Randy Lerner

[dave.woodhall]

He paid himself a very good wage, plus bonuses, regardless of the club's performance.

Whether he took the bulk of his money from Villa or from outside sources is a moot point but the fact is that he became very rich on the back of the club and never put a single penny in from the day he bought back control from the Bendalls.

And he put the prices up when we went down.

Which to be fair was something so staggeringly ludicrous he had to be admired for it.

[bertlambshank]

Doug wouldn't have been any better in modern football,but Randy gave us so much hope.
Randy might have believed he was doing the right thing 3/4 years ago,now I fear he knows himself buying the Villa was a mistake.My god I'm depressed this morning.

[DB]

You have to say there are some short memories on here.

Three years ago it was almost unanimous that Randy was the best chairman any club could possibly hope for.  It wasn't just Villa fans saying it, fans of other clubs like Man U, Liverpool, etc were saying it too.

Go back to HDE days and there were annual protests against him and he was virtually universally hated.

Present day and to some posters Randy's now an unmitigated disaster and they long for the days Herbert was in charge.  Talk about changing history.

Things change. So what?

This is now , 3 years ago we were challenging the top 4 , now we are once again battling relegation , we must look at the here and now .

Randy did a decent job in his first 3 years , since then he not been doing a decent job.

No, Randy didn't do a decent job - we thought he was but he gave MON all the money and let him loose buying whoever (from the British Isles) he wanted. Then he realised MON had spunked it on high wages & average players etc. If he had any business brain he would have stopped it or taken more control earlier on. We may not have found ourselves in this position now, fighting relegation.

We were challenging for a top 4 place in those 3 years and bought in some quality players , along with 2 trips to Wembley- the owner backed his manager and unfortunately mon wasted a lot of money on some average overpaid players.

Randys mistakes since mon left have mainly been choice of managers and the reeling in of spending which has seen quality players going and being replaced with cheaper options.

I was not unhappy with his first 3 years as I think he gave it a real go to try and achieve a top 4 place , since then ambition has waned.

We still didn't win anything or get into the CL. And now look at what cost, Randy was for to trusting with MON. 6th place was minimal for me the the money spent. Looking back and where we are now it seems he's clueless how to run a football club, the Browns is also evidence of that. I just hope he can see what is happening and spend some cash in Jan.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Nail on head, Dribbler.

[dave.woodhall]

Doug wouldn't have been any better in modern football,but Randy gave us so much hope.
Randy might have believed he was doing the right thing 3/4 years ago,now I fear he knows himself buying the Villa was a mistake.My god I'm depressed this morning.

It might be that the more you believed in Randy the more you feel let down. There were those who said that by now we'd have won the Champions League with Ronaldo in the team and our shirts on sale in Villaworld, Ulan Bator. They'll be more let down than those who thought we'd be more consistently at the top end of where we'd usually been - top six but without the occasional flirtation with the bottom end of the table.

[Chris Jameson]

Oi Kelly, don't you start with the bloody massive quote thing!

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Que?

[Chris Jameson]

Que?

This.

[tomd2103]

The reasons for our current predicament are many and I don't think you can lay the blame at any one person's door. Yes at the end of the day the Chairman has to take ultimate responsibility, he hires the Chief Executive, and with advice chooses the manager, he also determines the finances and defines the overall structure of the club, but I think he is far from being a bad owner. He has invested heavily in this club, even post MoN, and has backed Houllier, McLeish and Lambert with not inconsiderable amounts of money in the transfer market over the last 3 years. We are still one of the biggest spenders on players over the last few years so I think this not investing in the club or the  team myth should be put to bed.

MoN was manager when he took over, he invested heavily in him, and despite all of MoNs faults in his style of play, choice of players and squad usage, he got us within a hairs breadth of breaking into the holy grail of the top four and getting cup success. In retrospect it looks like it was a boom  or bust approach, and MoN unfortunately left us bust when he left, with the timing of his departure but more importantly with very shaky structural foundations and the number of average premiership players with long contracts and high wages. 

Personally I don't think Houllier was a bad appointment, apart from the verbal gaffs he made, which IMO unduly aroused the ire of some overly precious supporters, I think he was trying to build a good footballing side and trying to turn around a very difficult situation, coming in when the season had already started. The illness wasn't good obviously, but even after his illness I think had we stayed with him, we would have done well. Even McAllister would have been a good option to keep on, he'd strung a good set of results together against some good teams at the end of the season to see us safe and would have provided the necessary continuity into the next season.

The big gaff was McLeish, it was a vastly unpopular decision which was never going to work because of his history, but IMO it was the wrong decision primarily because it lacked continuity regarding the style of football and the direction we wanted to go. We then had a whole new set of McLeish signings to add to the MoN core of the team and the Houllier signings and were again veering back towards an old school footballing style rather than the progressive style of football we were trying to develop under Houllier.

I think in the summer most people were in agreement that Lambert was a good choice as manager, young, ambitious and successful (albeit outside of the premiership) and his vision of building a good progressive footballing side from young and hungry players fitted the clubs vision that we'd originally had with Houllier. He was backed with money in the summer, and by all accounts could have spent more if he'd wanted. Whilst the club have stressed they want to go with a youth type policy, Lambert made his own choices of transfers (apart from Holman) and has made his own choices regarding his treatment of the existing senior core of the team when he came in. Lambert was yet another change in direction of managerial style but he has made his decisions on transfers, training, football style and tactics and squad choice. He has to take responsibility for those and the fact that given what he has to had to play with, there is no excuse for performing as badly as we have many times this season.

All in all I don't think Randy has been, or is, a bad owner, the McLeish choice was baffling and pivotal in our current predicament because of the volte face it had on the teams philosophy and direction, but the ethos and investment have been there and I don't believe for one minute he has lost interest.

I also want to address the often cited argument that we are where we are because we sold all of our best players and replaced them with lesser players. Who are all of the amazing players we have 'got rid of'? To my mind Young, Milner and Downing are the only ones most of us would say we didn't really want sold, even then some people wanted rid, and it seems all 3 wanted to leave. We have brought some good players in since, we've also brought some cack players in, and on big money. The managers have to stand by their signings at the end of the day.

So who's fault is all this? Well IMO no one person's, the chairman yes, the CEO, most definitely yes, MoN most definitely yes, subsequent managers, yes, and of course many of the players. The prime reason for me historically that explains where we are is the lack of continuity and the failure of the so called '5 year plan', ultimately as I started with that comes down to the owner and more specifically the CEO, who I think has to go at the end of the season.

Lambert however has to stand up and take responsibility as the current manager of the team and for trying to change things to quickly, if we survive this season we will be fine next season and things will be promising, if not, well I fear we will be buggered. Let's just hope then that significant investment comes in January and that it is spent wisely and we get the players in needed to secure our future.

Couldn't agree more with this post.  In hindsight (although I was opposed to it at the time), it might have been better to keep Houllier on for a little longer, even if it had been in a Director of Football type role due to his health.  I think he would have made changes that summer that would have benefited the club (the likes of Dunne, Warnock and Ireland would have been gone for starters) and we might not have been in the situation we now find ourselves in.  I still don't think he did a very good job at Villa, but seeing what has followed he maybe should have been given a bit more time.   

[Chris Jameson]

Look what you've started now Kelly.

[ktvillan]

An interesting post by Dribbler, I agree Houllier wasn't as bad an appointment as some would have it, and I was disappointed we didn't get a chance to see who he might have brought in two summers ago.  The rumoured targets were pretty interesting.

However I'm not sure though how you come to the conclusion that Lerner isn't a bad owner.  You seem to base it on the fact he provided funds, but so did Ridsdale at Leeds.  That has to be done wisely, within budget, and according to a plan.  While he was let down by his managers, especially O'Neill, the dross he sanctioned massive over payments for served to reveal his complete lack of knowledge of football.   And when the shit or bust approach didn't quite work, what was his fallback position?   A complete u-turn on wages, almost overnight, and ultimately turning to the most rustic and negative safety first abomination of a manager in McLeish.  After having sought the advice of Alex  Ferguson, who must have been pissing himself behind his whisky glass.  It's no good providing funds for transfer fees if the wages dictate you have to fill your squad with players from the academy, lower leagues, or inferior leagues, when the only experience in the squad is sub-standard (Warnock, Hutton, N'Zogbia, Gabby),  not interested (Ireland, possibly Bent), or crocked (Dunne).  It doesn't seem to have dawned on the clown that there is relegation in this form of football, with all the financial meltdown that embodies,  and you can't just pull the plug and hope to rebuild later. 

Despite hos own lack of knowledge,  he has completely failed to put anyone in charge at the club with the faintest knowledge of English football.  How the hell can you run a business successfully with little or no knowledge of that business?

We can't say we weren't warned either, the Browns fans have been banging on for years about what a useless owner he was, and his record did there shows little to contradict that.  And it's starting to look frighteningly similar here.

As Hilts said, it's been downhill since he had to start making important decisions, but the damage was being done for several years before that.  It just reached tipping point when O'Neill flounced out.

[pauliewalnuts]

The big gaff was McLeish, it was a vastly unpopular decision which was never going to work because of his history, but IMO it was the wrong decision primarily because it lacked continuity regarding the style of football and the direction we wanted to go. We then had a whole new set of McLeish signings to add to the MoN core of the team and the Houllier signings and were again veering back towards an old school footballing style rather than the progressive style of football we were trying to develop under Houllier.

I think this is absolutely spot on.

There are various reasons you could criticise that appointment - desperation, style of football, proven record of relegation, and yes, unpopular with the fans - but the most stupid thing was the total lack of footballing continuity.

There wasn't even any sign of joined-up thinking in the process we followed for finding a new manager. We'd lost Houllier, but at the end of the season, we were starting to see an improvement in both style and results.

We then went and looked at Martinez. Lots of us were perplexed by this as his record was poor, but there was at the very least a sign of continuity in terms of footballing style. That much made sense.

When that didn't work, we turned to McLeish, a manager with a style diametrically opposed to that of both Houllier and Martinez. It stank of desperation, and the results were predictable.

As if all that weren't enough, there was the fact that in 12 months, it managed to drive a great big wedge between club and supporters. Whether they were unhappy from the start because of his style / record / previous employers, whatever the root cause of the dislike, after a season of repeated embarassment, a great deal of damage was done.

I know you could say losing at Chelsea 8-0 was embarassing - and it was - but I personally found the way we lined up at Spurs under McLeish to be way, way more embarassing. There just wasn't any ambition whatsoever, it was surrendering before the match started.

Lots of us will be able to remember previous seasons where we were consistently piss poor, but I don't know if many of us recall seasons more humiliating than last year. We became the sort of team all other fans pray goes down.

The damage of that appointment was huge, and is easily his biggest mistake in my opinion.

[Nirog72]

He's made mistakes in recruitment, so has pretty much anybody who's ever run a business (although TSM was a giant f*ck up). But the thing that gets me still and I know it's not his style, is if he let us know what was in his head a bit more (not in a Dave Whelan way) we may understand more and not be left speculating. A message, even if it's an unpopular one, may be better than silence while we really struggle. There are endless lectures and management programmes about communication, he must have missed them. Lambert could do a bit better in this respect too.

[AV82EC]

He's made mistakes in recruitment, so has pretty much anybody who's ever run a business (although TSM was a giant f*ck up). But the thing that gets me still and I know it's not his style, is if he let us know what was in his head a bit more (not in a Dave Whelan way) we may understand more and not be left speculating. A message, even if it's an unpopular one, may be better than silence while we really struggle. There are endless lectures and management programmes about communication, he must have missed them. Lambert could do a bit better in this respect too.

In that case then, Faulkner as CEO needs to piss or get off the pot.  We know Lerner won't talk and in that scenario it is essential the CEO starts to take some pressure off the Manager.  As usual the silence from the Ginger one is deafening, he needs to grow a pair and start earning the vast salary Lerner pays him and tell us what the hell the vision is from here.

Alternatively, if the shackles have been put on Faulkner by Lerner, then our American owner deserves every bit of shit thats flying in his direction.  I can't believe the boardroom cannot see that they are leaving the Manager massively exposed here both from a communication and financing perspective, the pair of them need to start showing some fucking Leadership because all I'm seeing is Paul Lambert trying to keep the Aston Titanic from hitting a bloody great Ipswich Town/Bradford City shaped iceberg at the moment.     

[eastie]

Lerner doesn't like to talk but is there anything stopping him putting a message on the official site-.you are the captain of the ship Randolph!