Time for Randy to go?

[Eigentor]

To be fair, it's one poor season. Last season ended with us climbing to ninth (not fantastic, but still a decent top-half finish) and winning against Arsenal and Liverpool. When Houllier left, a lot of us thought he was going to be replaced by someone like Ancelotti, Benitez or Moyes.

Two things went wrong last summer: the hapless manager hunt ending with the appointment of McLeish, and the sale of Downing. The former is inexplicable, the latter was sensible from a business point of view, but as with the sale of Milner, good business decisions may be poor football decisions, and poor football decisions may in time turn out to be poor business decisions. After the sale of Young and the appointment of McLeish, the last thing we needed was another setback: selling player of the season to a team that wasn't really much better than ourselves.

From that moment on, only one thing could have saved our season: that McLeish hit the ground running in our spell of easy opening matches. That didn't happen.

[pauliewalnuts]

In McLeish's credit, weren't Newcastle the only team that went longer without losing a match than us this season? I may have imagined that, mind.

The problem was that he never got the hang of the winning bit.

[Matt Collins]

No. I don't think it's his investment strategy that's the problem, it's the recruitment that's been wrong. I lay the blame much more fully with Faulkner, who seems completely out of his depth

[Matt Collins]

There's no reason we couldn't be as successful as Newcastle have been this year, in fact moreso. We just need a better manager and better scouting / recruitment. Cisse and Ba, and the two centre midfielders, cost the same amount as N'Zogbia, Hutton, Heskey and Warnock

[Risso]

To be fair, it's one poor season.

No, it really isn't.

"One poor season" suggests that we're a decent, well run side with a capable manager who are just having a blip, or an off season.  The truth is that the entire club is an absolute shambles.  We've sold the family silver, are making huge losses, and have an owner who couldn't care less, and a manager who is utterly incapable.

[VILLA MOLE]

No. I don't think it's his investment strategy that's the problem, it's the recruitment that's been wrong. I lay the blame much more fully with Faulkner, who seems completely out of his depth

yes he has spunked a load of money at it. he needs to show an interest and  recruit a new CEO, Director of football and a bloody good youn up and coming coach 

[john e]

To be fair, it's one poor season.

No, it really isn't.

"One poor season" suggests that we're a decent, well run side with a capable manager who are just having a blip, or an off season.  The truth is that the entire club is an absolute shambles.  We've sold the family silver, are making huge losses, and have an owner who couldn't care less, and a manager who is utterly incapable.

you cant blame the fella for the Houllier thing, he had a health problem, we might be a totally different propersition now if Hollier had been OK.
i know you can say he shouldnt have been given the job with his health history, but there are plenty of people that have gone on to do great things in all walks of life who have suffered problems of that nature before,
just a bit of bad luck

as for Mcliesh he is what you say, i'l give you that

[Eigentor]

To be fair, it's one poor season.

No, it really isn't.

"One poor season" suggests that we're a decent, well run side with a capable manager who are just having a blip, or an off season.  The truth is that the entire club is an absolute shambles.  We've sold the family silver, are making huge losses, and have an owner who couldn't care less, and a manager who is utterly incapable.

"One poor season" merely suggests that while Lerner has been owner we've experienced one truly poor season: this one. The others have ranged from mediocre to good.

As we've have shown, you can go from quite good to pretty awful in a short space of time. And Newcastle have shown that you can go from below average to pretty good quickly.

I'm not particularly hopeful that we will do a Newcastle. In fact, if Lerner carries on like he is doing now with McLeish in charge next season and little to no investment in the squad, I'm pretty certain that we will have a full-blown relegation battle on our hands next season.

One thing that can bring us back to being a decent side is Lerner to start working with people who are capable, rather than people he gets on with. Sadly, I don't see that happening soon.

[tarzansbrother]

Will someone please tell me where our owner is? Will he be present against Sunderland?

[Ian.]

He still has enough credit in the bank in my eyes. He does need to take a long hard look at this last 18 months and make a big decision at the end of the season on AM and bring someone in who can have a plan and re-build for our future.

[5ft811st2 Durham]

I'd say last season was poor having slumped from 6th and 64 points in 09/10  to 48 points  and only  2 points higher than 14th position.

This season on the other hand has been absolutely appalling. The fault lies squarely with our owner whose operational policy would appear to be one of wilful neglect.

We are extremely fortunate to have been able to rely on the failings of Wolves,Blackburn, Bolton, and QPR this season which means that the normal 42 points won't be necessary to keep us up.

If we carry on this way we won't be so fortunate in future.   

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

Will someone please tell me where our owner is? Will he be present against Sunderland?

I doubt it. I doubt he will be there if the very worst is happening by the time we have to play Norwich away.
Randy Lerner is more akin to the captain of the Costa Concordia than the captain of The Titanic.

[MarkM]

If you examine the real major decisions that the current owners / board have made in relation to the football side it does not look good.

1. Allowing Mon free reign to spend, spend, spend without any appearance of a structured approached [they rolled for a six and crapped out without any back up plan

2. The MoN leaving situation [what ever side of the fence you sit on this the whole thing was handled really badly by all involved]

2. The nightmare of there first managerial appointment

3. The selling of our [best] players

4. The even worse nightmare of the second managerial appointment

5. More selling of of our players

6. The sudden applying of the brakes in team investment

7. The General and his trick of dissapearing up his own arse

8. The invisible owner

9. The highly motivating letter to season ticket holders

10. The failure to act when averyone can clearly see that the manager appointment has been a failure

11. The disaster that is our accounts

The whole board should hang there heads in shame at what they have done

[TimTheVillain]

I think his ego won't let him ' go away' easily.

He's done some great things at Villa, but money is too tight to mention now, and without a team OFF the pitch - Manager, CEO . Scouting - he should sell now IF we stay in the Prem., we would be a good catch for someone with the £££'s to invest and the vision that Randy had to take us forward.

Unfortunately, when he took over, he didn't know what he was taking on, nor did we.

No-one saw a Man City coming, no-one saw a Managerial problem as large as we've had on the horizon, but both are reality, so in reality, it is time to 'do a deal' and we should be very grateful fo what he has done.

Maybe he can have a minority stake in the club still, and relax at Villa a bit more and be a fan, like us.

[moetvillain]

With the benefit of hindsight, what players should we have signed (using relevant prices and wages, so no signing Messi for 1million on £45/week), and what manager, getting to the same net spend that Randy has put into the club over the past number of years.  What would our team be today, and where would we be in the league.