Parallels with Leeds

[brontebilly]

Read an article yesterday from when DOL left Leeds. Had just led them to 6th and was leaving as the club were selling their best player Rio Ferdinand to one of their main rivals. Got me thinking is this groundhog day here. Just hope we havent gambled future gate receipts on bringing players in, I'm hoping the brakes were put on soon enough. Leeds of course replaced DOL, with a supposed safe pair of hands El Tel. Yet he turned up like Houllier without his heart really in it, (think it was delayed too as El Tel had other commitment.....a TV programme in his case...ha). it went from bad to worse. Venables resigned after Woodgate was sold. Still Leeds shouldnt have been anywhere near relegation but after a near miss with Peter Reid they went down the next season.

Its just when I see us linked with loan deals and swap deals it reminds me of Leeds at that time. A malaise set in at Elland Road and it seems well underway at Villa Park.

Anyone care to reassure me that we arent on the verge on a major fall?

[taylorsworkrate]

I think that Leeds team had more fight in it than ours.

[Brian Taylor]

We appear not to have any money, as yet, to buy players.
The financial crisis has frightened bejazus out of Randy.
Houllier's job is to bulk out squad for peanuts.
If the players feel their money is under threat or their place in squad is then it follows there will be moral problems. You get used to scraping by on £50k a week. Randy is only reacting to circumstances and whoever he answers to in US.
I wonder how many players have a clause in contract letting them go if Villa drop?
Leeds maybe did have more fight but then they were not as cosseted as modern footballers and did not have journalists hanging round the training pitch ready to print every word of every spat.
There is something wrong presently and usually it is money at the root. Bad morale amongst players is bad for club and plaayers have short term point of view.
A win will change it all. Poibts equal to seven wins will save us.   Is it too much to ask?

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

No parallels with Leeds.
They were a club living wildly beyond its means in pursuit of the big time.
When they didnt make the breakthrough it forced a fire sale of their best players, clubs being able to go in and pick off their players at a cut price because they were struggling to pay the interest on massive loans and had the bailiffs at the door.

[ozzjim]

I think we are financially much better placed than Leeds were. The biggest issue we have got is the squad fillers to back up the first team are quite simply way over paid/ priced, under played, and not good enough. That presents a problem, when 2-3 players for the last 3 seasons have carried the rest. 2 have left, 1 is badly out of form and 1 has decided he is not a left winger anymore.

[Brian Taylor]

Mad spending has driven the game doolally. The players especially. Tevez and Rooney held their clubs to ransom, effectively. We are not bankrupt like Leeds but certainly RL has had a good look at revenues and what is expectd to come in over the coming years. The banks or whoever lends football clubs money what their percentage back.  If you  do not spend it you stay out of the red, or at least not so far in the red.
The economics of football beat Alan Sugar and quite a few others.
The players are gredy temperamental typesand want to be top dog and that usually involves birds and cars and fancy living for the vapid vacant few like that who make it to the top. Not all but a good few. Those who feel their privileged livelihood is threatened react by failing to perform and causing disphoria within the clubs. It is a delicate balance. I can't see Villa going that way but it needs good considerate management to keep them in check.
If Houllier brings in good competent players on lower wages who can have the effect of making the better paid one's play for their place then we could be all right. If the automatic selection top paid players think they are irreplacable then who is running the club and choosing the team? Certainly not the token head of affairs. I am not a manager but I can see the balance went squ-iff for a while and still is perhaps.
If your club is winning you get all the money you need but if you spend to get there and do not have the backing of Citeh etc you risk being a Leeds.  Chelsea without Abramovich would have ended in the knackers yard under Ken Bates.

I can see that Randy is not squandering money this season and probably not next either until the risk reward ratio improves. Until then it is up with barricades until the financial climate improves and the interest rates on borrowing are right again..or until some hugely rich Chinese magnate decides they need a top class football club with a great pedigree stretching back to the Tang dynasty,

[rutski]

what a team having a dip in form and a new manager getting the players to play the way he wants them to compared to leeds who mortgaged their club on the off chance they would be in the champions league every year!

Sounds similar to me!

however there are harbingers of doom on here who love the melodramatic sound of their own voice who wont be happy till we go down and when we get out of it will say i knew we would really!

[Dave Cooper please]

None.

Next piece of overblown hyperbole please.

[eastie]

O Leary was sacked- o neill quit -huge difference!

[john e]

i havent checked as i cant be arsed,
but i bet one thing that reasonable sized clubs who have gone down and stayed down for a while have got in common,
is that they all panicked and kept getting rid of there managers quickly, as soon as the team had a drop in form

high turn over of managers- failure

[Greg N'Ash]

think there are valid similarities in the two clubs. Both squads were in decline; a few bad eggs among the players etc.. The big question is did Randy financially overstretch himself like Risdale on the strength of a promise from his manager? I would hope faced with the loss of 20+m from relegation there would be a concerted investment to bring quality in this January, but a couple of loan deals and a failed attempt to bring in a youngster doesn't hint that its gonna happen. I'm sure we're not going to hear why MON left after all this time, or indeed be given any idea of what shape the club finances are in, but i think after the January transfer window we'll be able to read between the lines at least

[maidstonevillain]

Leeds were living way beyond their means.

Even the office goldfish were on a long term loan.

[Greg N'Ash]

so are we. 40m losses are not only unsustainable, they'd also stop us getting in the CL which is the whole point in the first place

[Dave]

so are we. 40m losses are not only unsustainable, they'd also stop us getting in the CL which is the whole point in the first place

But Leeds weren't being bankrolled by a wealthy benefactor.

[Risso]

i havent checked as i cant be arsed,
but i bet one thing that reasonable sized clubs who have gone down and stayed down for a while have got in common,
is that they all panicked and kept getting rid of there managers quickly, as soon as the team had a drop in form

high turn over of managers- failure

I reckon a more common factor would be appointing shit managers and not spending any money.