The Randy way or Citeh's Trillions ?

[pauliewalnuts]

The message we were given from the board of directors was unequivically that our aim was to compete in the CL, did they really expect that to happen when our competiors for those places are spending at least double on their player wage bill and when we have to sell our best player to bring in new players?

I know this is your new favourite (flawed) stat, VD, but that would make more sense if the club which did break the top four at the end of the last season, Tottenham, didn't actually have a lower wage bill than us.

Here's a thought - Beye and Shorey - combined wages, what, 80k a week?

How about if we'd not signed them and used that money to pay better wages to attract players at the better end of the scale?

And, regardless of what anyone else pays their players, nobody will convince me that giving a 31 year old Emile Heskey a 3.5 year contract on 60k a week is anything but fucking stupid.

You keep mentioning the Spurs wage bill and I've grown bored of telling you it isn't the only way of spending money on players. What were the player amortisation costs at Spurs last season? Spurs overall player costs are higher than ours every year and have been for a very long time. What about Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Man City. Are we expected to compete with them or not?

Perhaps we can get the players to sign contracts that say if things don't work out or if Paulie doesn't think you're any good, we'll cut your wages to £500 a week. Do you reckon that will work?.

Talk about desperate clutching at straws.

We hear for months and months: "Spurs pay much bigger money than we do" then we see from the audited accounts of both clubs that, actually, they don't, it is the opposite, and now you've found another way of implying it isn't the case?

Why? Just just just ... just because? Because you don't want it to be true.

Spurs were paying Luka Modric 25k until recently. We are paying Emile Heskey 60k. Go figure.

And as for the last bit, you're being a bit silly now.

My point was that if we're going to pay Habib Beye or Shorey 40k a week, then we might as well use them every now and then?

I also didn't say anything about players never not working out, but the fact is - and the General appears to have confirmed it on his thread - we have quite a few players who cost us a lot of money and contribute nothing.

[Mac]

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 arbitrary, capricious, changeable, cheating, coquettish, double-crossing, faithless, fitful, flighty, frivolous, inconstant, irresolute, lubricious, mercurial, mutable, quicksilver, sneaking, temperamental, ticklish, two-timing, unfaithful, unpredictable 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.

Pretty much sums up my feelings.

[KevinGage]

Sadly, not all of the words written in my post are my own and I am not sure what is going on. I can see why the post seemed more "rant-like" than it might otherwise have done. I did not write, "capricious, changeable, cheating, coquettish, double-crossing, faithless, fitful, flighty, frivolous, inconstant, irresolute, lubricious, mercurial, mutable, quicksilver, sneaking, temperamental, ticklish, two-timing, unfaithful, unpredictable" about MON, but I cannot say I do not agree with them; I wish I had used some of them! Nevertheless, I am concerned that someone, and I can only assume it is someone with the capability to edit posts, has added these words and would ask that you not do it again.

pauliewalnuts has it right, in my opinion.

It's the word filter. It changes the word fickle into that.

Aye.

I imagine it can seem odd at first.

One struggling ex manager used that term once to hide his own shortcomings, others liked the sound of it so much they parroted it to the point of exhaustion and and the word had lost all meaning. Hence the more detailed description.

[Mac]

Sadly, not all of the words written in my post are my own and I am not sure what is going on. I can see why the post seemed more "rant-like" than it might otherwise have done. I did not write, "capricious, changeable, cheating, coquettish, double-crossing, faithless, fitful, flighty, frivolous, inconstant, irresolute, lubricious, mercurial, mutable, quicksilver, sneaking, temperamental, ticklish, two-timing, unfaithful, unpredictable" about MON, but I cannot say I do not agree with them; I wish I had used some of them! Nevertheless, I am concerned that someone, and I can only assume it is someone with the capability to edit posts, has added these words and would ask that you not do it again.

pauliewalnuts has it right, in my opinion.

Sorry, we sort of banned the word "f.i.c.k.l.e" replacing it with the above, it was getting on our nerves.

[Villa'Zawg]

That little rant would make a lot more sense if we had spent as much on our squad as our competitors have or if our wage bill was above average. You mention our highest earner but our competitors have players earning at least 3 times as much of his earnings.

For the purposes of comparison, which clubs do you consider as our competitors?

For the purposes of this discussion, the clubs in the top 8. Our competitors for trophies and CL places that the board said we were intending to compete for.

In other words the clubs who are bigger than us, wealthier than us, and have better players than us. How about a fairer comparison - namely including as many clubs below us as above? Or would that mean having to find another New Favourite Statistic to play with?

I thought the plan was to win trophies and compete for the CL places with the teams at the top. I thought that not winning trophies and qualifying for the CL was the complaint people have against the manager.

If the plan is to be better than the clubs who don't have a billionaire owner who declares we're in this to compete, then we're doing just fine by finishing 6th and reaching cup finals/semis aren't we?

[Rip Van We Go Again]

Top post from Pelty.

It's about time people started to realise that MON is not the genius he was made out to be.

[Risso]

You keep mentioning the Spurs wage bill and I've grown bored of telling you it isn't the only way of spending money on players. What were the player amortisation costs at Spurs last season?

Amortisation doesn't involve spending any money, as I'm sure you know.  Also it can be a very misleading item in a set of accounts.  The amortisation cost for James Milner in the accounts would have been about £3m last year (assuming £12m cost over a 4 year contract).  In reality, his value will have increased by £12m if the reports floating about are correct.  We of course only realise that when we sell him.

But anyway, a top, top post by Pelty that summarises O'Neill's weaknesses perfectly.

[eastie]

The emperor has no clothes!

[pauliewalnuts]

Here's something else worth thinking about.

Emile Heskey is our highest earner. We signed him from Wigan Athletic.

Wigan are nothing like big wage payers, yet two years after signing for Wigan, he's able to come to Villa at the age of 31 and become our highest earner?

Either Wigan were paying him superstar wages, or we've dropped a very large bollock.

Anyone who doesn't find that a bit disturbing must have balls of steel

[dave.woodhall]

I thought the plan was to win trophies and compete for the CL places with the teams at the top. I thought that not winning trophies and qualifying for the CL was the complaint people have against the manager.

If the plan is to be better than the clubs who don't have a billionaire owner who declares we're in this to compete, then we're doing just fine by finishing 6th and reaching cup finals/semis aren't we?

I'm sure many clubs share those ambitions - you can't draw up a definitive list of our 'competitors' just to suit you. If you include Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal then based on league places you would also have to include Everton, Blues, Blackburn and Stoke. If you want to do it on points (which I understand is now in many quarters the accepted barometer of success/progress) then Fulham, Sunderland and possibly Bolton come into the reckoning.

We finished sixth. Did we have the sixth-highest wage bill? The sixth-highest net spend? I don't have the figures to hand but I would guess we were in the top six both times.

[Villa'Zawg]

The message we were given from the board of directors was unequivically that our aim was to compete in the CL, did they really expect that to happen when our competiors for those places are spending at least double on their player wage bill and when we have to sell our best player to bring in new players?

I know this is your new favourite (flawed) stat, VD, but that would make more sense if the club which did break the top four at the end of the last season, Tottenham, didn't actually have a lower wage bill than us.

Here's a thought - Beye and Shorey - combined wages, what, 80k a week?

How about if we'd not signed them and used that money to pay better wages to attract players at the better end of the scale?

And, regardless of what anyone else pays their players, nobody will convince me that giving a 31 year old Emile Heskey a 3.5 year contract on 60k a week is anything but fucking stupid.

You keep mentioning the Spurs wage bill and I've grown bored of telling you it isn't the only way of spending money on players. What were the player amortisation costs at Spurs last season? Spurs overall player costs are higher than ours every year and have been for a very long time. What about Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Man City. Are we expected to compete with them or not?

Perhaps we can get the players to sign contracts that say if things don't work out or if Paulie doesn't think you're any good, we'll cut your wages to £500 a week. Do you reckon that will work?.

Talk about desperate clutching at straws.

We hear for months and months: "Spurs pay much bigger money than we do" then we see from the audited accounts of both clubs that, actually, they don't, it is the opposite, and now you've found another way of implying it isn't the case?

Why? Just just just ... just because? Because you don't want it to be true.

Spurs were paying Luka Modric 25k until recently. We are paying Emile Heskey 60k. Go figure.

And as for the last bit, you're being a bit silly now.

My point was that if we're going to pay Habib Beye or Shorey 40k a week, then we might as well use them every now and then?

I also didn't say anything about players never not working out, but the fact is - and the General appears to have confirmed it on his thread - we have quite a few players who cost us a lot of money and contribute nothing.

As I said I'm bored of saying it and you don't understand how to interpret the accounts. It is a fact, Spurs player costs are higher than Villa. You have latched onto the fact that the figure marked wages is lower in the Spurs accounts, when that isn't the only relevant figure.

Why compare Modric's old contract wages (reported) with Heskey? Why not include the extra £13m he cost in transfer fee? Why not compare the cost of Bentley?

Beye and Shorey didn't play becuase Warnock, Dunne, collins and Cuellar didn't get injured. Had Warnock and Cuellar been injured they would have played more. Perhaps the general would prefer that our first choice players were injured more often so that we get value for money from their stand-ins?

[KevinGage]

Here's something else worth thinking about.

Emile Heskey is our highest earner. We signed him from Wigan Athletic.

Wigan are nothing like big wage payers, yet two years after signing for Wigan, he's able to come to Villa at the age of 31 and become our highest earner?

Either Wigan were paying him superstar wages, or we've dropped a very large bollock.

Anyone who doesn't find that a bit disturbing must have balls of steel

It's fcuking lunacy of the highest order.

[TimTheVillain]

I am only just digseting ( with the aid of copious amounts of Gaviscon) the fact that Ivanhoe is our highest paid player.

Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez a huge bollock dropped.

[pauliewalnuts]

As I said I'm bored of saying it and you don't understand how to interpret the accounts. It is a fact, Spurs player costs are higher than Villa. You have latched onto the fact that the figure marked wages is lower in the Spurs accounts, when that isn't the only relevant figure.

You referred to wage bills. Our wage bill is lower than Spurs. The General has just posted some stats about our recent spending. You might want to check them out.

Risso's also just put your right on your "you don't understand how to interpret the accounts" nonsense.

Beye and Shorey didn't play becuase Warnock, Dunne, collins and Cuellar didn't get injured. Had Warnock and Cuellar been injured they would have played more. Perhaps the general would prefer that our first choice players were injured more often so that we get value for money from their stand-ins?

Shorey didn't play because MON signed him then almost immediately decided he didn't rate him.

Habib Beye was a few weeks short of 32 years old when we signed him - on a three year contract, incidentally.

If we wanted a back up right back, how about not spaffing big money on a long contract for one, and then not using him?

Luke Young - we get a decent right back then opt to run the squad into the ground and not use him (perhaps he gave Martin a funny look one day at BMH) and now we're supposedly punting him off to Fulham for bugger all.

I don't see how you can simultaneously whinge that we haven't spent enough on players and wages to break the top four and also defend wasteful signings like those above.

[Mac]

Didn't Luke voice his disagreement with our surrender in the Uefa Cup?  And that was the end of him.