Questions for Mr. Lerner Sir

[Concrete John]

Let's say we had a few seasons in there. Whilst that may make us an attractive proposition to a Van Der Vaart, do you honestly believe MON would have tried to sign him?

I would suggest he would have been far more likely to tell Randy that the increased revenue means we should pay the stupid wages that Jermaine Defoe wants.

Would've been better than Ivanhoe.

[Mazrim]

If I was given a brief saying "Look, there is x amount of money to spend over the next few years and we also need to keep the club within something like touch regarding wages" the first thing I'd think is "Christ I have to keep an eye on signing the right players on the right contracts, for the right money". I wouldn't even be considering signing Luke Young as right back and then Habib Beye to compete with him (both on circa £40k p/w) and then using Cuellar as right back after all. I wouldn't be buying an entire defence to replace another defence I'd already bought when we needed a top striker like Bent, who was available. I wouldn't be buying Heskey in any circumstances and absolutely not on £60k p/w.

It's not all MONs fault although I now hold him as the major culprit to say the least. The deals should not have been sanctioned to start with and more interest should have been shown in MONs team building strategy, which now appears to be scarcely a strategy at all. But that would require some football men on the board or in the upstairs organisation and we didn't have that and still do not. The board were naive and gave MON complete control. Yes, that's how Randy rolls but it's blown up in his face.

However, it still could have worked if he'd just bought Bent at the time he went to Sunderland, or even sooner. Or somebody similar. I think that would have been enough to fire us out of the slump we had post Moscow when we had a foot on Arsenal's throat. Alas.

All is not lost, far from it, but we're going to be feeling the aftershocks of MON's profligacy for a while.

[maidstonevillain]

I think getting into the CL proper might have helped us hang on to players a liittle longer, and attract some new ones, but only as long as we reamined a CL team.  However if O'Neill's squad weren't tehcnically and tactically astute enough to get past a rather average European outfit like Rapid Vienna (twice), it has to be doubtful whether they would have been equipped to get through the qualifying round of the CL even if we had managed a 4th place finish. 

But even then we would have starved one of our (then) rivals of CL funds, and limited their ability to attract players, for a year.

[ROBBO]

It's all ifs though isn't it Maz? there must be somwthing of the egotist in Randy that he thought he could leave the manager to manage the transfers without someone with a football backgound on the board to hold up the warning signs. The Browns havn't done well since he's had control of them and i just wonder if he has bitten of more than he can chew.

[Mazrim]

It's all ifs though isn't it Maz? there must be somwthing of the egotist in Randy that he thought he could leave the manager to manage the transfers without someone with a football backgound on the board to hold up the warning signs. The Browns havn't done well since he's had control of them and i just wonder if he has bitten of more than he can chew.

I'm not sure ego comes into it. Trust perhaps.
He trusted in the repuation of MON and invested heavily in it.

As for the Browns, that's true, but after a succession of less than stellar appointments he has now put the right man in the job in the form of Mike Holmgren. That's a pretty big deal in NFL.
It would be like Villa appointing a top director of football.

I think something similar needs to happen at Villa for continuity's sake.

[Brian Taylor]

If ManU can launch themselves on Singapore Stock Market. Maybe we can do so on, say, the HK market? We seemed to be flavour of the month over there recently.
The Chinese have developed a serious taste for PL football in recent years!
Share issues and Hedge fund stuff is more Randy's forte although he fell foul of his investments in the States and holdings in Bank of America bit him on the bum, it doesn't mean the cash-rich Chinese would not go for a chance at owning part of a major Football club with long term tradition, etc. It could be a way forward to extricate ourselves from the cap in hand scenario we appear to be in.

Solid performances bringing in steady revenue with good economic control in place. It could be a strategy that would allow us to spend a bit, prudently, without risking too much overall.
ManU will sell themselves and I am not suggesting we have anything quite like their current status, but we do have similar saleability and a chance to make money for investors if success comes as a result of acquiring the right players and infrastructure. I wonder what we might recoup on a similar launch? 
just a thought..nothing more.

[Mazrim]

I'm not sure pawning off large parts of the club is the right way to go.

[Brian Taylor]

Perhaps?  We did it under Doug and Randy bought the the majority shareholding. I remember paying £4.00 a share and the SP going to a £1 or so before bouncing back courtesy of ex-WHU chairman buying loads at lowest ebb. It does bring in money and allows for takeover or eventual buy-back from a positive performance.
It would allow us to be sold aggressively into an expanding Chinese market...but just an idea, as I say, to get the wherewithal to get us out of our current predicament.
Maybe Randy will sort his financial matters out in US and all will be well, although that may take a while?
Then the Chinese are, allegedly, 'debt-free' and on the hunt for anything new and shiny!

[robbyfvillain]

Agree with a lot of what Mazrim says but the sentence:-

Quote:"But that would require some football men on the board or in the upstairs organisation and we didn't have that and still do not."

Shows that the board have still not learnt from the mistakes of the past.

We need to have initiatives in growing the revenue and the first step is to grow the fanbase.

Going forward we have to enlarge our fanbase without necessarily improving the team. A huge call but surely we have to concentrate on the kids, in our local area of the midlands.

Have a clear 5 year strategy of building up a database of supporters with children who want FREE tickets to matches. Advertise in all local papers within a 50 mile radius of Villa park for parents to sign up.

There are going to be quite a few empty seats over the coming years, so lets at least try and look to the longer term and give some of them away.

These schemes have been tried in the past but have never lasted very long due to short term considerations of cost. But if we gave away 5000 tickets to all the home games over the next 5 seasons (excluding games against the top 5 teams say) what is it really going to cost. How many of those games will we have more than 37k in anyway. Even if costed at 4seats for £50 as per a current offer it adds up to less than £5m over 5 years (half a habib beye)

We clearly would limit how many times a season any 1 person would get a ticket (1 or 2 a season).

Target whoever is marketing this to end up with at least 100,000 names of potential paying supporters with kids who are asking for shirts, tickets etc.

We are already the biggest club in the midlands but we have no real presence in the area. We have an advantage over all the other clubs around us but we have not pressed this home. If we had spent a tiny proportion of the money already wasted, into these type of schemes who knows where we could be.

If we end up with a bigger fanbase and selling out the stadium up to 37k (plus 5k free) then development can take place to enlarge the ground. etc etc.

It won't be easy but kids are less results orientated initially, it's about the buzz and excitement at that age.

If it fails then at least we will know we are what we are.



 

[Chris Smith]

Let's say we had a few seasons in there. Whilst that may make us an attractive proposition to a Van Der Vaart, do you honestly believe MON would have tried to sign him?

I would suggest he would have been far more likely to tell Randy that the increased revenue means we should pay the stupid wages that Jermaine Defoe wants.

That's a rather pointless argument. If we had a few seasons in the CL it would suggest that he'd signed the right players.

[cheltenhamlion]

Is it time for me to dust off the M5 corridor plan again?

[dave.woodhall]

We've spent years saying tickets should be sold cheaper/given away. Then when they're cheaper they should be even cheaper, and when we give some away we should give more. Then season ticket holders moan that they're losing out.

To repeat an old argument, Villa don't regularly get big gates because we never have.

[Villafirst]

We've spent years saying tickets should be sold cheaper/given away. Then when they're cheaper they should be even cheaper, and when we give some away we should give more. Then season ticket holders moan that they're losing out.

To repeat an old argument, Villa don't regularly get big gates because we never have.

We failed to build on an average attendance of 40,000+ a couple of seasons ago by failing to reach the Champions League. MON messed up big-time with his failure to sign Darren Bent (he had the chance in August 2009), if he had, I'm sure we would've got 40k gates regularly - and perhaps the the ground expansion to 51,000 might have happened. All this is now a million miles away. Looking back it's a pity a top European coach wasn't in charge. Armed with the amount of backing MON had a top coach would've got us to the CL by now. Chance has gone - mid-table team from now on.

[fredm]

But isn't that a bit defeatist, Dave?

Surely we should be trying everything possible to get people into the ground whether it's cheap/free tickets; free food; free drink; free transport, anything, surely?

[dave.woodhall]

But isn't that a bit defeatist, Dave?

Surely we should be trying everything possible to get people into the ground whether it's cheap/free tickets; free food; free drink; free transport, anything, surely?

It's stating a fact. We've tried just about everything to regularly increase gates but they never work long-term and last year we saw season ticket holders alienated.