly high net spends, are doing better than us, and have players the rich boys covet.
I'm just saying that a lot can happen in 5 years and not only if we spend a fortune.
Where is year zero in this 5 year period?
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Everton aren't doing well because they've got Baines. They're doing well because they've got a strong squad. Ditto Spurs. We've got a poor squad, and are doing pretty mediocrely.
A poor squad that, the table tells us, only 9 clubs have outperformed over the course of this season. Either you're wrong or you are going to run out of words to describe all of those below us.
On a more serious note I think the truth is that we've done ok, we are far more resilient than last season for example, but need to add a little more flair going forward to progress further. There is the basis of a good squad and this summer is going to be the acid test for the ambition of the club.
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People are hard on Lerner in my opinion and where is the multi billionaire owner going to magically appear from.
Go to matches, cheer on the team
We do as you instruct with regard to supporting the tram. Now, assuming there is no rich man coming in for us, why do you say that people are hard on Lerner? Can we not expect the owner of our club to show his face occasionally and demonstrate some leadership when time are hard, as the have been this season?
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People are hard on Lerner in my opinion and where is the multi billionaire owner going to magically appear from.
Go to matches, cheer on the team
Because no multi-billionaire has ever bought a Premier League football club before.
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Our position in the table gives a totally false sense of security. Due to the executive policy of recouping wasted money we are at this moment, I repeat that, at this moment an under capitalized business.
I accept fully that the buying of players in the January window is an expensive and risky business. However, such has become the gulf between the Championship and the Premiership and so financially destructive has relegation become, every club which wishes to retain its premiership status must have in place a fully funded contingency plan to strengthen in January if relegation becomes a possibility. It is a no brainer.
Lifeboats on an ocean liner cost money and take up expensive space the ship owner could put to more profitable use until the icebergs appear on the horizon.
For reasons I cannot understand our owner, board and manager like to work without a safety net. That is why I started this thread.
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It's almost as if the board think, oh well, if we go down, we go down, c'est la vie. We can get the rest of our high earners off the wage bill and come back up in a blaze of glory, just like in Children Of The Revolution, and then win the European Cup.
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Perhaps they are just more risk averse than the majority of posters on here.
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Although relegation is a possibility, the contrivance of circumstances to bring it about seem pretty far fetched to me. It would require 8 sides all to consistently out perform us between now and the end of the season, which when you consider how many of those games are going to be against each other or against the teams at the top it is possible but not probable. Therefore, in my view, waiting to get the right players rather than making do for the sake of numbers is not a huge risk.
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all this talk about Lerner not coming to games seems a bit strange to me, when only the other day the Liverpool owner saw his first game for ages and I bet the lot that own Man Ci££y don't go every week either and Abramovich just looks fucking bored shitless at Chelsea games.
I am hoping for a good investment in 3/4 quality players this summer :)
UTV
The Doc
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Although relegation is a possibility, the contrivance of circumstances to bring it about seem pretty far fetched to me. It would require 8 sides all to consistently out perform us between now and the end of the season, which when you consider how many of those games are going to be against each other or against the teams at the top it is possible but not probable. Therefore, in my view, waiting to get the right players rather than making do for the sake of numbers is not a huge risk.
whilst I largely agree with you, Chris, my one concern is our home form. We play few of those below us in the League at VP in the next few weeks, and I currently have the collywobbles about that!
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But, once again, we are settling for not getting relegated as a comfortable position.
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all this talk about Lerner not coming to games seems a bit strange to me, when only the other day the Liverpool owner saw his first game for ages and I bet the lot that own Man Ci££y don't go every week either and Abramovich just looks fucking bored shitless at Chelsea games.
I
I am hoping for a good investment in 3/4 quality players this summer :)
UTV
The Doc
It's more of an issue because he used to attend quite regularly, then his funding was scaled back, we become shit and now he comes about as often as Pele.
If he never attended in the first place I doubt it would be mentioned but it all ties in to lack of enthusiasm and his general interest towards us has waned.
Maybe he has found out that being a football fan isn't all battles for honours, scintillating football and great atmospheres and it isn't for him. Who knows?
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all this talk about Lerner not coming to games seems a bit strange to me, when only the other day the Liverpool owner saw his first game for ages and I bet the lot that own Man Ci££y don't go every week either and Abramovich just looks fucking bored shitless at Chelsea games.
I
I am hoping for a good investment in 3/4 quality players this summer :)
UTV
The Doc
It's more of an issue because he used to attend quite regularly, then his funding was scaled back, we become shit and now he comes about as often as Pele.
If he never attended in the first place I doubt it would be mentioned but it all ties in to lack of enthusiasm and his general interest towards us has waned.
Maybe he has found out that being a football fan isn't all battles for honours, scintillating football and great atmospheres and it isn't for him. Who knows?
In his defence, I havent been much this season and I live in Lichfield, not America. I dont think the players we have are very good, The style of football is crap, we very rarely score and invariably always lose. Why would someone travel thousands of miles to watch us grind out a 0-0 with Sunderland etc? I just struggle to get myself up for it anymore. Occasionally I regret it such as against Albion (well infact that is the only time) but certainly I dont think it is worth the 40odd quid at the moment. I can no longer blame Randolph T. Absentpants for not attending. Would be nice if he gave his seat away to one of the fans each game though.
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I think it's because, in our disarray, we've needed visible leadership. If Man City, Chelsea or Liverpool had spent the last few seasons under threat of relegation, I'd expect their respective leaders to at least show their faces.
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But, once again, we are settling for not getting relegated as a comfortable position.
At the start of the season, I decided I'd settle for mid table and 6+ points better off than we were at the end of 12/13. Not an inspiring performance by any stretch of the imagination (in fact medicocre) but progress. It can feel a little "meh" when all you're aiming for is mid table obscurity but I don't want that for Villa every season. At the moment we don't know if we'll reach that uninspiring mid table target, but we certainly had no hope of reaching such a goal this time last year.
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I think it's because, in our disarray, we've needed visible leadership. If Man City, Chelsea or Liverpool had spent the last few seasons under threat of relegation, I'd expect their respective leaders to at least show their faces.
you mean like Carson Yeung ? ;)
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This season I started to become really depressed that the plan included a "no glory" element which allowed the board and the owner to regard the simple survival in the Premiership as a legitimate and adequate ambition so long as the gates held up and the costs went down.
This is the key for me. It upsets me that "Premiership survival" is considered good. What's the point of turning up each year and aiming to be 10th. It's just as bad aiming for 4th. No one remembers who was 2nd or 5th or 11th or 16th we only remember those days that make us feel top of the world. Partly the problem with football, and I hope 6 teams bugger off to Europe and never come back. Then we can play football again with the chance, maybe just maybe, we might win it.
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A team with a budget such as ours needs their best players to be fit for virtually the whole season.
Our problem last season was the 'goals against' column. This was addessed and judged by most to be satisfactory, yet the solution found himself injured after a handful of matches and is out for probably the rest of this season.
We would not be mid table obscurity if all our best players were fit at the same time.
Our goal now, having got rid of the deadwood high earning dross of before, replacing them with (some would say) more deadwood, are at least on a much more sustainable wage, allowing us to spend the little remaining on a few more 'best' players standard of footballer.
The summer looked rosy, lets see what next summer brings.
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I'm fairly sure that of the top eight, the only one of those that we haven't played at home is Chelsea. That's a lot of games to go at home against teams below us. Our home form will make us or break us, but surely must improve towards the end of the season.
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I am pretty confident we will win at least four more home games against the likes of West Ham, Hull, Norwich, Stoke, Fulham and Southampton, which would equal our record under O'Neill in 2009/10.
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Top 8 would be fantastic this season.
Saturday against West Ham is a big game and we need a win to push us on to catch Southampton and then Newcastle.
Tough ask but i think we can do it.
Like has been said by previous posters 3-4 QUALITY signings Mr Lambert and Lerner, QUALITY signings and we would be looking good for pushing on again next season.
We need some positive news from the club before next season starts. The World Cup should give us plenty of knowledge of players in the quality range we should be looking at if we are going to push forward.
Here is to a good shopping spree in the summer.
UTV
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Top 8 would be fantastic this season.
Saturday against West Ham is a big game and we need a win to push us on to catch Southampton and then Newcastle.
Tough ask but i think we can do it.
Like has been said by previous posters 3-4 QUALITY signings Mr Lambert and Lerner, QUALITY signings and we would be looking good for pushing on again next season.
We need some positive news from the club before next season starts. The World Cup should give us plenty of knowledge of players in the quality range we should be looking at if we are going to push forward.
Here is to a good shopping spree in the summer.
UTV
I think top 10 would be a significant improvement this season , I don't think top 8 is likely , but top 10 would be nice .
The news that we made a pretty big bid for a player last month is also encouraging as some people believed there was no cash available to lambert.
It will be an important summer window and the addition of three quality players will bode well for a challenge on the top 8 next season.
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I am pretty confident we will win at least four more home games against the likes of West Ham, Hull, Norwich, Stoke, Fulham and Southampton, which would equal our record under O'Neill in 2009/10.
Put it this way, if we don't then there should be a steward's enquiry!
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But, once again, we are settling for not getting relegated as a comfortable position.
It's not a comfortable position per se, but a comfortable position for this season.
Unless you throw oil tanker sized sums of money at it, you don't go from where we were to challenging the European places in the space of a season. We're on a more organic curve, so aslong as it keeps pointing upwards I won't moan at a mid table stop off on the way.
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This season I started to become really depressed that the plan included a "no glory" element which allowed the board and the owner to regard the simple survival in the Premiership as a legitimate and adequate ambition so long as the gates held up and the costs went down.
This is the key for me. It upsets me that "Premiership survival" is considered good. What's the point of turning up each year and aiming to be 10th.
So you've been told we'll be aiming for 10th next year and the year after? Where did you get this information?
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I don't understand this notion that "Isn't it terrible that success is now avoiding a relegation battle?" What people seem to ignore is that this season it is. We've been shite for god knows how long. Next season we'll probably aim to get ourselves into the top ten. In essence I'm agreeing with everything that Concrete John has said, but the people who say sensationalist comments believing that Villa have sunken into depths previously unthinkable is way off the mark.
What I do nowadays is go down the match, enjoy seeing my mates, have a drink or two. If we win, great, if not, it's nice to see my mates. We're not going to win the league so I could spend my life being upset about it or I could get over it.
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I envy you. I wish I did not care as much as I do. Seeing my mates is not enough incentive to drive several hundred miles round trip to every game (except Norwich which is only a hundred and twenty miles).
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This season I started to become really depressed that the plan included a "no glory" element which allowed the board and the owner to regard the simple survival in the Premiership as a legitimate and adequate ambition so long as the gates held up and the costs went down.
This is the key for me. It upsets me that "Premiership survival" is considered good. What's the point of turning up each year and aiming to be 10th.
So you've been told we'll be aiming for 10th next year and the year after? Where did you get this information?
Obviously, nobody has told him that, but we all form our own opinions about what the ambitions of the club are, and those opinions tend to be shaped by what we see them doing.
It's difficult to look at the events of the last 2 or 3 years and really say we're being set up with any ambition. The board don't even talk to us about ambition any more, let alone actually do anything to suggest there is any.
There's also a tendency I notice of people shifting their opinions to avoid facing reality. The most recent thing I have seen is several people saying "well, I reckon that the thing they're waiting for is for us to have shifted the last of the bomb squad" - as if that's somehow the most obvious reason we're holding back, rather than just a handy excuse for the way things are at the moment.
It doesn't even stand the most rudimentary of examinations. Of the "Bomb Squad" (which incidentally is not only a situation the club created entirely itself, but is a situation lots of clubs have, in that it is basically players we don't want any more), Given has been on loan, Bent is at Fulham for the rest of the season, and Ireland is actually gone, leaving Hutton. That's not really the most convincing obstacles to ambition, surely?
Then there's that other one, whereby, having stabilised the wage bill, what we're going to do is actually start to build it up again, and embark on some serious spending. They've (the powers that be) spent the last three years talking about how important it is we are self sufficient, how the books have to be balanced. I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed when they find out that financial prudence isn't just a transitional thing.
Don't get me wrong, I entirely understand why people do that, and I totally understand that this is only my opinion, and there's every chance that I am wrong, but I honestly can't see anything, not one single credible piece of evidence at the moment, that suggests we have any ambition to return to the fringes of the top six. We might hope for it, yes, but that's not the same thing. I mean ambition in terms of actually acting in a way which suggests we are serious about making that happen.
I'd love to be convinced otherwise, though.
I really would. I just want to see something to make me feel that way.
I'm not even one of the miserablist fringe, either, I've supported and backed Randy through periods where he was getting huge amounts of stick, but it looks like there's just no feelgood factor, no ambition, no urge for improvement, nothing positive coming out of the club these days.
if you have a few people on here saying the above, you feel that it's just one of many arguing factions that we have on here around pretty much any topic, but it's not, it seems to me that the large majority of people on here feel pretty disillusioned at the moment, and they're not all miserable, shouty mentalists, are they?
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+1.
Not very uplifting, but I agree that it is the situation we are in.
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I'm looking beyond this season and of the belief the our ambition is tied to where are right now and certainly tied to where we have been recently. I certainly believe, and like you this is just my opinion, that once this season is over that our ambitions will be to improve every season. That we will not just buy players to keep us ticking over and that we actually will return to buying players that make a difference again, and not almost exclusively from the bargain basement. I have nothing other than my gut feeling that this is what will happen, but I cannot believe that Aston Villa will just coast along from here on in. I think that we took a very definite position on our financial situation, and despite the pain it has caused we stuck with it. But that coming out on the other side will allow us to operate as a competitive side again.
I too might be completely wrong, but that's what I believe and furthermore it is helping me get through this season.
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I'm looking beyond this season and of the belief the our ambition is tied to where are right now and certainly tied to where we have been recently. I certainly believe, and like you this is just my opinion, that once this season is over that our ambitions will be to improve every season. That we will not just buy players to keep us ticking over and that we actually will return to buying players that make a difference again, and not almost exclusively from the bargain basement. I have nothing other than my gut feeling that this is what will happen, but I cannot believe that Aston Villa will just coast along from here on in. I think that we took a very definite position on our financial situation, and despite the pain it has caused we stuck with it. But that coming out on the other side will allow us to operate as a competitive side again.
I too might be completely wrong, but that's what I believe and furthermore it is helping me get through this season.
Completely agree, TV. I too go with this on a gut feeling, but I'm also convinced that this is the 'plan' that we keep hearing about. And a sensible one at that.
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I'm looking beyond this season and of the belief the our ambition is tied to where are right now and certainly tied to where we have been recently. I certainly believe, and like you this is just my opinion, that once this season is over that our ambitions will be to improve every season. That we will not just buy players to keep us ticking over and that we actually will return to buying players that make a difference again, and not almost exclusively from the bargain basement. I have nothing other than my gut feeling that this is what will happen, but I cannot believe that Aston Villa will just coast along from here on in. I think that we took a very definite position on our financial situation, and despite the pain it has caused we stuck with it. But that coming out on the other side will allow us to operate as a competitive side again.
I too might be completely wrong, but that's what I believe and furthermore it is helping me get through this season.
This is where I am.
Lambert has been asked to clean the place up, is doing so and will get the chance to do the rebuilding job; hence the new contract talks.
Re the bomb squad, Hutton, Given, Bent and NZ are still on the books, still costing us loads (probably the best part of £ 150k per week in net wages, even with contributions from Fulham) and need to be removed for progress to be made,IMO.
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Up until last month when Ireland left, we had 4 of our highest earners contributing absolutely nothing to the side. That simply HAS to have an impact on our recruitment. Two may be out on loan, but we're probably still paying the majority of their wages, especially Given's.
The theory is that if we still spend aroud £20m in the summer, but only on 3-4 players, then we'll start looking a threat to the Euro spots again. The higher wages such players would be looking for can be found in the bomb squad.
Maths wise, if works and make sense. We just now need to wait and see if they do it.
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This season I started to become really depressed that the plan included a "no glory" element which allowed the board and the owner to regard the simple survival in the Premiership as a legitimate and adequate ambition so long as the gates held up and the costs went down.
This is the key for me. It upsets me that "Premiership survival" is considered good. What's the point of turning up each year and aiming to be 10th.
So you've been told we'll be aiming for 10th next year and the year after? Where did you get this information?
Obviously, nobody has told him that, but we all form our own opinions about what the ambitions of the club are, and those opinions tend to be shaped by what we see them doing.
It's difficult to look at the events of the last 2 or 3 years and really say we're being set up with any ambition. The board don't even talk to us about ambition any more, let alone actually do anything to suggest there is any.
After MON left the next two seasons were pretty much a write off since the club were literally all over the place. When Mcleish was sacked, the club visibly changed its policy. It is now trying something different. Will it work? I don't have a clue. But the one thing I'm not doing is making assumptions. I also note that most people agreed that mid table would be an acceptable target for this season. Why then talk about finishing 10th every season? If it looks like we're heading, or even aiming, for the same position next year then fair enough.
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This season I started to become really depressed that the plan included a "no glory" element which allowed the board and the owner to regard the simple survival in the Premiership as a legitimate and adequate ambition so long as the gates held up and the costs went down.
This is the key for me. It upsets me that "Premiership survival" is considered good. What's the point of turning up each year and aiming to be 10th.
So you've been told we'll be aiming for 10th next year and the year after? Where did you get this information?
Obviously, nobody has told him that, but we all form our own opinions about what the ambitions of the club are, and those opinions tend to be shaped by what we see them doing.
It's difficult to look at the events of the last 2 or 3 years and really say we're being set up with any ambition. The board don't even talk to us about ambition any more, let alone actually do anything to suggest there is any.
There's also a tendency I notice of people shifting their opinions to avoid facing reality. The most recent thing I have seen is several people saying "well, I reckon that the thing they're waiting for is for us to have shifted the last of the bomb squad" - as if that's somehow the most obvious reason we're holding back, rather than just a handy excuse for the way things are at the moment.
It doesn't even stand the most rudimentary of examinations. Of the "Bomb Squad" (which incidentally is not only a situation the club created entirely itself, but is a situation lots of clubs have, in that it is basically players we don't want any more), Given has been on loan, Bent is at Fulham for the rest of the season, and Ireland is actually gone, leaving Hutton. That's not really the most convincing obstacles to ambition, surely?
Then there's that other one, whereby, having stabilised the wage bill, what we're going to do is actually start to build it up again, and embark on some serious spending. They've (the powers that be) spent the last three years talking about how important it is we are self sufficient, how the books have to be balanced. I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed when they find out that financial prudence isn't just a transitional thing.
Don't get me wrong, I entirely understand why people do that, and I totally understand that this is only my opinion, and there's every chance that I am wrong, but I honestly can't see anything, not one single credible piece of evidence at the moment, that suggests we have any ambition to return to the fringes of the top six. We might hope for it, yes, but that's not the same thing. I mean ambition in terms of actually acting in a way which suggests we are serious about making that happen.
I'd love to be convinced otherwise, though.
I really would. I just want to see something to make me feel that way.
I'm not even one of the miserablist fringe, either, I've supported and backed Randy through periods where he was getting huge amounts of stick, but it looks like there's just no feelgood factor, no ambition, no urge for improvement, nothing positive coming out of the club these days.
if you have a few people on here saying the above, you feel that it's just one of many arguing factions that we have on here around pretty much any topic, but it's not, it seems to me that the large majority of people on here feel pretty disillusioned at the moment, and they're not all miserable, shouty mentalists, are they?
This completely sums up what I feel, and I'm glad you posted it as I would not have done it that well thought out (lack of skill and laziness).
Although I'd love to know who the £8 million player was that Kendrick has referred to, and why it failed. Possibly hope Paulie, possibly.
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This season I started to become really depressed that the plan included a "no glory" element which allowed the board and the owner to regard the simple survival in the Premiership as a legitimate and adequate ambition so long as the gates held up and the costs went down.
This is the key for me. It upsets me that "Premiership survival" is considered good. What's the point of turning up each year and aiming to be 10th.
So you've been told we'll be aiming for 10th next year and the year after? Where did you get this information?
Obviously, nobody has told him that, but we all form our own opinions about what the ambitions of the club are, and those opinions tend to be shaped by what we see them doing.
It's difficult to look at the events of the last 2 or 3 years and really say we're being set up with any ambition. The board don't even talk to us about ambition any more, let alone actually do anything to suggest there is any.
After MON left the next two seasons were pretty much a write off since the club were literally all over the place. When Mcleish was sacked, the club visibly changed its policy. It is now trying something different. Will it work? I don't have a clue. But the one thing I'm not doing is making assumptions. I also note that most people agreed that mid table would be an acceptable target for this season. Why then talk about finishing 10th every season? If it looks like we're heading, or even aiming, for the same position next year then fair enough.
We're mid table, but let's not pretend we're not in a relegation battle. We're just 5 points above the drop zone so we're not comfortable. We've lost 7 home games in the league. This is not acceptable to fans so don't be surprised when they complain about it.
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We're not in relegation battle. However, the bottom half of the league is tight enough that we could get drawn into one, but we're not in one at the moment.
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From 10th down everyone is involved in the relegation battle. If we could swap places with Southampton I'm sure we'd all be happier.
Obviously a win against West Ham would be most welcome.
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I completely understand trying to get costs back in line, but this has taken place over a number of years now. Like paulie says, I imagine there are numerous other clubs with a few players on high wages who contribute little or nothing. I don't think that can excuse our lack of ambition over the last few years. I hope things will change moving forward, but there's nothing obvious to suggest that'll be the case.
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We're not in relegation battle. However, the bottom half of the league is tight enough that we could get drawn into one, but we're not in one at the moment.
I wouldn't say we're in a relegation battle just yet either.
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I don't think we're in one either, for what it is worth.
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I think we're just outside the battle right now. But within a couple of games could be right in it. The next 4 will decide if we are to spend the rest of the season mid-table or will be drawn into it. WHU (h) Cardiff (a) Newcastle (a) Norwich (h).
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8 points from that lot, at the least.
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I think Fat Sam will set up for a draw and doubt we have enough to stop him getting it. I fancy us to beat Cardiff and Norwich and Newcastle could go either way.
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We're not in relegation battle. However, the bottom half of the league is tight enough that we could get drawn into one, but we're not in one at the moment.
I wouldn't say we're in a relegation battle just yet either.
i think we'll know about half 9 on tuesday night whether we are or not.
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We're not in relegation battle. However, the bottom half of the league is tight enough that we could get drawn into one, but we're not in one at the moment.
I wouldn't say we're in a relegation battle just yet either.
i think we'll know about half 9 on tuesday night whether we are or not.
Crikey I didn't realise we were playing Cardiff on Tuesday. It's a bloody big few days for us.
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To add some numbers:
Of the bomb squad we still have Bent, Given, Hutton, Delfouneso, nzogbia and have only just rid ourselves of Ireland. that first 5 will be on a combined £200kpw+ if the accepted figures are considered reasonably accurate.
That's about £10.5m a year, for none contributing staff at a business whose last reported turnover was £80m so about 13% of our turnover. It's not unreasonable to think that there will be a lot more money available for wages once those contracts are gone. I know we won't have been paying those wages in full but we still need to consider them as liabilities next year and as we don't know how much is being covered it's easier to stick with what we can make a reasonable guess at.
The last financials reported were for the AM season and showed our wage bill as £70m (out of the £80m above), since then we've seen a lot of player changes with some big earners leaving and not many high earners replacing them. Looking at the incomings and outgoings I'd guess our annual wage bill this year, when the reports come out in 2015, will be £55-60m, with 10m of that (covered above) still on players who don't play.
Considering performance, league placing and crowds I'd say there's little chance that the 12-13 figures will see a turnover that low and it will probably stand as the lowest we post as a premier league team so even with no wage changes our position will have improved, the TV money will further that until the players start grabbing a bigger share.
All the numbers (even if they are based on educated guesses) point to the situation looking a lot healthier on that front and the £20 net spend per summer is pretty well established so we can trust similar again. We also now have a pretty full squad so unless we're going to sell a hell of lot of them we're limited to a handful of transfers anyway so the safe money would be to suggest we'll spend something around £20m on 3-4players. Given Lambert has a good record for his bigger spending (Benteke, Kozak, Okore and Vlaar are his 4 most expensive signings) I'm going to trust him to pull out 4 signings of that standard in the summer.
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8 points from that lot, at the least.
The trouble this season Ads is that it is almost impossible to guess how we will perform against any given opponent. Their league position seems to have no bearing on the result.
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8 points from that lot, at the least.
6 pts and we would have 33 after 28 games. Virtually safe. Gotta target the two home wins there.
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This season I started to become really depressed that the plan included a "no glory" element which allowed the board and the owner to regard the simple survival in the Premiership as a legitimate and adequate ambition so long as the gates held up and the costs went down.
This is the key for me. It upsets me that "Premiership survival" is considered good. What's the point of turning up each year and aiming to be 10th.
So you've been told we'll be aiming for 10th next year and the year after? Where did you get this information?
Obviously, nobody has told him that, but we all form our own opinions about what the ambitions of the club are, and those opinions tend to be shaped by what we see them doing.
It's difficult to look at the events of the last 2 or 3 years and really say we're being set up with any ambition. The board don't even talk to us about ambition any more, let alone actually do anything to suggest there is any.
After MON left the next two seasons were pretty much a write off since the club were literally all over the place. When Mcleish was sacked, the club visibly changed its policy. It is now trying something different. Will it work? I don't have a clue. But the one thing I'm not doing is making assumptions. I also note that most people agreed that mid table would be an acceptable target for this season. Why then talk about finishing 10th every season? If it looks like we're heading, or even aiming, for the same position next year then fair enough.
We're mid table, but let's not pretend we're not in a relegation battle. We're just 5 points above the drop zone so we're not comfortable. We've lost 7 home games in the league. This is not acceptable to fans so don't be surprised when they complain about it.
Where did I say I was surprised? I picked out the comment because of an assumption I disagreed with. You'll also note I said I wasn't making assumptions so I'm not pretending anything.
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I'd love to know what people's definitions of 'being in a relegation battle' are. Is it being in the bottom 3? Is it being within 1 point of the bottom 3, or 2 points or 3 or 4 etc?
I would say with only a 5 point gap between us and the bottom 3, we are right in it, a swing over 3 or 4 games with us losing and the teams below us winning could have us easily down there. People have pointed out we're currently 'mid-table' and 10th and the unlikelyhood of all the teams below us getting results when we don't, but over 4 or 5 games, with us playing many of those teams too, i don't think it's that improbable and could easily happen. A lot of those teams below us have been picking up points, which is why it really is so tight from 10th to 20th. Scarily so in many ways.
TBH i don't really like the term 'relegation battle' being used at this juncture in the season it's a term more appropriate for the back end of the season and the last 5 games or so. But what should be clear, whatever you call it, is that we sit precariously close points wise to the relegation spots and we have no room for complacency. We might go on a run until the end of the season and be comfortably safe with a few games to go, we could quite easily go the other way too though, a few injuries to the likes of Vlaar, Gabby and Benteke and we could be in trouble.
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8 points from that lot, at the least.
6 pts and we would have 33 after 28 games. Virtually safe. Gotta target the two home wins there.
AAt the least. I think Cardiff are more than beatable and I would fancy a point at Newcastle.
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I'd love to know what people's definitions of 'being in a relegation battle' are. Is it being in the bottom 3? Is it being within 1 point of the bottom 3, or 2 points or 3 or 4 etc?
I would say with only a 5 point gap between us and the bottom 3, we are right in it, a swing over 3 or 4 games with us losing and the teams below us winning could have us easily down there. People have pointed out we're currently 'mid-table' and 10th and the unlikelyhood of all the teams below us getting results when we don't, but over 4 or 5 games, with us playing many of those teams too, i don't think it's that improbable and could easily happen. A lot of those teams below us have been picking up points, which is why it really is so tight from 10th to 20th. Scarily so in many ways.
TBH i don't really like the term 'relegation battle' being used at this juncture in the season it's a term more appropriate for the back end of the season and the last 5 games or so. But what should be clear, whatever you call it, is that we sit precariously close points wise to the relegation spots and we have no room for complacency. We might go on a run until the end of the season and be comfortably safe with a few games to go, we could quite easily go the other way too though, a few injuries to the likes of Vlaar, Gabby and Benteke and we could be in trouble.
If we agree that 40 points is the safety mark then we are ahead of schedule by my reckoning. I predicted one point from our last 3 games and that a draw against Albion. We were back on 23 points then. If my predictions stay on course....wins against West Ham, Norwich, Fulham at home and away at Cardiff should be expected. Then draws with Hull, Stoke, Southampton or Newcastle we see ourselves above the safety mark. It's possible that we could lose some of those win games and still be safe. We would need a really atrocious show of form not to get 40 points though from where we are now.
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I'd love to know what people's definitions of 'being in a relegation battle' are. Is it being in the bottom 3? Is it being within 1 point of the bottom 3, or 2 points or 3 or 4 etc?
I would say with only a 5 point gap between us and the bottom 3, we are right in it, a swing over 3 or 4 games with us losing and the teams below us winning could have us easily down there. People have pointed out we're currently 'mid-table' and 10th and the unlikelyhood of all the teams below us getting results when we don't, but over 4 or 5 games, with us playing many of those teams too, i don't think it's that improbable and could easily happen. A lot of those teams below us have been picking up points, which is why it really is so tight from 10th to 20th. Scarily so in many ways.
TBH i don't really like the term 'relegation battle' being used at this juncture in the season it's a term more appropriate for the back end of the season and the last 5 games or so. But what should be clear, whatever you call it, is that we sit precariously close points wise to the relegation spots and we have no room for complacency. We might go on a run until the end of the season and be comfortably safe with a few games to go, we could quite easily go the other way too though, a few injuries to the likes of Vlaar, Gabby and Benteke and we could be in trouble.
All three of those have been injured at various points this season, yet we've still managed to at least keep our heads above water relegation wise. Yes, losing three key players woud hurt us, but the chances of that are now better than a side below us losing three key players, yet that never comes into our thinking, does it?
To my mind, it's a very negative outlook to expect enough teams below us to go on these sort of runs and drag us into it. Yes, it's possible, but no more than us doing something similar and pulling further clear. Plus, we are talking about quite a few teams needing to do that, which again makes it highly unlikely if you start calculating the odds.
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8 points from that lot, at the least.
6 pts and we would have 33 after 28 games. Virtually safe. Gotta target the two home wins there.
AAt the least. I think Cardiff are more than beatable and I would fancy a point at Newcastle.
All four are more than beatable but it depends which villa turn up - a high tempo up and at em villa will pick up plenty of points , but if its the dour negative villa then we could lose .
I hope we can pick up at least 7 points from the next 4 games but with villa this season who knows what to expect from one half to another - lets hope we can get an early goal against the hammers and open them up.
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If we were sitting in the bottom 5 and only 5 points away from the relegation zone, then I think you'd have a point. However, being 10th and expecting 7 teams to suddenly reverse the habbits of a season is not going to happen, especially as they're playing each other too.
We're better than 10 sides below us and will continue to be so throughout the balance of the season.
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I'd love to know what people's definitions of 'being in a relegation battle' are. Is it being in the bottom 3? Is it being within 1 point of the bottom 3, or 2 points or 3 or 4 etc?
I would say with only a 5 point gap between us and the bottom 3, we are right in it, a swing over 3 or 4 games with us losing and the teams below us winning could have us easily down there. People have pointed out we're currently 'mid-table' and 10th and the unlikelyhood of all the teams below us getting results when we don't, but over 4 or 5 games, with us playing many of those teams too, i don't think it's that improbable and could easily happen. A lot of those teams below us have been picking up points, which is why it really is so tight from 10th to 20th. Scarily so in many ways.
TBH i don't really like the term 'relegation battle' being used at this juncture in the season it's a term more appropriate for the back end of the season and the last 5 games or so. But what should be clear, whatever you call it, is that we sit precariously close points wise to the relegation spots and we have no room for complacency. We might go on a run until the end of the season and be comfortably safe with a few games to go, we could quite easily go the other way too though, a few injuries to the likes of Vlaar, Gabby and Benteke and we could be in trouble.
If we agree that 40 points is the safety mark then we are ahead of schedule by my reckoning. I predicted one point from our last 3 games and that a draw against Albion. We were back on 23 points then. If my predictions stay on course....wins against West Ham, Norwich, Fulham at home and away at Cardiff should be expected. Then draws with Hull, Stoke, Southampton or Newcastle we see ourselves above the safety mark. It's possible that we could lose some of those win games and still be safe. We would need a really atrocious show of form not to get 40 points though from where we are now.
Do you think 40 points will be enough this season though?
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I think if you finish on 40 points, then you'll be a good few clear of the drop. I would hope we can get as close to 50 as possible.
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West Ham, as 3rd from bottom presently, are on course for 35 points after 38 games. So they need at least a 15% upturn in form to make 40 points not be enough. We're on course for 43, by the way.
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I think if you finish on 40 points, then you'll be a good few clear of the drop. I would hope we can get as close to 50 as possible.
The target for me is 50 points and 10th place - for clubs wishing to avoid relegation I think 40 points will still be required as nobody is cut adrift this season .
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West Ham, as 3rd from bottom presently, are on course for 35 points after 38 games. So they need at least a 15% upturn in form to make 40 points not be enough. We're on course for 43, by the way.
True but as palace and sunderland have shown a couple of wins can lift you up the table fast with things as tight as they are - I wouldn't rule anyone out yet but of the teams down there Fulham look the worst to me.
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Our main problem is the inability to go on a little run and pick up some points. It's why the Everton defeat and performance was so bloody frustrating.
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The reason why those teams are below us is that in terms of consistency they have been consistently worse albeit marginally. That's why, the probability of them being consistently better over the remaining games is quite low. Not at all dismissing how tight things are but basically we would need to see a downturn in our level of consistency combined with at least 8 of the 10 sides below us to see an upturn in their consistency to see us slide into that danger zone. Sounds obvious but is always better being higher in the table and having points on the board than predicting the future.
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Its around about February and March than one or two sides give up the fight. I might wager that Fulham and Cardiff could be the two to get cut well a drift come the end.
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I'd love to know what people's definitions of 'being in a relegation battle' are. Is it being in the bottom 3? Is it being within 1 point of the bottom 3, or 2 points or 3 or 4 etc?
I would say with only a 5 point gap between us and the bottom 3, we are right in it, a swing over 3 or 4 games with us losing and the teams below us winning could have us easily down there. People have pointed out we're currently 'mid-table' and 10th and the unlikelyhood of all the teams below us getting results when we don't, but over 4 or 5 games, with us playing many of those teams too, i don't think it's that improbable and could easily happen. A lot of those teams below us have been picking up points, which is why it really is so tight from 10th to 20th. Scarily so in many ways.
TBH i don't really like the term 'relegation battle' being used at this juncture in the season it's a term more appropriate for the back end of the season and the last 5 games or so. But what should be clear, whatever you call it, is that we sit precariously close points wise to the relegation spots and we have no room for complacency. We might go on a run until the end of the season and be comfortably safe with a few games to go, we could quite easily go the other way too though, a few injuries to the likes of Vlaar, Gabby and Benteke and we could be in trouble.
All three of those have been injured at various points this season, yet we've still managed to at least keep our heads above water relegation wise. Yes, losing three key players woud hurt us, but the chances of that are now better than a side below us losing three key players, yet that never comes into our thinking, does it?
To my mind, it's a very negative outlook to expect enough teams below us to go on these sort of runs and drag us into it. Yes, it's possible, but no more than us doing something similar and pulling further clear. Plus, we are talking about quite a few teams needing to do that, which again makes it highly unlikely if you start calculating the odds.
TBH i think Vlaar is the key man to keep injury free and could make a massive difference to how our season transpires. Unfortunately he's one of the most injury prone.
There's no negativity in looking at possibilities and probabilities, and nowhere have i said 'i expect' everyone to catch up, I've said it could go either way and It is hardly the massive leap of probability that some people seem to make however, especially over the 14 games we have left. Of the teams below us, there is 1 team 2 points behind, 4 teams 3 points behind, and 2 teams 4 points behind and West Ham 5 points behind in the relegation spot in 18th. Of those teams, Cardiff, Sunderland, West Ham and Stoke got wins last weekend, and Hull and West Brom a draw.
I expect if you calculate the odds of that kind of gap being closed and overturned over the next 14 games, the odds wouldn't be as far fetched as you make out.
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Its around about February and March than one or two sides give up the fight. I might wager that Fulham and Cardiff could be the two to get cut well a drift come the end.
If Fulham's woeful form carries on, it wouldn't surprise me if they panic and turn to Curbishley to save them.
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Its around about February and March than one or two sides give up the fight. I might wager that Fulham and Cardiff could be the two to get cut well a drift come the end.
I have a feeling 2 teams will be cut adrift but that 18th spot will be the one that keeps up with the rest of the pack and keeps everyone on their toes. Would be great if we could have 3 teams cut adrift and save us a bit of worrying.
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Win the next 2 games and we can virtually forget any talk of being dragged into trouble , we need to go out on the front foot and take the game to west ham - i really feel this is a great chance to finally land back to back wins.
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TBH i think Vlaar is the key man to keep injury free and could make a massive difference to how our season transpires. Unfortunately he's one of the most injury prone.
Of the risks Villa have taken recently not getting in cover for Vlaar is the most significant I reckon.
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Its around about February and March than one or two sides give up the fight. I might wager that Fulham and Cardiff could be the two to get cut well a drift come the end.
If Fulham's woeful form carries on, it wouldn't surprise me if they panic and turn to Curbishley to save them.
Was thinking the same last night as I saw him sitting in the stand - wouldn't surprise me at all to see them make a change of that kind very soon.
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If we win our next two games it will create not only that separation but create that level of desperation for the teams below us. If we play at the current level of consistency we'll likely get 4 points, not 6. It's very unlikely any of the teams below us looking at their fixtures will win both of their games and especially with a few teams playing each other.
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Win the next 2 games and we can virtually forget any talk of being dragged into trouble , we need to go out on the front foot and take the game to west ham - i really feel this is a great chance to finally land back to back wins.
We'll win against West Ham, get a bit optimistic and then run up agianst a Cardiff with a new manager surge and lose and be all doom ridden again.
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Win the next 2 games and we can virtually forget any talk of being dragged into trouble , we need to go out on the front foot and take the game to west ham - i really feel this is a great chance to finally land back to back wins.
We'll win against West Ham, get a bit optimistic and then run up agianst a Cardiff with a new manager surge and lose and be all doom ridden again.
I'm more optimistic about beating Cardiff than West Ham.
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Our main problem is the inability to go on a little run and pick up some points. It's why the Everton defeat and performance was so bloody frustrating.
Inconsistency is the hallmark of a midtable side.
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I'd love to know what people's definitions of 'being in a relegation battle' are. Is it being in the bottom 3? Is it being within 1 point of the bottom 3, or 2 points or 3 or 4 etc?
I would say with only a 5 point gap between us and the bottom 3, we are right in it, a swing over 3 or 4 games with us losing and the teams below us winning could have us easily down there. People have pointed out we're currently 'mid-table' and 10th and the unlikelyhood of all the teams below us getting results when we don't, but over 4 or 5 games, with us playing many of those teams too, i don't think it's that improbable and could easily happen. A lot of those teams below us have been picking up points, which is why it really is so tight from 10th to 20th. Scarily so in many ways.
TBH i don't really like the term 'relegation battle' being used at this juncture in the season it's a term more appropriate for the back end of the season and the last 5 games or so. But what should be clear, whatever you call it, is that we sit precariously close points wise to the relegation spots and we have no room for complacency. We might go on a run until the end of the season and be comfortably safe with a few games to go, we could quite easily go the other way too though, a few injuries to the likes of Vlaar, Gabby and Benteke and we could be in trouble.
All three of those have been injured at various points this season, yet we've still managed to at least keep our heads above water relegation wise. Yes, losing three key players woud hurt us, but the chances of that are now better than a side below us losing three key players, yet that never comes into our thinking, does it?
To my mind, it's a very negative outlook to expect enough teams below us to go on these sort of runs and drag us into it. Yes, it's possible, but no more than us doing something similar and pulling further clear. Plus, we are talking about quite a few teams needing to do that, which again makes it highly unlikely if you start calculating the odds.
TBH i think Vlaar is the key man to keep injury free and could make a massive difference to how our season transpires. Unfortunately he's one of the most injury prone.
There's no negativity in looking at possibilities and probabilities, and nowhere have i said 'i expect' everyone to catch up, I've said it could go either way and It is hardly the massive leap of probability that some people seem to make however, especially over the 14 games we have left. Of the teams below us, there is 1 team 2 points behind, 4 teams 3 points behind, and 2 teams 4 points behind and West Ham 5 points behind in the relegation spot in 18th. Of those teams, Cardiff, Sunderland, West Ham and Stoke got wins last weekend, and Hull and West Brom a draw.
I expect if you calculate the odds of that kind of gap being closed and overturned over the next 14 games, the odds wouldn't be as far fetched as you make out.
So you expect us to stay up?
I'm not a betting man and can't access gambling websites from work, so would anyone like to check what our actual odds to go down are?
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Win the next 2 games and we can virtually forget any talk of being dragged into trouble , we need to go out on the front foot and take the game to west ham - i really feel this is a great chance to finally land back to back wins.
We'll win against West Ham, get a bit optimistic and then run up agianst a Cardiff with a new manager surge and lose and be all doom ridden again.
I'm more optimistic about beating Cardiff than West Ham.
So am I. With Gabby likely back, I think we will drill Cardiff. If anything, I can see us scambling a 0-0 against a tedious West Ham.
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Win the next 2 games and we can virtually forget any talk of being dragged into trouble , we need to go out on the front foot and take the game to west ham - i really feel this is a great chance to finally land back to back wins.
We'll win against West Ham, get a bit optimistic and then run up agianst a Cardiff with a new manager surge and lose and be all doom ridden again.
I'm more optimistic about beating Cardiff than West Ham.
West Ham were pretty unadventorous when they came to Villa Park last year, and Carrol's out.
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I'm not a betting man and can't access gambling websites from work, so would anyone like to check what our actual odds to go down are?
Quick look on oddschecker sees most have us at between 12-1 and 16-1 - no one has closed the book on us yet, but then a fair few still have the book open for Newcastle and Southampton. 2 wins in the next 3 qnd you'll get silly odds.
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Like others have said, the real plus point of being 10th, even though points are tight, is that it requires so many teams below us to all do well for us to end up in the shit.
Saturday's results were widely considered to be absolutely terrible for us and we went from 10th to 10th! The chances of another weekend of all the results going against us are highly unlikely. But like others have said, pick up 6-8 points from the next 4 games and we'll be virtually safe with two and a half months of the season left.
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I'd love to know what people's definitions of 'being in a relegation battle' are. Is it being in the bottom 3? Is it being within 1 point of the bottom 3, or 2 points or 3 or 4 etc?
I would say with only a 5 point gap between us and the bottom 3, we are right in it, a swing over 3 or 4 games with us losing and the teams below us winning could have us easily down there. People have pointed out we're currently 'mid-table' and 10th and the unlikelyhood of all the teams below us getting results when we don't, but over 4 or 5 games, with us playing many of those teams too, i don't think it's that improbable and could easily happen. A lot of those teams below us have been picking up points, which is why it really is so tight from 10th to 20th. Scarily so in many ways.
TBH i don't really like the term 'relegation battle' being used at this juncture in the season it's a term more appropriate for the back end of the season and the last 5 games or so. But what should be clear, whatever you call it, is that we sit precariously close points wise to the relegation spots and we have no room for complacency. We might go on a run until the end of the season and be comfortably safe with a few games to go, we could quite easily go the other way too though, a few injuries to the likes of Vlaar, Gabby and Benteke and we could be in trouble.
All three of those have been injured at various points this season, yet we've still managed to at least keep our heads above water relegation wise. Yes, losing three key players woud hurt us, but the chances of that are now better than a side below us losing three key players, yet that never comes into our thinking, does it?
To my mind, it's a very negative outlook to expect enough teams below us to go on these sort of runs and drag us into it. Yes, it's possible, but no more than us doing something similar and pulling further clear. Plus, we are talking about quite a few teams needing to do that, which again makes it highly unlikely if you start calculating the odds.
TBH i think Vlaar is the key man to keep injury free and could make a massive difference to how our season transpires. Unfortunately he's one of the most injury prone.
There's no negativity in looking at possibilities and probabilities, and nowhere have i said 'i expect' everyone to catch up, I've said it could go either way and It is hardly the massive leap of probability that some people seem to make however, especially over the 14 games we have left. Of the teams below us, there is 1 team 2 points behind, 4 teams 3 points behind, and 2 teams 4 points behind and West Ham 5 points behind in the relegation spot in 18th. Of those teams, Cardiff, Sunderland, West Ham and Stoke got wins last weekend, and Hull and West Brom a draw.
I expect if you calculate the odds of that kind of gap being closed and overturned over the next 14 games, the odds wouldn't be as far fetched as you make out.
So you expect us to stay up?
I'm not a betting man and can't access gambling websites from work, so would anyone like to check what our actual odds to go down are?
I certainly hope we stay up (goes without saying) and i think there are 3 worse teams than us in the premiership, so yes i i think we'll stay up, though think it might be a bit tighter than we would like and there may be a few 'squeaky bum' moments before we are ultimately safe. 2 wins in the next 2 games would certainly reassure me though.
Re the odds, we range between 10-1 and 14-1 on most bookies websites, though you have to remember those odds are as much about where the money is, as they are the odds of it happening.
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The thing I find hardest to swallow is that here we are at this time of year yet again having the same debate about whether things are getting better or getting worse. Another season slips away into the history books with nothing for us to to be genuinely excited about. Put out more flags we are not quite as bad as we were last season. Give the manager a new contract and a pay rise.
If we survive, what needs happen but I am certain will not happen, is that not only must the manager be given substantial funds in the summer to buy at least three proven quality players but an adequate amount of money has to be earmarked for spending in the January 2015 window if we are still as wobbly as we are now. We must not have a third year when the premiership status of the club is gambled with. If we are ten points above the relegation positions the money does not get spent but rolled up into the spending of summer 2015.
It will not happen of course. Faulkner and Lambert will say what they think will please the owner and the dice will be rolled again. Change of the magnitude we need and the speed at which we need to change will, in my opinion only come with a change of ownership.
If that does not happen it is very long odds on it being more of the same for years to come.
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Jesus Brian. You sound depressed and make out like it is the end of the world and we are going to be shit forever. Why can you not accept that there is a chance that things could possibly improve. You might as well knit your own scarf: Proud History, No Future.
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Jesus Brian. You sound depressed and make out like it is the end of the world and we are going to be shit forever. Why can you not accept that there is a chance that things could possibly improve. You might as well knit your own scarf: Proud History, No Future.
He is not depressed, he is just in France.
Beautiful country, by the way.
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I think we will get 3 better quality players in the summer Brian, I really do. I have a bit of optimism on that. I agree on Jan 15, but think there was money this winter, just getting targets did not happen.
We need to get players like Bertrand to sign long term with us and then target players of similar quality to him and build our first team up. I think a fair few will leave too, and it will be a different squad next season. Lambert has form for brining in 6 plus players a summer, and although I think 3 will be more quality I reckon we will get a few more Bacuna type punts too.
As for the league, I think we will draw the next 2. Leaving us on 29 and still involved, probably in about 12th. I would sooner win one, lose one. Which I don't know.
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I hope the quality of player we sign improves in the summer. Villa have been stripped right down over the last few years and we really need to start building back up now. I hope that good football and entertainment comes with that.
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I think we will get 3 better quality players in the summer Brian, I really do. I have a bit of optimism on that. I agree on Jan 15, but think there was money this winter, just getting targets did not happen.
We need to get players like Bertrand to sign long term with us and then target players of similar quality to him and build our first team up. I think a fair few will leave too, and it will be a different squad next season. Lambert has form for brining in 6 plus players a summer, and although I think 3 will be more quality I reckon we will get a few more Bacuna type punts too.
As for the league, I think we will draw the next 2. Leaving us on 29 and still involved, probably in about 12th. I would sooner win one, lose one. Which I don't know.
I fancy a point tomorrow and then beating Cardiff away. That should see us maintain 10th position.
I have no problem with the punts on players like Bacuna, or even Bowery for that matter, but they now need to happen alongside some more higher level signings of the Benteke or Okore variety.
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I think we will get 3 better quality players in the summer Brian, I really do. I have a bit of optimism on that. I agree on Jan 15, but think there was money this winter, just getting targets did not happen.
We need to get players like Bertrand to sign long term with us and then target players of similar quality to him and build our first team up. I think a fair few will leave too, and it will be a different squad next season. Lambert has form for brining in 6 plus players a summer, and although I think 3 will be more quality I reckon we will get a few more Bacuna type punts too.
As for the league, I think we will draw the next 2. Leaving us on 29 and still involved, probably in about 12th. I would sooner win one, lose one. Which I don't know.
I fancy a point tomorrow
I'll have a point of bitter thanks
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I started this thread so I might as well tie it up before it sinks. What I think that the future holds if the current manager, board, owner and policies remain unchanged and I think they will remain unchanged because both Lambert and Faulkner have mastered the art of saying what the owner wants to hear, is relegation. I think we are the worst team I have seen this season and relegation will come with the game at Tottenham. If it does not and we scrape clear again it will come next year as our inexorable decline under the current regime and policies continue.
Once relegated Lambert will be retained as "the best man to get us back into the premiership". He will fail at that just as he has failed at everything else at Villa in his tenure and four or five months into our first championship season he and his equally inept staff will be sacked. At that point with anybody else, anybody, the losing at Villa Park monkey will fall off our backs and we will start to win games and slowly but surely start the long hard process of trying to put behind us all the self inflicted damage done to the club since the departure of O'Neill. We will rise again but not just yet.
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No Brian i think the change will happen when Lerner sees how far season ticket sales have fallen.
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I think you are spot on brian, if we go down they will see lambert as a man who has 2 promotions on his cv and keep him , and I don t think he would get us back up either to be honest .
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Rob I think they would even spin the numbers when the early bird ST sales fall off a cliff. The best performances being put in at Villa Park currently are by the ticket sales staff. Randy Lerner would be told that the fall off in sales is "only to be expected" and that a marketing push will soon have things tickety boo and he will say "Er..okay."
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"We remain convinced that Paul Lambert is the right man to begin the long climb back from League One to the Premiership where we belong." - Paul Faulkner, August 2015
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I started this thread so I might as well tie it up before it sinks. What I think that the future holds if the current manager, board, owner and policies remain unchanged and I think they will remain unchanged because both Lambert and Faulkner have mastered the art of saying what the owner wants to hear, is relegation. I think we are the worst team I have seen this season and relegation will come with the game at Tottenham. If it does not and we scrape clear again it will come next year as our inexorable decline under the current regime and policies continue.
Once relegated Lambert will be retained as "the best man to get us back into the premiership". He will fail at that just as he has failed at everything else at Villa in his tenure and four or five months into our first championship season he and his equally inept staff will be sacked. At that point with anybody else, anybody, the losing at Villa Park monkey will fall off our backs and we will start to win games and slowly but surely start the long hard process of trying to put behind us all the self inflicted damage done to the club since the departure of O'Neill. We will rise again but not just yet.
Or,
Lambert keeps them up, the board begin to release funds for more expansive but still sensible signings and the team starts winning games, climbing the table and competing for trophies. Grealish, Robinson and Donacien are joined by more experienced players alongside the likes of Okore, Vlaar, Betrand, Delph, Guzan and Benteke and the squad begins to look like a real force.
How many other scenarios are there? - probably several!
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"We remain convinced that Paul Lambert is the right man to begin the long climb back from League One to the Premiership where we belong." - Paul Faulkner, August 2015
Where we belong right now is the Championship, with a championship squad, a championship manager & championship leadership.
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In a few minutes I will start to write my weekly newsletter to the people who look to me to give them advice on sports betting. I bet on sport. I have bet on sport since I was old enough to write out a betting slip. I have made a lot of money out of sports betting.
There are indeed several scenarios of the way forward for Villa and as a Villa fan for seven decades I hope desperately that we stay up and all our chickens start to lay golden eggs. I can only call it how I see it dispassionately and I see inexorable decline without major change and I do not see that change coming in the next year and a half.
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In a few minutes I will start to write my weekly newsletter to the people who look to me to give them advice on sports betting. I bet on sport. I have bet on sport since I was old enough to write out a betting slip. I have made a lot of money out of sports betting.
There are indeed several scenarios of the way forward for Villa and as a Villa fan for seven decades I hope desperately that we stay up and all our chickens start to lay golden eggs. I can only call it how I see it dispassionately and I see inexorable decline without major change and I do not see that change coming in the next year and a half.
I didn't show any interest in how RL stewarded the Cleveland Browns but IIRC he allowed the team to atrophy ....
... Which would certainly support your scenario.
I certainly do not have a particularly optimistic outlook on things but would prefer to see what happens this Summer, which I think will be the pivotal time to determine whether the Chairman and his manager have got what it takes to steward this club back into the limelight.
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I hope you are right Mr E I am running out of years.
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In a few minutes I will start to write my weekly newsletter to the people who look to me to give them advice on sports betting. I bet on sport. I have bet on sport since I was old enough to write out a betting slip. I have made a lot of money out of sports betting.
There are indeed several scenarios of the way forward for Villa and as a Villa fan for seven decades I hope desperately that we stay up and all our chickens start to lay golden eggs. I can only call it how I see it dispassionately and I see inexorable decline without major change and I do not see that change coming in the next year and a half.
Absolutely spot on. Our departure from the PL is inevitable in my opinion and despite our improved points tally I think we are closer to going down this season than many fans think.
The huge drop off in ST sales is more likely to because of relegation rather than poor performances.
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I started this thread so I might as well tie it up before it sinks. What I think that the future holds if the current manager, board, owner and policies remain unchanged and I think they will remain unchanged because both Lambert and Faulkner have mastered the art of saying what the owner wants to hear, is relegation. I think we are the worst team I have seen this season and relegation will come with the game at Tottenham. If it does not and we scrape clear again it will come next year as our inexorable decline under the current regime and policies continue.
Once relegated Lambert will be retained as "the best man to get us back into the premiership". He will fail at that just as he has failed at everything else at Villa in his tenure and four or five months into our first championship season he and his equally inept staff will be sacked. At that point with anybody else, anybody, the losing at Villa Park monkey will fall off our backs and we will start to win games and slowly but surely start the long hard process of trying to put behind us all the self inflicted damage done to the club since the departure of O'Neill. We will rise again but not just yet.
Or,
Lambert keeps them up, the board begin to release funds for more expansive but still sensible signings and the team starts winning games, climbing the table and competing for trophies. Grealish, Robinson and Donacien are joined by more experienced players alongside the likes of Okore, Vlaar, Betrand, Delph, Guzan and Benteke and the squad begins to look like a real force.
How many other scenarios are there? - probably several!
"More sensible signings"? That sounds suspiciously like an updated "young and hungry", and we all know what that really meant...
Cheap lower league bargain basement crap.
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I started this thread so I might as well tie it up before it sinks. What I think that the future holds if the current manager, board, owner and policies remain unchanged and I think they will remain unchanged because both Lambert and Faulkner have mastered the art of saying what the owner wants to hear, is relegation. I think we are the worst team I have seen this season and relegation will come with the game at Tottenham. If it does not and we scrape clear again it will come next year as our inexorable decline under the current regime and policies continue.
Once relegated Lambert will be retained as "the best man to get us back into the premiership". He will fail at that just as he has failed at everything else at Villa in his tenure and four or five months into our first championship season he and his equally inept staff will be sacked. At that point with anybody else, anybody, the losing at Villa Park monkey will fall off our backs and we will start to win games and slowly but surely start the long hard process of trying to put behind us all the self inflicted damage done to the club since the departure of O'Neill. We will rise again but not just yet.
Or,
Lambert keeps them up, the board begin to release funds for more expansive but still sensible signings and the team starts winning games, climbing the table and competing for trophies. Grealish, Robinson and Donacien are joined by more experienced players alongside the likes of Okore, Vlaar, Betrand, Delph, Guzan and Benteke and the squad begins to look like a real force.
How many other scenarios are there? - probably several!
"More sensible signings"? That sounds suspiciously like an updated "young and hungry", and we all know what that really meant...
Cheap lower league bargain basement crap.
Well, the quote you tried to copy was about releasing funds for "more expansive but still sensible signings", by which I meant better quality / more expensive players that do not cost crazy fees / salaries i.e. improving the overall squad quality rather than (as has been the case from Lambert to this point) chasing cheap headcount.
And, yes, that will probably mean still signing players that they think will have some sell-on potential.