Randy Lerner - Discuss

[Chris Smith]

Not so sure you can make that claim, Kevin. Gates are down but that's partly because we had a big uplift under MON when we were doing well, I think they'd have fallen whoever was in charge. Then there's the economic climate to consider, to put it all done to a single appointment is dubious logic. 

[Archbishop Herbert Cockthrottle]

http://www.mcleishout.co.uk/

'Most disapointing thing all afternoon was only hearing a handful of McLeish Out chants'.

What a shitty life the creator of this website must lead.
Sad.

[CJ]

http://www.mcleishout.co.uk/

Always wondered where Compass would pop up next 

[Dave Cooper please]

Who is McLie and why is he shouting?

[pauliewalnuts]

Lerner has always seemed to try to do right by us fans, I think a lot of what has gone wrong could have been avoided with another experienced CEO. I mean how much do they earn? Half a million a year? I'd rather we tried a different man in that role before trying to drive Lerner out.

This is what I don't understand.  Lerner will fork out £65K a week for somebody like Heskey, but when it comes to running the club he appoints a customer services manager from his credit card company.

Bloke I know with contacts reckons less than £300k, less than a quarter of Herd's new contract.

We must have pissed millions up the wall on wages for players who have proved themselves unable to achieve what is needed but we wont replace a fella whos arrival seemed to coincide with us going downhill faster than Franz Klammer and who earns the same as the youth team keeper.

Whist we're on the subject of pissing millions away, the appointment of McLeish has had the entirely predictable result of driving down gates. 

Never a great thing to to at the best of times.  But in the current climate -and with making that Deloitte 20 list a stated aim of the club-  it's even more hatstand.

Most home games this season have been a minimum of 5000 down on what we might usually expect.  So 5000 at an average ticket price of £30 = approx £150k  down per home game.  Spread over the season  (if McLeish is to last that long -and if gates don't plummet further)  and that's just under £2.5 million down for league games alone.

It's not entirely down to McLeish, but I couldn't think of another managerial appointment which would have deflated optimism so much.

I dread to think what our ST renewals will be like next year, when the recession is worse, and assuming this season carries on in the same vein.

[Villa'Zawg]

I've recently discovered that the Villa wages that have been discussed on here previously, included £10m for people in the other 4 companies that make up the RAL group. If you add that £10m to the £7.7m in "management charges" and the £5.7m in debt interest charges it works out at a tidy £450,000 a week that the football club is paying out for Randy and his pals in one way or another. It almost makes Heskey's wages palatable.

[pauliewalnuts]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Dave Clark Five]

I dread to think what our ST renewals will be like next year, when the recession is worse, and assuming this season carries on in the same vein.

Does anybody know what the season ticket count is? Judging by the way the away scheme membership has, reportedly, halved, I would imagine there has been a serious decline in season tickets sold. These things are bound to be pro rata. Also worth considering is that many people who go to games are always complaining about the players wages, cost of tickets and poor standard of football etc. Many go because they always have. It is part of their life. Once they have dropped out of the habit of going you would need some sort of Man City like situation to get them back again. If it is crap at £40 it is still crap at £5; albeit considerably cheaper.

[Villa'Zawg]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I know. £450,000 per WEEK

Oh! Is that not what you meant?

[Dave Clark Five]

I've recently discovered that the Villa wages that have been discussed on here previously, included £10m for people in the other 4 companies that make up the RAL group. If you add that £10m to the £7.7m in "management charges" and the £5.7m in debt interest charges it works out at a tidy £450,000 a week that the football club is paying out for Randy and his pals in one way or another. It almost makes Heskey's wages palatable.

We all moaned when Ellis paid himself £200,000  a year, even if it was a long time ago.

[Ads]

The problem Lerner has is that he has no 2nd grand strategy.

The first was simple and the most commonly used and effective method to improve; pay big fees and wages for good players and then repeat. That is of course just a scratch analysis and we can have a whole new thread on how we had a very good first XI, but no depth and so on.

Now, to me at least and from what I gather, most others, we appear to have no focus, direction or grand plan.

Fair enough, Lerner does not have the finances to compete at the top table any longer, few do. So while we wait for the next perto-billions to come our way, why not look at other ways to compete?

Arsenal are an extreme example to use, but they have shown that it is possible to compete and balance the books. Its an equally fair argument to say that they’ve won nowt for a good few years now, but at least they’re in the mix.

They have a fantastic, if myopic, manager. They have a top scouting system, they used to have a proper footballing man calling the shots in Dein, they have a philosophy and above all a goal that their fans are able to buy into. It will be better next seasons because of X, Y and Z.

We keep hearing that we’re in transition. We’re not. We went from a bloody good side to a pointless non-entity when we came 9th after an horrendous campaign. It happens. In fact its happened in cycular fashion, but this time, with this strategy, with this manager and with Lerner’s leadership…

What is Lerner asking the fans to buy into? What can we see down the road as the ray of light, the goal we’re all working towards? Arsenal are a freak for sure. Its very difficult to do what they’ve done an it would be unfair to stamp your feet and demand to be like them, but they are proof that you can play good football, entertain and at least show that you want to compete.

I don’t know what Lerner is thinking, what his intentions are, but to me, given the lack of a clue, I would put my money on him preparing the club for a sale. It’s the only logical explanation I can give.

[TheSandman]

I've recently discovered that the Villa wages that have been discussed on here previously, included £10m for people in the other 4 companies that make up the RAL group. If you add that £10m to the £7.7m in "management charges" and the £5.7m in debt interest charges it works out at a tidy £450,000 a week that the football club is paying out for Randy and his pals in one way or another. It almost makes Heskey's wages palatable.

Ignoring the source and the risk of another boring wages argument this is both interesting and shocking in equal measure if true. It makes all the talk of reducing the wage bill sound somewhat hollow.

[pauliewalnuts]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I know. £450,000 per WEEK

Oh! Is that not what you meant?

It wasn't, I was scared we were going to get dragged into a Spurs wage bill vortex,  but if that figure is correct, then it's a bit scarey.

[Villa'Zawg]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I know. £450,000 per WEEK

Oh! Is that not what you meant?

It wasn't, I was scared we were going to get dragged into a Spurs wage bill vortex,  but if that figure is correct, then it's a bit scarey.

The £7.7m "management fees" and £5.7m debt interest are direct from the filed accounts. The interesting one is the £10m wages, which I only know about because The Guardian printed a correction over articles written about O'Neill. Their correction included...

"Figures cited in the articles were for Reform Acquisitions Limited, the parent company for a number of companies connected with Aston Villa. The only company with which Mr O’Neill had any direct connection as an employee was that responsible for the professional football club. We accept that the group loss was not Mr O’Neill’s responsibility. The wage bill for Aston Villa FC was £69m, not £79m."

Interestingly (to me at least), leaving aside the astonishing £445k per week, it also means that the much criticised 88% of turnover is wrong as well. £69m gives us a wages/turnover ratio of 76%. Less than Man City, Wigan Newcastle, Blackpool, Sunderland, Chelsea, Baggies and Blackburn, equal to Stoke's and 2% higher than West Ham and Bolton. We had all of that shit about wages being too high for our turnover and it turns out that they were nothing more or less than average for the PL.

[Hoppo]

Keep up the good work Eddie Shoestring..