Relegation Possibility

[PeterWithesShin]

All we were building under MON was a house of cards that the pubeheaded little shit couldn't wait to give a nudge as he walked out the door.

[Mister E]

We weren't really building anything under O'Neill though.  It should be clear by now that it was as unsustainable as the Western economies' debt crisis.  He paid £20m(ish) for Cuellar and Davies, then decided 12 months later that neither were good enough, so went out and replaced them with Dunne and Collins.  Just one example of his sheer profligacy, the results of which are still being felt whenever you look at the club accounts.  The reason we've had to sell our best players is to desperately try to rebalance the books.  It's why we're bolloxed for the foreseeable future.

I agree with this - that MO'N was operating outside of normal business parameters (unchecked by Lerner et al).

But I also believe that we ignored the GHou plan (and I'm making assumptions that he had a credible plan to go forwards) about replacing the 'old lags' and hiring young, value-for-money replacements like Cabaye and Tiote, in order to exploit the youth benefits that exist at Villa.

Hiring McLueless was expedient: he was relatively inexpensive, malleable and 'likeable' - oh, and wily old Sralex apparently recommended him!

It all smacks of a total lack of Vision and Strategy. No plan, no direction and no plan B.

[Irish villain]

Risso, it was up to the board to point that out to MON. MON was the manager. He should have been ordered to recoup some of that money before signing replacements. Who sanctioned Heskey's wages etc? MON's a cock but we can see the bigger picture now. Nobody in charge at the club seems to have a clue about either Business or football.

As for relegation, my latest thoughts, the fans simply have to come out strong for Aston Villa in our remaining games. Remember the efforts made this time last year? We MUST replicate those.

We are stuck with this gobshite of a manager. Are we going to rely on him to keep us up or are we going to do something about it ourselves?

Get behind the villa. Let's do our bit to keep us up. If the worst happens, at least we can say, we tried our best to lift the club.

[Risso]

Risso, it was up to the board to point that out to MON. MON was the manager. He should have been ordered to recoup some of that money before signing replacements. Who sanctioned Heskey's wages etc? MON's a cock but we can see the bigger picture now. Nobody in charge at the club seems to have a clue about either Business or football.

Oh I quite agree.  The combination of Lerner and O'Neill was a marriage made in hell.  Somebody with inherited wealth, completely inexperienced in the ways of English football with a track record of crap sports management, backing an egotistical, arrogant manager who thought that he should run the club from top to bottom.  Lerner wasn't rich enough to sustain that level of waste, and O'Neill had enough mates in the media that his false reputation would live on if he walked out.

[Eigentor]

I don't worry too much about relegation even though that scenario is now looking less unlikely than it did a couple of weeks ago. We should be able to get somewhere between two and four points from our next two matches. Old Trafford is almost a guaranteed defeat, I agree. But at least five points from matches against Sunderland, Bolton, West Bromwich, Spurs and Norwich should be doable. At least more doable than getting points from Arsenal and Chelsea.

However, since we embarked on the austerity drive we have gone from sixth to ninth, and then from ninth to (most likely) somewhere around fifteenth. If we continue the current "strategy" (selling our best players and not replacing them), carry on with McLeish as manager, and he doesn't start to show any kind of indication that he knows what he is doing, then we're almost guaranteed to end up in the shit at the end of next season.

[FatSam]

The major, major mistake was that when Houllier left, the club had the chance to make an appointment that would effectively treat that season as a "blip", but build on the positives we had from that year (and there weren't many, to be honest).

What they actually did is the worst thing they possibly could have. I keep saying this, but if a malevolent force had visited us from another planet with the mission of doing the most damage to the club they possibly could, how would they have done any better a job of it than Lerner did?

I completely agree with this. However, I think that it is incompetence rather than a loss of interest on behalf of Lerner. The fact is that he didn't really need to look very hard for MON when he was in the process of buying the club. Whilst the appointment was made before the take over, I'm not sure whether it was instigated by Lerner or by HDE.

It seems as though Lerner thought that he could trust MON, and effectively just leave him to it. There wasn't anyone with any football knowledge monitoring what was going on, and so when they eventually tried to rein him in, and he walked, there was no plan. I think the Houllier appointment, although frankly a little left-field, could have worked out and provided the football knowledge, and plan, that was so evidently missing.

However, the appointment of McLeish just proves that it was all random. Given that football is a global game, it would be a staggering stroke of luck if the best candidate for the job just happened to be employed down the road. I think his league cup win against the odds, in the context of our two near misses with MON the season before, proved too seductive to Lerner. 

[eric woolban woolban]

Is it wrong to bet on your team to go down?

If so, I'm a traitor.

Last week, we were 25/1 with Ladbrokes to go down. By Saturday morning this had fallen to 18/1 and by Saturday evening down to 12/1.

[Greg N'Ash]

Way i see it, even if we stay up and Mcleish goes we're probably going down next season anyway.. Cuellar will go and not be replaced because we have Dunne, Collins Clarke, Baker (yipee), Heskey won't be replaced (don't really matter i guess). I can't believe they won't replcae Petrov but you wouldn't put it past the yank fuckwitt.  The new guy will first have the joy of welcoming a player he probably doesn't even want, and then working with what you can laughably call the remants of our 1st team . Oh, and the kids who even though they've yet to prove they're even decent championship players will magically be transformed by the new's guys sheer force of personality into a fully functioning premiership side.

So really as far as the new man goes we're looking for a certifiable nut job with an insane belief in his own ability. Plenty of them round without a job, but wait, he also has to be good, with a decent track record, who wants to work with peanuts and doesn't care at all about his reputation going up in flames once he takes on the basket case that is Randy Lerner's aston Villa.

Good luck with that.

[TheSandman]

I reckon we will be save this season. A few of the other players in the relegation battle have a tough few games coming up in the next few whilst we have to play a shit Liverpool and Stoke. This should provide a few points to get us over the line. If we don't get points from these two games I reckon we are in trouble. Especially if some of the teams below pick up unexpected points.

[Ozzjim]

I reckon we will lose to Liverpool and draw against Stoke. I am going to see what odds I can get, as I reckon we are gonna drop this season not next.

[pauliewalnuts]

However, the appointment of McLeish just proves that it was all random. Given that football is a global game, it would be a staggering stroke of luck if the best candidate for the job just happened to be employed down the road. I think his league cup win against the odds, in the context of our two near misses with MON the season before, proved too seductive to Lerner. 

The appointment of McLeish was two things - lazy and insane.

Football club executives and owners have as one of their key functions to search out and appoint managers. Some clubs are canny with it and do a bit of research and make an inspired, forward looking appointment.

What were the things driving Lerner and Faulkner when they appointed McLeish? What on earth were they thinking? We know that they - ridiculously and for the second time in a year - put "premier league experience" at the top of the list of requirements. Where to start with narow minded idiocy of that kind?

The sad thing is that even when our glorious leader finally did stick his head over the parapet and speak about the appointment, he said two things, effectively - that McLeish was an interesting person to talk to and that Ferguson wrote him a nice letter.

That's the level of inspiration we have leading the club, and that's why, ultimately, no matter how much money he throws at it, Lerner will get nowhere, because the largest problem in this equation is himself.

Here we are almost 10 months into it, and I still can not believe he got the job, the whole thing just beggars belief.

[hawkeye]

So Greg you think it is impossible for Aston Villa to recruit a decent manager! I dont share your pessimism. Granted with the idiots running the club at the moment it might seem difficult. I think because Martinez turned us down they got scared and hit the panick button. If they thought about it and acted with some level of competance then recruiting Lambert or Rogers is not beyond us. The issue is weteher RL and PF have the gumption to do anything about it.

[TonyD]

I sometimes even now struggle to believe that AM is our manager.  It's like a bad dream.   But then you wake up and it's true.   The kids will need to dig deep and play well or else we will go down.   If AM tells them to play on the wrong wings again they should ignore the moron and switch.  I put our chances of staying up at 60/40. 

[VillaAlways]

I reckon we will lose to Liverpool and draw against Stoke. I am going to see what odds I can get, as I reckon we are gonna drop this season not next.

Yep, I think were in freefall

[pauliewalnuts]

So Greg you think it is impossible for Aston Villa to recruit a decent manager! I dont share your pessimism. Granted with the idiots running the club at the moment it might seem difficult. I think because Martinez turned us down they got scared and hit the panick button. If they thought about it and acted with some level of competance then recruiting Lambert or Rogers is not beyond us. The issue is weteher RL and PF have the gumption to do anything about it.

Martinez turned us down not because he thought we were a nothing club, but because he has a strong bond with Whelan and feels like he owes him something.

Suggesting his opting to stay at Wigan is some proof that we're a toxic brand nobody with half a brain would touch is utterly nonsensical.