Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: brontebilly on January 08, 2011, 04:36:12 AM
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Read an article yesterday from when DOL left Leeds. Had just led them to 6th and was leaving as the club were selling their best player Rio Ferdinand to one of their main rivals. Got me thinking is this groundhog day here. Just hope we havent gambled future gate receipts on bringing players in, I'm hoping the brakes were put on soon enough. Leeds of course replaced DOL, with a supposed safe pair of hands El Tel. Yet he turned up like Houllier without his heart really in it, (think it was delayed too as El Tel had other commitment.....a TV programme in his case...ha). it went from bad to worse. Venables resigned after Woodgate was sold. Still Leeds shouldnt have been anywhere near relegation but after a near miss with Peter Reid they went down the next season.
Its just when I see us linked with loan deals and swap deals it reminds me of Leeds at that time. A malaise set in at Elland Road and it seems well underway at Villa Park.
Anyone care to reassure me that we arent on the verge on a major fall?
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I think that Leeds team had more fight in it than ours.
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We appear not to have any money, as yet, to buy players.
The financial crisis has frightened bejazus out of Randy.
Houllier's job is to bulk out squad for peanuts.
If the players feel their money is under threat or their place in squad is then it follows there will be moral problems. You get used to scraping by on £50k a week. Randy is only reacting to circumstances and whoever he answers to in US.
I wonder how many players have a clause in contract letting them go if Villa drop?
Leeds maybe did have more fight but then they were not as cosseted as modern footballers and did not have journalists hanging round the training pitch ready to print every word of every spat.
There is something wrong presently and usually it is money at the root. Bad morale amongst players is bad for club and plaayers have short term point of view.
A win will change it all. Poibts equal to seven wins will save us. Is it too much to ask?
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No parallels with Leeds.
They were a club living wildly beyond its means in pursuit of the big time.
When they didnt make the breakthrough it forced a fire sale of their best players, clubs being able to go in and pick off their players at a cut price because they were struggling to pay the interest on massive loans and had the bailiffs at the door.
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I think we are financially much better placed than Leeds were. The biggest issue we have got is the squad fillers to back up the first team are quite simply way over paid/ priced, under played, and not good enough. That presents a problem, when 2-3 players for the last 3 seasons have carried the rest. 2 have left, 1 is badly out of form and 1 has decided he is not a left winger anymore.
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Mad spending has driven the game doolally. The players especially. Tevez and Rooney held their clubs to ransom, effectively. We are not bankrupt like Leeds but certainly RL has had a good look at revenues and what is expectd to come in over the coming years. The banks or whoever lends football clubs money what their percentage back. If you do not spend it you stay out of the red, or at least not so far in the red.
The economics of football beat Alan Sugar and quite a few others.
The players are gredy temperamental typesand want to be top dog and that usually involves birds and cars and fancy living for the vapid vacant few like that who make it to the top. Not all but a good few. Those who feel their privileged livelihood is threatened react by failing to perform and causing disphoria within the clubs. It is a delicate balance. I can't see Villa going that way but it needs good considerate management to keep them in check.
If Houllier brings in good competent players on lower wages who can have the effect of making the better paid one's play for their place then we could be all right. If the automatic selection top paid players think they are irreplacable then who is running the club and choosing the team? Certainly not the token head of affairs. I am not a manager but I can see the balance went squ-iff for a while and still is perhaps.
If your club is winning you get all the money you need but if you spend to get there and do not have the backing of Citeh etc you risk being a Leeds. Chelsea without Abramovich would have ended in the knackers yard under Ken Bates.
I can see that Randy is not squandering money this season and probably not next either until the risk reward ratio improves. Until then it is up with barricades until the financial climate improves and the interest rates on borrowing are right again..or until some hugely rich Chinese magnate decides they need a top class football club with a great pedigree stretching back to the Tang dynasty,
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what a team having a dip in form and a new manager getting the players to play the way he wants them to compared to leeds who mortgaged their club on the off chance they would be in the champions league every year!
Sounds similar to me!
however there are harbingers of doom on here who love the melodramatic sound of their own voice who wont be happy till we go down and when we get out of it will say i knew we would really!
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None.
Next piece of overblown hyperbole please.
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O Leary was sacked- o neill quit -huge difference!
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i havent checked as i cant be arsed,
but i bet one thing that reasonable sized clubs who have gone down and stayed down for a while have got in common,
is that they all panicked and kept getting rid of there managers quickly, as soon as the team had a drop in form
high turn over of managers- failure
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think there are valid similarities in the two clubs. Both squads were in decline; a few bad eggs among the players etc.. The big question is did Randy financially overstretch himself like Risdale on the strength of a promise from his manager? I would hope faced with the loss of 20+m from relegation there would be a concerted investment to bring quality in this January, but a couple of loan deals and a failed attempt to bring in a youngster doesn't hint that its gonna happen. I'm sure we're not going to hear why MON left after all this time, or indeed be given any idea of what shape the club finances are in, but i think after the January transfer window we'll be able to read between the lines at least
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Leeds were living way beyond their means.
Even the office goldfish were on a long term loan.
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so are we. 40m losses are not only unsustainable, they'd also stop us getting in the CL which is the whole point in the first place
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so are we. 40m losses are not only unsustainable, they'd also stop us getting in the CL which is the whole point in the first place
But Leeds weren't being bankrolled by a wealthy benefactor.
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i havent checked as i cant be arsed,
but i bet one thing that reasonable sized clubs who have gone down and stayed down for a while have got in common,
is that they all panicked and kept getting rid of there managers quickly, as soon as the team had a drop in form
high turn over of managers- failure
I reckon a more common factor would be appointing shit managers and not spending any money.
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so are we. 40m losses are not only unsustainable, they'd also stop us getting in the CL which is the whole point in the first place
But Leeds weren't being bankrolled by a wealthy benefactor.
Any suggestions as to how Randy is going to pay back the loans to the family trust that become due in a few years?
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so are we. 40m losses are not only unsustainable, they'd also stop us getting in the CL which is the whole point in the first place
But Leeds weren't being bankrolled by a wealthy benefactor.
thats not the point. you may have 1 billion in the bank but it doesn't mean you're going to spend it on the club. if randy's reached the limit he's prepared to spend currently then thats it. no different from clubs with rich owners like chelsea cutting back. My hope is he's more worried about the loss in income that relegation would mean than he is about spending more money in January.
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however there are harbingers of doom on here who love the melodramatic sound of their own voice who wont be happy till we go down and when we get out of it will say i knew we would really!
Sorry - I've only just arrived at this thread, but here's someone who's put his finger right on the button. This site is becoming a home for all the harbingers of doom out there and the sooner we inject a bit of sense and fun into the proceedings the better.
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!
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At the moment i am reading the Peter Risdale book United We Fall which go's on and explains how he fecked up we are not as bad as they were hopefully never will be.
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None.
Next piece of overblown hyperbole please.
Quite. Leeds borrowed massively and their ability to meet the debt depended on CL qualification. Which they failed to achieve. There's a big difference between being forced to sell your best players to reduce unmanageable debts and selling them because a super rich rival club offers you and the player silly money. We didn't need to sell Barry or Milner, but we had little choice once their heads were turned, At least we were able to hold out for a good price for each. Meltdown was inevitable for Leeds.
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I can imagine a similar thread to this on RAWK. A bit over the top to suggest Villa are heading the way of Leeds United.
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A little chicken has just told me the sky is falling in ......................
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so are we. 40m losses are not only unsustainable, they'd also stop us getting in the CL which is the whole point in the first place
But Leeds weren't being bankrolled by a wealthy benefactor.
Dave, that's talking past tense.
Randy's wallet is firmly shut now, he's looking for a return rather than any more outlay.
We won't do a Leeds, but we are a selling club, whatever Faulkner says.
That's why Houllier is still here, he's promising cheap French players to turn us around.
Cheaper to 'run' that the current MON signings as well.
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What happens if we do go down? Leeds needed Champions League football, we need Premier League football at least.
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What happens if we do go down? Leeds needed Champions League football, we need Premier League football at least.
Randy will have to sell in my opinion.
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What happens if we do go down? Leeds needed Champions League football, we need Premier League football at least.
I suspect we'll have a huge fire sale, lose pretty much every senior player (Gabby, Ash etc) and rebuild with a great crop of kids and some old hands bought in that know how to fight it out in a tough division.
Come back up, win the cup, kick.... oh no that's them lot.
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I'd say we were more like Newcastle to be honest. Leeds had a much better team than we did before they ended up selling them all due to their financial problems. Newcastle had a team of over paid players who seemed not to care and who weren't good enough for what they got. At least we'll come right back up against all the odds and hand out some heavy thrashings when we do so!
However, I'm still not convinced we'll go down. I'm not as confident as I was, especially if we're under Houllier.
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What happens if we do go down? Leeds needed Champions League football, we need Premier League football at least.
We use the parachute payments and Randy's not inconsiderable wealth to consolidate our position, and then use our wealth of talent amongst our yoofs to launch a promotion bid.
Stop. Fucking. Panicking.
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What happens if we do go down? Leeds needed Champions League football, we need Premier League football at least.
We use the parachute payments and Randy's not inconsiderable wealth to consolidate our position, and then use our wealth of talent amongst our yoofs to launch a promotion bid.
Stop. Fucking. Panicking.
Did you not hear Dave, we're doooooomed!
Randy is a massive fan and loves the Villa, we are not about to do a Leeds FFS, some people need to stop running about like headless chickens, find a mirror, give themselves a hard slap and realise that there are more important things in life,a nd we will be ok.
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What happens if we do go down? Leeds needed Champions League football, we need Premier League football at least.
We use the parachute payments and Randy's not inconsiderable wealth to consolidate our position, and then use our wealth of talent amongst our yoofs to launch a promotion bid.
Stop. Fucking. Panicking.
Stop overreacting. We owe a shedload of money to Randy's trust and in a few years it needs to be paid back. In the meantime, if the trustees decide that he can't have any more cash, what then? Aren't we allowed to ask difficult questions anymore?
I don't think it's panicking to speculate about what might happen if we go down given the position we're in.
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What happens if we do go down? Leeds needed Champions League football, we need Premier League football at least.
We use the parachute payments and Randy's not inconsiderable wealth to consolidate our position, and then use our wealth of talent amongst our yoofs to launch a promotion bid.
Stop. Fucking. Panicking.
Stop overreacting. We owe a shedload of money to Randy's trust and in a few years it needs to be paid back. In the meantime, if the trustees decide that he can't have any more cash, what then? Aren't we allowed to ask difficult questions anymore?
I don't think it's panicking to speculate about what might happen if we go down given the position we're in.
Eh? How am I overreacting, surely that's your bag?
The only way we'll do a "Leeds" is if Randy ships out completely and calls in all his outlay, is there anything you have seen from him so far that makes you think he will do that?
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I've never mentioned Leeds, I'm just asking some questions that I think we as Villa fans should be interested in. Because of the way Randy structures his finances, it's almost impossible to find out any information as we could when the club was a plc. As for whether he's planning to take his ball home, who knows. I don't imagine that the er, plan for what happens in the first five years of his ownership included the possibility of relegation so all of this is uncharted territory. It wouldn't completely surprise me if he was to sell up, although I wouldn't say it's likely. I can't see that we'll ever achieve Champions League football under him, certainly not in the next 2-3 years anyway. We're then approaching the time that he has to repay his trust, so I'd like to know what happens then if we're still making big losses.
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There's no comparison whatsoever. Leeds were financially mismanaged to a frightening degree.
Should we be relegated (which I don't think we will), we would lose Ashley Young and possibly Downing and Dunne but we have a backbone now of young home grown talent that would help bring us straight back.
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Interesting thread if only for the information that Randy is under the control of some unknown entity, his family trust will seemingly bankrupt the club to get their funds back and he is now classed in the same level of financial accumen and assets as a loud mouthed joke of a bloke who has flitted from one financial disaster to the next.
But then we did win away from home in an early round of the FA Cup so I shouldn't be too surprised
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Interesting thread if only for the information that Randy is under the control of some unknown entity, his family trust will seemingly bankrupt the club to get their funds back and he is now classed in the same level of financial accumen and assets as a loud mouthed joke of a bloke who has flitted from one financial disaster to the next.
But then we did win away from home in an early round of the FA Cup so I shouldn't be too surprised
The fact is that our funding IS controlled by a largely unknown entity.
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We're absolutely nothing like Leeds.
It seems to me that some people will pick at absolutely anything they can to find fault with the club, it's owner and manager. Does it really make you feel better to think everything about the club is rubbish and to revel in a lack of success? Because there's no doubt that's how it seems.
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I don’t think we’ll go down at all. I don’t think it will even be close, despite the internetz collective will that this happens.
I don't think we're anything like Leeds. I don't think we'll ever see Second or Third division football again, despite the internetz collective will that this happens.
I think we’ll spend some money in this window and I think we’ll spend more in a larger re-structure in the Summer, despite the internetz received wisdom that we’re skint.
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Isn’t the Lerner trust a Bare Trust anyway, with the two trustees being Randy and his sister, with the remainder in the name of their issue?
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Isn’t the Lerner trust a Bare Trust anyway, with the two trustees being Randy and his sister, with the remainder in the name of their issue?
Where did you see that it was a bare trust? You can't be a trustee and a beneficiary anyway, surely.