Randy Lerner - Discuss

[Can Gana Be Bettered!?!?]

Seems like if a chairman isn't spending a shit load of money on new players, then most people will think they're useless.

I think he's put a fair bit of money in, but obviously can't afford to keep doing it - who can unless you own Chelsea or Man City?

[MarkM]

Seems like if a chairman isn't spending a shit load of money on new players, then most people will think they're useless.

I think he's put a fair bit of money in, but obviously can't afford to keep doing it - who can unless you own Chelsea or Man City?

I'm not going to judge him on how much he does or does not spend, rather on the decisions he does or does not make.

[pauliewalnuts]

It isn't purely about putting money in, though. It is about getting decisions right.

The club seem to have been on a year long sequence of bungling, and the appointment of McLeish - itself done against the "must have PL experience" rule they set themselves - is the latest cock up.

Could they have chosen a more inexplicable, divisive and unambitious move?

[KevinGage]

Agreed Paulie.

Aside from the logical (ish) reasons for offering him the job:

(a) he actually wanted it
(b) he would happily agree to any budget restrictions
(c) he'd do anything to get away from SHA

I wonder if there was a certain bent appeal to RL in offering the job to the manager of our rivals. Rivals in a purely geographical sense, that is.  I don't doubt he found Alex engaging and was happy for someone involved in football to actually talk to him about it.  But maybe our reaction to SHA's demise during the Liverpool home game didn't sit well with RL's notions of fair play and sportsmanship.

As reasons go, it makes about as much sense as anything else.

Even in this new era of austerity and flogging the family silver, there were as Paulie says, far less divisive options available.

[PeterWithe]

But maybe our reaction to SHA's demise during the Liverpool home game didn't sit well with RL's notions of fair play and sportsmanship

Interesting but I think I'm right in saying he was pictured with a great big shiteating grin in the aftermath of the game.

[KevinGage]

Ha!   

Bang goes that theory then.

I guess we're squarely back in WTF territory again.
It's a decision that didn't make a huge degree of sense back at the time and that is still pretty much the case now.

[brian green]

Totally agree Paulie.   If football, the management of football and being a football fan could be treated like a piece of engineering or some scientific project where only fixed laws apply appointing Alex McLeish to be the manager of Aston Villa could have been done by a computer.

But it is not a science and Alex McLeish will always have the albatross around his neck of being Alex McLeish.

Its just baggage and it makes a hard job even harder.   Heskey is the same.   If Marlon Harewood had had that shot on goal which went for a throw in we would have pissed ourselves laughing but it was Heskey and our brains boiled.

Randy Lerner does not know enough about football to have realized when he chose Alex McLeish that it had nothing to do with where he came from or what he had done it was the widespread perception that we were having a manager foisted upon us.   McLeish knows that and that is why he is so petrified of losing.

[PeterWithe]

Right up to the moment he picked up the pen to sign the contract I was telling anyone who'd listen that the interest in him was a smokescreen for another manager who wasn't wrong for us on every possible level.

[KevinGage]

Right up to the moment he picked up the pen to sign the contract I was telling anyone who'd listen that the interest in him was a smokescreen for another manager who wasn't wrong for us on every possible level.

Same.

My exact words were "Think how much RL has spent so far.  We might be fans but this is his investment. He won't jeopardise that..."

[brian green]

I too right up to the signing believed he was going to sign Klinsmann.

[ktvillan]

Could they have chosen a more inexplicable, divisive and unambitious move?

Appointing McClaren, Megson, or Peter Reid would probably have run it close, but even then the football may have been better to watch.  When I heard the rumours that AM was in the frame, I quite literally laughed out loud because it seemed so far beyond reason.

[N'ZMAV]

Les Reid or Chris Hutchings would have been the killer.

[PaulWinch again]

I have to be honest on the evidence of the 'football' we've played, as much as Mcleish seems a good man I wouldn't trust him to spend any money given to him. The reason for this is I believe on the evidence so far he doesn't appear to know how to get a team playing the game properly. On that basis eventually he will be dismissed and you'll then have to throw more money at a new manager. It may not be ideal to chop and change, but in this case I think it's better to start again with the correct man in charge instead of waste more time and money on what will ended up as a failed venture.

[dave.woodhall]

But maybe our reaction to SHA's demise during the Liverpool home game didn't sit well with RL's notions of fair play and sportsmanship

Interesting but I think I'm right in saying he was pictured with a great big shiteating grin in the aftermath of the game.

It may have been more to do with us finishing higher than in O'Neill's first season. I know that went down well.

[Vanilla]

I have to be honest on the evidence of the 'football' we've played, as much as Mcleish seems a good man I wouldn't trust him to spend any money given to him. The reason for this is I believe on the evidence so far he doesn't appear to know how to get a team playing the game properly. On that basis eventually he will be dismissed and you'll then have to throw more money at a new manager. It may not be ideal to chop and change, but in this case I think it's better to start again with the correct man in charge instead of waste more time and money on what will ended up as a failed venture.

Can the club really cope with a third 'transitional' season in a row?