'Waste of a Club'

[Billy Walker]

And don't worry about modern life moving too fast - I've heard of a great new band called Oasis.

I'll look out for them!

[Big Dick Edwards]

I might be in the minority here but the way that the club is being run at the moment makes me look back on the Ellis years with a certain sense of fondness. At least he attended all the games, and although he made some bad managerial appointments ala Turner, McNeil and Venglos he would never have been dumb enough to appoint the current clown from S.H.A.

Christ Rico, do you REALLY think appointing McLeish as manager was a worse decision than Ellis snapping up the Graham Turner, the Shrewsbury Town manager as the ideal candidate for the reigning European Super Cup holders?

[gaucho1966]

I might be in the minority here but the way that the club is being run at the moment makes me look back on the Ellis years with a certain sense of fondness. At least he attended all the games, and although he made some bad managerial appointments ala Turner, McNeil and Venglos he would never have been dumb enough to appoint the current clown from S.H.A.

Christ Rico, do you REALLY think appointing McLeish as manager was a worse decision than Ellis snapping up the Graham Turner, the Shrewsbury Town manager as the ideal candidate for the reigning European Super Cup holders?

its a tricky one...

[dicedlam]

I have always been very pro Lerner and to a very large degree I still am.   However, I think Villa's drift and Randy Lerner's drift further and further into the background are the same thing.

The one thing Lerner has not done which was very much in his power to do is give us a board with football balls.   The recent landscape of the club is dominated by bad board decisions.

If I had it in my power to change just one thing which has happened at Villa Park since O'Neill walked out it would be to have the board stand up to O'Neill and tell the club's side of the story.

It makes me curl up with anger, with disgust, with shame, and with embarassment on days like yesterday when Martin O'Neill is able to strut the stage of British football as a superhero endowed with divine talents somewhere between a latter day Joan of Arc and Galahad whose heart was pure.

I accept that a defeat at a tribunal may well have been on the cards but some fights you have to fight regardless of the odds.   You have to tell it how it is, not shuffle off down Spin Alley.

The sun went behind a cloud over Villa Park not the day that O'Neill walked or the day that Stoke equalized or the day Houllier's heart missed a beat or the day Randy Lerner flew to Corsica.   It was the day we decided that O'Neill's claims for wrongful dismissal should not be contested.   From that day onwards the legend that without Messiah Martin we are nothing has spread like a malignant fungus.

Any chance of a rebirth for the club was stillborn with the appointment of a manager who preferred to be linked with Liverpool followed by a manager who came with more baggage than Ryanair.

I hope that the the rediscovery of ourselves is not in the Championship but I cannot see any other wake up call being loud enough to wake the sleepwalker.

In total agreement with you here Brian.

Great post.

[Mister E]

I actually don't have a problem with people like our QPR fan having a dig at Birmingham - most people do have a pop because they do not bother to find out what the City is really like. I put that down - in this case - to the normal Londoner snobbery of all things provincial.
I did however detect at least an effort to understand where Villa have come from and where they reside now. And, MON issues aside, I think he caught the mood pretty well.

As Brian Green has already eloquently said, we blew the MON argument for good when the board failed to articulate effectively their side of the story.

[Rico]

Hey BDE you know me better than to call me an Ellis sympathiser, however, I really do not think he would have been crass enough to employ Mcleish. The route of the problem at VP is our absent owner. Mcleish is just the fall guy!
UTV.

[Percy McCarthy]

I think Dave is right in his way, pointing out where we are. I also think Billy is right in terms of where we could be. Let's assume that quite a few clubs could get to the top given a certain level of investment and competent leadership, ie picking the right manager and, following on from that, the right players. My view is that Villa, with our existing facilities, location and fan-base, could stay there and be more viable in terms of continued losses/investment. Our big advantage would be if we got to a stage in our development when we needed extra capacity. What would cost Liverpoolan Everton and Spurs hundreds of millions would cost us a fraction of that.

[Big Dick Edwards]

Hey BDE you know me better than to call me an Ellis sympathiser, however, I really do not think he would have been crass enough to employ Mcleish. The route of the problem at VP is our absent owner. Mcleish is just the fall guy!
UTV.

Given the club was set on balancing the books and had no money to spend last summer, in addition to selling its two most creative players, and had several experienced players (Warnock, Dunne, Collins and Ireland) at loggerheads with the club, what manager worth his salt would you realistically have expected to want the Villa job?

[hawkeye]

I accept that a defeat at a tribunal may well have been on the cards but some fights you have to fight regardless of the odds.   You have to tell it how it is, not shuffle off down Spin Alley.

   It was the day we decided that O'Neill's claims for wrongful dismissal should not be contested.   From that day onwards the legend that without Messiah Martin we are nothing has spread like a malignant fungus.

Maybe we did not contest it was because the evidence would have been more damaging to lerner than to MON, isnt that why they paid him off?

[Jimmy Smash]

Hey BDE you know me better than to call me an Ellis sympathiser, however, I really do not think he would have been crass enough to employ Mcleish. The route of the problem at VP is our absent owner. Mcleish is just the fall guy!
UTV.

Given the club was set on balancing the books and had no money to spend last summer, in addition to selling its two most creative players, and had several experienced players (Warnock, Dunne, Collins and Ireland) at loggerheads with the club, what manager worth his salt would you realistically have expected to want the Villa job?

Chris Houghton for starters.

[Big Dick Edwards]

Hey BDE you know me better than to call me an Ellis sympathiser, however, I really do not think he would have been crass enough to employ Mcleish. The route of the problem at VP is our absent owner. Mcleish is just the fall guy!
UTV.

Given the club was set on balancing the books and had no money to spend last summer, in addition to selling its two most creative players, and had several experienced players (Warnock, Dunne, Collins and Ireland) at loggerheads with the club, what manager worth his salt would you realistically have expected to want the Villa job?

Chris Houghton for starters.

Hindsight is a fantastic thing mate. I'd imagine you'd have been in a pretty small minority who'd have been pleased with Hughton getting the Villa job.

[achilles]

Hey BDE you know me better than to call me an Ellis sympathiser, however, I really do not think he would have been crass enough to employ Mcleish. The route of the problem at VP is our absent owner. Mcleish is just the fall guy!
UTV.

Given the club was set on balancing the books and had no money to spend last summer, in addition to selling its two most creative players, and had several experienced players (Warnock, Dunne, Collins and Ireland) at loggerheads with the club, what manager worth his salt would you realistically have expected to want the Villa job?

Not one who had just got their team relegated from the Premiership, walked out of the club and then to cap it all pay compensation for him.... utter madness!

[Big Dick Edwards]

Hey BDE you know me better than to call me an Ellis sympathiser, however, I really do not think he would have been crass enough to employ Mcleish. The route of the problem at VP is our absent owner. Mcleish is just the fall guy!
UTV.

Given the club was set on balancing the books and had no money to spend last summer, in addition to selling its two most creative players, and had several experienced players (Warnock, Dunne, Collins and Ireland) at loggerheads with the club, what manager worth his salt would you realistically have expected to want the Villa job?

Not one who had just got their team relegated from the Premiership, walked out of the club and then to cap it all pay compensation for him.... utter madness!

And won that club their first major trophy in living memory.
Give me a name though. Realistically..

[achilles]

Hey BDE you know me better than to call me an Ellis sympathiser, however, I really do not think he would have been crass enough to employ Mcleish. The route of the problem at VP is our absent owner. Mcleish is just the fall guy!
UTV.

Given the club was set on balancing the books and had no money to spend last summer, in addition to selling its two most creative players, and had several experienced players (Warnock, Dunne, Collins and Ireland) at loggerheads with the club, what manager worth his salt would you realistically have expected to want the Villa job?

Not one who had just got their team relegated from the Premiership, walked out of the club and then to cap it all pay compensation for him.... utter madness!

And won that club their first major trophy in living memory.
Give me a name though. Realistically..

Martin Jol!

[Big Dick Edwards]

It's arguable Martin Jol would have been a better appointment than McLeish. The league table suggests Fulham and Villa are having similarly mediocre seasons.