Who is to blame?

[mark1968]

Lerner. he owns the club, he has the last word on all decisions.

Wow, what a shambles Aston Villa as become.

We are witnessing sheer incompetence.

[itbrvilla]

All of them and I wish they would all fuck off. Hate what's going on at my club. It's destroying the one thing that makes me remotely bothered about football.

[brian green]

It is so much Randy Lerner's fault that it is hard to know where to begin to catalogue the air kicks he has made.

He should have appointed a board with football savvy.

He should have appointed a club mentor respected by the sport and respected by the fans.   Sir GT would have been ideal but Brian Little, Andy Townsend, Ian Taylor, Peter Withe could have made it clear to the board and the owner and the manager that the club is nothing without its fans and the fans cannot be bought with free flags and scarves.   We needed a Villa man to fight our corner when madness like the signing of Heskey or McLeish was proposed. Or the madness of playing Heskey regardless of his actual playing ability.   I am not talking about a director of football or a second string manager, just somebody we the fans can trust and look up to.

Randy Lerner should also have had the balls to tell O'Neill long before he bounced out that the waste of money had to stop.  Doug Ellis's spies would have tipped him off well in advance of any manager planning to turn the club over.   Never in a million years would Doug have wasted twelve million pounds on a mardy manager a sick manager and a manager under a binding contract to our bitterest local rivals.

Randy Lerner should have put his and the club's case publicly to a tribunal not let O'Neill flounce away on a fragrant cloud of blamelessness.   Perhaps he was blameless but he should have been made to prove it.

Lerner should not have interfered when the men he chose made such a pig's ear of finding a replacement for Houllier.   When Whelan started to make monkeys out of us he should have told the board to give the job to Sid and K Mac just like the RFU have given Stuart Lancaster a spell to manage a battered and discredited England rugby team.   The dust would have settled and a couple of good candidates head hunted.   Instead the owner went into one and effectively told them he would sort it out personally.

I am sure I am not alone when I say that when I was told that McLeish was our new manager the future flashed past my eyes and it was exactly, down to the very last detail what we are now going through.   This is not me being anti Villa or negative or a cantankerous old Bovrilman it was there in the form book staring anybody in the face with eyes to see it.   I also saw a bit more of the future and it says that Sid and K Mac will be put in temporary charge at Christmas.

How can the owner seriously expect to understand us, the fans, when he thinks we will be impressed by a letter from the manager of Manchester United?

Randy Lerner cannot expect us to have any faith in him when Villa Park is shrouded in silence and secrecy and the only communication with the fans is to get them to buy stuff.

[Duncan Shaw]

Havent we been here before on many occasions over the decades ? With Lerner, without Lerner, with Ellis, without Ellis, Pre Ellis.
But you always had the hope that if the right mix of ingredients came together you might only be a couple of years from being really really good. Now you need the added ingredient of a quite a few hundred million too.

This is the nub IMHO.  I think the speed of progress made initially with MON and Lerner in tandem had us all thinking the magic mix of igredients HAD come together.  What has hapened since and how quickly the fall-out has resulted in our deterioration has been equally shocking and depressing.  But ultimately, Lerner seems to be too hands off and disinterested now, when we need him most to grasp the nettle and sort things out, so for me it's him I'm afraid (with his two shambolic henchmen following closely!)

[OzVilla]

Sadly Lerner, had such high hopes too.

It's staggering how someone who has been in business all their lives ,and in the business of sport in particular, can still be so utterly clueless. 

The Managerial selections post MON have been breathtaking in their incompetence, a Manager with a serious heart condition that had retired due to poor health 6 years previously that had been more recently working for that bastion of harmony and professionalism the French Football Association (you know, where player power was so great they practically walked out of a World Cup) to a man who relegated Blose twice in three years (and numerous other reasons not least having to pay 3million for his services that has probably kept Blose in business) and now makes DOL look like Bill Shankly.

Also the appointment of Faulkner, allowing MON unchecked access to the Club credit card and his continual silence. 

No one is blameless here but he has alot on the charge sheet.



 

[timeoutbigbar]

The chairman, unfortunately.

He managed the finances in such away that it really was shit or bust, and we are now seeing the bust bit.

Worse than that, on two occasions, he displayed a staggering ineptitude in identifying a manager, such that, last time, he targeted a man who has spent most of the season bottom (again), only to get turned down and then appoint a guy who actually failed to keep his last team in the top flight.

Randy stumped up a lot of money at first, but by his own sheer incompetence has pissed away everything achieved in four years.

Look at us now. Fifteenth, dreadful team, a manager the fans loathe, no money to spend, and dwindling crowds.

In other words, exactly where we were at the end of  the 2005-6 season, except now we are hugely in debt, too.

The guy clearly had good intentions - at least till he got bored of it all - but has proven on both sides of the Atlantic that he knows nothing at all about running a sport business.

In a nutshell, it's painful to read though.

[Witton Warrior]

The chairman, unfortunately.

He managed the finances in such away that it really was shit or bust, and we are now seeing the bust bit.

Worse than that, on two occasions, he displayed a staggering ineptitude in identifying a manager, such that, last time, he targeted a man who has spent most of the season bottom (again), only to get turned down and then appoint a guy who actually failed to keep his last team in the top flight.

Randy stumped up a lot of money at first, but by his own sheer incompetence has pissed away everything achieved in four years.

Look at us now. Fifteenth, dreadful team, a manager the fans loathe, no money to spend, and dwindling crowds.

In other words, exactly where we were at the end of  the 2005-6 season, except now we are hugely in debt, too.

The guy clearly had good intentions - at least till he got bored of it all - but has proven on both sides of the Atlantic that he knows nothing at all about running a sport business.

Well put Paulie - it is the last sentence that worries me. Randy is not a businessman, he manages inherited wealth.

[Jimmy Smash]

Sadly Lerner, had such high hopes too.

It's staggering how someone who has been in business all their lives ,and in the business of sport in particular, can still be so utterly clueless. 

The Managerial selections post MON have been breathtaking in their incompetence, a Manager with a serious heart condition that had retired due to poor health 6 years previously that had been more recently working for that bastion of harmony and professionalism the French Football Association (you know, where player power was so great they practically walked out of a World Cup) to a man who relegated Blose twice in three years (and numerous other reasons not least having to pay 3million for his services that has probably kept Blose in business) and now makes DOL look like Bill Shankly.

Also the appointment of Faulkner, allowing MON unchecked access to the Club credit card and his continual silence. 

No one is blameless here but he has alot on the charge sheet.

He's not a businessman though. He's a playboy pissing away Daddy's hard earned money. His family have seen the error of his ways and cut off the leaky pipe that was his supply to Villa. in short, he's been a very naughty boy.

[Dave Cooper please]

Fletch, in your OP you say "simple question", where it is anything but. In reality this situation is a combination of a whole host of things which none of your poll options could hope to cover.
For instance, where is the option for clubs like Man City changing the goalposts with regards to who could hope to compete at the top end of the Premier League?
Where is the "Doug Ellis should never have sold to a Yank" option, surely if Lerner is such a shit owner then we fans have a responsibility, after all we spent enough time trying to force Ellis to sell, given a bit more time maybe he would have found a better billionaire?
Polls such as this are far too simplistic, we are where we are, better to try to support the club through it than look for scapegoats?

[villan1975]

As I said to my mate a few weeks ago

'It's almost like they sat down and PLANNED to fuck everything up, you couldn't do better if you tried.'

They could have put Mr.G.Glitter in charge of the kids.

[Greg N'Ash]

MON for not being good enough. Lerner for not realising he  wasn't good enough. The fans for going along with everything in a loved-up daze and not questioning where the money was coming from. then MON for shitting on us at the worse time, then Lerner for not getting someone in straight away and allowing things to slide. then Houllier for trying to get cloggers to pass, then the cloggers for a virtual mutiny, then Lerner for backing the cloggers because it was cheaper. then Lerner for bringing in the cloggers main man, and expecting to run a multi-million pound football club on a Walsall like budget.  special shout out to Platini for the Fairplay rules which nailed the lid on the coffin on any chance we had. Heskey must be blamed as well and i'm sure chris smith was involved somewhere along the line.

[Jimmy Smash]

MON for not being good enough. Lerner for not realising he  wasn't good enough. The fans for going along with everything in a loved-up daze and not questioning where the money was coming from. then MON for shitting on us at the worse time, then Lerner for not getting someone in straight away and allowing things to slide. then Houllier for trying to get cloggers to pass, then the cloggers for a virtual mutiny, then Lerner for backing the cloggers because it was cheaper. then Lerner for bringing in the cloggers main man, and expecting to run a multi-million pound football club on a Walsall like budget.  special shout out to Platini for the Fairplay rules which nailed the lid on the coffin on any chance we had. Heskey must be blamed as well and i'm sure chris smith was involved somewhere along the line.

I have to say Greg I thought you were a twat at the time, but you were right all along.

[Greg N'Ash]

Well its not the first time i've been called a right twat.

[phantom limb]

[Jimmy Smash]

Am I the only one who thinks Gary Oldman is a ham actor?