Doubting Randy?

[Concrete John]

The thing is John, any good chairman, CEO etc will look at the business and see where expenses are going and how they can be better used. In no way is buying a player for several million pounds, paying them 50k a week for three or four years and not using them acceptable, especially when you have a much vaunted youth system.
Of all the things I liked about MON, how he used the squad and his transfer dealings in general were not amongst them.

Now, if Randy can be criticised for anything, and he's not perfect, its giving MON too much power in who he bought and particularly what he paid for them.
Its fair enough to a degree because this is his first football club and MON was a name with enough clout to expect to know what he's doing. Randy probably felt that he had his own opinions but MON obviously knew better so gave him his headroom.
Well it hasnt turned out so. He made a few brilliant if predictable signings but mostly, in hindsight, you'd have to say the money was inappropriately used. Or at least I would.
So I can see why he was, if not reined in, asked to clean up his own mess. Put some toys away to make room for any new ones he was getting out.

In the end, something had to give and it was MON's apparent petulance and refusal to do a bit of housekeeping that made itself known first. I believe Randy would have given him time to do this and supported him but got his arse in his hands and moped about all summer, the pre-season games were a real eye opener, we were pathetic. And then, at the worst possible time, he decided to walk away rather than sort his own mess out and was quite happy to let the blame and media idiocy fall on Randy who has never done anything but support him. Not only that but he showed no regard to us or how we'd cope. What a complete wanker.

Never have I lost so much respect for one person, so quickly.

Some valid points made, even if I would argue about your conculsions, which I won't as it goes over too much old ground.

However, two things I'd like to pick up on:-
1.  Players can't be viewed as assets in the same way other things can.  Yes, a chairman might rightly say "Why do you need two warehouses when you only use one?  Sell the other!"  But applying that to say goalkeepers would leave us in a pickle.  A mixture of the two approaches is what's called for and we don't know how far down either view Randy and MON were.
2.  I don't want to get into the whole debate of our expeniture against other clubs, but depsite our views on how the money was spent, he did get the results with it.  So while we may not like the methods used, the outcome was acceptable, IMO.

[ktvillan]

The wage bill issue wasn't of Houllier's making so it would be unfair to expect him to sort it out without any backing for his own plans.   I think it had more to do with under utilisation of those players, and the youth players coming through,  that made Randy call a time-out on O'Neill's activities.  I think it was fair enough to expect O'Neill, after 4 years of unquestioned backing, to address these issues.   Houllier has shown he is willing to actually make use of at least some of the players that were ostracized or deemed not good enough under O'Neill, or to get shot of them.  O'Neill seemed unwilling or unable to do either.

Those criticising Lerner for not giving O'Neill this kind of money are missing the point completely.

[pauliewalnuts]

2.  I don't want to get into the whole debate of our expeniture against other clubs, but depsite our views on how the money was spent, he did get the results with it.  So while we may not like the methods used, the outcome was acceptable, IMO.

The question isn't whether he got results or not - he did, to a certain level. The question is whether he could have got those results more efficiently. If you look at the wages to turnover ratio, it suggests that is something we can not ignore.

In all the accusations and moaning, the General, before he left, made a point which people mostly just ignored, which was that it was "about making sure the right money goes to the right people".

That's a really important point which a lot of people didn't get - instead many people saw it as "sell to buy".

For example, does our second choice, hardly ever used right back need to be on 40k a week for three years, age 35? How much value do you think we'll be getting from our 2m plus a year for Beye's wages in a year? How much are we getting now?

Look at the defence under MON - Davies, Collins, Dunne, Cuellar - four centre  backs, total spent almost 30 million pounds, if we assume their salaries as 35, 40, 50 and 45 - that's 170k a week on centrebacks. Throw in NI and other costs, and it is more like 190k. Over the year, that is over 9 million pounds in salaries for centre halves alone.

Is that good allocation of resources?

Does our fourth choice centre back need to be one we had 9.5m pounds worth of transfer fee and 35k or so a week tied up in? Is that efficient use of resources?

If we pay Darren Bent 80k a week but lose Sidwell and, say, Carew, we've reduced the wage bill by on the surface not a great amount, but how much do you think we're strengthened by that move?

We will not be able to compete financially with Man CIty or the other really big spenders. That's obvious. We've got a chairman who has a few bob and has proven himself willing to put his hand in his pocket and support the manager big style, but does that mean we can ignore things like the wage bill? Of course it doesn't. If we didn't have to worry about money, we'd all be having free season tickets.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

example, does our second choice, hardly ever used right back need to be on 40k a week for three years, age 35? How much value do you think we'll be getting from our 2m plus a year for Beye's wages in a year? How much are we getting now?

That particular signing is galling.
O'Neill's unwillingness to look under his nose has cost us nearly £10m with that signing, Eric Lichaj has shown he can be a perfectly good 2nd choice right back.

[Percy McCarthy]

My first thought after MON flounced off was that he'd bottled it, but I was worried that maybe Randy had too. I didn't lose faith exactly, I just didn't know if he was still as committed - none of us did, really. I suppose the most pertinent question about Randy over the last few months would be "Did he lose faith in the whole Villa project, or just MON"?

He answered that yesterday IMO.

[Concrete John]

2.  I don't want to get into the whole debate of our expeniture against other clubs, but depsite our views on how the money was spent, he did get the results with it.  So while we may not like the methods used, the outcome was acceptable, IMO.

The question isn't whether he got results or not - he did, to a certain level. The question is whether he could have got those results more efficiently. If you look at the wages to turnover ratio, it suggests that is something we can not ignore.

In all the accusations and moaning, the General, before he left, made a point which people mostly just ignored, which was that it was "about making sure the right money goes to the right people".

That's a really important point which a lot of people didn't get - instead many people saw it as "sell to buy".

For example, does our second choice, hardly ever used right back need to be on 40k a week for three years, age 35? How much value do you think we'll be getting from our 2m plus a year for Beye's wages in a year? How much are we getting now?

Look at the defence under MON - Davies, Collins, Dunne, Cuellar - four centre  backs, total spent almost 30 million pounds, if we assume their salaries as 35, 40, 50 and 45 - that's 170k a week on centrebacks. Throw in NI and other costs, and it is more like 190k. Over the year, that is over 9 million pounds in salaries for centre halves alone.

Is that good allocation of resources?

Does our fourth choice centre back need to be one we had 9.5m pounds worth of transfer fee and 35k or so a week tied up in? Is that efficient use of resources?

If we pay Darren Bent 80k a week but lose Sidwell and, say, Carew, we've reduced the wage bill by on the surface not a great amount, but how much do you think we're strengthened by that move?

We will not be able to compete financially with Man CIty or the other really big spenders. That's obvious. We've got a chairman who has a few bob and has proven himself willing to put his hand in his pocket and support the manager big style, but does that mean we can ignore things like the wage bill? Of course it doesn't. If we didn't have to worry about money, we'd all be having free season tickets.

Now you do raise some good points there, but the balance is always players like Milner and Ash, who increased their fees and, as close as any footballer can these days, earned their money.  That's why I look at results as the only true measure as everything else is somewhat subjective.
 
And a lot of these problems come from not having enough faith in the youth to be back up, I agree.

about making sure the right money goes to the right people

Thing is, you can get as many answers to that as people you ask.  Ultimately if the manager thinks they are the right people then you either back him or sack him.  We did neither, which lead to the limbo-esque summer and then him walking out.

[cheltenhamlion]

Here are some players that we hardly used last season and a ballpark figure for their wages.

Sidwell - 50k p/w
Shorey - 33k p/w
Harewood - 27k p/w
Beye - 40k p/w
Davies - 30k p/w

That's £26 million in fees and £182,000 per week in wages.

It's no wonder he was told to sort it and, let's get this right, it wasn't the wage bill per se that was the problem. They wanted a more equitable distribution of that outlay.

[usav]

My first thought after MON flounced off was that he'd bottled it, but I was worried that maybe Randy had too. I didn't lose faith exactly, I just didn't know if he was still as committed - none of us did, really. I suppose the most pertinent question about Randy over the last few months would be "Did he lose faith in the whole Villa project, or just MON"?

He answered that yesterday IMO.

Excellent summary.

[pauliewalnuts]

about making sure the right money goes to the right people

Thing is, you can get as many answers to that as people you ask.  Ultimately if the manager thinks they are the right people then you either back him or sack him.  We did neither, which lead to the limbo-esque summer and then him walking out.

The thing is, though, the manager thought they were the right people so much that .... he never used them.

Regarding "we did neither" - we don't know that. All we know is that the General said Randy and Martin agreed that we'd move on some of the players who were sapping money and contributing next to nothing, then towards late summer, he changed his mind, decided he didn't want to and walked.

The General also said that money was, and always has been, available to spend. Yesterday we smashed our transfer record and bought one of the best strikers in the league. That puts more than a considerable amount of doubt on the assertion that there was no money available.

Now, whether he was right to walk or not is his decision, but:

1. The fact he did it when he did, whatever his reasoning, shows a very scant regard for Aston Villa or the club's supporters. You might look for reasons to defend his actions, but how much thought do you think he was giving us by doing that?

2. All managers have to manage a budget, all of them. Why couldn't he do it? Was he above it? Would a season of consolidation (as Everton have had plenty of times) beneath him? Would it besmirch his cv?

Very good managers are judged on what they achieve in their post, but they are also judged on their legacy, and MON, whilst doing a good job for four years, left us with a squad of unused, unbothered high earners, gaping holes - like the striker we needed for at least three years - and an entire football staff to find five days before the start of the season. In other words, utter turmoil.

Whatever he felt over the summer, I hope he had a fucking good reason to inflict that on us.

[Shrek]

I can't believe some people on here.

Randy has never moved the goalpost's.

He realised Martin was no good for Villa.
Martin paid 12 million for Downing on about 50k a week, when we had Albrighton ready.

Martin was no good for Villa long term, he never gave young lads a chance just wanted to buy old players on high wages to sit on the bench.

Houllier will use the squad and help bring on Academy players, whereas Martin would have driven them all away ie, Gary Cahill!

[Chris Smith]

I don't think it proves any such thing but if it did it wouldn't reflect well on Randy. If he doubts about MON he should have done something about it, why would he just let things drift instead?

The issue was always about wages.

I doubt any Mon fan would expect a man to be honest, honourable and willing to stick with someone even if he thought things were not as viable as he'd like.

Sorry, you're posting in Everral gibbersish again so I have no idea of the point you are trying to make and as it's a few hours since you posted I suspect neither do you.

[sfx412]

I don't think it proves any such thing but if it did it wouldn't reflect well on Randy. If he doubts about MON he should have done something about it, why would he just let things drift instead?

The issue was always about wages.

I doubt any Mon fan would expect a man to be honest, honourable and willing to stick with someone even if he thought things were not as viable as he'd like.

Sorry, you're posting in Everral gibbersish again so I have no idea of the point you are trying to make and as it's a few hours since you posted I suspect neither do you.

Don't be sorry Chris I fully understand, and appreciate you know exactly the point I'm making, and cannot in any way show you do

[Chris Smith]

If you have a squad of 24 players then even if you use all subs each week you are going to have 10 of them being paid without kicking a ball in anger. Even if you rotate players your still going to be left with the same number not doing anything. O'Neill's approach was fairly old school in that he thought of it as a first team and then the rest as cover for injury etc and this was his downfall, I think, but if he'd played Beye and Sidwell more often then the wage bill would have been just the same although results might have been worse.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the squad over coming months but we're in the fortunate position of having a decent crop of youngsters to step up as we inevitably lose more experienced players as their contracts run down.

[Concrete John]

Regarding "we did neither" - we don't know that. All we know is that the General said Randy and Martin agreed that we'd move on some of the players who were sapping money and contributing next to nothing, then towards late summer, he changed his mind, decided he didn't want to and walked.

Disagree - don't think we KNOW that at all.

My own opinion, trying to read between the lines, is that they agreed to sell some on and when that didn't happen, for whatever reason, MON wanted to keep spending anyway, which Randy didn't agree with.   

2. All managers have to manage a budget, all of them. Why couldn't he do it? Was he above it? Would a season of consolidation (as Everton have had plenty of times) beneath him? Would it besmirch his cv?

I'd argue that he did manage his budget, but some didn't like how he was doing it.  The issues then came when that budget, in terms of wages, was basically reduced and we had difficulty shifting some of our fringe players.

Look - I have no issue with Randy wanting to see things handled differently and although it's largely supposition on our part, what we understand he wanted makes sense to me and shows the flaws in how Martin ran things.  However, I can't see how we can call the money he spent wasted when on balance he produced the results.  Whatever we do or spend off the pitch is in order to win football matches on it, so the only true measure is pounds spent to points won and everything else is subjective.

[Chris Smith]

I don't think it proves any such thing but if it did it wouldn't reflect well on Randy. If he doubts about MON he should have done something about it, why would he just let things drift instead?

The issue was always about wages.

I doubt any Mon fan would expect a man to be honest, honourable and willing to stick with someone even if he thought things were not as viable as he'd like.

Sorry, you're posting in Everral gibbersish again so I have no idea of the point you are trying to make and as it's a few hours since you posted I suspect neither do you.

Don't be sorry Chris I fully understand, and appreciate you know exactly the point I'm making, and cannot in any way show you do

Seriously, I don't. Please explain. I think it might be intended as some sort of dig but shrouded in your usual weird phrasing as you haven't got the bottle to be staright.