Randy Lerner

[bertlambshank]

He hasn't run any business,that's part of the problem.

[Ad@m]

He hasn't run any business,that's part of the problem.

You're right - he's not a businessman, he's a benefactor.  Which is a hell of a lot better than our previous Chairman who was in it for personal profile & gain, the good of the club coming way down his list of priorities.

[olaftab]

I look forward to the contributions of you both.

Feel free to use any of my posts, especially the ones about stupid Americans.

That's 280,000,000 of them. Can you narrow it down a bit please?

But is he right or is he wrong?
Have Lerner's decision's been stupid?

He is of course right. Lerner has made stupid decisions. Starting conflict with O'Neill at the wrong time. Allowing Faulkner to sell Barry, Milner and Young. Appointing Houllier and than McLeish. The correct decision was to appoint Lambert however he messed that up with the drastic change of direction. You can not do this in this League as rivals will eat you up and that is what's happening now.

[bertlambshank]

He hasn't run any business,that's part of the problem.

You're right - he's not a businessman, he's a benefactor.  Which is a hell of a lot better than our previous Chairman who was in it for personal profile & gain, the good of the club coming way down his list of priorities.

how is it better?
How much do we owe him in loans again?

[PaulMcGrathsNo5Shirt]

How the hell can we be in a situation where the football club is run by a bloke who spends the vast majority of time in another country? It's not as if he throws money at a problem like Man City. It's a bit like a school headteacher being allowed to work from home four days a week by his board of Governors.
Randy needs to be doing more than he is or just fuck off. There will be an Aston Villa long after his time, even if it's in a lower league

[cdward]

In my opinion Randy changed his modus operandii when the decision was taken to sell Milner and not re-invest. The purchase of Darren Bent was the moment he showed he was still serious about the "bright future" and that the way to make money from football is to have a winning team. This next transfer window will tell us how much he still wants Villa to be competitive on the pitch. I still can't forget about that letter that stated the clubs ambitions are to be in an accountancy top 20.  Bottom line is Randy wants a return on his investment without investing any more money, and since MON, has been hoping to be successful on the cheap. Hopefully he realises that further investment is needed.

[Ad@m]

He hasn't run any business,that's part of the problem.

You're right - he's not a businessman, he's a benefactor.  Which is a hell of a lot better than our previous Chairman who was in it for personal profile & gain, the good of the club coming way down his list of priorities.

how is it better?
How much do we owe him in loans again?

It's better because he's putting money in to the club whereas the last chairman was taking money out of the club.

If the club owes Lerner money what does it matter?  He can't call it in as the club doesn't have the money.  So he chooses not to put any more in - that was how Herbert ran the club.

[ROBBO]

The reiiance on academy players to come through and replace seasoned proffessionals was the start of all our problems and still is. Lambert made the comment last week that he knows what he's got and i don't think for one moment he would be playing the likes of Lichaj if he had any other option. The squad is poor and injuries have found us out big time. Who's to blame well Randy is the owner, top dog, and when a company is struggling it's up to the bloke at the top to turn things around, he wasted a lot of money backing losers so the blame really does lie with him, the only real option is to give Lambert whatever funding is required to get players of the right quality to keep us up, anything less would be financial suicide.

[Gareth]

Ok, so some are saying Randy should sell up - easy to say but what would be the numbers for this? I have no real clue how these things happen but presumably there is his purchase price, the value of the 'loans' from the Lerner Trust and the assets owned / future broadcasting rights to be considered? What type of figures are we talking?? 200m+

Kind of makes it more of a remote possibility that Randy will be going anywhere soon?

[pauliewalnuts]

An immense amount of damage was done last season.

Under Houllier, we had an awful season, but finished a somewhat flattering 11th. Not disastrous.

What we needed was a forward thinking appointment which would pull the club forwards, treat that season like a blip rather than a sign of things to come, and use the decent players we still had at that point, or at least replace them well.

What they then did was make the worst possible appointment they could possibly have done. I still can't believe they appointed McLeish.

You can talk about how the results aren't much better than they were under McLeish all you want, but the fact is last season did a huge, huge amount of damage to the club and started a juggernaut rolling that we still don't look like stopping.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

.

Under Houllier, we had an awful season, but finished a somewhat flattering 11th. Not disastrous. .

9th.

Rip Van Pedant.

[Fergal]

Excluding buying the club how much has Randy spent?
Did he give it us or was it a loan?
How much has he taken out of the club?

[pauliewalnuts]

Incidentally, re the money he's invested.

There is one argument that he's poured lots of money into the club - and he has - and that makes him a good chairman. It does not. Investing the money wisely and making it work properly for the club is what makes a good chairman. Randy hasn't done that.

I'd also throw in the way they disengaged with us lost them a lot of respect from me. For four years, we had General Krulak on here constantly telling us how they were in it through thick and thin, no worries. They told us not to worry our little heads about the money when we raised concerns.

And what happened the first time thick turned into thin? They disappeared overnight.

The end result was that all that interaction with the fans looked like empty marketing, and that as soon as they stopped getting anything out of it, they were off.

I entirely understand the fact that General Krulak got a new job, but having asked us to reopen his thread, he then disappeared. Not a single message to say he couldn't be here any more. We all get busy, but really, would a two line message have taken that long?

From that point, the disengagement was plain to see.

[pauliewalnuts]

Excluding buying the club how much has Randy spent?
Did he give it us or was it a loan?
How much has he taken out of the club?

Loans.

[pauliewalnuts]

.

Under Houllier, we had an awful season, but finished a somewhat flattering 11th. Not disastrous. .

9th.

Rip Van Pedant.

There you go, then, even less disastrous.