The Randy way or Citeh's Trillions ?

[saunders_heroes]

Man City's way seems quite exciting. Randy's way has gone a bit stale in my opinion. We struggled to get players in during Doug's time. I'm beginning to get the same feeling under Lerner's regime now.

[TimTheVillain]

I guess the next question is, would Villa fans like Randy to sell out to a multiiiiiiiiii billionaire to make a tidy little profit for himself and remove the burden of financing and refinancing a football club to the point of financial ruin for himself (!), whilst remaining on the board with a minority stake ?

Let's face it, we wouldn't mind, well I wouldn't.

[Chris Smith]

I know people will point to our own rich owner but I don't think he's taken us to a level of player beyond that which a club of our size would expect.

I'd agree with that.

My issue is that, thus far, the regime (NB I'm not talking about Randy alone here) hasn't taken us to a level of player we couldn't feasibly have signed in the years pre-Randy.

We've just got more of them.

And getting £25+ for Milner will see us with even more of them next season and a hope that we can push on from here. Perhaps it's just an age thing but the patient approach doesn't bother me and am quite enjoying seeing how the Randy/MON method plays out. We might not make it but if I wanted guaranteed success I wouldn't be a Villa fan.

[Phil from the upper holte]

I wouldn't want Villa to be on TV all the time saying I want this player I want that player and generally trying to unsettle all these players.

I would however like to be able to offer Milner more money and say hey don't worry Jim were getting XYZ and then he can say "Hey where do I sign"

[Chris Smith]

Citeh's millions but our way, seeing youngsters come through,

You can't have both.

Man City will go the way of Chelsea and home grown players will find it harder to get a look in.

I don't want both. I want one or the other and for Villa to have a chance to compete at the highest level. What I don't want is for us to say we are going to be a club that develops young players and then roll over when we get a big offer for the first young player that has seemingly made the breakthrough and is less than halfway through his first contract with us.

If Randy's plan was to develop young talent, he must have considered the possibility that he would receive big offers for those young players as they made the breakthrough.

The really big spending clubs take the risk that their investment in a player might not work out, why are we not willing to take the risk that ultimately we might end up getting less for Milner next season?

I think the 3 or 4 players we can get with the Milner money will make us stronger next season.

[sfx412]

I think the 3 or 4 players we can get with the Milner money will make us stronger next season.

Really, like we did with Barry's money?

If its been posted sorry, here's the words from Mon's lips,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/a/aston_villa/8846298.stm

enjoy.

Selling Milner is one thing, but that attitude is depressing, I actually feel sorry for the bloke.

[TheSandman]

Our way, the proper and honest way. We don't need to copy the models of Chavski and the New York Yankees, doing it our own way would make success sweeter rather than just spending money at anyone available without any real effort or hard work put in. I do wish the Premier League would impose a salary cap then Man City would go back to being a nothing club again.

Man City are a medium sized club, they get similar attendances to us, probably charge around the same ticket prices and have similar revenue streams.

If Man City became a nothing club then so would we. Indeed a salary cap would only serve to propagate a kind of 'natural order' where the very biggest clubs like Liverpool, Man united and Arsenal would be enabled to dominate and the very smallest clubs in the league would be disadvantaged.

I agree that something needs to be done but a salary cap is not the way.

[Chris Smith]

I think the 3 or 4 players we can get with the Milner money will make us stronger next season.

Really, like we did with Barry's money?

If its been posted sorry, here's the words from Mon's lips,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/a/aston_villa/8846298.stm

enjoy.

Selling Milner is one thing, but that attitude is depressing

We got £12m for Barry so It's not the same situation at all.

[Dave Cooper please]

Man City's way seems quite exciting.

Exciting if you are a fan of a club that can just chuck money at the project, fucking depressing if you would like to see football as a competition of realtive equals rather than a "Who's got the biggest dick" contest.

[Dave Cooper please]

And getting £25+ for Milner will see us with even more of them next season and a hope that we can push on from here.

Getting £25million for Milner will see one of our main rivals getting one of our better players, which they will be parading alongside a whole load of other players we can't afford, while we have to hope that MON can pull an Ashley type rabbit out of the hat to replace him.

[pelty]

I think the 3 or 4 players we can get with the Milner money will make us stronger next season.

Really, like we did with Barry's money?

If its been posted sorry, here's the words from Mon's lips,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/a/aston_villa/8846298.stm

enjoy.

Selling Milner is one thing, but that attitude is depressing, I actually feel sorry for the bloke.

This was pathetic. MON needs to stop whinging about how hard life is and set about improving the team (and, concurrently, not wasting money on the wages of players that never sniff the pitch). If there were a sell-to-buy policy (which there is not), then he would only have himself to blame for the exorbitant wages spent on horrible players. The top wage earner at the club is Emile Heskey. Whose fault is that, I wonder? He has had plenty of money at his disposal and used it on a fair amount of garbage (not in total, of course, but his record in this is only so-so). He is fickle in his player selection and then, when he settles on a side, he runs it into the ground. Further, he has proved himself incapable of identifying talent outside of the country and thus is force to pay these higher wages; again, his fault. This whole moan would be laughable if it were not so infuriating.

[pablopicasso_10]

that horrid little clubs way is extremely boring and is just adding to the predictability of the game these days...

formula one with boots...

[Ads]

Just to throw a question out there.

Do we now as supporters have accept that the aspirations of 2006 when the takeover occurred are now out of the window and that ultimately we cannot afford to compete with four clubs in the country? This meaning that 6th is the plateau we have reached and we cannot go any further with the current financial situation at the club, where we do not generate enough finance nor have an owner with enough capital in order to compete.

Are we effectively in a stasis until a time when richer owners could be found, if ever, to help us breach the highest echelon?

[RogerS]

Sadly I dont think we will ever get higher under Randy's tenure due to various constraining factors. One being unfashionable Birmingham, two being that its not longer a level playing field and another being as smart/clever manager you are, money now overpowers this.

That's a bit of a cop-out. Manchester is hardly Barcelona.

You are right, pauliewalnuts. But Manchester always has, and I'm sure still does, consider itself to the the Second City. Delusional, I know.

[TimTheVillain]

Considering itself and being are two different things.

I think our Jimmy is in for a bit of a shock at Citeh, he won't make automatic team selection for one and if he isn't playing regular football he's the type of player who goes to seed.

He seems to be the type of player who needs to be playing week in week out to deliver, and I am not certian that Citeh can offer him what Villa can in this respect.

Perhaps an extra £40k plus a week is just too tempting these days.

£40k a year extra would tempt me !