Randy Lerner attacks Manchester City - Interview from today

[Chris Smith]

Pat Murphy (who I usually respect) was acting like MON's official spokesman on Radio 5 yesterday.  As well as being a big pal of O'Neill, he also gave an airing to his grievance that Randy Lerner won't speak to him.

People like Dave Woodhall have argued for some time that Randy's reluctance to talk to the press might come back to haunt him.

[Chris Smith]

I still can't forget that a week ago we needed to trim the wage budget and we had a squad that struggles to score goals. Has anything changed?

Of course I didn't miss it but do you really think it will be that easy ever week? We had games like that last season (Burnley, Bolton, Hull) and it would be complacent in the extreme to think that we don't still have an issue based on one win against a very poor side.

Miss the West Ham game did you, Chris? We scored 3 and it was a very bad day in front of goal!

[BannedUserIAT]

Right, so we don't struggle to score goals.
We may struggle to do it consistantly but that's an unknown at this time, too.

New manager, newly invigorated players, new faces.....same old pesimism from Chris Smith.

[Chris Smith]

Right, so we don't struggle to score goals.
We may struggle to do it consistantly but that's an unknown at this time, too.

New manager, newly invigorated players, new faces.....same old pesimism from Chris Smith.

One game, Troy, one bloody game and against a shit team who didn't know how to defend it was encotaging but you'd be barmy to draw any firm conclusions from it particularly as we're unlilely to ever see that 11 play together again.

I'm not at all pessimistic but I'm not willing to give up on this season and for us to try to challenge for a CL place I think we need to strengthen.

[Ads]

 Yes it was just one game and nobody is getting carried away, but people are impressed with quality of football on offer. Particularly as more often than not it was the sides of quality like West Ham, Sunderland, Wolves etc who we struggled to break down and played attrition style football  against at Villa Park in recent campaigns.

[TimTheVillain]

Randy has gone up in my estimation again.

I think he does need to be more 'vocal' even if not in dialogue mode live ...... I don't think he's comfortable being quizzed by the meeja.

Well said Randy.

[saunders_heroes]

We haven't played that style of attacking football at home in absolutely ages. Certainly not the confident, crisp passing game we saw yesterday. And the players looked happy as well. It was like a breath of fresh air.
More of it please!

[Phil from the upper holte]

Well said Randy. I am proud to have him as chairman but he does have to dip in his pocket again if we wish to compete again this year.

Im was also pleased listening to two spammers on the train who were saying they were getting screwed by the David's. That brought a smile to my face

[Can Gana Be Bettered!?!?]

Does anyone else get the feeling he might be deliberately antagonising Man City in an attempt to derail the Milner transfer.

I really hope so. If we could follow through not selling Milner, it'd make me feel a whole lot better about football in general, not just Villa keeping a great player.

[exigo]

i wasnt at the match yesterday,

what was the level of support for Randy amongst the fans during the match ?

Plenty of 'One Randy Lerner' chants, mixed in with 'Martin, Martin whooooo?' and 'Kev MacDonald's Claret & Blue Army'.

[Chris Smith]

Does anyone else get the feeling he might be deliberately antagonising Man City in an attempt to derail the Milner transfer.

I really hope so. If we could follow through not selling Milner, it'd make me feel a whole lot better about football in general, not just Villa keeping a great player.

No, becasue I think he wants the money.

[john e]

They were breathtaking in their ignorance.  But then what would you expect from Oliver Holt, whose paper The Mirror is to football reporting what Gold and Sullivan are to running a football club.

did you not read brian read column yesterday, very critical of MON and in praise of Randy and also in the Mirror

[AV82EC]

They were breathtaking in their ignorance.  But then what would you expect from Oliver Holt, whose paper The Mirror is to football reporting what Gold and Sullivan are to running a football club.

did you not read brian read column yesterday, very critical of MON and in praise of Randy and also in the Mirror

Reade has a different agenda though, he's very anti-MON, and has been for a number of years so not overtly pro-Randy. 

Though on this occasion he's right.

[dave.woodhall]

Pat Murphy (who I usually respect) was acting like MON's official spokesman on Radio 5 yesterday.  As well as being a big pal of O'Neill, he also gave an airing to his grievance that Randy Lerner won't speak to him.

People like Dave Woodhall have argued for some time that Randy's reluctance to talk to the press might come back to haunt him.

I've said all along that he should be more open to the press and that one day he would have to talk to them. Maybe if he'd courted them from the off we would have had a more sympathetic hearing from the nationals and in particular from Pat Murphy, who I respect as a fine journalist but whose comments about Randy's silence were in danger of becoming a crusade.

[Smithy]

I like Randy's tone, but I don't think accusing Citeh of breaking the 'rules' helps anyone.  Any neutral will see that claim for what it is - bollocks. 

Football is no longer a gentleman's game (was it ever?), and Citeh are not guilty of tapping up, so everything else is fair game, no matter how unfair we deem it to be.  Randy can accuse them all he likes, but Milner would not be joining them if he'd kept saying "No" - the fact that he is going north shows that Citeh were right to keep asking.

Also, isn't this pretty much what we did to get Milner in the first place?  The Geordies said no, and we kept going back until they said yes and we ended up paying what was seen at the time seen as a significant premium for his services.

I'd have been quite happy if Lerner had criticised Citeh for the way they do business (they are financial bullies, no doubt about it), but I think calls of rule breaking makes us look a little silly.

EDIT: Just noticed this interview was in the Mail - so it's quite possible he criticised the way they behaved without accusing them of breaking any rules, such is that paper's general adherence to maintaining the fidelity of the quotes it uses.