Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Legion on December 30, 2013, 10:25:28 AM
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From Pravda (http://bit.ly/1d1EcHB):
Paul Lambert insists Villa's top trio - including Randy Lerner and Paul Faulkner - have a shared vision for the future of Villa.
Lambert, speaking after the 1-1 draw with Swansea, said the club was still in the very early stages of rebirth and renaissance under his leadership.
He stressed that he knew when he took over little over 18 months ago that it wasn't going to be a quick-fix, a belief held by the chairman and chief executive too.
But he said it was vital to "lay a brick" and build from there, with an unerring strength and determination.
He said: "When you build something and go right into the roots of it, you know it will never be a quick fix, never in the month of Sundays! That's what we have done.
"We have taken it right back. I have been supported in it by Randy and Paul.
"It's a great challenge. And, believe it or not, I enjoy it.
"You have to try and build it. Myself, Randy and Paul know exactly what is going on.
"You have to try to stick to your beliefs and do things as you see fit.
"A football club has to have a vision through good times and bad times otherwise you keep going back to square one. You have to start somewhere and lay a brick. That's what we have done.
"We have a plan. There's a long road with it. It's a challenge you relish. I relish it.
"We're trying to build the club, build something lasting and that takes time.
"There is no question that we are evolving and developing as a squad.
"We believe in what we're doing and trust one another within the group.
"Our core strength will overcome the setbacks we face along the way, which are an inevitable part of the journey.
"In terms of support, Randy has been excellent. He's been great with me.
"If you look at the way things were going last year, he stuck with it and his support was great.
"I am not sure he enjoys it all the time. He'd be like anyone on a rollercoaster, throwing up now and again.
"The good thing about him is he's been in sport for many years, not just a couple.He understands."
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Myself, Randy and Paul know exactly what is going on.
Well, that's super and all, but do you think you could let us all in on it?
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what exactly is the vision
I havent got a problem with it being a rollercoaster but its more like oblivion at Alton Towers , straight down and fast.
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He tells us over and over they have a project, a plan, a vision. If only he'd tell us what it is.
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I don't for one second doubt that Lambert has an excellent vision for the future of Aston Villa Football Club, I'm just increasingly sceptical that he lacks the ability as a football manager to help us achieve it.
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He tells us over and over they have a project, a plan, a vision. If only he'd tell us what it is.
I think it's a job, James. He appears to be very confident that he'll keep it.
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I don't mind them taking time to build something lasting, but could they just invest in a couple of decent portacabins while we're waiting?
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oh for the days of green sand
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I think the current vision is that Vlaar gets off the treatment table and Benteke comes back and finds a bit of form. Without those two, I think we're buggered.
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''Core strength'' fuck me.
That piece has Paul Faulkner all over it.
A load of corporate bollocks.
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Most of what Lambert says appears designed to 'manage' expectations and take the pressure off himself, with the ultimate goal of simply staying in the job as long as possible.
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Lambert, Faulkner and Lerner will have the terrible vision of the Championship if they dont purchase a couple of older heads during January
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Most of what Lambert says appears designed to 'manage' expectations and take the pressure off himself, with the ultimate goal of simply staying in the job as long as possible.
I was thinking the same thing , going a bit down the dolly route .
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I don't mind them taking time to build something lasting, but could they just invest in a couple of decent portacabins while we're waiting?
Very good!
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I'm sorry, but I'm not buying this one bit. There's no long term plan, there never has been.
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I'm sorry, but I'm not buying this one bit. There's no long term plan, there never has been.
Seems to me the aim is to survive in the premiership on as cheap a budget as possible .
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stay in the league until Randy can sell. That I imagine is as simple as it is.
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I think there is a fairly obvious plan to be honest.
I also don't agree with comparisons with O'Leary either. The football may have been poor the past few weeks and the results these past five or six games not good enough, but I must have missed him acting like an utter ******.
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I'm sorry, but I'm not buying this one bit. There's no long term plan, there never has been.
Seems to me the aim is to survive in the premiership on as cheap a budget as possible .
We're trying to compete on a budget that's manageable to the club, not doing it on the cheap, that's nonsense.
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I can remember there was a similar article on here when McLeish was in charge where he was talking about building for the future,we were all given the impession Lerner was right behind him.He was sacked a week or so later.
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From Pravda (http://bit.ly/1d1EcHB):
You have to start somewhere and lay a brick.
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By God we've laid a few of those recently!
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All this 'vision for the future' would be fine if we looked like we were progressing. I could believe at the end of last season, but at the moment we're going backwards.
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I can remember there was a similar article on here when McLeish was in charge where he was talking about building for the future,we were all given the impession Lerner was right behind him.He was sacked a week or so later.
I think the fans played a huge part in that. We made it clear we didn't want him, which left Lerner with no choice.
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The plan:
1) Reduce wage bill - check
2) Stay up - check (season end 13)
3) Secure services of better players by offering improved contracts until one of the sky4 offers £10m+ (in progress)
4) Stay up (season end 14)
5) Bring in a couple of average players at the end of the January window to show the fans our 'ambition'
6) Keep spouting endless bullshit so fans buy season tickets next year.
I'm sorry, but Aston Villa, like many other clubs is purely a money making machine. Even if Randy invested heavily in the team so we bought the league it would stink.
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Also I'm confused as on Saturday we had a "Project" and now it is a "Vision".
Aren't visions what happen when somebody has a psychotic episode - like a hallucination?
Maybe Lambert is seeing things we aren't ;-)
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All this 'vision for the future' would be fine if we looked like we were progressing. I could believe at the end of last season, but at the moment we're going backwards.
This time last year we conceded 15 goals without reply in three matches. So far this season we've conceded 25 in total, only 3 more than Man Utd.
Yes, we've got some problems to sort, but to suggest that we're going backwards when one of the major problems of last year has been largely resolved is overly negative.
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All this 'vision for the future' would be fine if we looked like we were progressing. I could believe at the end of last season, but at the moment we're going backwards.
This time last year we conceded 15 goals without reply in three matches. So far this season we've conceded 25 in total, only 3 more than Man Utd.
Yes, we've got some problems to sort, but to suggest that we're going backwards when one of the major problems of last year has been largely resolved is overly negative.
If you think our performances have moved forward from the end of last season, then I'd say you're being overly positive.
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I'm sorry, but I'm not buying this one bit. There's no long term plan, there never has been.
Seems to me the aim is to survive in the premiership on as cheap a budget as possible .
We're trying to compete on a budget that's manageable to the club, not doing it on the cheap, that's nonsense.
Clubs with far lower gates and far less income seem to be doing it much better than us and achieving far better results .
If the club continue in this vain then the better players will wish to leave for clubs with more ambition and we will eventually slip the way of wigan.
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What is the 'kin vision????
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All this 'vision for the future' would be fine if we looked like we were progressing. I could believe at the end of last season, but at the moment we're going backwards.
This time last year we conceded 15 goals without reply in three matches. So far this season we've conceded 25 in total, only 3 more than Man Utd.
Yes, we've got some problems to sort, but to suggest that we're going backwards when one of the major problems of last year has been largely resolved is overly negative.
If you think our performances have moved forward from the end of last season, then I'd say you're being overly positive.
Comparing our performances over Christmas this year to our performances over Christmas last year I'd say we're a million miles ahead. I'm absolutely convinced the team at the moment, even in their current run of poor form, wouldn't ship 8 (eight) goals at Chelsea, nor would they get turned over at home by Wigan.
Is the team performing as well as it did towards the end of last season? No, of course not, but given it's largely the same group of players, what's to say they won't turn things around again this season like they did last?
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I can remember there was a similar article on here when McLeish was in charge where he was talking about building for the future,we were all given the impession Lerner was right behind him.He was sacked a week or so later.
Yes, he said it was a total shock as he'd spoken with randy every week and how supportive he was and never had an inkling the sack was coming until the very day it came.
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But I'm not comparing to Christmas last year, we had another 5 months as a team after that point. In that 5 months after Christmas we were much better with the ball than we are now. We might turn it around again, but I'd suggest another pretty desperate December is not a sign of progression.
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I can remember there was a similar article on here when McLeish was in charge where he was talking about building for the future,we were all given the impession Lerner was right behind him.He was sacked a week or so later.
I think the fans played a huge part in that. We made it clear we didn't want him, which left Lerner with no choice.
I think that was the case before he came too but mr lerner still appointed him .
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This is football post 1992 and nobody is interested in a future beyond the next yellow ticker bar.
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I think he's right to reiterate "the plan", "the project", "the vision" mantra. I would like him however to also state that he recognises that the plan isn't working as planned and what he will be doing to tweak the plan to realise the vision.
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All this 'vision for the future' would be fine if we looked like we were progressing. I could believe at the end of last season, but at the moment we're going backwards.
This time last year we conceded 15 goals without reply in three matches. So far this season we've conceded 25 in total, only 3 more than Man Utd.
Yes, we've got some problems to sort, but to suggest that we're going backwards when one of the major problems of last year has been largely resolved is overly negative.
If you think our performances have moved forward from the end of last season, then I'd say you're being overly positive.
Comparing our performances over Christmas this year to our performances over Christmas last year I'd say we're a million miles ahead. I'm absolutely convinced the team at the moment, even in their current run of poor form, wouldn't ship 8 (eight) goals at Chelsea, nor would they get turned over at home by Wigan.
Is the team performing as well as it did towards the end of last season? No, of course not, but given it's largely the same group of players, what's to say they won't turn things around again this season like they did last?
So it's ok for you to compare the team with a year ago but it's not ok for pwa to compare the team with 7 months ago?
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I can remember there was a similar article on here when McLeish was in charge where he was talking about building for the future,we were all given the impession Lerner was right behind him.He was sacked a week or so later.
Yes, he said it was a total shock as he'd spoken with randy every week and how supportive he was and never had an inkling the sack was coming until the very day it came.
I don't believe that though, he must have had an inking his days were numbered. Everyone who was at Norwich away knew he was gone, so if he didn't then he was very naοve.
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Well currently he has another 18 months to complete this project of his, so half-way through his project it certainly doesn't look like its going to plan?
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I can remember there was a similar article on here when McLeish was in charge where he was talking about building for the future,we were all given the impession Lerner was right behind him.He was sacked a week or so later.
Yes, he said it was a total shock as he'd spoken with randy every week and how supportive he was and never had an inkling the sack was coming until the very day it came.
I don't believe that though, he must have had an inking his days were numbered. Everyone who was at Norwich away knew he was gone, so if he didn't then he was very naοve.
Possibly but wasn't that only a day earlier? All the noises from randy and faulkner before his sacking were supportive - i personally think his job is safe but people tell me randy was quite ruthless at times with the browns coaches .
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All this 'vision for the future' would be fine if we looked like we were progressing. I could believe at the end of last season, but at the moment we're going backwards.
This time last year we conceded 15 goals without reply in three matches. So far this season we've conceded 25 in total, only 3 more than Man Utd.
Yes, we've got some problems to sort, but to suggest that we're going backwards when one of the major problems of last year has been largely resolved is overly negative.
If you think our performances have moved forward from the end of last season, then I'd say you're being overly positive.
Comparing our performances over Christmas this year to our performances over Christmas last year I'd say we're a million miles ahead. I'm absolutely convinced the team at the moment, even in their current run of poor form, wouldn't ship 8 (eight) goals at Chelsea, nor would they get turned over at home by Wigan.
Is the team performing as well as it did towards the end of last season? No, of course not, but given it's largely the same group of players, what's to say they won't turn things around again this season like they did last?
So it's ok for you to compare the team with a year ago but it's not ok for pwa to compare the team with 7 months ago?
I never said that.
I'm merely pointing out that the same group of players have shown they are capable of both good and bad runs of form and suggesting that because they're currently in a bad run of form means the club is 'going backwards' is nonsense.
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I can remember there was a similar article on here when McLeish was in charge where he was talking about building for the future,we were all given the impession Lerner was right behind him.He was sacked a week or so later.
Certainly not supporting him, but, I've always thought that the fans got AMcL the sack.
If he'd had had the support of the fans, or at least a majority, he'd have been kept on.
The way he was treated from day one made his job untenable by the end of the season, Lerner had no choice.
Lambert is in a different boat altogether.
There are still many of us who are hanging on to the belief that the club are on the right road, albeit a very rocky one at the moment.
As optimistic as I am, though, I've slipped somewhat from the end of last season.
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I can remember there was a similar article on here when McLeish was in charge where he was talking about building for the future,we were all given the impession Lerner was right behind him.He was sacked a week or so later.
Yes, he said it was a total shock as he'd spoken with randy every week and how supportive he was and never had an inkling the sack was coming until the very day it came.
I don't believe that though, he must have had an inking his days were numbered. Everyone who was at Norwich away knew he was gone, so if he didn't then he was very naοve.
Possibly but wasn't that only a day earlier? All the noises from randy and faulkner before his sacking were supportive - i personally think his job is safe but people tell me randy was quite ruthless at times with the browns coaches .
You could argue it was obvious after the Bolton home game as well. I called it when we played Wigan away and drew 0-0.
Who are these people telling you Randy is ruthless? You're not getting transatlantic phones calls again are you?
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All this 'vision for the future' would be fine if we looked like we were progressing. I could believe at the end of last season, but at the moment we're going backwards.
This time last year we conceded 15 goals without reply in three matches. So far this season we've conceded 25 in total, only 3 more than Man Utd.
Yes, we've got some problems to sort, but to suggest that we're going backwards when one of the major problems of last year has been largely resolved is overly negative.
If you think our performances have moved forward from the end of last season, then I'd say you're being overly positive.
Comparing our performances over Christmas this year to our performances over Christmas last year I'd say we're a million miles ahead. I'm absolutely convinced the team at the moment, even in their current run of poor form, wouldn't ship 8 (eight) goals at Chelsea, nor would they get turned over at home by Wigan.
Is the team performing as well as it did towards the end of last season? No, of course not, but given it's largely the same group of players, what's to say they won't turn things around again this season like they did last?
Crystal Palace were one of the worst Premiership sides I've ever seen, and they beat us at home. Anyone who thinks we've improved since last season clearly didn't watch that game.
And the argument that "we wouldn't lose 8-0 to Chelsea this season" can be tempered by the assertion that we won't beat anyone 6-1 at home this season either.
The lack of improvement in the team is also mirrored by the players. Lowton, Westwood and Benteke area ll shadows of the players they were last season.
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Vlaar, Clark and Delph have noticeably improved.
Lowton, benteke, Weimann, Westwood, sylla , have all failed to reproduce last seasons form.
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All this 'vision for the future' would be fine if we looked like we were progressing. I could believe at the end of last season, but at the moment we're going backwards.
This time last year we conceded 15 goals without reply in three matches. So far this season we've conceded 25 in total, only 3 more than Man Utd.
Yes, we've got some problems to sort, but to suggest that we're going backwards when one of the major problems of last year has been largely resolved is overly negative.
If you think our performances have moved forward from the end of last season, then I'd say you're being overly positive.
Comparing our performances over Christmas this year to our performances over Christmas last year I'd say we're a million miles ahead. I'm absolutely convinced the team at the moment, even in their current run of poor form, wouldn't ship 8 (eight) goals at Chelsea, nor would they get turned over at home by Wigan.
Is the team performing as well as it did towards the end of last season? No, of course not, but given it's largely the same group of players, what's to say they won't turn things around again this season like they did last?
So it's ok for you to compare the team with a year ago but it's not ok for pwa to compare the team with 7 months ago?
I never said that.
I'm merely pointing out that the same group of players have shown they are capable of both good and bad runs of form and suggesting that because they're currently in a bad run of form means the club is 'going backwards' is nonsense.
That's the key bit for me. Are we a decent side going through some poor form or are we a poor side who previously enjoyed some good form? The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
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Aren't visions what happen when somebody has a psychotic episode - like a hallucination?
Jordan Bowery in the squad/on the teamsheet/on the pitch/in a Villa shirt/within 5 miles of the ground?
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It appears I am in the minority here as I think that is a pretty defiant and yet logical battle cry from Lambert.
I appreciate everyone is hurting at the moment but if it was coming from another club's manager, where there is less personal emotion involved, I think most people would be impressed by the club's policy and the manager's balls.
One thing, does he realise that 'laying a brick' is a euphemism for 'taking a shit'? I kind of hope so.
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Crystal Palace were one of the worst Premiership sides I've ever seen, and they beat us at home. Anyone who thinks we've improved since last season clearly didn't watch that game.
And the argument that "we wouldn't lose 8-0 to Chelsea this season" can be tempered by the assertion that we won't beat anyone 6-1 at home this season either.
The lack of improvement in the team is also mirrored by the players. Lowton, Westwood and Benteke area ll shadows of the players they were last season.
If you're comparing present form with the balance of last season, then we've gone backwards. If you compare it with the end of last season, then we've gone backwards a lot. But if you compare the whole of last season with the balance of what we've seen so far this, then it's not that great a difference, in my opinion.
What reamins to be seen is how we play and what results we get from now until May and how that compares to 12/13. A run similar to Everton onwards from last season will see us probably look back on a 13/14 as an overall improvemennt, even if not as much of a one as we'd wanted.
And before you say we're not capable of that sort of run, did we look like we were this time last season?
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I can remember there was a similar article on here when McLeish was in charge where he was talking about building for the future,we were all given the impession Lerner was right behind him.He was sacked a week or so later.
Certainly not supporting him, but, I've always thought that the fans got AMcL the sack.
If he'd had had the support of the fans, or at least a majority, he'd have been kept on.
The way he was treated from day one made his job untenable by the end of the season, Lerner had no choice.
Lambert is in a different boat altogether.
There are still many of us who are hanging on to the belief that the club are on the right road, albeit a very rocky one at the moment.
As optimistic as I am, though, I've slipped somewhat from the end of last season.
Just seems a bit like the old vote of confidence to me. I'm not sure Lamberts job is as safe as being made out. I'm probably wrong, just a feeling. You just don't know what's going on behind the scenes.
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Crystal Palace were one of the worst Premiership sides I've ever seen, and they beat us at home. Anyone who thinks we've improved since last season clearly didn't watch that game.
And the argument that "we wouldn't lose 8-0 to Chelsea this season" can be tempered by the assertion that we won't beat anyone 6-1 at home this season either.
The lack of improvement in the team is also mirrored by the players. Lowton, Westwood and Benteke area ll shadows of the players they were last season.
If you're comparing present form with the balance of last season, then we've gone backwards. If you compare it with the end of last season, then we've gone backwards a lot. But if you compare the whole of last season with the balance of what we've seen so far this, then it's not that great a difference, in my opinion.
What reamins to be seen is how we play and what results we get from now until May and how that compares to 12/13. A run similar to Everton onwards from last season will see us probably look back on a 13/14 as an overall improvemennt, even if not as much of a one as we'd wanted.
And before you say we're not capable of that sort of run, did we look like we were this time last season?
We at least looked an attacking threat at this stage last season. At the moment we don't look like we can score goals, especially at home.
Obviously a lot of that is due to Benteke being injured/massively off form, but I think it's expecting a lot for him to reproduce his form of the second half of last season.
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And how long are we going to have to wait to be comfortable in this division again? The current plan won't be able to extent to making us genuinely competitive again either. We're essentially waiting to become an average side. It's a shit plan. Fucking awful. It's the worst plan since Olaf the Hairy, high chief of all vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside.
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I dont know an awful lot about his time at Cleveland Browns except Randy was the owner and they were not succesful. On one of the other forums they get a few Americans posting regularly and they might be able to give their 'in the know' views on his tenure.
Might be interesting or it might not.
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And how long are we going to have to wait to be comfortable in this division again? The current plan won't be able to extent to making us genuinely competitive again either. We're essentially waiting to become an average side. It's a shit plan. Fucking awful. It's the worst plan since Olaf the Hairy, high chief of all vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside.
Blackadder?
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Our "attacking threat" this time last season saw us humiliated 8-0, 0-4, 3-0 before we scrapped for a 2-2 draw and then returned to fabulous ways losing 1-2 to the Barcodes. so in 5 games our "attacking threat" yielded 3 goals and saw us ship 19. Now I know that is not much justification for our form this season which is still frustrating in the extreme, but we never looked capable of winning a game at this stage of last season either. Let's hope we can turn our results around as we did from February again. If we can the handful of points we have over ourselves at this stage last year could see us finish in the top 8...fingers crossed.
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And how long are we going to have to wait to be comfortable in this division again? The current plan won't be able to extent to making us genuinely competitive again either. We're essentially waiting to become an average side. It's a shit plan. Fucking awful. It's the worst plan since Olaf the Hairy, high chief of all vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside.
Blackadder?
;)
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Our "attacking threat" this time last season saw us humiliated 8-0, 0-4, 3-0 before we scrapped for a 2-2 draw and then returned to fabulous ways losing 1-2 to the Barcodes. so in 5 games our "attacking threat" yielded 3 goals and saw us ship 19. Now I know that is not much justification for our form this season which is still frustrating in the extreme, but we never looked capable of winning a game at this stage of last season either. Let's hope we can turn our results around as we did from February again. If we can the handful of points we have over ourselves at this stage last year could see us finish in the top 8...fingers crossed.
We had a few slices of luck in some of our wins last season it must be said. We won the games we really needed to like Reading, QPR, Stoke but with a degree of fortune. They could have gone either way. Certainly the Stoke game ultimately turned on one moment of complete brilliance from Lowton. A once in a career strike probably. At that point we were looking remotely like scoring.
So to some extent to get some kind of a run like Feb-May again we'll need an element of fortune with the way we're playing. I'm just hoping we didn't use it all up earlier in the season in games like City, Southampton, West Brom, Sunderland.
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I remember Lowton having two of those once in a lifetime strikes last season.
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''Core strength'' fuck me.
That piece has Paul Faulkner all over it.
A load of corporate bollocks.
Seems it.
'Lay a brick'. I wish the opposition teams felts as if the Villa team were pelting them with footballing bricks as opposed to marsh mellows
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One of the reasons I am prepared to stick with Lambert is that he turned things around after an awful period 12 months ago. I would like to think he can do it again and that the team of February - May is a better sign of how we should be playing.
Pat Murphy said a few days ago that we are not an awful team but a team in an awful run of form. I just hope he is right.
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I remember Lowton having two of those once in a lifetime strikes last season.
The first one was very good, but the Stoke one was different gravy. I'm not sure he'll get too many more like that. Certainly not on current form.
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I dont know an awful lot about his time at Cleveland Browns except Randy was the owner and they were not succesful. On one of the other forums they get a few Americans posting regularly and they might be able to give their 'in the know' views on his tenure.
Might be interesting or it might not.
Found this interesting regarding his frequent sacking of coaches in charge of the browns.
(via ClevelandBrowns.com): "You don't get to where you want to be by blowing this up every two or three years."
Maybe Randy Lerner needed that line posted in big block lettering just outside his office door, because the man seems incapable of controlling his compulsion to do exactly that.
And that is why Randy Lerner will not be missed. Lerner can't keep his nervous fingers from striking the detonation match. And every time he does, the fans have to suffer literally for years as a new regime comes in and tries to put the pieces back together.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1279288-cleveland-browns-new-owner-has-chance-to-avoid-bad-pattern-set-by-lerner
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All this 'vision for the future' would be fine if we looked like we were progressing. I could believe at the end of last season, but at the moment we're going backwards.
This time last year we conceded 15 goals without reply in three matches. So far this season we've conceded 25 in total, only 3 more than Man Utd.
Yes, we've got some problems to sort, but to suggest that we're going backwards when one of the major problems of last year has been largely resolved is overly negative.
If you think our performances have moved forward from the end of last season, then I'd say you're being overly positive.
Comparing our performances over Christmas this year to our performances over Christmas last year I'd say we're a million miles ahead. I'm absolutely convinced the team at the moment, even in their current run of poor form, wouldn't ship 8 (eight) goals at Chelsea, nor would they get turned over at home by Wigan.
Is the team performing as well as it did towards the end of last season? No, of course not, but given it's largely the same group of players, what's to say they won't turn things around again this season like they did last?
So it's ok for you to compare the team with a year ago but it's not ok for pwa to compare the team with 7 months ago?
I never said that.
I'm merely pointing out that the same group of players have shown they are capable of both good and bad runs of form and suggesting that because they're currently in a bad run of form means the club is 'going backwards' is nonsense.
That's the key bit for me. Are we a decent side going through some poor form or are we a poor side who previously enjoyed some good form? The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Without wishing to sound too negative I tend to think it's the latter. Even our good run from the start of last February to the end of the season, whilst much improved, only consisted of mid table form: won 6 drew 3 lost 5; goals 'for' 27 goals 'against '23'.
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All this 'vision for the future' would be fine if we looked like we were progressing. I could believe at the end of last season, but at the moment we're going backwards.
This time last year we conceded 15 goals without reply in three matches. So far this season we've conceded 25 in total, only 3 more than Man Utd.
Yes, we've got some problems to sort, but to suggest that we're going backwards when one of the major problems of last year has been largely resolved is overly negative.
If you think our performances have moved forward from the end of last season, then I'd say you're being overly positive.
Comparing our performances over Christmas this year to our performances over Christmas last year I'd say we're a million miles ahead. I'm absolutely convinced the team at the moment, even in their current run of poor form, wouldn't ship 8 (eight) goals at Chelsea, nor would they get turned over at home by Wigan.
Is the team performing as well as it did towards the end of last season? No, of course not, but given it's largely the same group of players, what's to say they won't turn things around again this season like they did last?
So it's ok for you to compare the team with a year ago but it's not ok for pwa to compare the team with 7 months ago?
I never said that.
I'm merely pointing out that the same group of players have shown they are capable of both good and bad runs of form and suggesting that because they're currently in a bad run of form means the club is 'going backwards' is nonsense.
That's the key bit for me. Are we a decent side going through some poor form or are we a poor side who previously enjoyed some good form? The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Without wishing to sound too negative I tend to think it's the latter. Even our good run from the start of last February to the end of the season, whilst much improved, only consisted of mid table form: won 6 drew 3 lost 5; goals 'for' 27 goals 'against '23'.
That's why I specifically used the word decent as opposed to good. I think most fans would accept mid table this season.
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21 points from the last 14 games is an impressive return of points - over a season that would give you 57 points and probably a top 8 finish .
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Speaking to somebody who is down Bodymoor Heath pretty much every day I'm shocked but not surprised to hear that Lambert takes virtually no part in training. That the players come in for food at 10am, begin warm-up at 11:15am, do virtually no work then everybody is in their cars and shooting off by 1pm. I'm told that the fitness levels of the players this year is disgraceful compared to past years and I have no doubt the lack of training is why we can't string three passes together.
Apparently Lambert is a very dour man who never responds to anybody who talks to him and refuses advice from anyone including his coaching staff. Far nastier than Houllier and McLeish who at least had time for people involved with the club.
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21 points from the last 14 games is an impressive return of points - over a season that would give you 57 points and probably a top 8 finish.
57 points would have put us 8th in last year's table. A similar return from the remainder of this season would see us finish on 49, which would also have been 8th in 12/13 (there was a big gap between 7th and 8th).
To me, that that shows us we've been picking up more points whilst not playing well, meaning a stronger platform to shoot up the table IF we can turn it around.
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I really would love it if he could inform us what that plan involves. Previously, he has been known for causing remarkably quick renaissances of clubs, particularly getting Norwich back to the Premier League in two successive promotions, and I know that we're a bigger club fallen on our own brand off hard times but Norwich were a big club compared to everyone around them and fallen on incredibly hard times, so I don't buy that counter-argument.
Also, I'd like to know why this project appears to have nothing to do with keeping the ball - Swansea, Southampton and Cardiff can all do it, why can't we? It's a bit saddening, because I'm fed up of seeing 1970s football down at the Villa (but without the success of the 70s).
Given that he's not going to be fired any time soon (presumably because Lerner felt that he was too trigger-happy at the Browns and has swung to the opposite extreme with us), we have no choice but to support him and hope that he gets it right, and I believe his intentions are more ambitious and - how to put this - aesthetically salubrious than those of his predecessor, but he better start looking with a bit less Britishness and a bit more culture at the clubs playing better football than us and start copying their training methods fast no matter how effeminate or nerdy they seem, because otherwise he's never going to get either the style he wants nor the success that that style brings.
Paul. I like you, still. But I'm begging you for this, because if you won't do it then nobody will.
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Speaking to somebody who is down Bodymoor Heath pretty much every day I'm shocked but not surprised to hear that Lambert takes virtually no part in training. That the players come in for food at 10am, begin warm-up at 11:15am, do virtually no work then everybody is in their cars and shooting off by 1pm. I'm told that the fitness levels of the players this year is disgraceful compared to past years and I have no doubt the lack of training is why we can't string three passes together.
Apparently Lambert is a very dour man who never responds to anybody who talks to him and refuses advice from anyone including his coaching staff. Far nastier than Houllier and McLeish who at least had time for people involved with the club.
Doesn't sound believable because that doesn't sound like a football club it sounds like a millionaires breakfast club.
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Speaking to somebody who is down Bodymoor Heath pretty much every day I'm shocked but not surprised to hear that Lambert takes virtually no part in training. That the players come in for food at 10am, begin warm-up at 11:15am, do virtually no work then everybody is in their cars and shooting off by 1pm. I'm told that the fitness levels of the players this year is disgraceful compared to past years and I have no doubt the lack of training is why we can't string three passes together.
Apparently Lambert is a very dour man who never responds to anybody who talks to him and refuses advice from anyone including his coaching staff. Far nastier than Houllier and McLeish who at least had time for people involved with the club.
Doesn't sound believable because that doesn't sound like a football club it sounds like a millionaires breakfast club.
Sounds very much like the way mon behaved by all accounts .
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Speaking to somebody who is down Bodymoor Heath pretty much every day I'm shocked but not surprised to hear that Lambert takes virtually no part in training. That the players come in for food at 10am, begin warm-up at 11:15am, do virtually no work then everybody is in their cars and shooting off by 1pm. I'm told that the fitness levels of the players this year is disgraceful compared to past years and I have no doubt the lack of training is why we can't string three passes together.
Apparently Lambert is a very dour man who never responds to anybody who talks to him and refuses advice from anyone including his coaching staff. Far nastier than Houllier and McLeish who at least had time for people involved with the club.
You hear all sorts of rumours like this (I heard one earlier) and it's normally involves someone who knows someone who works at the training ground. All this 'd they do virtually no work' is a bit strange when there's pictures of the players training up on the OS every week.
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Speaking to somebody who is down Bodymoor Heath pretty much every day I'm shocked but not surprised to hear that Lambert takes virtually no part in training. That the players come in for food at 10am, begin warm-up at 11:15am, do virtually no work then everybody is in their cars and shooting off by 1pm. I'm told that the fitness levels of the players this year is disgraceful compared to past years and I have no doubt the lack of training is why we can't string three passes together.
Apparently Lambert is a very dour man who never responds to anybody who talks to him and refuses advice from anyone including his coaching staff. Far nastier than Houllier and McLeish who at least had time for people involved with the club.
You hear all sorts of rumours like this (I heard one earlier) and it's normally involves someone who knows someone who works at the training ground. All this 'd they do virtually no work' is a bit strange when there's pictures of the players training up on the OS every week.
Photographer is booked from 11 to 11-30 :)
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I always think the training regime must vary around match days, as in it's probably more intense the further from a game you are, so as not to overwork them just before or just after a game. So you can see how someone might turn up at the wrong time and think they're doing nothing.
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I always think the training regime must vary arounf match days, as in it's probably more intense the further from a game you are, so as not to overwork them just before or just after a game. So you can see how someone might turn up at the wrong time and think they're doing nothing.
Well I would have though in the last 3 weeks the training would have been fairly light touch due to the numbers of games.
Fitness doesn't seem to be a problem and certainly wasn;t an issue at the back end of the season when we finished strong as weren't fatigued as per MON era.
Problem seems to be lack of leadership on field, confused tactics and low confidences displayed with some poor technique.
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I'd guess that a lot of managers don't take an active part in training and tend to look on anyway.
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They don't look like they practice passing, though. A player gets on the ball and looks like he has to reinvent the wheel every time. There's no plan, no strategy, no players you know are going to be there around you that you can rely on - it's just chaos and improvisation, and when you don't have creative players then the improv isn't going to be very good.
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In his book John Gregory said that at certain times of the season all the players needed some days was a walk round Kingsbury Water Park and a massage.
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In his book John Gregory said that at certain times of the season all the players needed some days was a walk round Kingsbury Water Park and a massage.
Certainly when you have 4 games in a week, you don't overtrain much.
However, there are two points on that: firstly, I love JG, but he managed at the top level ten years ago, and things have changed hugely in this country's football; secondly, the terrible inability to pass the ball has well pre-dated the Christmas congestion period.
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Speaking to somebody who is down Bodymoor Heath pretty much every day I'm shocked but not surprised to hear that Lambert takes virtually no part in training. That the players come in for food at 10am, begin warm-up at 11:15am, do virtually no work then everybody is in their cars and shooting off by 1pm. I'm told that the fitness levels of the players this year is disgraceful compared to past years and I have no doubt the lack of training is why we can't string three passes together.
Apparently Lambert is a very dour man who never responds to anybody who talks to him and refuses advice from anyone including his coaching staff. Far nastier than Houllier and McLeish who at least had time for people involved with the club.
Doesn't sound believable because that doesn't sound like a football club it sounds like a millionaires breakfast club.
Sounds very much like the way mon behaved by all accounts .
Sounds very much like a load of bo***cks to me!
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In his book John Gregory said that at certain times of the season all the players needed some days was a walk round Kingsbury Water Park and a massage.
Certainly when you have 4 games in a week, you don't overtrain much.
However, there are two points on that: firstly, I love JG, but he managed at the top level ten years ago, and things have changed hugely in this country's football; secondly, the terrible inability to pass the ball has well pre-dated the Christmas congestion period.
Whatever it was and however long ago, it still shows that lengthy and intensive training sessions aren't neccessarily important.
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In his book John Gregory said that at certain times of the season all the players needed some days was a walk round Kingsbury Water Park and a massage.
Certainly when you have 4 games in a week, you don't overtrain much.
However, there are two points on that: firstly, I love JG, but he managed at the top level ten years ago, and things have changed hugely in this country's football; secondly, the terrible inability to pass the ball has well pre-dated the Christmas congestion period.
Whatever it was and however long ago, it still shows that lengthy and intensive training sessions aren't neccessarily important.
At certain times of the year, not all year. They could use intensive training in passing the ball, and could have done so a number of weeks before the tiring fixture list.
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Houllier gave us double training sessions and suffered a horrible injury sequence.
We've had terrible luck with injuries this season, but at the same time it could be part of the training routine that is in part contributing to that.
Two managers taking over from O Neill have commented on the supposed lack of fitness in players and a lax training regiment, but looking back over O Neill's time with us at least, in four years he was reasonably fortunate with injuries. Certainly he never experienced what Houllier did, or Lambert has in his time here. It's seemed to be a collection of players all crocked or just coming back from injuries at the same time.
Maybe there was something in O Neills supposedly slack approach.
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Houllier gave us double training sessions and suffered a horrible injury sequence.
We've had terrible luck with injuries this season, but at the same time it could be part of the training routine that is in part contributing to that.
Two managers taking over from O Neill have commented on the supposed lack of fitness in players and a lax training regiment, but looking back over O Neill's time with us at least, in four years he was reasonably fortunate with injuries. Certainly he never experienced what Houllier did, or Lambert has in his time here. It's seemed to be a collection of players all crocked or just coming back from injuries at the same time.
Maybe there was something in O Neills supposedly slack approach.
Maybe you're right. Pretty much every successful manager in and around the top level of European football these days, from Guardiola to Martinez and Rodgers to Rudi Garcia, has intensive pressing and passing training which they vary in intensity throughout the season (and which they've spoken openly about). But Martin O'Neill is right to not train at all really because he didn't get very many injuries.
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In his book John Gregory said that at certain times of the season all the players needed some days was a walk round Kingsbury Water Park and a massage.
Certainly when you have 4 games in a week, you don't overtrain much.
However, there are two points on that: firstly, I love JG, but he managed at the top level ten years ago, and things have changed hugely in this country's football; secondly, the terrible inability to pass the ball has well pre-dated the Christmas congestion period.
Whatever it was and however long ago, it still shows that lengthy and intensive training sessions aren't neccessarily important.
At certain times of the year, not all year. They could use intensive training in passing the ball, and could have done so a number of weeks before the tiring fixture list.
And nobody apart from the apocryphal Man from Bodymoor knows whether or not they've done just that.
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In his book John Gregory said that at certain times of the season all the players needed some days was a walk round Kingsbury Water Park and a massage.
Certainly when you have 4 games in a week, you don't overtrain much.
However, there are two points on that: firstly, I love JG, but he managed at the top level ten years ago, and things have changed hugely in this country's football; secondly, the terrible inability to pass the ball has well pre-dated the Christmas congestion period.
Whatever it was and however long ago, it still shows that lengthy and intensive training sessions aren't neccessarily important.
At certain times of the year, not all year. They could use intensive training in passing the ball, and could have done so a number of weeks before the tiring fixture list.
And nobody apart from the apocryphal Man from Bodymoor knows whether or not they've done just that.
I'm not saying he's done it. I'm saying it would be a bad idea. God knows they show very few signs of having done much training when they get the ball, I'd say the last thing they'd need is less practice.
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I normally post more on another site and on that site one particular poster is holding on for dear life concerning his opinion on Lambert.
He has spent most of this season with the exception of the last few games (obviously) defending Lambert with the 'but we've more points at this stage than last season).
Since that points tally has closed to one he has now reverted to the wage v performance debate.
What he is stating is that we cannot expect any better from our players because (and this has been confirmed by a validated ITK) that the majority of our new players are earning no more than between 5k-15k per week. That may shock some of you and it may not but that is Championship wages and you can see how the poster's debate could be validated.
However, although Lambert's remit was to reduce the wage bill, my argument has always been with this particular poster did he need to be so abrupt in using the guillotine on the players that were already here before Lambert started his tenure with us and has Lambert's signings improved us in any position on the pitch while spending another reported 43m?
Could we have used Bent more rather than spending 4m-7m on Kozak and could we have used Hutton instead of the dross we have now at FB. Could we have got more out of Ireland which Hughes is now doing at Stoke and is Westwood really any better than Bannan?
Of course the issue has been wages but why buy Helenius if on a limited budget and why purchase Tonev when we had Albrighton. What was the point of purchasing Bowery who gives his all but is quite obviously very limited in ability when we had the Fonz and I could go on.
Very poor allocation of a limited budget and this has been Lambert's choice.
Benteke and Vlaar however have been cracking purchases but the other 14 players that Lambert has signed have been poor even just on a squad basis.
It pains me to say this but we now have the worst squad of players I have ever seen in my forty years as a Villa fan. Absolutely no quality or balance in midfield and we're much too static all over the pitch giving the player in possession few alternatives to pass to. That is down to the manager and his coaches who must in training place the player's feet in bags of cement to stop passes going astray. I have never seen such a lack of movement from any Villa team before and it infuriates me as even in my school days, alas too far away now, my P.E Teacher instructed us all to pass and move to create space and alternatives to pass to.
We did do this to great effect last season against Sunderland and I mistakenly thought it was the beginning of a new dawn for us. Alas that dawn has proven to be false and Lambert cannot continue to live on the memories of that game or his signing of Benteke.
If our poor form continues and Lambert is eventually sacked (please God) what do you think any new manager coming in will do with the present squad?
Personally i feel we'll have yet another bomb squad to get rid of apart from the two aforementioned players and that i fear is going to be Paul Lambert's legacy.
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Speaking to somebody who is down Bodymoor Heath pretty much every day I'm shocked but not surprised to hear that Lambert takes virtually no part in training. That the players come in for food at 10am, begin warm-up at 11:15am, do virtually no work then everybody is in their cars and shooting off by 1pm. I'm told that the fitness levels of the players this year is disgraceful compared to past years and I have no doubt the lack of training is why we can't string three passes together.
Apparently Lambert is a very dour man who never responds to anybody who talks to him and refuses advice from anyone including his coaching staff. Far nastier than Houllier and McLeish who at least had time for people involved with the club.
Doesn't sound believable because that doesn't sound like a football club it sounds like a millionaires breakfast club.
Sounds very much like the way mon behaved by all accounts .
Sounds very much like a load of bo***cks to me!
I know for a fact that this is not bo***cks. I managed a team with a couple of former Wycombe players in it. They tell me the same. Lambert is an arrogant man. I guess, in football, one has to believe in one's own ability, that's what I put his arrogance down to. However, I think he's a dead man walking in terms of his job at Villa because the fans have turned or are starting to turn. The football is dire. He keeps telling us that this is because we don't have Vlaar or Benteke in the side! Yeah, ok, they might help the current team but, I don't see it that way myself as I think its the midfield where the problems lie. We simply have to buy someone with physicality in there.
Tyler Durden, great post BTW.
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Speaking to somebody who is down Bodymoor Heath pretty much every day I'm shocked but not surprised to hear that Lambert takes virtually no part in training. That the players come in for food at 10am, begin warm-up at 11:15am, do virtually no work then everybody is in their cars and shooting off by 1pm. I'm told that the fitness levels of the players this year is disgraceful compared to past years and I have no doubt the lack of training is why we can't string three passes together.
Apparently Lambert is a very dour man who never responds to anybody who talks to him and refuses advice from anyone including his coaching staff. Far nastier than Houllier and McLeish who at least had time for people involved with the club.
Doesn't sound believable because that doesn't sound like a football club it sounds like a millionaires breakfast club.
Sounds very much like the way mon behaved by all accounts .
Sounds very much like a load of bo***cks to me!
I know for a fact that this is not bo***cks. I managed a team with a couple of former Wycombe players in it. They tell me the same. Lambert is an arrogant man. I guess, in football, one has to believe in one's own ability, that's what I put his arrogance down to. However, I think he's a dead man walking in terms of his job at Villa because the fans have turned or are starting to turn. The football is dire. He keeps telling us that this is because we don't have Vlaar or Benteke in the side! Yeah, ok, they might help the current team but, I don't see it that way myself as I think its the midfield where the problems lie. We simply have to buy someone with physicality in there.
Tyler Durden, great post BTW.
To be honest, I couldn't care less how arrogant he is - Mourinho, van Gaal and Ferguson are not exactly shrinking violets, but how big are their medal collections? A lot of the time managers actually need a solid bit of arrogance to get them through, and that's fine. I just care about whether or not he makes the right decisions, and I don't think Lambert's failings are the result of an under-reliance on physicality.
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Tyler durden - very good post and an interesting one too.
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All about opinions I suppose. I think we need more dominance, more experience in the side. At the minute we kick the opposition a lot, we are top of the cautions league apparently, yet we don't retain possession. I think Lambert has an over-reliance on crap players.
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I am yet to hear anything from a "validated ITK". Huge pinch of salt boyo.
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All about opinions I suppose. I think we need more dominance, more experience in the side. At the minute we kick the opposition a lot, we are top of the cautions league apparently, yet we don't retain possession. I think Lambert has an over-reliance on crap players.
I agree that we kick them a lot, but the only thing which would improve if we went with more physical players is we'd kick them more effectively. If we had players with better technique (or possibly, more possession-based training like Swansea) we'd have more of the ball and have to kick fewer people.
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I'm pretty sure Lambert's vision for the club isn't what it has become. That the players he bought in the summer have on the whole been a disappointment coupled with key players losing form and getting injured. I'm sure that as a club they felt that the players they added would strengthen a squad that had done rather well in the second half of last season and would only get better and stronger. He has to be disappointed on so many levels with how it has transpired.
What he now must have realised is that the recent strategy of low price options simply cannot be an exclusive one. That it must be integrated more steadily and that quality and experience are essential. These players, the incumbents and the new are not bad players, but they need help from those who are both proven and established. That means paying a bit more which the club needs to accept while still trying to rid the contracts of the obvious players who have been deemed surplus to requirements.
Lambert's vision will come to fruition a lot faster if he accepts that he needs to approach this with some flexibility and understands that January represents a really critical time in his tenure to turn this around and get it right.
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I'm pretty sure Lambert's vision for the club isn't what it has become. That the players he bought in the summer have on the whole been a disappointment coupled with key players losing form and getting injured. I'm sure that as a club they felt that the players they added would strengthen a squad that had done rather well in the second half of last season and would only get better and stronger. He has to be disappointed on so many levels with how it has transpired.
What he now must have realised is that the recent strategy of low price options simply cannot be an exclusive one. That it must be integrated more steadily and that quality and experience are essential. These players, the incumbents and the new are not bad players, but they need help from those who are both proven and established. That means paying a bit more which the club needs to accept while still trying to rid the contracts of the obvious players who have been deemed surplus to requirements.
Lambert's vision will come to fruition a lot faster if he accepts that he needs to approach this with some flexibility and understands that January represents a really critical time in his tenure to turn this around and get it right.
This.
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You have to have the right blend of experience with young players , that is pretty obvious to everyone and lambert shouldn't really be waiting until his 4th window to address this but lets hope that this time he does bring in some quality and experience , whether permanent or on loan - it has to be done.
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Michael Laudrups name has cropped up a couple of times on the and then who thread. There's a whole host of reasons why it won't be him, whenever Lambert vacates the hot seat, but there's a quote of his, apparently from an interview with ESPN last August which I thought was really apt while we're talking about vision and playing style.
"You can't ask players to do things that Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are doing, but you can ask the easy things" he said. "Sometimes the easiest things in football, a simple pass five or eight yards, can be the most effective. That, everybody can learn."
And that I think is all we're asking for.
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From Pravda (http://bit.ly/1d1EcHB):
Paul Lambert insists Villa's top trio - including Randy Lerner and Paul Faulkner - have a shared vision for the future of Villa.
He stressed that he knew when he took over little over 18 months ago that it wasn't going to be a quick-fix, a belief held by the chairman and chief executive too.
....That's what we have done.
"We have taken it right back. I have been supported in it by Randy and Paul.
".... Myself, Randy and Paul know exactly what is going on.
...... You have to start somewhere and lay a brick. That's what we have done.
"We have a plan......
"We're trying to build the club.....
"..... we are evolving and developing as a squad.
"We believe in what we're doing and trust one another within the group.
".....the setbacks we face along the way....
"In terms of support, Randy has been excellent. He's been great with me."
This is definitely written for him. All the references to "we" and mentioning Randy and Faulkner. This is basically telling the fans to quieten down as Lambert is going nowhere. Lambert is doing what Randy and Faulkner want. The plan is to make AVFC the franchise more profitable. This is being achieved. This statement is just to quell the murmurings from the fans.
We as fans are the only ones not making money from this franchise.
This has nothing to do with tactics, teams, trophies, ambition, developing youth, etc.
This is modern football.
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I normally post more on another site and on that site one particular poster is holding on for dear life concerning his opinion on Lambert.
He has spent most of this season with the exception of the last few games (obviously) defending Lambert with the 'but we've more points at this stage than last season).
Since that points tally has closed to one he has now reverted to the wage v performance debate.
What he is stating is that we cannot expect any better from our players because (and this has been confirmed by a validated ITK) that the majority of our new players are earning no more than between 5k-15k per week. That may shock some of you and it may not but that is Championship wages and you can see how the poster's debate could be validated.
However, although Lambert's remit was to reduce the wage bill, my argument has always been with this particular poster did he need to be so abrupt in using the guillotine on the players that were already here before Lambert started his tenure with us and has Lambert's signings improved us in any position on the pitch while spending another reported 43m?
Could we have used Bent more rather than spending 4m-7m on Kozak and could we have used Hutton instead of the dross we have now at FB. Could we have got more out of Ireland which Hughes is now doing at Stoke and is Westwood really any better than Bannan?
Of course the issue has been wages but why buy Helenius if on a limited budget and why purchase Tonev when we had Albrighton. What was the point of purchasing Bowery who gives his all but is quite obviously very limited in ability when we had the Fonz and I could go on.
Very poor allocation of a limited budget and this has been Lambert's choice.
Benteke and Vlaar however have been cracking purchases but the other 14 players that Lambert has signed have been poor even just on a squad basis.
It pains me to say this but we now have the worst squad of players I have ever seen in my forty years as a Villa fan. Absolutely no quality or balance in midfield and we're much too static all over the pitch giving the player in possession few alternatives to pass to. That is down to the manager and his coaches who must in training place the player's feet in bags of cement to stop passes going astray. I have never seen such a lack of movement from any Villa team before and it infuriates me as even in my school days, alas too far away now, my P.E Teacher instructed us all to pass and move to create space and alternatives to pass to.
We did do this to great effect last season against Sunderland and I mistakenly thought it was the beginning of a new dawn for us. Alas that dawn has proven to be false and Lambert cannot continue to live on the memories of that game or his signing of Benteke.
If our poor form continues and Lambert is eventually sacked (please God) what do you think any new manager coming in will do with the present squad?
Personally i feel we'll have yet another bomb squad to get rid of apart from the two aforementioned players and that i fear is going to be Paul Lambert's legacy.
In your opinion.
My view would be that we are eighteen months into totally restructuring the club on a very tightly controlled budget. Whilst, admittedly, we are currently in a run of shocking form we are still in a position to improve on last year's league finish and build again.
Reading other posts here and on other forums it's interesting to observe a set a pattern of responses every time Villa reach a "crisis". Some people will start resorting to personally insulting the management staff, some will claim the dressing room has been lost, some will claim the players are unfit and never do any training and so on and so on and so on... We've had three years of this type of in the know tittle-tattle that serves no purpose other than to create instability in the club and a sense of turmoil. Who starts these rumours and "ITK" posts? Rival fans pretending to be Villa supporters? Journalists trying to create a story? I've no idea, but it's amazing that for the best part of three (maybe four) managerial regimes this same pattern of ITK bullshit emerges when we hit a run of poor results.
Lambert hasn't suddenly become DiCanio overnight and he certainly hasn't morphed into David O'Leary on the back of four defeats. As far as I can see he is the same manager who our away support serenaded at the end of the 11-12 season and he's the very same manager who, for a number of years, quietly and steadily built up a reputation for himself as being one of the brightest young managers in the game.
People will say: Look at Rodgers, look at Martinez and see what gifted young managers can really do. Fair enough, but Rodgers is in a position where he can offer a 200k a week salary for his star player and Martinez walked into a job where a top six squad was already in place. Lambert is in a completely different position and I genuinely can't think of many managers out there who could turn around our club given the financial restraints. He needs more time than eighteen months - let's see where we are at the end of the season.
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People will say: Look at Rodgers, look at Martinez and see what gifted young managers can really do. Fair enough, but Rodgers is in a position where he can offer a 200k a week salary for his star player and Martinez walked into a job where a top six squad was already in place. Lambert is in a completely different position and I genuinely can't think of many managers out there who could turn around our club given the financial restraints. He needs more time than eighteen months - let's see where we are at the end of the season.
Worth pointing out aswell that Rodgers took over a club which finished 8th in the season before he took over, spent £60m (excluding wages) to get them to finish 7th last year and has spent another £50m (again, excluding wages) this year and they're currently 5th, only two points ahead of 7th and with both teams below them in better current form.
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... People will say: Look at Rodgers, look at Martinez and see what gifted young managers can really do. Fair enough, but Rodgers is in a position where he can offer a 200k a week salary for his star player and Martinez walked into a job where a top six squad was already in place. Lambert is in a completely different position and I genuinely can't think of many managers out there who could turn around our club given the financial restraints. He needs more time than eighteen months - let's see where we are at the end of the season.
I like your voice-of-reason approach.
Both Martinez and Rodgers moved to clubs that had had reasonable stability. Taking Martinez particularly, what he did in August was very sensible: he had a mixed squad of young and more experienced players and he supplemented that with Gazza Bazza and Lukaku. Presumably, the logic was that if they do well this season, they might either purchase these loanees or be able to afford similar purchases as a result of the success. If not a succcessful season, these two willl return to their club and the younger Eveton squad players will have had a further 12 months' development time. It's a win-win.
I'm disappointed that Lambert has not taken a similar approach (and also that he has not used the loan system more extensively for our kids).
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From Pravda (http://bit.ly/1d1EcHB):
Paul Lambert insists Villa's top trio - including Randy Lerner and Paul Faulkner - have a shared vision for the future of Villa.
He stressed that he knew when he took over little over 18 months ago that it wasn't going to be a quick-fix, a belief held by the chairman and chief executive too.
....That's what we have done.
"We have taken it right back. I have been supported in it by Randy and Paul.
".... Myself, Randy and Paul know exactly what is going on.
...... You have to start somewhere and lay a brick. That's what we have done.
"We have a plan......
"We're trying to build the club.....
"..... we are evolving and developing as a squad.
"We believe in what we're doing and trust one another within the group.
".....the setbacks we face along the way....
"In terms of support, Randy has been excellent. He's been great with me."
This is definitely written for him. All the references to "we" and mentioning Randy and Faulkner. This is basically telling the fans to quieten down as Lambert is going nowhere. Lambert is doing what Randy and Faulkner want. The plan is to make AVFC the franchise more profitable. This is being achieved. This statement is just to quell the murmurings from the fans.
We as fans are the only ones not making money from this franchise.
This has nothing to do with tactics, teams, trophies, ambition, developing youth, etc.
This is modern football.
Not a bad summary cdward
So basically "like it or lump it" then? Sounds about right.
If "lump it" means no season ticket* next year if this drivel continues I hope the owner "likes it"
*Unless we are relegated as I am an idiot
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Rodgers and Martinez showed that ability to play decent football at clubs on much tighter budgets than ours, and have shown it wasn't a fluke when walking into these big jobs. They also didn't have nothing to do when they took over: neither Moyes' nor Dalglish's played the most up-to-date football, yet a bit of tweaking and those sides are now two of the best possession sides in the league.
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Rodgers and Martinez showed that ability to play decent football at clubs on much tighter budgets than ours, and have shown it wasn't a fluke when walking into these big jobs. They also didn't have nothing to do when they took over: neither Moyes' nor Dalglish's played the most up-to-date football, yet a bit of tweaking and those sides are now two of the best possession sides in the league.
That's true, a workmate of mine is an Evertonian of over 40 yrs and goes regularly - he says the football this season is far better to watch than under moyes .
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All about opinions I suppose. I think we need more dominance, more experience in the side. At the minute we kick the opposition a lot, we are top of the cautions league apparently, yet we don't retain possession. I think Lambert has an over-reliance on crap players.
I agree that we kick them a lot, but the only thing which would improve if we went with more physical players is we'd kick them more effectively. If we had players with better technique (or possibly, more possession-based training like Swansea) we'd have more of the ball and have to kick fewer people.
Montbert, I don't necessarily agree with that. If we had more physical players I think we would be stronger when not in possession. I think KEA, Westwood and Delph all try hard but are too easily brushed aside leading to chances for opponents or yellow cards for our lads. Sometimes a physical player can simply put their body between the opponent, hold them off the ball and win / retain possession without needing to tackle. A physical player isn't necessarily lacking in skill either - Keane, Viera, Essien, Toure....
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All about opinions I suppose. I think we need more dominance, more experience in the side. At the minute we kick the opposition a lot, we are top of the cautions league apparently, yet we don't retain possession. I think Lambert has an over-reliance on crap players.
I agree that we kick them a lot, but the only thing which would improve if we went with more physical players is we'd kick them more effectively. If we had players with better technique (or possibly, more possession-based training like Swansea) we'd have more of the ball and have to kick fewer people.
Montbert, I don't necessarily agree with that. If we had more physical players I think we would be stronger when not in possession. I think KEA, Westwood and Delph all try hard but are too easily brushed aside leading to chances for opponents or yellow cards for our lads. Sometimes a physical player can simply put their body between the opponent, hold them off the ball and win / retain possession without needing to tackle. A physical player isn't necessarily lacking in skill either - Keane, Viera, Essien, Toure....
No, but like Yaya Toure if you get a physical beast who's also good at football he tends to cost £40m-odd. If we want to play good football then unless we find more Benteke-style gems we have to mostly choose between valuing physicality or technique.
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Before the Swansea game it was obvious that the club really don't want to sack Lambert.
I said that the best we can hope for ( apart from putting our frustration aside and getting behind the team best described in the way we did last season against QPR ) is for Lambert to learn the hard lesson of the last few games and be more flexible.The total reliance on untried young players was too much one way, he must now (and quickly) inject some proven quality and experience in the team, left back, centre back and defensive midfield ( if we won more balls and kept possesion the attacking players will score more goals. What goes on at Bodymoor must be reviewed also as we all know the basics seem too much for us at the moment.Finally Lerner has to make the funds available for those players or do the decent thing, come clean and put the "for sale " sign up .
Hoping for a positive outcome whilst praying hard at the same time
UTV
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I dont know why we are moaning. Look at Wolves. Their fans dislike Jackett with an intensity that some on this forum could only dream of.
For the top of table clash against Orient he dropped 13 goal leading scorer Griffiths and replaced him with someone who couldnt score in a month of Sundays
They are second!
and they hate the owner!
football fans eh!
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I dont know why we are moaning. Look at Wolves. Their fans dislike Jackett with an intensity that some on this forum could only dream of.
For the top of table clash against Orient he dropped 13 goal leading scorer Griffiths and replaced him with someone who couldnt score in a month of Sundays
They are second!
and they hate the owner!
football fans eh!
If your team is in League One but was in the Premier just two seasons earlier would you really be surprised if the fans were still a bit pissed off about things?
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I must admit when I see a Martinez being interview , my ears pick up and enjoy listening to what he says , very knowledgeable , like able always enthusiastic and this obvious rubs off onto the team , now when Lambert comes on now , I normally walk out the room , dour man and now dour team .
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I was going to start a thread for this but figured it fits here.
What exactly are our finances like? Randy is worth 1.1bn according to Wiki but I'm assuming that includes us, so roughly 1bn.
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I think there is nothing wrong with having a vision, or a target, every club needs an objective, and a certain amount of time in which to do it.
I do think, though, that that is different from having a "plan" over a set period of time, mostly because football is so unpredictable. You won't get a better example of that than Man City's sudden change from high spending laughing stock under Shinawatra, to richest club in the world under Mansour.
You can't really have a plan and stick to it with much rigidity when you're operating in an environment which can change so much like that, so randomly, due to factors you have no way at all of influencing.
I think that what the club needs to be careful of is not just the obvious stuff (not getting relegated, for example), but also stuff like keeping the fans onside. Ultimately, with everyone on-side, you have a much better chance of reaching those aims.
The problem is that, right now, with this dreadful run of form, people are looking at similar periods last season and wondering how much has changed. I don't really think there's much point in referring to last Christmas and that 13-0 period, because this christmas, we're not playing the same sides.
However, if you look at some of the statistics available regarding us, especially at home, they are truly dreadful. Worst home record over three years of any side in the top six European leagues. I won't quote them all, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Villa fans, more than almost anyone, have had a truly awful time of it over the last three years.
Lambert can't be blamed for all of that, as he's been here a season and a half, and was managing Norwich when these unwanted records started to be set.
What they need to do, however, is understand that people will not give their support unconditionally. Football supporters are just not like that any more - you can roll out the "fickle" thing all you like, but that's just what fans are like, everywhere, we are nothing different in that respect.
It worries me when I hear Lambert start to hint at arsiness with the supporters, or Culverhouse trading insults, because you start to think that maybe they don't understand how testing this has all been for us.
Last year, they got more obvious support, partly because it was only year one, rather than year two, but also partly because people could see that although the results were frequently terrible, there were other signs of progress being made.
This season, that isn't the case. We appear to have forgotten the basics. You can roll out the "possession stats don't determine results" thing all you like, but the fact is, a team which spends so much time without the ball, and has such a dreadful pass completion rate is never going to do very well.
If they can at least fix that, give us something to be hopeful about that, start doing the basics properly, that support will come back very quickly indeed, but if they can't do that, then it doesn't really matter how they see themselves achieving their aims, they're not going to find many people believing them.
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I was going to start a thread for this but figured it fits here.
What exactly are our finances like? Randy is worth 1.1bn according to Wiki but I'm assuming that includes us, so roughly 1bn.
Randy's net worth and Villa's finances are not the same thing.
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I must admit when I see a Martinez being interview , my ears pick up and enjoy listening to what he says , very knowledgeable , like able always enthusiastic and this obvious rubs off onto the team , now when Lambert comes on now , I normally walk out the room , dour man and now dour team .
What I find interesting is that Martinez has now become too big for us when last year, many on here said they didn't want him because of this or that. Whelan sounded like a complete dick when he talked him up, yet, now I know he was right to do so. Now, I would swap them in a heart beat. Although, to be absolutely fair, last year, I also wanted Paul Lambert.
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I was going to start a thread for this but figured it fits here.
What exactly are our finances like? Randy is worth 1.1bn according to Wiki but I'm assuming that includes us, so roughly 1bn.
Randy's net worth and Villa's finances are not the same thing.
Alright, so what are our finances like?
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I was going to start a thread for this but figured it fits here.
What exactly are our finances like? Randy is worth 1.1bn according to Wiki but I'm assuming that includes us, so roughly 1bn.
Randy's net worth and Villa's finances are not the same thing.
Alright, so what are our finances like?
our wage bill is definitely below that of Spurs at the moment
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Cheers mate, bit of a surprise that one.
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I was going to start a thread for this but figured it fits here.
What exactly are our finances like? Randy is worth 1.1bn according to Wiki but I'm assuming that includes us, so roughly 1bn.
Randy's net worth and Villa's finances are not the same thing.
Alright, so what are our finances like?
our wage bill is definitely below that of Spurs at the moment
I look on us as similar in stature and size to everton - I wonder how we compare wages wise to them as kenwrights always been frugal with his expenditure but they have remained around the top 6 for a long time .
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Cheers mate, bit of a surprise that one.
Why are you surprised our wage bill is lower than spurs? They have made several big signings in recent months.
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Lambert rarely talks about performances and always goes on about the results. That worries me, surely he knows we're not playing well?
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I must admit when I see a Martinez being interview , my ears pick up and enjoy listening to what he says , very knowledgeable , like able always enthusiastic and this obvious rubs off onto the team , now when Lambert comes on now , I normally walk out the room , dour man and now dour team .
What I find interesting is that Martinez has now become too big for us when last year, many on here said they didn't want him because of this or that. Whelan sounded like a complete dick when he talked him up, yet, now I know he was right to do so. Now, I would swap them in a heart beat. Although, to be absolutely fair, last year, I also wanted Paul Lambert.
I didnt think we would get Martinez . It seemed to be PL or OGS and to be honest , even thou OSG sounded exciting and I liked that idea , I wanted Lambert because of the premiership experience , a little MON ( I know ) and a bit Dortmund in there but some exciting games and slowly work us into a good solid prem team . Now I have doubts .
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I think there is nothing wrong with having a vision, or a target, every club needs an objective, and a certain amount of time in which to do it.
I do think, though, that that is different from having a "plan" over a set period of time, mostly because football is so unpredictable. You won't get a better example of that than Man City's sudden change from high spending laughing stock under Shinawatra, to richest club in the world under Mansour.
You can't really have a plan and stick to it with much rigidity when you're operating in an environment which can change so much like that, so randomly, due to factors you have no way at all of influencing.
I think that what the club needs to be careful of is not just the obvious stuff (not getting relegated, for example), but also stuff like keeping the fans onside. Ultimately, with everyone on-side, you have a much better chance of reaching those aims.
The problem is that, right now, with this dreadful run of form, people are looking at similar periods last season and wondering how much has changed. I don't really think there's much point in referring to last Christmas and that 13-0 period, because this christmas, we're not playing the same sides.
However, if you look at some of the statistics available regarding us, especially at home, they are truly dreadful. Worst home record over three years of any side in the top six European leagues. I won't quote them all, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Villa fans, more than almost anyone, have had a truly awful time of it over the last three years.
Lambert can't be blamed for all of that, as he's been here a season and a half, and was managing Norwich when these unwanted records started to be set.
What they need to do, however, is understand that people will not give their support unconditionally. Football supporters are just not like that any more - you can roll out the "fickle" thing all you like, but that's just what fans are like, everywhere, we are nothing different in that respect.
It worries me when I hear Lambert start to hint at arsiness with the supporters, or Culverhouse trading insults, because you start to think that maybe they don't understand how testing this has all been for us.
Last year, they got more obvious support, partly because it was only year one, rather than year two, but also partly because people could see that although the results were frequently terrible, there were other signs of progress being made.
This season, that isn't the case. We appear to have forgotten the basics. You can roll out the "possession stats don't determine results" thing all you like, but the fact is, a team which spends so much time without the ball, and has such a dreadful pass completion rate is never going to do very well.
If they can at least fix that, give us something to be hopeful about that, start doing the basics properly, that support will come back very quickly indeed, but if they can't do that, then it doesn't really matter how they see themselves achieving their aims, they're not going to find many people believing them.
Great post paulie.
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Cheers mate, bit of a surprise that one.
Why are you surprised our wage bill is lower than spurs? They have made several big signings in recent months.
I'm not, I suspected sarcasm so I decided to fight fire with fire.
Nobody can elaborate on our finances then?
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I thought we were going to do well this season - the opening day filled me with confidence. However, since then I've done nothing but head scratching and wondering as to where we're going. This is not a long term plan, just a load of hyperbole.
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I must admit when I see a Martinez being interview , my ears pick up and enjoy listening to what he says , very knowledgeable , like able always enthusiastic and this obvious rubs off onto the team , now when Lambert comes on now , I normally walk out the room , dour man and now dour team .
What I find interesting is that Martinez has now become too big for us when last year, many on here said they didn't want him because of this or that. Whelan sounded like a complete dick when he talked him up, yet, now I know he was right to do so. Now, I would swap them in a heart beat. Although, to be absolutely fair, last year, I also wanted Paul Lambert.
I think we offered him the job and he turned us down after being informed of what kind of transfer budget and wage structure he'd be given. That's just my opinion what I can only back up by the kind of players we've signed for the last few years.
Until this changes we're going to struggle at the wrong end of the table whoever is our manager.
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Presumably somewhere between completely and mildly rubber ducked.
Sorry that was in response to smirker
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I must admit when I see a Martinez being interview , my ears pick up and enjoy listening to what he says , very knowledgeable , like able always enthusiastic and this obvious rubs off onto the team , now when Lambert comes on now , I normally walk out the room , dour man and now dour team .
What I find interesting is that Martinez has now become too big for us when last year, many on here said they didn't want him because of this or that. Whelan sounded like a complete dick when he talked him up, yet, now I know he was right to do so. Now, I would swap them in a heart beat. Although, to be absolutely fair, last year, I also wanted Paul Lambert.
I think we offered him the job and he turned us down after being informed of what kind of transfer budget and wage structure he'd be given. That's just my opinion what I can only back up by the kind of players we've signed for the last few years.
Until this changes we're going to struggle at the wrong end of the table whoever is our manager.
He wasn't given permission to speak to us if I remember correctly.
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I must admit when I see a Martinez being interview , my ears pick up and enjoy listening to what he says , very knowledgeable , like able always enthusiastic and this obvious rubs off onto the team , now when Lambert comes on now , I normally walk out the room , dour man and now dour team .
What I find interesting is that Martinez has now become too big for us when last year, many on here said they didn't want him because of this or that. Whelan sounded like a complete dick when he talked him up, yet, now I know he was right to do so. Now, I would swap them in a heart beat. Although, to be absolutely fair, last year, I also wanted Paul Lambert.
I think we offered him the job and he turned us down after being informed of what kind of transfer budget and wage structure he'd be given. That's just my opinion what I can only back up by the kind of players we've signed for the last few years.
Until this changes we're going to struggle at the wrong end of the table whoever is our manager.
He wasn't given permission to speak to us if I remember correctly.
I thought he declined an interview?
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I must admit when I see a Martinez being interview , my ears pick up and enjoy listening to what he says , very knowledgeable , like able always enthusiastic and this obvious rubs off onto the team , now when Lambert comes on now , I normally walk out the room , dour man and now dour team .
What I find interesting is that Martinez has now become too big for us when last year, many on here said they didn't want him because of this or that. Whelan sounded like a complete dick when he talked him up, yet, now I know he was right to do so. Now, I would swap them in a heart beat. Although, to be absolutely fair, last year, I also wanted Paul Lambert.
I think we offered him the job and he turned us down after being informed of what kind of transfer budget and wage structure he'd be given. That's just my opinion what I can only back up by the kind of players we've signed for the last few years.
Until this changes we're going to struggle at the wrong end of the table whoever is our manager.
He wasn't given permission to speak to us if I remember correctly.
I just thought it was like Liverpool where he could have accepted an interview if he wanted to but chose not to and stayed at Wigan. I know he actually met with them though at a resort or something but nothing official. Whelan was just a lot of noise in the background. The Everton job came at the right time with Moyes moving on, and Wigan going down having won the cup.
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I normally post more on another site and on that site one particular poster is holding on for dear life concerning his opinion on Lambert.
He has spent most of this season with the exception of the last few games (obviously) defending Lambert with the 'but we've more points at this stage than last season).
Since that points tally has closed to one he has now reverted to the wage v performance debate.
What he is stating is that we cannot expect any better from our players because (and this has been confirmed by a validated ITK) that the majority of our new players are earning no more than between 5k-15k per week. That may shock some of you and it may not but that is Championship wages and you can see how the poster's debate could be validated.
However, although Lambert's remit was to reduce the wage bill, my argument has always been with this particular poster did he need to be so abrupt in using the guillotine on the players that were already here before Lambert started his tenure with us and has Lambert's signings improved us in any position on the pitch while spending another reported 43m?
Could we have used Bent more rather than spending 4m-7m on Kozak and could we have used Hutton instead of the dross we have now at FB. Could we have got more out of Ireland which Hughes is now doing at Stoke and is Westwood really any better than Bannan?
Of course the issue has been wages but why buy Helenius if on a limited budget and why purchase Tonev when we had Albrighton. What was the point of purchasing Bowery who gives his all but is quite obviously very limited in ability when we had the Fonz and I could go on.
Very poor allocation of a limited budget and this has been Lambert's choice.
Benteke and Vlaar however have been cracking purchases but the other 14 players that Lambert has signed have been poor even just on a squad basis.
It pains me to say this but we now have the worst squad of players I have ever seen in my forty years as a Villa fan. Absolutely no quality or balance in midfield and we're much too static all over the pitch giving the player in possession few alternatives to pass to. That is down to the manager and his coaches who must in training place the player's feet in bags of cement to stop passes going astray. I have never seen such a lack of movement from any Villa team before and it infuriates me as even in my school days, alas too far away now, my P.E Teacher instructed us all to pass and move to create space and alternatives to pass to.
We did do this to great effect last season against Sunderland and I mistakenly thought it was the beginning of a new dawn for us. Alas that dawn has proven to be false and Lambert cannot continue to live on the memories of that game or his signing of Benteke.
If our poor form continues and Lambert is eventually sacked (please God) what do you think any new manager coming in will do with the present squad?
Personally i feel we'll have yet another bomb squad to get rid of apart from the two aforementioned players and that i fear is going to be Paul Lambert's legacy.
In your opinion.
My view would be that we are eighteen months into totally restructuring the club on a very tightly controlled budget. Whilst, admittedly, we are currently in a run of shocking form we are still in a position to improve on last year's league finish and build again.
Reading other posts here and on other forums it's interesting to observe a set a pattern of responses every time Villa reach a "crisis". Some people will start resorting to personally insulting the management staff, some will claim the dressing room has been lost, some will claim the players are unfit and never do any training and so on and so on and so on... We've had three years of this type of in the know tittle-tattle that serves no purpose other than to create instability in the club and a sense of turmoil. Who starts these rumours and "ITK" posts? Rival fans pretending to be Villa supporters? Journalists trying to create a story? I've no idea, but it's amazing that for the best part of three (maybe four) managerial regimes this same pattern of ITK bullshit emerges when we hit a run of poor results.
Lambert hasn't suddenly become DiCanio overnight and he certainly hasn't morphed into David O'Leary on the back of four defeats. As far as I can see he is the same manager who our away support serenaded at the end of the 11-12 season and he's the very same manager who, for a number of years, quietly and steadily built up a reputation for himself as being one of the brightest young managers in the game.
People will say: Look at Rodgers, look at Martinez and see what gifted young managers can really do. Fair enough, but Rodgers is in a position where he can offer a 200k a week salary for his star player and Martinez walked into a job where a top six squad was already in place. Lambert is in a completely different position and I genuinely can't think of many managers out there who could turn around our club given the financial restraints. He needs more time than eighteen months - let's see where we are at the end of the season.
It's not really just my opinion though is it if you look at the stats since Lambert became our manager.
We've won just twice in ten home games this season and we've scored the lowest amount of goals at home in all four divisions coupled with winning just 11 games out of the last 48. We only secured our Premiership status last season with just one game to go and are just four points above the drop zone this season with a very hard set of fixtures to come.
Those are pretty damming stats especially with our current style of football being awful to watch.
A new manager coming in wouldn't have that much to beat would he.
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I must admit when I see a Martinez being interview , my ears pick up and enjoy listening to what he says , very knowledgeable , like able always enthusiastic and this obvious rubs off onto the team , now when Lambert comes on now , I normally walk out the room , dour man and now dour team .
What I find interesting is that Martinez has now become too big for us when last year, many on here said they didn't want him because of this or that. Whelan sounded like a complete dick when he talked him up, yet, now I know he was right to do so. Now, I would swap them in a heart beat. Although, to be absolutely fair, last year, I also wanted Paul Lambert.
I think we offered him the job and he turned us down after being informed of what kind of transfer budget and wage structure he'd be given. That's just my opinion what I can only back up by the kind of players we've signed for the last few years.
Until this changes we're going to struggle at the wrong end of the table whoever is our manager.
He wasn't given permission to speak to us if I remember correctly.
I don't for one minute believe that stopped him or his people speaking to ours.
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We will come good, no doubts.
We are all Villa fans on here, but when was the last time we actually won fucking anything ? 1997, That's when.
Get a bloody grip. Our history counts for fuck all now. Our future does.
We are not getting a quick Man City, Chelsea type fix to sort us out, just bloody deal with it.
We won the European cup, Super cup, the League, beat Manure in the league cup final, 2 years after , thrashed Leeds in the same competition, happy days. FA Cup 7 times, when was the last one ?
Lets just get everything into perspective here, shall we.?
We deserve fuckall, and have deserved fuckall for years.
We might be Villa but can someone tell him upstairs? Cause no fucker seems to listen.
UTV.
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We will come good, no doubts.
We are all Villa fans on here, but when was the last time we actually won fucking anything ? 1997, That's when.
Get a bloody grip. Our history counts for fuck all now. Our future does.
We are not getting a quick Man City, Chelsea type fix to sort us out, just bloody deal with it.
We won the European cup, Super cup, the League, beat Manure in the league cup final, 2 years after , thrashed Leeds in the same competition, happy days. FA Cup 7 times, when was the last one ?
Lets just get everything into perspective here, shall we.?
We deserve fuckall, and have deserved fuckall for years.
We might be Villa but can someone tell him upstairs? Cause no fucker seems to listen.
UTV.
I always blame my mum for the fact that we haven't won anything for so long. Her words (in the build up to the Leeds final) and I quote "We have to get tickets because they might not win anything again".
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We might not 'deserve' it but we are absolutely owned it.
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I'm no footballing genius, but nothing has seemed more inevitable to me than the slow motion car crash that has overtaken Villa since the O'Neill era went sour.
Houllier and McLeish were patent mistakes and then once Lambert's transfer policy became clear, it was a matter of time before we reached the place we are now with one home win in a billion. It was genuinely touching to see the enthusiasm the first transfer window that he packed us full of the footballing version of Aldi shopping. Paying anyone, let alone people who kick a football around, and especially someone like Suarez, £200,000 a week is immoral. Our refusal to follow that model is admirable. However, there is a reason why some players cost more than others, and you either accept that and the moral sell out that goes with it or start supporting Bromsgrove. Our players just aren't very good and they have no experienced or talented players alongside them to nurture them.
I think the vision/plan was and remains putting great confidence in Lambert being both a scout of supernatural ability and a turd polisher of the highest order. I don't think he is either.
As for our finances, are they really worse now than they were in, say, 2000? I remember lower gates and a tight arse chairman, but we still seemed to be able to pay for players people had heard of who could pass a football.
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The last manager lost his job because the season ticket renewals were looking to be a disaster the club and Randy just couldn't afford, so it had a lot to do with the supporters. Please stop this Ireland is playing well for Hughes shit, i manage to watch all games over here and take great interest in how Villa players are going at different clubs and to put it bluntly all of what you call senior players are no different to how they were at Villa.
Ireland in the game before last was subbed at half time and in his last game he was taken off just after the start of the second half, they said ha wasn't well. The time he spent on the pitch he seemed to be going half pace. Does Bent start any games? how many goals has he scored?.
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Paying anyone, let alone people who kick a football around, and especially someone like Suarez, £200,000 a week is immoral. Our refusal to follow that model is admirable. However, there is a reason why some players cost more than others, and you either accept that and the moral sell out that goes with it or start supporting Bromsgrove.
Maybe.
But there is a skill in finding young players on the up and giving them the platform to develop into top class players -rather than signing the finished article.
The question is whether Lambert has this skill. On balance -taking all his signings as a whole- it would be hard to say he has. I can accept that we are still in the (relatively) early stages of the project. But when Barry came through, it was clear in his first couple of games that he had that something special. Ashley Young -who was signed for a large fee for such a relatively unknown- also had something about him, even if he struggled for consistency in his first year. Mark Delaney probably belongs in that bracket too.
Two of those are not ideal comparisons in the sense that PL hasn't inherited a player as good as GB, nor has he been given £10 million to spend on a 21 year old winger (or if he has, he didn't spend it).
But they are clear illustrations of talented -and at the time young and unknown- players who looked like having good futures in the top flight from the very start of their time with us. I don't think I could say that about any of the current crop. I could quite easily see Westwood, Bowery and Bennett strolling around the Championship in a year or two, for example.
Where they come from, be it League One, the French Second Division or similar is of little consequence to me. All players have to start somewhere. It's quality that counts, and -on that score- it's hard to make a case that our bargain basement gems are up to scratch.
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The last manager lost his job because the season ticket renewals were looking to be a disaster the club and Randy just couldn't afford, so it had a lot to do with the supporters. Please stop this Ireland is playing well for Hughes shit, i manage to watch all games over here and take great interest in how Villa players are going at different clubs and to put it bluntly all of what you call senior players are no different to how they were at Villa.
Ireland in the game before last was subbed at half time and in his last game he was taken off just after the start of the second half, they said ha wasn't well. The time he spent on the pitch he seemed to be going half pace. Does Bent start any games? how many goals has he scored?.
Bent is not pulling any trees up as far as I have noticed.
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I agree wholeheartedly Kevin. It comes back to my point about the third way. The first way is to be taken over by trillionaire owners and buy success. The second way is to try to punch way above your weight with bargain players, young players, loan signings and dollops of good luck or the third way which is to be better and quicker and craftier at finding talent before the opposition finds it. World wide scouting properly staffed and properly funded is almost certainly a more certain route towards a more productive premiership points per million spent.
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I agree Brian, but with a caveat: our job isn't to find the talent first, the big clubs' scouting networks will have seen every player we do - our job is to take the punts on the ones they won't.
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Bent is rarely fit, and when he is he rarely scores these days. Maybe Lambert suspected both those things would be issues which is why he bought another striker and fobbed Bent off on someone who would pay a chunk of his wages?
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With Martinez, we asked Whelan for permission to speak to him, he gave it.
We asked Martinez if he wanted to speak to us, and he said no. That's all fact.
Probably - and this isn't factual, just opinion - because he probably felt he owed something to Wigan.
That, to me, is knocking us back. He wasn't offered the job, true, but he was offered the chance to be considered, and wasn't interested.
I don't think there's anything too controversial in all that, but it strikes me that people saying "he was told what the budget would be, and wasn't interested" are really just putting a spin on it to suit their stance - there is not any evidence in a single thing anyone has said that supports that as the way things went.
It doesnt even make sense as an idea - why would we tell him what the budget would be before talking to him?
We wouldn't, but hey ho, that's not doomish enough for some.
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He was dead right about Bent. He gave him a huge chance and made him captain and everything, and Bent still moved less off the ball than a netballer does with the ball.
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Bent is rarely fit, and when he is he rarely scores these days. Maybe Lambert suspected both those things would be issues which is why he bought another striker and fobbed Bent off on someone who would pay a chunk of his wages?
I was dismayed when it first started to look like we'd sell Bent, but look at what he's achieved since he left - absolutely nothing. He's the epitome of a player left behind by the game.
There's not a single shred of evidence to suggest we were wrong to punt him on. If he'd done something at Fulham, maybe, but he has done the square root of sweet FA.
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I see Lambert is targeting experience in January now...the penny drops with the last man standing :-) he'll be going for quality or leaders next :-)
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I agree wholeheartedly Kevin. It comes back to my point about the third way. The first way is to be taken over by trillionaire owners and buy success. The second way is to try to punch way above your weight with bargain players, young players, loan signings and dollops of good luck or the third way which is to be better and quicker and craftier at finding talent before the opposition finds it. World wide scouting properly staffed and properly funded is almost certainly a more certain route towards a more productive premiership points per million spent.
Isn't your third way just your second way when it works?
I've seen enough from Lambert's signings to be convinced that he'll be successful with the second way given time.
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Lambert's vision will come to fruition a lot faster if he accepts that he needs to approach this with some flexibility and understands that January represents a really critical time in his tenure to turn this around and get it right.
#ding# correct answer.
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I really would love it if he could inform us what that plan involves. Previously, he has been known for causing remarkably quick renaissances of clubs, particularly getting Norwich back to the Premier League in two successive promotions, and I know that we're a bigger club fallen on our own brand off hard times but Norwich were a big club compared to everyone around them and fallen on incredibly hard times, so I don't buy that counter-argument.
Also, I'd like to know why this project appears to have nothing to do with keeping the ball - Swansea, Southampton and Cardiff can all do it, why can't we? It's a bit saddening, because I'm fed up of seeing 1970s football down at the Villa (but without the success of the 70s).
Given that he's not going to be fired any time soon (presumably because Lerner felt that he was too trigger-happy at the Browns and has swung to the opposite extreme with us), we have no choice but to support him and hope that he gets it right, and I believe his intentions are more ambitious and - how to put this - aesthetically salubrious than those of his predecessor, but he better start looking with a bit less Britishness and a bit more culture at the clubs playing better football than us and start copying their training methods fast no matter how effeminate or nerdy they seem, because otherwise he's never going to get either the style he wants nor the success that that style brings.
Paul. I like you, still. But I'm begging you for this, because if you won't do it then nobody will.
Good post Montbert.
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Cheers mate, bit of a surprise that one.
Why are you surprised our wage bill is lower than spurs? They have made several big signings in recent months.
I'm not, I suspected sarcasm so I decided to fight fire with fire.
Nobody can elaborate on our finances then?
It's been reported on here a few times that the wages/turnover ratio is now back where it needs to be. Whether this mean that we can now start signing well paid players again or whether the aggregate wage bill needs to stay at this level remains to be seen. Ditto - no-one really knows whether the new TV money has already been factored in.
In summary, we're no longer living outside our means = good.
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If I remember correctly, McLeish was also boasting about how he, Lerner and Faulkner shared a 'vision' for Aston Villa. It only lasted for a season.
I'm not sure if it is a good sign when the manager becomes very philosophical when the team isn't playing well.
However, I believe there is little chance that Lambert will lose his job. The squad is largely his - 16 of 35 players in the first team squad is signed by him. How a new manager would do better with those players than Lambert isn't clear. And the alternative: to let the new man rebuild the squad once again may not be an attractive option to Lerner and co. Neither GH nor McLeish managed to put their mark on the squad to the extent that Lambert has, and that made them easier to dispose of.
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In summary, we're no longer living outside our means = good.
I know what you mean, and I am playing devil's advocate here, but I can't resist asking why we weren't so pleased at not living outside our means when Ellis was in control?
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He was dead right about Bent. He gave him a huge chance and made him captain and everything, and Bent still moved less off the ball than a netballer does with the ball.
And new Fulham boss Rene Meulensteen said he is a fat fuck:
Mirror (http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/out-shape-darren-bent-told-2903511)
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In summary, we're no longer living outside our means = good.
I know what you mean, and I am playing devil's advocate here, but I can't resist asking why we weren't so pleased at not living outside our means when Ellis was in control?
I'm no authority on this as it was largely before my time, but Randy has ploughed money in, but never received the personal benefit of a stock market flotation - what was it 70m?. Not to mention an annual salary.
Personally and maybe naively I feel Randy will always stump up 20m a year on transfer fees, however he should not also be expected to fund the wages. Thereby if Randy chooses to walk away the club still exists as it does today in the future. Previously, before the belt tightening, we were struggling to cover the wages based on our income, let alone sign players.
Besides, I'm older now and find simply spending money to solve problems seems a bit vulgar whereas in my teens and early twenties - the ellis years - money was the single thing between me and a whole world of cleavages, sports cars and a James Bond-esque life style.
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There is no plan. There is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, no Tooth Fairy no crock of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The concept of a plan by its very definition requires a beginning, a middle and a conclusion. A plan to win a war, solve a crime or cure a disease starts somewhere, proceeds and finishes up somewhere, even if the "somewhere" it terminates is admission of failure.
Paul Lambert has had his job for a year and a half. If there was a plan in place there must be evidence of it by now to prove its existence. There is nothing whatsoever. There have been bright spots of success, there have been short spells like a run of a few games at the end of last season which have been better than what has gone before but that is no proof of a plan.
It is like the gambler betting on the numbers of the birthdates of his family as an infallible system of winning a fortune. Make enough bets and the number of your granny's birthday and your uncle's birthday will win now and again but that is not a betting plan, it is random choice.
We are being massaged into believing that the buying of Bennett and Helenius and Tonev and Kozak and KEA and Luna and Bacuna and Lowton and Woodward is all part of some grand plan to establish Villa as a force in the premiership. The bare, unvarnished, unmassaged, unmanipulated facts, the statistics, show otherwise. Lambert denies this by saying that "statistics fry your brain". No they don't they demonstrate the reality behind the lie.
Make one simple test of the claim that there is a "brick on brick" plan in place. Ask yourself why we signed Kozak for £7 million. We already had Benteke, Weimann, Gabby, Fonz, Helenius and Bowery. Our side was screaming out for midfield strengthening and has been ever since we sold Barry and Milner. It was an unplanned impulse purchase of the very worst kind. It was me walking through a tool shop or my wife walking through a handbag shop.
I do not want to see Lambert sacked. My stand is that I do not think a new manager of any kind would make any difference whatsoever to our decline. What I do want to see is Lambert to be his own man and stop being the mouthpiece of Faulkner and Lambert and insulting our collective intelligence by giving us the hard sell of a non existent master plan.
The sea change in our fortunes came when the owner and the CEO decided that Aston Villa Football Club was no longer a great and glorious page in the history of the Beautiful Game but a "brand" to be marketed. The motor which is driving the direction in which we are heading is the desire by Paul Faulkner to impress the boss. Every word and every statement which comes out of the club, whether it is in the media, on the public address system or in the junk mail we have cascading through our letter boxes is marbled through with American management and marketing methodology.
I do not want to see us go broke. I do not want us to go down into the third division again, I have seen that movie. I am in favour of solvency and good housekeeping.
What I am totally and absolutely and utterly against is the unforgivable lie that slashing the cost of owning the club is a plan for anything other than slashing the costs of owning the club.
As Ricky Tomlinson would say "Master plan My arse".
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brian green, what a great post!
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Nice post, Brian. Great post for many aspects.
But I think that you are too harsh with the club.
Lambert may have - surely he has - overvalued a bunch of average young players, but unlike Arsenal for instance, even in the era of modern football the Villa remained a great but still familiar club, with a beautiful stadium (not an anonymous modern arena) that includes a clubhouse(the Holte) where you can meet the Legends after the game, a club that has traditional shared values, a special eye for the fans (to which is dedicated a lounge where they can meet before and after the game), an ethic (think about what the club does for Acorns), and that oozes class everywhere. Lambert or not Lambert.
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Well said Archie.
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Whatever the plan may or may not be lose tomorrow and it can be filed under the "failed" category.
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Nice post, Brian. Great post for many aspects.
But I think that you are too harsh with the club.
Lambert may have - surely he has - overvalued a bunch of average young players, but unlike Arsenal for instance, even in the era of modern football the Villa remained a great but still familiar club, with a beautiful stadium (not an anonymous modern arena) that includes a clubhouse(the Holte) where you can meet the Legends after the game, a club that has traditional shared values, a special eye for the fans (to which is dedicated a lounge where they can meet before and after the game), an ethic (think about what the club does for Acorns), and that oozes class everywhere. Lambert or not Lambert.
You're right the Villa does ooze class all over, but sadly not on the pitch, and that is the most important bit.
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If the plan is a long term plan, how can it be deemed a failure?
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Nice post brian although I'm not sure I agree with the content.
Has the plan recently been to reduce the wages to a sustainable level whilst staying in the league?
If so, they've so far been successful. Hopefully this plan has been supplemented by improvements to the scouting network, training facilities and other aspects which will help us long term.
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It's not a question of whether the plan is failing or not. If the plan is merely to survive and balance the books then it's failing the fans who trudge up to watch such dreary rubbish week after week. People don't pay £40 a ticket to see a Villa team littered with lower league dross scrape through by the skin of its teeth. They want to see Villa compete at a level commensurate with the club's standing in the game. At the moment they've been reduced to hoping to see a first half goal at Villa Park. However successful the 'plan' is, it's failing the fans. They will not stay onside forever.
I'll say it again: if there's a plan, tell the fans who are ploughing their hard earnd cash into this 'project' what on earth it is.
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Who is Woodward? Is he any good?
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I'll say it again: if there's a plan, tell the fans who are ploughing their hard earnd cash into this 'project' what on earth it is.
If you'd read anything at all about the club since Lerner took over you'd know. I've lost count of the times since day one when he said he wanted us to be self-sustaining. Self-sustaining isn't spunking 90-odd percent of your turnover on wages.
If you want a bit more detail on why we are where we are, this is an excellent, and impartial assessment of our finances back in 2009 - http://swissramble.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/randy-lerners-money-talks-at-aston.html. It's four and a half years old but the writing was on the wall back then. We all know Randy gambled on Champions League - a gamble which failed when Sheik Mansour came in and upset the apple cart. Only a mentalist would think we're within reach of Champions League for the foreseeable future so we have two choices - either carry on spending as though we think we'll make it and ultimately go the way of Portsmouth/Leeds/Sheffield Wednesday/etc or work within the realities of our finances and build from there. The 'project' is the latter.
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My take is on Lener is simple. I think the takeover at Man City completely changed his outloook on owning Villa.
When he bought us I genuinely thought investing £100 million into the playing staff would give us a realistic chance of reaching the Champions League, and thus drastically increase our revenue. This was stage 1 of any "plan" but it was very much an "all or nothing" approach that, as we all know, ended in nothing. Subsequently the likes of Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurts have all had to spend more and more just to keep up with City and, when we weren't able to do so, Randy realised it was sheer folly to blow millions in order to keep us in and around the Europa League places. In addition to this he would have seen the likes of Swansea and Wigan winning silverware whilst not spending "silly money" and decided Villa should be able to follow suit.
In hindsight, had we picked-up a Laudrup or Martinez (or maybe even a Lambert) as soon as MON left we may be much further ahead than we are, say where Everton are now. The damage done by the Houllier and McLeish years however, has set the club-back drastically and given Lambert an incredibly big task of improving the side whilst cutting-back on the wage-bill.
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Who is Woodward? Is he any good?
Yeah who is Woodward?
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My take is on Lener is simple. I think the takeover at Man City completely changed his outloook on owning Villa.
When he bought us I genuinely thought investing £100 million into the playing staff would give us a realistic chance of reaching the Champions League, and thus drastically increase our revenue. This was stage 1 of any "plan" but it was very much an "all or nothing" approach that, as we all know, ended in nothing. Subsequently the likes of Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurts have all had to spend more and more just to keep up with City and, when we weren't able to do so, Randy realised it was sheer folly to blow millions in order to keep us in and around the Europa League places. In addition to this he would have seen the likes of Swansea and Wigan winning silverware whilst not spending "silly money" and decided Villa should be able to follow suit.
In hindsight, had we picked-up a Laudrup or Martinez (or maybe even a Lambert) as soon as MON left we may be much further ahead than we are, say where Everton are now. The damage done by the Houllier and McLeish years however, has set the club-back drastically and given Lambert an incredibly big task of improving the side whilst cutting-back on the wage-bill.
Spot on.
Just to add to your point about the others spending increasing amounts of money just to try to keep up with Man City, Rodgers has spent over £100m on players since he took over at Liverpool 18 months ago. In doing that he's taken a team that had finished 6th 12 months before he took over, got them to finish 7th in his first year and is currently 5th. Yes, their football might be better to watch at the moment but that's not sustainable in the long term.
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If the plan is a long term plan, how can it be deemed a failure?
Very good point. But as others have stated how can you expect the supporters ,who in these austere times are paying out huge sums of money to view very poor quality football, to keep turning up. The answer is obvious. The Villa Park employees from Lambert down are paid very good wages ,I would imagine, wages that most of us could never hope to attain. How long is 'the long term plan' thats what we would like to be told. 5yrs, or 10yrs, or maybe 20yrs? If its 20 then I shall be probably sitting in the fabled Trinity Road stand up above looking down.
But I suspect there is no plan just empty words. Anybody who has worked for major companies in the last forty years or so gets used to this kind of thing. It usually means jobs are at risk. I suspect Lambert is worried, but not too worried ,at the moment. If, however, there is not an upturn by the middle of February I suspect he will be out.
I think,in many ways,Randy has done a good job. Unfortunately, like his father, when he got involved in the sporting arena he has not found success...consistently!
To sum up Randy is a very decent man who would be better off spending his fathers money on something he would enjoy more.
But as he keeps himself to himself and doesnt speak to the media we have no way of finding out what his future intentions for the club are.
Which is a great pity.
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There is no plan. There is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, no Tooth Fairy no crock of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The concept of a plan by its very definition requires a beginning, a middle and a conclusion. A plan to win a war, solve a crime or cure a disease starts somewhere, proceeds and finishes up somewhere, even if the "somewhere" it terminates is admission of failure.
Paul Lambert has had his job for a year and a half. If there was a plan in place there must be evidence of it by now to prove its existence. There is nothing whatsoever. There have been bright spots of success, there have been short spells like a run of a few games at the end of last season which have been better than what has gone before but that is no proof of a plan.
It is like the gambler betting on the numbers of the birthdates of his family as an infallible system of winning a fortune. Make enough bets and the number of your granny's birthday and your uncle's birthday will win now and again but that is not a betting plan, it is random choice.
We are being massaged into believing that the buying of Bennett and Helenius and Tonev and Kozak and KEA and Luna and Bacuna and Lowton and Woodward is all part of some grand plan to establish Villa as a force in the premiership. The bare, unvarnished, unmassaged, unmanipulated facts, the statistics, show otherwise. Lambert denies this by saying that "statistics fry your brain". No they don't they demonstrate the reality behind the lie.
Make one simple test of the claim that there is a "brick on brick" plan in place. Ask yourself why we signed Kozak for £7 million. We already had Benteke, Weimann, Gabby, Fonz, Helenius and Bowery. Our side was screaming out for midfield strengthening and has been ever since we sold Barry and Milner. It was an unplanned impulse purchase of the very worst kind. It was me walking through a tool shop or my wife walking through a handbag shop.
I do not want to see Lambert sacked. My stand is that I do not think a new manager of any kind would make any difference whatsoever to our decline. What I do want to see is Lambert to be his own man and stop being the mouthpiece of Faulkner and Lambert and insulting our collective intelligence by giving us the hard sell of a non existent master plan.
The sea change in our fortunes came when the owner and the CEO decided that Aston Villa Football Club was no longer a great and glorious page in the history of the Beautiful Game but a "brand" to be marketed. The motor which is driving the direction in which we are heading is the desire by Paul Faulkner to impress the boss. Every word and every statement which comes out of the club, whether it is in the media, on the public address system or in the junk mail we have cascading through our letter boxes is marbled through with American management and marketing methodology.
I do not want to see us go broke. I do not want us to go down into the third division again, I have seen that movie. I am in favour of solvency and good housekeeping.
What I am totally and absolutely and utterly against is the unforgivable lie that slashing the cost of owning the club is a plan for anything other than slashing the costs of owning the club.
As Ricky Tomlinson would say "Master plan My arse".
Woodward? ,Brian. John Woodward? Very intelligent post that!
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I'll say it again: if there's a plan, tell the fans who are ploughing their hard earnd cash into this 'project' what on earth it is.
If you'd read anything at all about the club since Lerner took over you'd know. I've lost count of the times since day one when he said he wanted us to be self-sustaining. Self-sustaining isn't spunking 90-odd percent of your turnover on wages.
I think I have a good idea of where we are, and where we think we're going - through the gradual feed of soundbites and fire-fighting rhetoric issued from the club - but has the club ever come out and just said it? Lambert gave it a right good go recently, but he's not the most articulate person at the club. Perhaps Mr Lerner himself could explain, after all, it's his plan.
Whatever the plan, however, the problem is we've gone from A to C without stopping at B. This sudden austerity is too much, too soon, and doesn't it show?
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Just to add to your point about the others spending increasing amounts of money just to try to keep up with Man City, Rodgers has spent over £100m on players since he took over at Liverpool 18 months ago. In doing that he's taken a team that had finished 6th 12 months before he took over, got them to finish 7th in his first year and is currently 5th. Yes, their football might be better to watch at the moment but that's not sustainable in the long term.
Good posts.
It'd be pretty remarkable if Liverpool finished 5th this year and, despite having been brilliant for large parts of the season, being in trouble again that they've over spent. Suarez would probably have to leave and I'd guess they'd have to balance the books a bit before they could 'have another go' and spunk big cash.
Of course, finish 4th and they'd be able to supplement the squad with one or two more players.
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I'll say it again: if there's a plan, tell the fans who are ploughing their hard earnd cash into this 'project' what on earth it is.
If you'd read anything at all about the club since Lerner took over you'd know. I've lost count of the times since day one when he said he wanted us to be self-sustaining. Self-sustaining isn't spunking 90-odd percent of your turnover on wages.
I think I have a good idea of where we are, and where we think we're going - through the gradual feed of soundbites and fire-fighting rhetoric issued from the club - but has the club ever come out and just said it? Lambert gave it a right good go recently, but he's not the most articulate person at the club. Perhaps Mr Lerner himself could explain, after all, it's his plan.
Whatever the plan, however, the problem is we've gone from A to C without stopping at B. This sudden austerity is too much, too soon, and doesn't it show?
Arguably Bent, Nzogbia, Given, Vlaar, Okore were our point B (i.e. reasonably established or expensive signings).
There's no doubting that the club have not communicated 'the plan' very well. As ever, there's seemingly a bit of a vacuum at the top (other than money) whereas Randy, Faulker, or ideally a President/DoF would sit.
If they had been clear, do you the fans would have bought into the 'project' better or would there have been an adverse effect on attendences?
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There is no plan. There is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, no Tooth Fairy no crock of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The concept of a plan by its very definition requires a beginning, a middle and a conclusion. A plan to win a war, solve a crime or cure a disease starts somewhere, proceeds and finishes up somewhere, even if the "somewhere" it terminates is admission of failure.
Paul Lambert has had his job for a year and a half. If there was a plan in place there must be evidence of it by now to prove its existence. There is nothing whatsoever. There have been bright spots of success, there have been short spells like a run of a few games at the end of last season which have been better than what has gone before but that is no proof of a plan.
It is like the gambler betting on the numbers of the birthdates of his family as an infallible system of winning a fortune. Make enough bets and the number of your granny's birthday and your uncle's birthday will win now and again but that is not a betting plan, it is random choice.
We are being massaged into believing that the buying of Bennett and Helenius and Tonev and Kozak and KEA and Luna and Bacuna and Lowton and Woodward is all part of some grand plan to establish Villa as a force in the premiership. The bare, unvarnished, unmassaged, unmanipulated facts, the statistics, show otherwise. Lambert denies this by saying that "statistics fry your brain". No they don't they demonstrate the reality behind the lie.
Make one simple test of the claim that there is a "brick on brick" plan in place. Ask yourself why we signed Kozak for £7 million. We already had Benteke, Weimann, Gabby, Fonz, Helenius and Bowery. Our side was screaming out for midfield strengthening and has been ever since we sold Barry and Milner. It was an unplanned impulse purchase of the very worst kind. It was me walking through a tool shop or my wife walking through a handbag shop.
I do not want to see Lambert sacked. My stand is that I do not think a new manager of any kind would make any difference whatsoever to our decline. What I do want to see is Lambert to be his own man and stop being the mouthpiece of Faulkner and Lambert and insulting our collective intelligence by giving us the hard sell of a non existent master plan.
The sea change in our fortunes came when the owner and the CEO decided that Aston Villa Football Club was no longer a great and glorious page in the history of the Beautiful Game but a "brand" to be marketed. The motor which is driving the direction in which we are heading is the desire by Paul Faulkner to impress the boss. Every word and every statement which comes out of the club, whether it is in the media, on the public address system or in the junk mail we have cascading through our letter boxes is marbled through with American management and marketing methodology.
I do not want to see us go broke. I do not want us to go down into the third division again, I have seen that movie. I am in favour of solvency and good housekeeping.
What I am totally and absolutely and utterly against is the unforgivable lie that slashing the cost of owning the club is a plan for anything other than slashing the costs of owning the club.
As Ricky Tomlinson would say "Master plan My arse".
Woodward? ,Brian. John Woodward? Very intelligent post that!
I think we bought Kozak because Benteke was making waves at going, Bowery? he is not PL quality, The Fonz is doing nothing at Blackpool, Helenious, Lambert obviously doesnt trust him, Weiman what has he done since signing his contract, Gabby yes he is a Villa man but for every good game there or 4 or 5 bad ones. I think you meant Westward not Woodward. Still a good post though. Looking at the papers today it looks like there is a change of direction, he is looking for some experience at last, something we have all been asking for.
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If the plan is a long term plan, how can it be deemed a failure?
Because the long term plan is to drive to Edinburgh and we're currently driving along Brighton pier towards the Channel.
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Well written post Brian, but I'm afraid I side with the posters who feel you are a little harsh in your appraisal.
RL and PF are, I'm sure, intelligent men. They'd have to be to operate at the level they do. Like any failing business, the hierarchy need to step back, reevaluate and restructure accordingly. Surely that is what the club is doing and we have to accept that contactual bonds along with the nature of the football world mean things cannot be turned around overnight.
Just because you take short term backward steps, it doesn't necessarily mean there isn't a plan to move forward in the long run, all be it along a different path.
Really what we are seeing is the demolition of an old property built on unfit foundations in readiness for a less grand but more modern, solid rebuild.
Sometimes it's hard to picture the big plan when you're standing in a pile of rubble....
Maybe unfairly the biggest problem I have, is that I'm not sure we have the right site foreman in charge. Just when we need someone with experience in major construction, we give the contract to someone who built a small extension in East Anglia. Twice.
Well, let's hope he's up to the job.
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There is no plan. There is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, no Tooth Fairy no crock of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The concept of a plan by its very definition requires a beginning, a middle and a conclusion. A plan to win a war, solve a crime or cure a disease starts somewhere, proceeds and finishes up somewhere, even if the "somewhere" it terminates is admission of failure.
Paul Lambert has had his job for a year and a half. If there was a plan in place there must be evidence of it by now to prove its existence. There is nothing whatsoever. There have been bright spots of success, there have been short spells like a run of a few games at the end of last season which have been better than what has gone before but that is no proof of a plan.
It is like the gambler betting on the numbers of the birthdates of his family as an infallible system of winning a fortune. Make enough bets and the number of your granny's birthday and your uncle's birthday will win now and again but that is not a betting plan, it is random choice.
We are being massaged into believing that the buying of Bennett and Helenius and Tonev and Kozak and KEA and Luna and Bacuna and Lowton and Woodward is all part of some grand plan to establish Villa as a force in the premiership. The bare, unvarnished, unmassaged, unmanipulated facts, the statistics, show otherwise. Lambert denies this by saying that "statistics fry your brain". No they don't they demonstrate the reality behind the lie.
Make one simple test of the claim that there is a "brick on brick" plan in place. Ask yourself why we signed Kozak for £7 million. We already had Benteke, Weimann, Gabby, Fonz, Helenius and Bowery. Our side was screaming out for midfield strengthening and has been ever since we sold Barry and Milner. It was an unplanned impulse purchase of the very worst kind. It was me walking through a tool shop or my wife walking through a handbag shop.
I do not want to see Lambert sacked. My stand is that I do not think a new manager of any kind would make any difference whatsoever to our decline. What I do want to see is Lambert to be his own man and stop being the mouthpiece of Faulkner and Lambert and insulting our collective intelligence by giving us the hard sell of a non existent master plan.
The sea change in our fortunes came when the owner and the CEO decided that Aston Villa Football Club was no longer a great and glorious page in the history of the Beautiful Game but a "brand" to be marketed. The motor which is driving the direction in which we are heading is the desire by Paul Faulkner to impress the boss. Every word and every statement which comes out of the club, whether it is in the media, on the public address system or in the junk mail we have cascading through our letter boxes is marbled through with American management and marketing methodology.
I do not want to see us go broke. I do not want us to go down into the third division again, I have seen that movie. I am in favour of solvency and good housekeeping.
What I am totally and absolutely and utterly against is the unforgivable lie that slashing the cost of owning the club is a plan for anything other than slashing the costs of owning the club.
As Ricky Tomlinson would say "Master plan My arse".
Woodward? ,Brian. John Woodward? Very intelligent post that!
I think we bought Kozak because Benteke was making waves at going, Bowery? he is not PL quality, The Fonz is doing nothing at Blackpool, Helenious, Lambert obviously doesnt trust him, Weiman what has he done since signing his contract, Gabby yes he is a Villa man but for every good game there or 4 or 5 bad ones. I think you meant Westward not Woodward. Still a good post though. Looking at the papers today it looks like there is a change of direction, he is looking for some experience at last, something we have all been asking for.
Westward? Do you mean Westwood?
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Being self sustaining is fine as an off the pitch plan, but when most people wonder what the plan is, I am pretty sure they mean on the pitch.
You're not going to pull in 40k every other week, behind our desire to balance the books, so what is the on-pitch plan?
I say plan, but what I mean is objective
I think the problem is that, rightly or wrongly, more and more people are starting to suspect that that objective doesn't extend far beyond not being relegated.
Nobody wants to sign expensive players purely because they are expensive but looking at where we so our shopping, we look like a low cost operation set to bob along.
Sure, going and hungry etc etc but this is not a radical departure in football management, buying players cheaply and young to have resale value is what lots of clubs do. Small clubs happy to be in the top flight mostly.
I appreciate we are not the immense power we used to be, but if that is the case, it is pretty depressing.
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I think the objective on the pitch at the moment is to change our style of play to something more modern, whilst bringing players in based on a self-sustainable wage structure and not being relegated. The first two of those won't happen overnight.
Do I think we'll be buying players from Crewe and Chesterfield long-term? Absolutely not. But the nature of footballers' wages is you have to harshly cut back to reset the wage structure or you're swimming against the tide as players will always compare their own salary to others at the club. And yes, some of Lambert's purchases haven't worked out, but show me a manager with a hit rate on transfers much better than 50%. You won't find (m)any.
Ultimately we're still a big club with the associated big turnover. Once the wage structure is in place (and it surely can't be far off now with almost all the high earners from previous managers now off the wage bill) I think you'll see we'll continue to invest competitively with our peers (ie the Evertons and Spurs of this world) and we'll be able to attract better quality players. The question then is whether Lambert is up to it. Based on his track record at previous clubs you'd say he is but time will tell at the Villa.
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I can see both sides of this argument but we are playing with fire because if we are relegated the whole vision/plan is flushed down the toilet.
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Kozak is certainly a piece in the puzzle. His movement is excellent and he offers something different from a entente in that regard, as although he is huge, he isn't a battering ram. We clearly lack an intelligent attacking midfielder, but if we could pick one up in the summer, I am glad we at least got Kozak.
The decision makes even more sense when you look at how poor Weimann has been.
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I can see both sides of this argument but we are playing with fire because if we are relegated the whole vision/plan is flushed down the toilet.
That's just it. The work being done now should mean that if the worse did happen we won't do a Leeds/Forest/Wednesday. That's not to say we're planning for relegation - we're just running the club in a responsible way which means we don't implode if something horrible happens.
There's been a lot of talk recently about how well Newcastle and Southampton are doing. In 2010 Newcastle were in the Championship and Southampton were in League One. If a club is run properly (and I know others will say about Ashley at Newcastle but his 7 year contract was a real sign of faith in Curbishley to work on a longer term project) finding yourself in a lower division doesn't have the same impact as if you find yourself there when you've been reckless.
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I can see both sides of this argument but we are playing with fire because if we are relegated the whole vision/plan is flushed down the toilet.
Maybe that's where the plan really begins?
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Kozak is certainly a piece in the puzzle. His movement is excellent and he offers something different from a entente in that regard, as although he is huge, he isn't a battering ram. We clearly lack an intelligent attacking midfielder, but if we could pick one up in the summer, I am glad we at least got Kozak.
The decision makes even more sense when you look at how poor Weimann has been.
Aren't you the one who always goes on about his celebrations? Are you sure you're judging him based on his performances for us?
Kozak is a squad player. I haven't seen anything from him to suggest he'd be more than that.
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Vlaar, Clark and Delph have noticeably improved.
Lowton, benteke, Weimann, Westwood, sylla , have all failed to reproduce last seasons form.
This is where things have gone wrong, this season, in a nutshell.
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Kozak is certainly a piece in the puzzle. His movement is excellent and he offers something different from a entente in that regard, as although he is huge, he isn't a battering ram. We clearly lack an intelligent attacking midfielder, but if we could pick one up in the summer, I am glad we at least got Kozak.
The decision makes even more sense when you look at how poor Weimann has been.
Aren't you the one who always goes on about his celebrations? Are you sure you're judging him based on his performances for us?
Kozak is a squad player. I haven't seen anything from him to suggest he'd be more than that.
I was one of the most critical about our purchase of him but credit where it's due - he's scored 4 goals from 8 starts and 6 sub appearances. That's not a bad return. Couple that with his record in the Europa League (although his record in Italy is shite!) and there's clearly more to him than just being a squad player.
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Wow. January has not yet begun, but we seem to have added Woodward and Westward to Westwood, according to this thread. Is the long term plan in fact to sign non existent players, thus appeasing we fans yet saving any financial outlay?!
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Relegation would be a disaster for villa. At all costs, lambert and Lerner need to collude enough in terms of transfer targets and the money for them next month. I'm not talking silly money either. We need a centre half (on loan if necessary) and a midfielder who can play. I think 'the plan' if indeed there is one is to keep villa up and around mid table which is about an uninspiring as it gets. Therefore, the plan needs to include luring some experienced quality here before we get relegated.
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My take is on Lener is simple. I think the takeover at Man City completely changed his outloook on owning Villa.
When he bought us I genuinely thought investing £100 million into the playing staff would give us a realistic chance of reaching the Champions League, and thus drastically increase our revenue. This was stage 1 of any "plan" but it was very much an "all or nothing" approach that, as we all know, ended in nothing. Subsequently the likes of Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurts have all had to spend more and more just to keep up with City and, when we weren't able to do so, Randy realised it was sheer folly to blow millions in order to keep us in and around the Europa League places. In addition to this he would have seen the likes of Swansea and Wigan winning silverware whilst not spending "silly money" and decided Villa should be able to follow suit.
In hindsight, had we picked-up a Laudrup or Martinez (or maybe even a Lambert) as soon as MON left we may be much further ahead than we are, say where Everton are now. The damage done by the Houllier and McLeish years however, has set the club-back drastically and given Lambert an incredibly big task of improving the side whilst cutting-back on the wage-bill.
RussellC, this pretty much sums up my thinking on our time since Randy arrived too.
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Gerard Houllier could have been an excellent manager at Aston Villa but should never have been taken on because of his past medical history. I think Lambert desperately needs help,even if he wouldnt welcome it. As a Director of Football Gerard Houllier could be the answer.
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I don't know about Lamberts vision, but mine will be somewhat impaired by 12 O'clock tonight
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Gerard Houllier could have been an excellent manager at Aston Villa but should never have been taken on because of his past medical history. I think Lambert desperately needs help,even if he wouldnt welcome it. As a Director of Football Gerard Houllier could be the answer.
Decent point that
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Gerard Houllier could have been an excellent manager at Aston Villa but should never have been taken on because of his past medical history. I think Lambert desperately needs help,even if he wouldnt welcome it. As a Director of Football Gerard Houllier could be the answer.
Decent point that
It wouldn't be a bad idea but I think the doc "advised" GH to quit football for the sake of his heart.
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Gerard Houllier could have been an excellent manager at Aston Villa but should never have been taken on because of his past medical history. I think Lambert desperately needs help,even if he wouldnt welcome it. As a Director of Football Gerard Houllier could be the answer.
there are plenty of people who have had heart problems who have gone on to lead full lives and be successful in stressfull jobs in other walks of life, so football shouldn't be any different
with hindsight it didn't work out because his heart problem returned which was obviously unfortunate,
but it still doesn't mean he shouldn't have been given the chance, not everyone who has had a heart complaint should thrown on the scrap heat,
Randy should be congratulated in not descriminating in that way in my view
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Yes, I judge him on what I see playing for us.
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My take is on Lener is simple. I think the takeover at Man City completely changed his outloook on owning Villa.
When he bought us I genuinely thought investing £100 million into the playing staff would give us a realistic chance of reaching the Champions League, and thus drastically increase our revenue. This was stage 1 of any "plan" but it was very much an "all or nothing" approach that, as we all know, ended in nothing. Subsequently the likes of Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurts have all had to spend more and more just to keep up with City and, when we weren't able to do so, Randy realised it was sheer folly to blow millions in order to keep us in and around the Europa League places. In addition to this he would have seen the likes of Swansea and Wigan winning silverware whilst not spending "silly money" and decided Villa should be able to follow suit.
In hindsight, had we picked-up a Laudrup or Martinez (or maybe even a Lambert) as soon as MON left we may be much further ahead than we are, say where Everton are now. The damage done by the Houllier and McLeish years however, has set the club-back drastically and given Lambert an incredibly big task of improving the side whilst cutting-back on the wage-bill.
RussellC, this pretty much sums up my thinking on our time since Randy arrived too.
Quite correct - Dinosaur appointments. One highly over-rated and who was way past his best with zero feel for the club and the other who was so disastrously far out of his depth it was cringeworthy.
Not to mention they followed another 'old' style manager.
I want the modern, progressive approach with fewer mercenaries paid an absolute fortune.
I just now have misgivings that Lambert is the person to be able to deliver this given the constraints he, or any subsequent replacement for that matter has to work, with in the next 2 years.
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Houllier is Head of Global Football for Red Bull. He is responsible for Austrian side FC Red Bull Salzburg, Germany's RB Leipzig and the New York Red Bulls from the US as well as the Red Bull Brasil and the Red Bull Ghana academies.
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I can see both sides of this argument but we are playing with fire because if we are relegated the whole vision/plan is flushed down the toilet.
That's just it. The work being done now should mean that if the worse did happen we won't do a Leeds/Forest/Wednesday. That's not to say we're planning for relegation - we're just running the club in a responsible way which means we don't implode if something horrible happens.
Ah i see, so what you're saying is that the extreme cost cutting that could possibly relegate us, would leave us in a good position if we get relegated (debatable), therefore we are right to take cost cutting to a level that might relegate us, because it will help us if we are relegated! A most cunning plan indeed, almost a self serving prophecy.
I suppose it's similar to the following logic: filling the squad with championship level players is a great idea, because if they get us relegated to the championship, we'll have a ready made squad of championship level players on championship wages!
Your posts seem to present us with this false dichotomy of spending options, spend hundreds of millions like Man City even though we can't afford to and would face impending financial doom, or spend reasonably to put the club on a sound financial footing. Well if you put it that way and those are our only two options, yes of course I'd go for the latter. Though i suspect that there might be a finer gradient of options in between the two you offer.
I would actually say however that what we're doing isn't running the club in a 'responsible way', to have a 'vision' implies some sort of long term foresight, yet as a club we've lurched from MoN to Houllier, to McLeish to Lambert, a yo yoing of footballing 'styles' and 'visions' if ever you could find them, now we've lurched between one extreme of overspending to another of extreme underspending. That's a very dangerous game to play. What we need at the club is a long term vision that involves smooth transition (as talked about in another thread), but the club seems incapable of doing so. This is the reason why we are where we are, when other clubs seem to have developed over the last few years.
vision
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I would actually say however that what we're doing isn't running the club in a 'responsible way', to have a 'vision' implies some sort of long term foresight, yet as a club we've lurched from MoN to Houllier, to McLeish to Lambert, a yo yoing of footballing 'styles' and 'visions' if ever you could find them, now we've lurched between one extreme of overspending to another of extreme of underspending. That's a very dangerous game to play. What we need at the club is a long term vision that involves smooth transition (as talked about in another thread), but the club seems incapable of doing so. This is the reason why we are were we are, when other clubs seem to have developed over the last few years.
Where's this lurching between one extreme of overspending to another extreme of underspending?
From the final year of MON's reign (2009/10) our annual net transfer spend has been £3m, (£11m), (£7m), £23m, £17m. The net incomes from player trading in the GH and TSM years were due to the silly amounts we got for Milner, Young, and Downing. I don't think that's the pattern of a club 'lurching' from extreme overspending to extreme underspending.
The issue has been the wages. MON was signing shit players like Habib Beye and giving them 4 year contracts at £40k per week and then not playing them. When the going rate for a reserve is £40k per week, any player of any calibre you sign is going to take that as his starting point and work upwards from there. To sort that problem out, you have to get rid of those on the silly contracts and bring in players who don't have such expectations in terms of their own salaries - ie ones from the lower leagues or from overseas.
When the going rate for a reserve at the club is more manageable, then you can start bringing in better quality players on more sensible salaries. This isn't preparing for the Championship - it's running our football club in such a way that if Randy walked away tomorrow we wouldn't be totally fcuked!
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I agree with all of that, Dribbler.
As for Sheikh Mansoor's arrival at Citeh in 2009 being a game changer, I think that get's overplayed.
Undoubtedly it had an impact, but did RL and co really expect that no other big English club might be taken over by wealthy foreign owners? If so, that's an incredible lack of foresight.
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Had an impact? It was the biggest change in football since Abramovich rocked up at Chelsea. The number of clubs on a financial planet so seperate from everybody else increased.
There are now three teams in this league who nobody else can compete with financially. How on Earth can you underplay a mid-table side suddenly becoming the richest in the world?
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Yes, it was a seismic event and MoN was not slow in publicly saying it changed everything.
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I would actually say however that what we're doing isn't running the club in a 'responsible way', to have a 'vision' implies some sort of long term foresight, yet as a club we've lurched from MoN to Houllier, to McLeish to Lambert, a yo yoing of footballing 'styles' and 'visions' if ever you could find them, now we've lurched between one extreme of overspending to another of extreme of underspending. That's a very dangerous game to play. What we need at the club is a long term vision that involves smooth transition (as talked about in another thread), but the club seems incapable of doing so. This is the reason why we are were we are, when other clubs seem to have developed over the last few years.
Where's this lurching between one extreme of overspending to another extreme of underspending?
From the final year of MON's reign (2009/10) our annual net transfer spend has been £3m, (£11m), (£7m), £23m, £17m. The net incomes from player trading in the GH and TSM years were due to the silly amounts we got for Milner, Young, and Downing. I don't think that's the pattern of a club 'lurching' from extreme overspending to extreme underspending.
The issue has been the wages. MON was signing shit players like Habib Beye and giving them 4 year contracts at £40k per week and then not playing them. When the going rate for a reserve is £40k per week, any player of any calibre you sign is going to take that as his starting point and work upwards from there. To sort that problem out, you have to get rid of those on the silly contracts and bring in players who don't have such expectations in terms of their own salaries - ie ones from the lower leagues or from overseas.
When the going rate for a reserve at the club is more manageable, then you can start bringing in better quality players on more sensible salaries. This isn't preparing for the Championship - it's running our football club in such a way that if Randy walked away tomorrow we wouldn't be totally fcuked!
You ask me 'Where's this lurching between one extreme of overspending to another extreme of underspending?' but then go on to answer the question yourself. Spending includes wages (among other things), not just transfers!
You're right to point out the silly wages and contracts we've handed out over the years, especially under MoN, but we've now gone too far in the other extreme. That's why i call it call lurching. We shouldn't have found ourselves in that position in the first place, but once we did we should have tried to transition ourselves into a position of greater financial sustainability a little more organically in a way that wouldn't have had such potentially perilous consequences on the pitch.
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It changed everything, no doubt. However, the impact of their spending power was not felt for another year or so, and I really believe that if we had had a better manager than MON we could have established ourselves in that competitive top tier as perennial top four challengers, if not qualifying every year. It's the presence of MON's huge flaws which blight the recent hopes of the club.
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Had an impact? It was the biggest change in football since Abramovich rocked up at Chelsea. The number of clubs on a financial planet so seperate from everybody else increased.
There are now three teams in this league who nobody else can compete with financially. How on Earth can you underplay a mid-table side suddenly becoming the richest in the world?
In the same way you can overplay it i suppose.
Maybe more of a topic for a different thread, but i would argue that the creation of the Champions League had a much bigger effect on the nature of football than Man City's newly acquired wealth.
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You're right to point out the silly wages and contracts we've handed out over the years, especially under MoN, but we've now gone too far in the other extreme. That's why i call it call lurching. We shouldn't have found ourselves in that position in the first place, but once we did we should have tried to transition ourselves into a position of greater financial sustainability a little more organically in a way that wouldn't have had such potentially perilous consequences on the pitch.
'A little more organically'? What does that mean?
And how could we have transitioned better than we did? We carried on with the same level of investment in transfer fees but no longer paid the silly wages of the past. Randy could've employed managers on a more consistent basis instead of the brain melt that was the TSM appointment but I daresay he didn't expect GH to have another heart attack. Beyond that, Lambert could've potentially made better use of the high earners before their contracts expired but that could've risked the morale of the new guys when they're playing alongside people earning 5 times what they were.
Our finances were screwed without Champions League football. That's not a scenario where you just tinker at the edges. It needed significant and wholesale change to put the club back on the straight and narrow.
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Surely nobody didn't think another money no object owner would arrive on the scene. Equally unlikely was that it would be at a club as far behind us as Manchester City.
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Surely nobody didn't think another money no object owner would arrive on the scene. Equally unlikely was that it would be at a club as far behind us as Manchester City.
It's kind of annoying that they had two takeovers, one of which wasn't a complete pisstake.
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Had an impact? It was the biggest change in football since Abramovich rocked up at Chelsea. The number of clubs on a financial planet so seperate from everybody else increased.
There are now three teams in this league who nobody else can compete with financially. How on Earth can you underplay a mid-table side suddenly becoming the richest in the world?
Citeh were one of a number of underperforming big clubs who were ripe for a takeover, Newcastle, Everton, Tottingham, ourselves and possibly even Sunderland and Leeds might still come into that bracket.
Are you seriously suggesting that Lerner thought he could act in splendid isolation? That nobody else from abroad would hit upon this maverick idea? The TV deals, marketing and worldwide appeal of the topflight made it inevitable that more sharks would start to circle.
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At the time (2009) there were cracks appearing at the traditional heavy hitters. Liverpool looked like a busted flush and Arsenal were still under financial constraints following the move to the Emirates.
So even with the emergence of one new club backed to ridiculous extremes (Citeh) there could still be at least one gap for a side to potentially exploit the vulnerability of the other established clubs. Remember too that it took the Blue Mancs two years to qualify for the CL and three years to win the title, so it's not as if they swallowed up that other fourth spot overnight.
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I wonder how much appeal was added to the acquisition of Citeh by the brand new tax payer funded stadium. I wonder if the arabs would have been so quick to jump in if they had personally to fund the rebuilding of Maine Road.
The numbers swirling around the EU investigations into the building of new Spanish stadiums make you think. I read that something like 70% of the cost of the new Bilbao stadium has come from EU, central government and local government sources. This in a country with crippling levels of debt and unemployment. Football really does live in a different world where money is concerned.
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I wonder how much appeal was added to the acquisition of Citeh by the brand new tax payer funded stadium. I wonder if the arabs would have been so quick to jump in if they had personally to fund the rebuilding of Maine Road.
Most of it, which is why Bill Kenwright has been touting Everton around for years.
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If you look at what they're building in Abu Dhabi, I doubt a piddling stadium in Manchester would have too much bearing on their decision. Money was no object. They wanted to go up against England's (the world's?) biggest club, they did, and won.
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If you could peer into the future, in ten years time, the same five teams - Man Utd, Chelsea, Man City Arsenal and Liverpool - will be competing at the top.
It's an unfair playing field which is unlikely to be changed.
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Had an impact? It was the biggest change in football since Abramovich rocked up at Chelsea. The number of clubs on a financial planet so seperate from everybody else increased.
There are now three teams in this league who nobody else can compete with financially. How on Earth can you underplay a mid-table side suddenly becoming the richest in the world?
Chelsea, Man. City and... ?
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I would actually say however that what we're doing isn't running the club in a 'responsible way', to have a 'vision' implies some sort of long term foresight, yet as a club we've lurched from MoN to Houllier, to McLeish to Lambert, a yo yoing of footballing 'styles' and 'visions' if ever you could find them, now we've lurched between one extreme of overspending to another of extreme of underspending. That's a very dangerous game to play. What we need at the club is a long term vision that involves smooth transition (as talked about in another thread), but the club seems incapable of doing so. This is the reason why we are were we are, when other clubs seem to have developed over the last few years.
Where's this lurching between one extreme of overspending to another extreme of underspending?
From the final year of MON's reign (2009/10) our annual net transfer spend has been £3m, (£11m), (£7m), £23m, £17m. The net incomes from player trading in the GH and TSM years were due to the silly amounts we got for Milner, Young, and Downing. I don't think that's the pattern of a club 'lurching' from extreme overspending to extreme underspending.
The issue has been the wages. MON was signing shit players like Habib Beye and giving them 4 year contracts at £40k per week and then not playing them. When the going rate for a reserve is £40k per week, any player of any calibre you sign is going to take that as his starting point and work upwards from there. To sort that problem out, you have to get rid of those on the silly contracts and bring in players who don't have such expectations in terms of their own salaries - ie ones from the lower leagues or from overseas.
When the going rate for a reserve at the club is more manageable, then you can start bringing in better quality players on more sensible salaries. This isn't preparing for the Championship - it's running our football club in such a way that if Randy walked away tomorrow we wouldn't be totally fcuked!
Shows how how poorly the clubs been run in the last three seasons. Lerner and Faulkner mean well, but they don't have the skills needed to run Premier League club (at leat if you want to run it properly), plus they don't come across as "leaders". We all said a lot of things about Ellis, but at least he was always around the place. I said a few days ago that letting Steve Stride leave without little opposition was a big mistake. Yes, he may have wanted to go, but the fact he went without anyone replacing him was poor management.
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What skills do you need to run a PL club?
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Knowledge of the game and the right people to turn to and looking after the finances. I doubt Doug Ellis would have asked the manager of Manchester United for advise over appointing a manager - nor would he lave allowed the manager to deal with all of the finances without keeping a check on what he was spending
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Knowledge of the game and the right people to turn to and looking after the finances. I doubt Doug Ellis would have asked the manager of Manchester United for advise over appointing a manager - nor would he lave allowed the manager to deal with all of the finances without keeping a check on what he was spending
No, but we did get relegated with him at the helm. He also hired two of the worst Villa managers ever in Graham Turner and Billy McNeill. You must have forgotten that
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Knowledge of the game and the right people to turn to and looking after the finances. I doubt Doug Ellis would have asked the manager of Manchester United for advise over appointing a manager - nor would he lave allowed the manager to deal with all of the finances without keeping a check on what he was spending
Absolutely because in Herbert's eyes, the club's money was his money. If the manager went and spent all the money the fans put in to the club there'd be none left for Herbert to take out.
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Of course Ellis was always around the place. He was a paid employee of the club. A very well paid one.
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Knowledge of the game and the right people to turn to and looking after the finances. I doubt Doug Ellis would have asked the manager of Manchester United for advise over appointing a manager - nor would he lave allowed the manager to deal with all of the finances without keeping a check on what he was spending
No, but we did get relegated with him at the helm. He also hired two of the worst Villa managers ever in Graham Turner and Billy McNeill. You must have forgotten that
I don't remember either of them as manager (my first game was in 1989), but obviously they were poor appointments, and Ellis made a few of them afterwards, like Venglos and SGT mk 2. My argument is that to be succesful at running a football club, you need to know a bit about the business, or a bottomless, bulging bag of cash - Randy Lerner appears to have neither of these.
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Knowledge of the game and the right people to turn to and looking after the finances. I doubt Doug Ellis would have asked the manager of Manchester United for advise over appointing a manager - nor would he lave allowed the manager to deal with all of the finances without keeping a check on what he was spending
No, but we did get relegated with him at the helm. He also hired two of the worst Villa managers ever in Graham Turner and Billy McNeill. You must have forgotten that
I don't remember either of them as manager (my first game was in 1989), but obviously they were poor appointments, and Ellis made a few of them afterwards, like Venglos and SGT mk 2. My argument is that to be succesful at running a football club, you need to know a bit about the business, or a bottomless, bulging bag of cash - Randy Lerner appears to have neither of these.
I'm sorry but just because you started following us in 1989 doesn't allow you to ignore the years when we went down or some of his utterly shit managerial hires. And for such an astute businessman he sure dismantled a European Cup winning side with great skill, and the two times we came second in the league under Sir Graham and Big Ron he never built on either season to make us into a true force. But off course Lerner in his 7 years is way worse.
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Knowledge of the game and the right people to turn to and looking after the finances. I doubt Doug Ellis would have asked the manager of Manchester United for advise over appointing a manager - nor would he lave allowed the manager to deal with all of the finances without keeping a check on what he was spending
No, but we did get relegated with him at the helm. He also hired two of the worst Villa managers ever in Graham Turner and Billy McNeill. You must have forgotten that
I don't remember either of them as manager (my first game was in 1989), but obviously they were poor appointments, and Ellis made a few of them afterwards, like Venglos and SGT mk 2. My argument is that to be succesful at running a football club, you need to know a bit about the business, or a bottomless, bulging bag of cash - Randy Lerner appears to have neither of these.
I'm sorry but just because you started following us in 1989 doesn't allow you to ignore the years when we went down or some of his utterly shit managerial hires. And for such an astute businessman he sure dismantled a European Cup winning side with great skill, and the two times we came second in the league under Sir Graham and Big Ron he never built on either season to make us into a true force. But off course Lerner in his 7 years is way worse.
I'm not ignoring Ellis' faults (lets face it there are too many to ignore), I'm simply saying they happened before my time so I don't have any memory of them.
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That's fine but if you are going to evaluate Lerner and compare him to Doug, then you need to include what Doug did irrespective of whether you were following Villa at the time or not.
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Had an impact? It was the biggest change in football since Abramovich rocked up at Chelsea. The number of clubs on a financial planet so seperate from everybody else increased.
There are now three teams in this league who nobody else can compete with financially. How on Earth can you underplay a mid-table side suddenly becoming the richest in the world?
Chelsea, Man. City and... ?
Man Utd have an annual turnover of £700m (last time I looked at least), I guess that's who he meant and it would be totally correct to include them. You could potentially shift it to 5 and include Arsenal and Liverpool who both also have huge annual turnover compared to the rest of the league, in financial terms those 5 have all the advantages to be clear away at the top of the league.
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Had an impact? It was the biggest change in football since Abramovich rocked up at Chelsea. The number of clubs on a financial planet so seperate from everybody else increased.
There are now three teams in this league who nobody else can compete with financially. How on Earth can you underplay a mid-table side suddenly becoming the richest in the world?
Chelsea, Man. City and... ?
Man Utd have an annual turnover of £700m (last time I looked at least), I guess that's who he meant and it would be totally correct to include them. You could potentially shift it to 5 and include Arsenal and Liverpool who both also have huge annual turnover compared to the rest of the league, in financial terms those 5 have all the advantages to be clear away at the top of the league.
Man Utd's turnover is nothing like that. For the 12/13 season it was £363m, however that still dwarfs our c.£90m turnover.
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That's gone down a lot then because it was up around 700m 4-5 years ago (which was the last time I looked as I'm really not that bothered about their finances). I remember it because at the time there were people talking about them breaking $1bn which they were very close to.
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It's never been 700m mate.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24943476
They were predicting a record turnover of 420m this year based off the first three months. They don't have as much money as people think though cos of the situation with the debt and their owners.
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Absolutely. Last year's turnover was the highest it's ever been.
You might be thinking of their level of debt which wasn't far from a billion when the Glazers rode into town.
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It must be that then, my apologies.
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I meant Man United.
For pretty much most of the past 20 years, they have been able to spend more than nearly everybody else in the land.
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Sometimes watching Villa play this season I too feel like someone has laid a brick a big brown smelly one all over my club.
Home performances have been dire unless we have played like an away team (and yes I am referring to the Man Citeh game) while away games have been the same as last year brilliant support for a dour defensive scrap that looks to hit and hurt on the counter and sometimes does.
Many seem to feel that we are going backwards - some say we are stagnating but believe it or not we are moving forwards albeit slowly and without much in the way of visible evidence.
Our turn of the year fixture for the last three years has been Swansea. In 2012 under the manager who shall not be named we lost at home 0 2. Then under Lambert on 1 Jan 2013 we drew 2 2 at Villa Park. This Christmas we drew 1-1.
So this would suggest that while Lambert is better than another Scottish manager he is only treading water.
Yet if we compare where we are now with where we were in the previous season then a brighter picture emerges.
This time last year we endured a December that saw us get beaten 8 0 by Chelsea, 4 0 by Spurs, and then 3 0 to Wigan (yes the same Wigan who got relegated).
Indeed so bad were we that we wouldnt record a win until mid February when we narrowly beat a weak West Ham side at Villa Park.
This time last year we were hovering around the relegation zone had conceded 41 goals giving us a goal difference of -24 and we had managed to win only 4 games since the season began. It was truly dire even with Mr Benteke on form.
This season we are mid table have conceded 25 goals to give us a goal difference of -6, and have six wins under our belts some of them over top sides and all without the aid of Mr Benteke who has so far failed to ignite.
Im not saying the football is great or that we will be pulling up trees any time soon but I am saying that there has been some improvement as these figures show. We are getting better at not getting hammered and if Mr Benteke can find his feet and his form then perhaps mediocrity is within our grasp - and top eight to placate the terraces.
I laughed at my mate Chris who thoroughly enjoyed getting on Barry Bannan's back last year - eating a large slice of humble pie after the Palace fiasco. Bannan ran the midfield - but not for us. Sometimes we at Villa Park are too quick to judge - and condemn - though to be fair - we are too often given just cause.
We are were we are at Villa. We wont be signing any £20million plus players soon. Lambert will be mooching about in the bargain basement for the foreseeable but he is improving our fortunes and while he was not my first choice either I think he is a man who can do a job on a budget. I just wish it was easier to watch.
UTV.
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I heard somewhere that Bolton had posted losses of £50m- thats staggering and shows just how important survival is to clubs. Overall debts of £163m.
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Info is in Other Clubs' Debts thread in Other Football.
Cheers leeg!
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Good post Sonlyme.
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its a case of spend big time or go
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Sometimes watching Villa play this season I too feel like someone has laid a brick a big brown smelly one all over my club.
Home performances have been dire unless we have played like an away team (and yes I am referring to the Man Citeh game) while away games have been the same as last year brilliant support for a dour defensive scrap that looks to hit and hurt on the counter and sometimes does.
Many seem to feel that we are going backwards - some say we are stagnating but believe it or not we are moving forwards albeit slowly and without much in the way of visible evidence.
Our turn of the year fixture for the last three years has been Swansea. In 2012 under the manager who shall not be named we lost at home 0 2. Then under Lambert on 1 Jan 2013 we drew 2 2 at Villa Park. This Christmas we drew 1-1.
So this would suggest that while Lambert is better than another Scottish manager he is only treading water.
Yet if we compare where we are now with where we were in the previous season then a brighter picture emerges.
This time last year we endured a December that saw us get beaten 8 0 by Chelsea, 4 0 by Spurs, and then 3 0 to Wigan (yes the same Wigan who got relegated).
Indeed so bad were we that we wouldnt record a win until mid February when we narrowly beat a weak West Ham side at Villa Park.
This time last year we were hovering around the relegation zone had conceded 41 goals giving us a goal difference of -24 and we had managed to win only 4 games since the season began. It was truly dire even with Mr Benteke on form.
This season we are mid table have conceded 25 goals to give us a goal difference of -6, and have six wins under our belts some of them over top sides and all without the aid of Mr Benteke who has so far failed to ignite.
Im not saying the football is great or that we will be pulling up trees any time soon but I am saying that there has been some improvement as these figures show. We are getting better at not getting hammered and if Mr Benteke can find his feet and his form then perhaps mediocrity is within our grasp - and top eight to placate the terraces.
I laughed at my mate Chris who thoroughly enjoyed getting on Barry Bannan's back last year - eating a large slice of humble pie after the Palace fiasco. Bannan ran the midfield - but not for us. Sometimes we at Villa Park are too quick to judge - and condemn - though to be fair - we are too often given just cause.
We are were we are at Villa. We wont be signing any £20million plus players soon. Lambert will be mooching about in the bargain basement for the foreseeable but he is improving our fortunes and while he was not my first choice either I think he is a man who can do a job on a budget. I just wish it was easier to watch.
UTV.
Very well said.
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I heard somewhere that Bolton had posted losses of £50m- thats staggering and shows just how important survival is to clubs. Overall debts of £163m.
Yup.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/dec/31/bolton-wanderer-record-debts-163m-relegation
There but for the grace of god go Villa.
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Good post Sonlyme - I concur. The dissatisfaction seems more connected to the style and quality of football (possession in particular) than the net results because the latter is certainly statistically an improvement. I also don't much like what I see between 3pm and 5pm most weekends but we are 11th, one win from a top half team, and as others have posted, the top 6 are light years ahead because of the finances they possess which we don't. So net, apples for apples so to speak, we are doing ok (and by the way better than many that have tried to spend their way out of trouble - WHU, Sunderland, and Fulham for example.
I think Lambert's vision is just fine, 18 months in. We will be better judges 18 months from now.
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The vision and progress be clear when we finish around 9th to 11th . It's a massive transistional season and the rebuilding will continue . It certainly showed yesterday villa are capable and like to think this time nextryear villa at home will be managed as effectively as some of our away performances. Being a massive football club there is a lot of pressure and expectation I do think there are game changing players out there less than £20 mil that could be brought in . At the moment its about doing what we do with wjat we have got. And we are doing ok in grand scheme of things
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OK VK, that's almost a normal post. What gives?
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in response to the Sonlyme's post: Benteke has scored exactly the same amount of goals as at this point last year. His superb run came between Jan and May so although I agree we are better than last year we had also seen little of Benteke at this point either.
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The plan:
1) Reduce wage bill - check
2) Stay up - check (season end 13)
3) Secure services of better players by offering improved contracts until one of the sky4 offers £10m+ (in progress)
4) Stay up (season end 14)
5) Bring in a couple of average players at the end of the January window to show the fans our 'ambition'
6) Keep spouting endless bullshit so fans buy season tickets next year.
I'm sorry, but Aston Villa, like many other clubs is purely a money making machine. Even if Randy invested heavily in the team so we bought the league it would stink.
How is Aston Villa "purely a money making machine" (like many other clubs) when it consistently loses money and the owner keeps having to dig into his own pocket? it's more akin to a financial black hole, in my view. I think we're relatively lucky that we have a guy upstairs that is either too loyal, or too stupid to realise that he's unlikely to ever see a penny in return, in all likelihood.
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How much would avfc be sold for now today ? In uk money terms
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How much would avfc be sold for now today ? In uk money terms
I'd reckon about £200 million which is about twice turnover. I have no reasoned financial argument to back this up in anyway. If you take what Randy bought the club for then look at how much debt he's swapped for equity each year in the accounts then you won't be far away. However what it's value is compared to what someone's willing to pay..........
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Something around £200-250m seems about right, I think that ties it with the share valuation as well. That said I think the point being made is whether Lerner would be in profit if he sold us (I might be wrong but that's the logical step to asking the question), the answer that is a resounding no, as it stands if he got away with a loss of less than £100m he'd have done very well with the sale.
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As long as we remain a PL team Randy would get is money out, at least the Investment less management charges, interest and drawings.
So don't start thinking he is doing us a favour by holding on.
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ahh ok thanks. May be going off the point regarding lambos vision but it's all linked with.Randy.
So if club is £250 mil and bought at £77 mil any sales would see debt transfered to new owner but loaned against club assets no doubt and the money spent is loaned is it not against assests - namely the stadium and bm facilities. Randy stands to make a bit of money if sold I would think . The cutting of wage bill is to stabilise the club and make an attractive buy with improving players who have a higher re sale value.
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By James Nursey | 23/01/14
Aston Villa left Liverpool with an extremely creditable and encouraging point last weekend to leave the club 10th.
Afterwards boss Paul Lambert had a pop at his critics and I don't blame him.
The Scot said: "People think we are doing poorly and we are sitting tenth - it's really incredible, the perception of it."
Reds owner John W Henry was in the crowd to watch Liverpool come from behind to get a point with a debatable penalty after Luis Suarez went down.
Henry is the man who, when Arsenal tried to buy Suarez last summer, famously Tweeted: "What do you think they're smoking over there at Emirates?"
And I would pose the same question to Lambert's persistent critics who claim to want him sacked.
Because when assessing the OVERALL picture of the Premier League it is irrational to dispute Villa are in reasonable shape.
I wrote last week why I insist the club is making progress (albeit despite their shocking home form and a few dodgy cheap signings).
My criticism of SOME fans' unreasonable expectations was aimed at those who phoned in to demand Lambert's head after a narrow 2-1 loss to Arsenal.
I took plenty of grief from Villa fans online who supposed I was having a go at them all.
That certainly isn't the case.
But I stand by my viewpoint that Lambert is doing fairly well given the financial restraints and cut-backs at Villa.
I am no mouth-piece of the club and have been banned previously from Villa Park under Martin O'Neill.
I was also among the first journalists to write that Alex McLeish had to go during his controversial, ill-fated reign.
But it would be and is pure madness for some Villa fans to demand Lambert leaves now.
He has a promisingly, improving young squad who are loyal to him and were assembled at a modest price and are benefiting from stability and continuity at the club for the first since O'Neill left.
To go back to square one with a new manager - who would not have major money to spend now Randy Lerner has shut his cheque book - would be pure folly.
But some fans still insist Lambert must go.
Take Twitter user @bsb_1979.
This person, whose biog says: #LambertOut now! Nothing else is wanted!, regularly Tweets me.
He asked have I seen Villa at home this season and do I not realise how poor they have been?
Well yes, of course I have seen them play (and under-perform) at home regularly this season and it must be very frustrating for supporters.
But I have also crucially seen a lot of other live Premier League football elsewhere.
And if fans think they have it bad at Villa Park, then they should pay more attention to the rest of the Premier League where Cardiff, Sunderland, West Ham, Fulham, Palace, Swansea, Stoke, West Brom and Norwich all have bigger worries.
Many fans of those clubs think they are doomed.
Their bigger woes, allied with some decent Villa performances (mainly away granted), means Lambert's men are well on course to finish around mid-table which I feel is in line with their spending.
That is a satisfactory improvement on last season's 15th spot and why the club is heading in the right direction despite no longer spending masses on transfer fees and salaries.
It is blatantly obvious and transparent to a neutral like me but clearly not to a section of SOME fans who have demanded Lambert's head.
We'll have to continue to disagree.
But some better home performances certainly would not go amiss and would underline more clearly Lambert's Villa side are improving on a (shallow) steady upward curve.
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ahh ok thanks. May be going off the point regarding lambos vision but it's all linked with.Randy.
So if club is £250 mil and bought at £77 mil any sales would see debt transfered to new owner but loaned against club assets no doubt and the money spent is loaned is it not against assests - namely the stadium and bm facilities. Randy stands to make a bit of money if sold I would think . The cutting of wage bill is to stabilise the club and make an attractive buy with improving players who have a higher re sale value.
Don't forget the £20m that Doug Ellis gave back to Lerner to buy a player with.
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ahh ok thanks. May be going off the point regarding lambos vision but it's all linked with.Randy.
So if club is £250 mil and bought at £77 mil any sales would see debt transfered to new owner but loaned against club assets no doubt and the money spent is loaned is it not against assests - namely the stadium and bm facilities. Randy stands to make a bit of money if sold I would think . The cutting of wage bill is to stabilise the club and make an attractive buy with improving players who have a higher re sale value.
Don't forget the £20m that Doug Ellis gave back to Lerner to buy a player with.
Which has never been accounted for, for some reason.
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What £20m loan is this?!
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How much would avfc be sold for now today ? In uk money terms
I'd reckon about £200 million which is about twice turnover. I have no reasoned financial argument to back this up in anyway. If you take what Randy bought the club for then look at how much debt he's swapped for equity each year in the accounts then you won't be far away. However what it's value is compared to what someone's willing to pay..........
Um, I think value is defined by what someone is willing to pay, surely?
I'd be very surprised if whenever Lerner leaves, he hasn't made a pretty heavy loss, if you take into account his ongoing subsidy and foregone interest
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What £20m loan is this?!
It wasn't a loan, as far as I know. Doug Ellis told me, personally, that he gave Lerner £20m.
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Was this to cover Stiliyan Petrov?
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What £20m loan is this?!
It wasn't a loan, as far as I know. Doug Ellis told me, personally, that he gave Lerner £20m.
And Doug, as we know, has never told a fib.
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Ha ha Doug Ellis giving up £20million of his limited fortune to buy a player, yeah right. He never did it whilst he was Chairman so I've no reason to think he'd do it when he became President Emeritus.
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Ha ha Doug Ellis giving up £20million of his limited fortune to buy a player, yeah right. He never did it whilst he was Chairman so I've no reason to think he'd do it when he became President Emeritus.
He became significantly more cash rich when he sold the club, so how would you know for sure?
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Ha ha Doug Ellis giving up £20million of his limited fortune to buy a player, yeah right. He never did it whilst he was Chairman so I've no reason to think he'd do it when he became President Emeritus.
He became significantly more cash rich when he sold the club, so how would you know for sure?
Come on. He got about £25 million from his shares and handed back £20 million without telling anyone?
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He invented the package holiday industry, the bicycle kick, being a dad to kids around the world, played for many professional teams, and now he has invented altruism? Sure Doug, sure.
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Ha ha Doug Ellis giving up £20million of his limited fortune to buy a player, yeah right. He never did it whilst he was Chairman so I've no reason to think he'd do it when he became President Emeritus.
He became significantly more cash rich when he sold the club, so how would you know for sure?
Come on. He got about £25 million from his shares and handed back £20 million without telling anyone?
What was the old gag about Doug? Two things he'd never say:-
1. We've just signed Ronaldo.
2. We've just signed Ronaldo, but leave me out of the publicity photos.
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Ha ha Doug Ellis giving up £20million of his limited fortune to buy a player, yeah right. He never did it whilst he was Chairman so I've no reason to think he'd do it when he became President Emeritus.
He became significantly more cash rich when he sold the club, so how would you know for sure?
Come on. He got about £25 million from his shares and handed back £20 million without telling anyone?
Perhaps he sold the club for less than it was worth on the understanding Lerner would put would spend more money on team spending?
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Ha ha Doug Ellis giving up £20million of his limited fortune to buy a player, yeah right. He never did it whilst he was Chairman so I've no reason to think he'd do it when he became President Emeritus.
He became significantly more cash rich when he sold the club, so how would you know for sure?
Come on. He got about £25 million from his shares and handed back £20 million without telling anyone?
Perhaps he sold the club for less than it was worth on the understanding Lerner would put would spend more money on team spending?
Perhaps. Or perhaps it was hardly on the cheap given that Lerner paid well over the share price at the time. It's been claimed that Doug Ellis, after having been paid around £25 million, handed back £20 million to the new owner. Without going into any further details, how likely is that in any business?
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Ha ha Doug Ellis giving up £20million of his limited fortune to buy a player, yeah right. He never did it whilst he was Chairman so I've no reason to think he'd do it when he became President Emeritus.
He became significantly more cash rich when he sold the club, so how would you know for sure?
Come on. He got about £25 million from his shares and handed back £20 million without telling anyone?
Perhaps he sold the club for less than it was worth on the understanding Lerner would put would spend more money on team spending?
Perhaps. Or perhaps it was hardly on the cheap given that Lerner paid well over the share price at the time. It's been claimed that Doug Ellis, after having been paid around £25 million, handed back £20 million to the new owner. Without going into any further details, how likely is that in any business?
Sounds like Doug is living in some kind of parallel universe then when you put it that way.
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Ha ha Doug Ellis giving up £20million of his limited fortune to buy a player, yeah right. He never did it whilst he was Chairman so I've no reason to think he'd do it when he became President Emeritus.
He became significantly more cash rich when he sold the club, so how would you know for sure?
Come on. He got about £25 million from his shares and handed back £20 million without telling anyone?
Perhaps he sold the club for less than it was worth on the understanding Lerner would put would spend more money on team spending?
Perhaps. Or perhaps it was hardly on the cheap given that Lerner paid well over the share price at the time. It's been claimed that Doug Ellis, after having been paid around £25 million, handed back £20 million to the new owner. Without going into any further details, how likely is that in any business?
Sounds like Doug is living in some kind of parallel universe then when you put it that way.
Yes, I think that's more than likely.
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He invented the package holiday industry, the bicycle kick, being a dad to kids around the world, played for many professional teams, and now he has invented altruism? Sure Doug, sure.
he also taught Charlie Chaplin how to fish.....
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/doug-ellis-1607396
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Ha ha Doug Ellis giving up £20million of his limited fortune to buy a player, yeah right. He never did it whilst he was Chairman so I've no reason to think he'd do it when he became President Emeritus.
He became significantly more cash rich when he sold the club, so how would you know for sure?
Come on. He got about £25 million from his shares and handed back £20 million without telling anyone?
Perhaps he sold the club for less than it was worth on the understanding Lerner would put would spend more money on team spending?
Surely, legally as the chairman of the company, Ellis had an obligation to get the best deal possible for all the shareholders, which would have precluded giving Randy 20m off the actual worth of the club?
And, just so we're sure, this Doug Ellis we're discussing, the one we're supposed to believe gave up £20m of his own money / the value of the club (delete as applicable) so we could buy a player with it, is this the same Doug Ellis we spent years lambasting for being tight?
The one who wouldn't fork out for a club masseur? The one who wouldn't sign off the expenses for the chief scout to have a cup of coffee whilst waiting around airports?
Is this the same Doug Ellis?
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It may have been bullshit, but it was great to hear it from the horses mouth, so to speak. It was like being back at one of the old AGMs again. They were pure music hall stuff.
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It may have been bullshit, but it was great to hear it from the horses mouth, so to speak. It was like being back at one of the old AGMs again. They were pure music hall stuff.
They were, oh they were. John Ritchie was my favourite.
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What £20m loan is this?!
It wasn't a loan, as far as I know. Doug Ellis told me, personally, that he gave Lerner £20m.
To misquote the Liverpool Chairman "what do you think they are smoking over at Ellis Towers?"
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I always thought we bought Stan with the moeny we made out of selling the Serpantine?
How much interest in land do we still own? Is it just the site of Villa Park itself and the leasehold on New Street?
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How much interest in land do we still own?
The city is ours.
sorry, couldn't resist.