Who is to blame?

[dave.woodhall]

Right. What about before then? Are his decisions in the positions he held prior to 2010 not important?

As I don't know what decisions he had ultimate responsibility for before 2010, or since then for that matter, how can I know if they were important or not?

[pauliewalnuts]

Which is what appears to have happened from his appointment as CEO in May 2010.

And O'Neill won a tribunal for constructive dismissal against the club. That's not to say I think O'Neill was an innocent party, but I'd love to know what it was all about.

Now many times are we going to hear this?

He didn't win it.

He took a lot of money from us though, right?

We settled.

That's not the same as him winning.

If Villa had to pay him any cash after he walked out, then the arbitration tribunal must have backed his version of events to a degree though, surely?

And we still don't know what the settlement was, other than a few ambiguous words about managerial costs in the recent release of the annual finances.

MON walks out, says he's entitled to x.

MON walks out, club say he's entitled to y.

It goes to tribunal, both agree on a point somewhere between x and y.

That's entirely not the same thing as MON winning.

Don't get me wrong, I think Faulkner is a total disaster and way, way out of his depth in the job, but I don't really see the need to start rewriting history as far as O'Neill was concerned in order to have more shit to chuck at Faulkner, and concluding that he "won" his tribunal and it was a case of constructive dismissal is both ignoring the facts, and putting a spin on it to suit your argument.

You could just as easily turn it around and say "well, MON clearly had fucked the club around enough for the tribunal to decide the club's case had some merit".

[Legion]

On the subject of O'Neill, it's now generally reckoned that Randy's biggest error was letting him spend too much money. Given it's almost certain that having no more or severely restricted funds for new players was the root cause of him walking out, let's imagine this scenario:

January 2009, Villa are pushing hard for a top four place and O'Neill wants Heskey. If Randy had refused, what would have happened?

We'd have collectively breathed a sigh of relief?

[Stu]

MON walks out, says he's entitled to x.

MON walks out, club say he's entitled to y.

It goes to tribunal, both agree on a point somewhere between x and y.

That's entirely not the same thing as MON winning.

Don't get me wrong, I think Faulkner is a total disaster and way, way out of his depth in the job, but I don't really see the need to start rewriting history as far as O'Neill was concerned in order to have more shit to chuck at Faulkner, and concluding that he "won" his tribunal and it was a case of constructive dismissal is both ignoring the facts, and putting a spin on it to suit your argument.

You could just as easily turn it around and say "well, MON clearly had fucked the club around enough for the tribunal to decide the club's case had some merit".

I wasn't ignoring the facts, I just wasn't possession of them For whatever reason I didn't pay much attention to this at the time.

Having said that, after looking at the newspaper reports at the time, no one knows what the facts are. The fact that it appears to only be O'Neill talking about 'very satisfactory' outcomes to the tribunal while the board said nothing doesn't help when trying to scotch the perception that O'Neill 'won'.

[glasses]

Right. What about before then? Are his decisions in the positions he held prior to 2010 not important?

As I don't know what decisions he had ultimate responsibility for before 2010, or since then for that matter, how can I know if they were important or not?

Fair enough. If what I was told was true, which I have no reason to believe it isn't, he was in a position from at least August 2008 to have significant responsibility within the club where the finances are concerned, and still has. Therefore based on information I have been given, I rest a huge amount of blame on Faulkner being shit, and only in the job because of his close friendship with Lerner.

As for your hypothetical scenario regarding Heskey, I wish they had refused to sanction the deal, but another purely hypothetical argument could be that it wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference, and O'Neill wouldn't have walked then, like you seem to insinuate he would have.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

The fact that it appears to only be O'Neill talking about 'very satisfactory' outcomes to the tribunal while the board said nothing doesn't help when trying to scotch the perception that O'Neill 'won'.

Well if his post match comments are anything to go by, my guess he got next to nowt. Only he could describe the dullest of dull bore draw as us "playing some scintillating football".

[paul_e]

Right. What about before then? Are his decisions in the positions he held prior to 2010 not important?

As I don't know what decisions he had ultimate responsibility for before 2010, or since then for that matter, how can I know if they were important or not?

Fair enough. If what I was told was true, which I have no reason to believe it isn't, he was in a position from at least August 2008 to have significant responsibility within the club where the finances are concerned, and still has. Therefore based on information I have been given, I rest a huge amount of blame on Faulkner being shit, and only in the job because of his close friendship with Lerner.

As for your hypothetical scenario regarding Heskey, I wish they had refused to sanction the deal, but another purely hypothetical argument could be that it wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference, and O'Neill wouldn't have walked then, like you seem to insinuate he would have.

We can only judge him significantly on the things we know as fact, regardless of what you've heard there is nothing to prove or disprove  what his exact role with transfers/wages was at that time.

Maybe MoN said I want x and think he's worth up to y fee and z wages, which may have been higher than we actually spent.  In this situation even though PF was involved he did ok despite the signing being for too much and on unsuitable wages, guesswork works either way.

that said, since he became CEO we've started to act much more responsibly regarding wages and revenue has increased.  That's a good performance in the primary role of improving the business side of things.

The problem is he's a business man not a football man, which means he can't bring anything to the table in purely footballing terms.  This lack of knowledge should have been resolved by adding a taylor/stride/houllier to the board as the director of football.  The primary failure by lerner and faulkner has been their inability to address this flaw.  Even then I think the problem is that there initial impression of a football manager was formed around MoN who was so controlling that they've never considered that this flaw even exists.

Looking at it that way makes the decision to appoint Houllier much more sensible as it's something he would also bring.  Maybe McLeish sold himself as the only person who knew anything about football at blues and that he was fighting a losing battle against the board, so Lerner saw someone who could take total control in the football side with no input from the board.

[glasses]

Well, if you think he is doing a good job, fair enough.

I don't.

[Louzie0]

I went for, 'Other - please specify'


Tempting to say the government.
Or just George Osborne: his budget and all his evil works.

I'm currently hovering between Sarah Palin, a toxic combination of Kim Jong-il (dec.) and Kim Jong-ul, an even more toxic combination of John Torode and Gregg Wallace, or Louie Spence from Dancing On Ice.

Or, you know, it could just be the Grinch.

[paul_e]

Well, if you think he is doing a good job, fair enough.

I don't.

What has he done wrong, as the CEO (responsible for the business and brand but not footballing matters) he's increased revenue.  Surely that's his job and he's making a decent fist of it.  His knowledge and experience in football isn't good enough but that should be countered by the board containing a member with that football background.  That person not being there is the prime reason for the problems we're in.  Lerner and Faulkner are at fault for not identifying that but that is the only major error (I say only, but it's a fecking huge one and I point the finger much more firmly at Lerner than Faulkner for it) on their part.

To clarify, I chose a mixture of both, Lerner needs to stabilise the board and get the right team at level in place to set measurable performance goals to match with the financial goals.  McLeish needs to completely rethink his footballing philosophy and start making pass and move, 1 or 2 touch football integral to everything we do on the training field.  He also needs to pressure the players to improve their fitness and start playing a much higher tempo in defence where we hunt in packs (1 close the ball, 2-3 others cut out the easy passes to force the 50-50 balls) and press much higher up the field.

Either change will go a long way towards sorting things out but the 2nd is something that McLeish will never be able to do as far as I can see, which makes him yesterdays man and not suitable to manage a club with any intentions on being genuinely successful on the pitch.

[villadelph]

ESPNSoccerNet states: "Claudio Raniero finally sacked by Inter Milan."

I wonder what our headline will be once McLeish gets the axe in December.

[Legion]

"Boo-boys oust McLeish"?

[andrew08]

If we finish where we are now, or heaven forbid lower, it's Mcleish's fault, no one elses, as our squad should be better than this. He has been unlucky with injuries but so are lots of other teams. Then you could say the responsibility lies with whoever apppointed him.

We have to wait untill the season is over first though, we could yet go down or even finish as high as 7th, both of which are unlikely of course. I hesitate to say this but I think McLeish hasn't had a fair crack of the whip yet.  He has to have a pre season of getting his own squad together, then judge him.

I accept that some people will just think he's not up to it and never will be and that is down to personal opinion. For what it's worth I'm not that convinced with him either, the way he sets the side up to play with Bent just isn't right and the purchases of Hutton and N'zogbia don't give me much confidence that we would spend wisely in the summer. To balance that, but only slightly, he has revitalised Ireland and introduced some of the younger players. It was always going to be difficult to repeat 9th though when you sell your 2 best players and don't really replace them.

Another big factor for me is the non emergence of the young players who we thought would be above average Premier League class, and this may have been a big misjudgment by Mr Lerner as well as the fans. Bannan, Gardner, Delph, Delfonso, Albrighton aren't quite as good as we thought, although in fairness Herd could be, and anyone of these stepping up to the plate would have compensated for the Young/Downing loss.

[Dave Clark Five]

Andrew
Don't you think it is too early to say that Gardner is not as good as we thought?
He has had hardly any game time yet.

[andrew08]

I'm not sure, down the years when I've seen players come through you could always tell very early if they were going to be an outstanding player or not. I can think of the early Little games, Sid ,Gary Shaw,Barry even Gabbys early games for example you knew they were going to be special (Gabby shouldn't be in the same sentence as the others but he is an above average PL player).

Gardner has had situations when he could have made an impact and hasn't. He could have scored at Newcastle, which had the potential to be a season changer, and didn't quite. I'm hoping,of course, I'm wrong but whisper it quietly... I think his brother is better.