Where will we finish then?

[KevinGage]

At least MON has retained his self-respect and personal reputation.
and he is brave to go...with his legal background I am sure he could sue for constructive dismissal.

Hello Martin, did you enjoy your lie in this week?

Where is this assumption coming from that we'll only go for players with a value of £5 million or less?

*Stan Petrov----------£6 million rising to £8 million
*Ashley Young--------£9.5 million
*Nigel Reo Coker-----£7.5 million
*Curtis Davies--------£8 million
*Carlos Cuellar-------£8 million
*James Milner---------£12 million
*Stewart Downing---£12 million
*Stephen Warnock---£7 million

Please tell me you haven't just based that on the reported amount we were prepared to pay for McGeady. Please tell me you aren't using that as both the benchmark for all our future transfer dealings and a stick with which to beat the board.

After substantial backing our gutless turd of a manager decided to bail this week. When faced with the indignity of having to operate within similar conditions as most of his peers.  Boo hoo fucking hoo.

I'd suggest you direct your ire at a more suitable and far more deserving target.

[eamonn]

Is Brian Ron Futcher's Taylor's gloomier older brother?

[Dave Cooper please]

As for £5m limitation on spending then we are going to have to get someone from a new territory like the USA who wants to get into the PL.

I don't see why you keep mentioning this £5m limitation. I don't for the life of me believe that Randy has put an upper limit of £5m for the buying of any player. I can though believe he might have put that sort of limit on McGeady, a player who will not improve the team and is not worth anything like £10m.

[ktvillan]

Bizarre? Villa used to field half the Irish national time..back in the day.
It was a way of guaranteeing attendance amongst the ex-Pats in Brum and more recently their Anglo-Irish offspring.

So you think having Staunton, McGrath and co. significantly improved our attendances or fan base?  Did signing Richard Dunne have that effect? I doubt it.  I'm half Irish and my Brummie based Irish family and most of the other Brummie Irish I've met over the years are almost exclusively Man Yoo fans.  I think your argument for signing McGeady is tenuous to say the least, notwithstanding the fact that he isn't actually very good.

[/quote]

[PaulTheVillan]

I'll wait until we have a manager

[Brian Taylor]

MON has gone, I accept it.
Thanks for the list of expenditure. I am aware he spent more than £5m on players,,thanks. His limit seems to have been set in this last case. For what he spent and still not a great deal compared to the 'Top 4' outlay he only got to 6th place and that is just not good enough in today's game.
As I've said there is no external subsidy from rich Russians Thais Arabs or whoever. The books have to balance and that means selling quality players for more than he paid. Sell and be obliged to replace them for lesser amounts. OK he feels he cannot do the Larrson again. He brought Carew for peanuts and he has paid back brilliantly.
Obviously he hoped he could do similarly with McGeady. We will never know now. i too am suspicious regarding hios choice of Moscow. he went for the money; more money than we had on offer.
Maybe MON should have arranged a pre-season friendly against Lourdes? .
As for the Irish factor ManU stole that formula starting with Georgie Best when every talented young Irish player wanted to follow in his footsteps. Birmingham's demographics have chnaged and so have their loyalties it seems.
When you choose your team it is for life. My da was a villa fan and saw them at their absolute peak. As kids at school everyone wanted to play for the villa side..no other team featured.
In my supporting years I watched some seriously embarrassing shite and never complained. I felt elated when Tommy docherty came along to get us out of old Div 2 and we ended up in the 3rd playing Grimsby and Darlington. It took a long while to recover from that but I/We did.
I hope we do again. The new boy has a hard job. MON did as good as he could and 6th just ain't good enough. Developing players to sell on at a profit did not sit well with him.
Player loyalty is dubious these days..Money doesn't necessarily buy talent Man city proved that. You need years to develop a good team but money is the magnet now..
Lerner cut off the money and looks like wants to sell best players to balance books.
That was that MON had no alternative but to resign..6th is just not good enough.
I wonder where Man U would be if they dumped Fergie in his lacklustre period. Different times. Now they have the Irish contingent and the Chinese and just about any other country you care to mention. Aston Villa have to come back and conquer new territories..Starting with home ground. "The longest journey starts with the first step."
I hope Lerner has some secret funds coming out of 32Red.. Maybe Irish Americans will rally and adopt us as their team? maybe? Have we major talents in the Youth programme. unless we bring in loads of money soon we will continue to function as nursery for better off clubs.
Who'd be a manager? Bring in a Hughes surrogate give him £100m and get nowhere.
Bradley and the new lend lease..eh?
MON has been quiet. I wonder what he will say/do once the new man is appointed? I only want success. There is a far bigger argument here.

[KevinGage]

By the end of his fourth season Fergie had managed a 2nd place finish (in his second year) and an FA Cup victory (in 1989/90). That's where that comparison falls down.

A degree of success might have insulated MON from some of the criticism he receives around here (we'll never know, because he didn't achieve it), but the wage bill would still have needed to be addressed without CL revenue, and with the upcoming UEFA regulations.

£40+k on L.Young, £40+ k on Beye and playing Cuellar in their place is just fucking lunacy at any level, before we even get into some of the other more crackpot deals.

We've also spent more than United, Arsenal and Liverpool since he has been here so it is genuinely hard to make any legitimate argument that he wasn't backed substantially.

[Chris Smith]

By the end of his fourth season Fergie had managed a 2nd place finish (in his second year) and an FA Cup victory (in 1989/90). That's where that comparison falls down.

A degree of success might have insulated MON from some of the criticism he receives around here (we'll never know, because he didn't achieve it), but the wage bill would still have needed to be addressed without CL revenue, and with the upcoming UEFA regulations.

£40+k on L.Young, £40+ k on Beye and playing Cuellar in their place is just fucking lunacy at any level, before we even get into some of the other more crackpot deals.

We've also spent more than United, Arsenal and Liverpool since he has been here so it is genuinely hard to make any legitimate argument that he wasn't backed substantially.

The only things you can judge him on are 6th, 6th, 6th and final plus semi. All the rest is subjective. For the money we spent he did as well as could have been expected but not quite as well as could have been hoped for.

[Brian Taylor]

Accountants should pick the team. Serendipity is a lost art.
6th is not good enough.
He's gone. I have gotten used to it!
He did his best. Lots more have done worse.
If Ashley stays then it suggests they must have a plan.
Here's to the next cycle...whoever may be riding it.

I must admit buying Heskey shocked me.