Randy Lerner

[bertlambshank]

Assume for a second, you are the Chairman. What's your magic solution?

Cash. Cash for PL players, not lower league crap.

I refer you to my earlier post re Sheik Mansour.

There isn't any more cash. Does that make Lerner a bad chairman?

Spending money getting TSM does.We don't know the full amount but I bet it could of got player or two.Having to pay off MON could of got us a decent back four.

[villadelph]

To be fair he could give Lambert £30 million, but if he spends it on kids who some clearly aren't good enough then we're doomed anyway. Lerner has fucked up massively, but it's not 100% his responsibility.

Lerner won't sanction PL wages. That's why we have to look to the lower leagues. Lerner is 100% responsible for our decline over the last 3 years. Until he pulls his finger out we're fucked.

What are you talking about?! Lerner has absolutely nothing to do with footballing decisions, the way the club is ran or who makes up the team. He writes the checks, and that's it. He entrusted this team to Paul Faulkner and he is a total jackass. Not a football man, has never run a club before and doesn't know good from bad, right from wrong. He's and MBNA business product that is lost in the sauce.

Get him the fuck out already.

Er, the obvious retort to that is that he employs Paul Faulkner, so clearly he does have something to do with the way the club is run.  He doesn't have to leave that absolute clown in charge, it's his club.

Quite.

Ultimately, he owns the club, he makes the decisions, the buck stops with him.

You guys still don't understand.

You have to see his Cleveland Browns model as it directly applies to this. He hired Mile Holmgren to do everything football. Recruit, hire, manage payroll, draft etc. Holmgren was the operating, keyword operating, CEO/GM. Randy just sat in his box and watched. Holmgren in his own right was a football genius, molding the Green Bay Packers into a disciplined and enviable organization. While Holmgren was in Cleveland Randy never interfered, never second guessed and just let the chips fell as they may.

Enter Paul Faulkner into the same exact scenario. He is the top of the food chain. Randy does not inject himself into club drama. He said it himself in the interview where he questioned, "Are sports teams just a rich man play toy?" He said that he employs footballing people to handle the football and has full faith in them.

Randy isn't there, so stop asking for his head. He has blind faith in his model that drove the (Revived in1999 after previously folding) Browns into the ground. The business plan works if you employ the right man, but Paul Faulkner IS NOT that man. He has no history in the game, can't kick a ball and is strictly a suit.

Randy eventually fired Holmgren and the people of Cleveland knew he was ashamed of himself because he never came close to any sort of success, with the exception of making the playoffs one time with Gradkowski. He had to jump ship because he just couldn't figure out how to steer it. Best of luck to Joe Banner in fixing that mess.

Paul Faulkner out, please. Oh, and some money too.

[TheSandman]

So he wants to employ a 'footballing person to handle the football' how is the answer to that question a former Relationship Manager from a bank? If he genuinely believes that Faulkner is a 'footballing man' he's an even bigger buffoon than I thought.

[bertlambshank]

Still no Wiki page on Paul Faulkner after being CEO of one of the biggest teams in England for so long.
Anybody know what college Paul went to at Cambridge?
If it was Claire College it would explain a lot.

[Salsa Party Animal]

his big mistake is not to keep Steve Stride or find a suitable replacement. If I had put in the money in Randy Lerner I would be a lot more involved and hand on chairman/owner. I would also have someone like Graham Taylor on board and 2 former players to use for consult. Steve Stride wouldn't let MON spend that much on wages.

[mr woo]

Assume for a second, you are the Chairman. What's your magic solution?

Cash. Cash for PL players, not lower league crap.

I refer you to my earlier post re Sheik Mansour.

There isn't any more cash. Does that make Lerner a bad chairman?

Spending money getting TSM does.We don't know the full amount but I bet it could of got player or two.Having to pay off MON could of got us a decent back four.

You'll get no argument from me on that one. Shocking choice. For all his faults, Doug Ellis would've known it was the wrong choice, because he understood football and our club so much better.

As for MON, who knows who was in the wrong, both sides of the dispute still haven't been revealed. But it always appeared from General K's posts, MON walked out on us unexpectedly and dropped us in the shit. Fair enough, he had his reasons, disagreements happen in all walks of life and every side will feel their opinion is legitimate. The point being, there isn't always necessarily a bad guy so I'm not sure you can say that one was all Lerners fault.

[pauliewalnuts]

Enter Paul Faulkner into the same exact scenario. He is the top of the food chain. Randy does not inject himself into club drama. He said it himself in the interview where he questioned, "Are sports teams just a rich man play toy?" He said that he employs footballing people to handle the football and has full faith in them.

Randy isn't there, so stop asking for his head. He has blind faith in his model that drove the (Revived in1999 after previously folding) Browns into the ground. The business plan works if you employ the right man, but Paul Faulkner IS NOT that man. He has no history in the game, can't kick a ball and is strictly a suit.

Err, fine, but Holmgren was a football man through and through, as you say, Faulkner is fucking clueless and had probably never seen a game before getting this job, after working for a credit card company.

Big difference.

You also can not divorce Randy from the appointments he makes, either. It just doesn't work that way.

As for sitting back and letting things unfold, without interfering, you think Randy had no input to issues like the wage bill? Or the McLeish appointment?

[Risso]

Enter Paul Faulkner into the same exact scenario. He is the top of the food chain. Randy does not inject himself into club drama. He said it himself in the interview where he questioned, "Are sports teams just a rich man play toy?" He said that he employs footballing people to handle the football and has full faith in them.

Randy isn't there, so stop asking for his head. He has blind faith in his model that drove the (Revived in1999 after previously folding) Browns into the ground. The business plan works if you employ the right man, but Paul Faulkner IS NOT that man. He has no history in the game, can't kick a ball and is strictly a suit.

Err, fine, but Holmgren was a football man through and through, as you say, Faulkner is fucking clueless and had probably never seen a game before getting this job, after working for a credit card company.

Big difference.

You also can not divorce Randy from the appointments he makes, either. It just doesn't work that way.

As for sitting back and letting things unfold, without interfering, you think Randy had no input to issues like the wage bill? Or the McLeish appointment?

Quite.  It was his jet movements that fist alerted people to the TSM and possible OGS appointments.  To be fair, nothing that Villadelph says above makes a word of sense.

[DaveD]

The Holmgren analogy is partially correct - hiring a brilliant coach to be GM+ was a move akin to hiring Arsene Wenger as CEO.

[pauliewalnuts]

I'd also question how it is possible to absolve Randy of any blame and point at the Cleveland Browns as any sort of example, given the fact they're a joke of an unsuccessful club. Not unlike another club I can think of, in current weeks.

[OzVilla]

This is all Lerner's fault.  He hires, he fires.  It's his baby.

Maybe not the specific performance last night as the players and Lambert are 100% on the nose for that one but to try and absolve Lerner from any of this is just madness.

The whole Proud History Bright Future bullshit (Copyright The General and where ever he works these days) the total, complete and utter lack of a plan, the over spending and then asterity measures that are akin to a 2nd division side, his horrendous record for appointing Managers (one with a well known heart condition who subsequently then had to leave inside a year with said condition, TSM need I say more) his total silence which borders on the disrespectful.

This is absolutely, completely Lerners fault as he's mismanaged us to this point today.  it might take us years to recover from that buffoon.

Wish i'd never heard his fecking name.

[pauliewalnuts]

This is all Lerner's fault.  He hires, he fires.  It's his baby.

Maybe not the specific performance last night as the players and Lambert are 100% on the nose for that one but to try and absolve Lerner from any of this is just madness.

The whole Proud History Bright Future bullshit (Copyright The General and where ever he works these days) the total, complete and utter lack of a plan, the over spending and then asterity measures that are akin to a 2nd division side, his horrendous record for appointing Managers (one with a well known heart condition who subsequently then had to leave inside a year with said condition, TSM need I say more) his total silence which borders on the disrespectful.

This is absolutely, completely Lerners fault as he's mismanaged us to this point today.  it might take us years to recover from that buffoon.

Wish i'd never heard his fecking name.

I'd like to find loads of things in there to disagree with, but I can't.

[Greg N'Ash]

Well if Lerner has any real interest in the club anymore then last night would have grabbed his attention. I daresay him and Faulkner were quite looking forward to the money a wembley visit would have generated for the club. In the big picture the league is much more important but if we don't get through i think there will be a serious re-assessment of Lambert's position

[Risso]

This is all Lerner's fault.  He hires, he fires.  It's his baby.

Maybe not the specific performance last night as the players and Lambert are 100% on the nose for that one but to try and absolve Lerner from any of this is just madness.

The whole Proud History Bright Future bullshit (Copyright The General and where ever he works these days) the total, complete and utter lack of a plan, the over spending and then asterity measures that are akin to a 2nd division side, his horrendous record for appointing Managers (one with a well known heart condition who subsequently then had to leave inside a year with said condition, TSM need I say more) his total silence which borders on the disrespectful.

This is absolutely, completely Lerners fault as he's mismanaged us to this point today.  it might take us years to recover from that buffoon.

Wish i'd never heard his fecking name.

I'd like to find loads of things in there to disagree with, but I can't.

Even the "I wish I'd never heard his name" bit?!

[mr woo]

This is all Lerner's fault.  He hires, he fires.  It's his baby.

Maybe not the specific performance last night as the players and Lambert are 100% on the nose for that one but to try and absolve Lerner from any of this is just madness.

The whole Proud History Bright Future bullshit (Copyright The General and where ever he works these days) the total, complete and utter lack of a plan, the over spending and then asterity measures that are akin to a 2nd division side, his horrendous record for appointing Managers (one with a well known heart condition who subsequently then had to leave inside a year with said condition, TSM need I say more) his total silence which borders on the disrespectful.

This is absolutely, completely Lerners fault as he's mismanaged us to this point today.  it might take us years to recover from that buffoon.

Wish i'd never heard his fecking name.

Yep, you're right. The man at the top ultimately carries the can.

So if he sacks Faulkner and Lambert, appoints Stride and Van Gaal and we finish top four next year is Lerner a good chairman again?


The point I'm trying to make is that we can all make poor decisions, managers make bad purchases and chairman get managerial choices wrong. How many times did Levy have to sack a manager before he ended up with Redknapp? Is he a crap chairman too? Or is he a genius because things are going well for them now?

One thing is for sure though, Mr Lerner really has to earn his corn over the next 12 months or so, his period of good grace is well and truly over.