Randy Lerner

[Lastfootstamper]

No continuity, no direction, no building of a style of play which one could describe as "The Villa way".

What do you think 'hoofing' is?

That's actually made me chuckle a little bit for the first time since Tuesday. Cheers!!

[midnite]

It all just seems to point to complete mismanagement at board level. Its a complete and utter farce. You can't blame Lerner for not opening his wallet. £200 million is a lot of money. It's just to majority of it seems to have been flushed down the toilet. What do we have to show for that investment? We're in a worse position than when Lerner first took over.

I can't help but wonder, what other clubs like Swansea, Wigan, WBA and Everton would look like if they would have had the kind of money to spend that we have.

[paul_e]

We need a sorting director, it really is that simple, I don't for the life of me understand why we haven't offered the job around.

When we had MoN it made sense because he wanted to be that person as well as the manager and then when Houllier came in I thought the plan was for him to manage us for a year or 2 before moving upstairs and letting Gary Mac take over.  Once they decided Houllier had to be replaced though there's seemed to be no move to do anything.

Faulkner has done a good job on the commercial side so lets split his role in half, so make PF the commercial director and get a football person in alongside him.

[PaulWinch again]

Thank you Randy you are completing destroying us. We are now a complete and utter embarrassment and barely have a player justified in wearing the shirt. You should be fucking ashamed of yourself, you're an absolute joke.

[bertlambshank]

Don't worry Randy wouldn't have had a stream to watch today,I doubt anybody at the club told him we were playing.

[Irish villain]

It could be a very long time before Aston Villa is a name to be feared. It will take a long time to undo the damage that has been done to our good name.

If we are going down like this, I'd rather it was as a club controlled by the fans than as a club controlled by an incompetent, silent, absentee owner who doesn't give a shit.

[bertlambshank]

We need a sorting director, it really is that simple, I don't for the life of me understand why we haven't offered the job around.

When we had MoN it made sense because he wanted to be that person as well as the manager and then when Houllier came in I thought the plan was for him to manage us for a year or 2 before moving upstairs and letting Gary Mac take over.  Once they decided Houllier had to be replaced though there's seemed to be no move to do anything.

Faulkner has done a good job on the commercial side so lets split his role in half, so make PF the commercial director and get a football person in alongside him.

A sorting director has Randy bought the Royal mail?

[Kevin_Brum12]

We need a sorting director, it really is that simple, I don't for the life of me understand why we haven't offered the job around.

When we had MoN it made sense because he wanted to be that person as well as the manager and then when Houllier came in I thought the plan was for him to manage us for a year or 2 before moving upstairs and letting Gary Mac take over.  Once they decided Houllier had to be replaced though there's seemed to be no move to do anything.

Faulkner has done a good job on the commercial side so lets split his role in half, so make PF the commercial director and get a football person in alongside him.

A sorting director has Randy bought the Royal mail?

Just imagine him managing the Royal Mail!!!   Would probably end up running that to the ground (even more so than it is already).   If the current Villa side were a letter it would be a second class one, posted in 2007, having been via Manchester and Bradford when it should have gone to Wembley and discovered, crumpled up in the back of a sorting machine with the contents ripped open and the birthday money missing.

Mind you, the postboy at Villa probably has better footballing judgement than the current board...

[curiousorange]

I don't get all this 'you can't blame lerner, he's wasted all his money' stuff. Loads of owners pour money down the drain for no reward and keep coming back. The figures aren't comparable but Whelan, Coates, Ashley...they've all splashed out on mid-table finishes and semi-finals.

If Lerner came into club ownership thinking he was going to make a profit, then he's more of a gormless prick than I thought.

[Villafirst]

I don't get all this 'you can't blame lerner, he's wasted all his money' stuff. Loads of owners pour money down the drain for no reward and keep coming back. The figures aren't comparable but Whelan, Coates, Ashley...they've all splashed out on mid-table finishes and semi-finals.

If Lerner came into club ownership thinking he was going to make a profit, then he's more of a gormless prick than I thought.

Agree, gormless just about sums Lerner up. The B'ham Mail has an article today on his totally underwhelming 10 year tenure at the Cleveland Browns. Most of their fans breathed a huge sigh of relief when he recently sold-up. I just wish he'd sell-up at VP. I'd love to be a shareholder once again - the current 'total' owner is a complete and utter disgrace to the name Aston Villa.

[CJ]

I don't get all this 'you can't blame lerner, he's wasted all his money' stuff. Loads of owners pour money down the drain for no reward and keep coming back. The figures aren't comparable but Whelan, Coates, Ashley...they've all splashed out on mid-table finishes and semi-finals.

If Lerner came into club ownership thinking he was going to make a profit, then he's more of a gormless prick than I thought.

Agree, gormless just about sums Lerner up. The B'ham Mail has an article today on his totally underwhelming 10 year tenure at the Cleveland Browns. Most of their fans breathed a huge sigh of relief when he recently sold-up. I just wish he'd sell-up at VP. I'd love to be a shareholder once again - the current 'total' owner is a complete and utter disgrace to the name Aston Villa.

I posted somewhere a while back that we've become the Aston Browns and that Mail article reveals pretty accurate parallels between the Browns and us

[jembob]

Lerner has turned out to be a typical spoilt rich kid. Plenty of cash to chuck around on a vanity project but not the vision and maturity to make a success of it. The difference between Lerner and the Arabs at Citeh is that they decided to hand the running of the club over to capable professionals who put a strong management structure in place.

So much for a Cambridge/Harvard education when you run out of drive and ambition.

[villainjock]

is it coincidental that randy has pulled back on spending since the man city folk turned up?

[TopDeck113]

The difference between Lerner and the Arabs at Citeh is that they decided to hand the running of the club over to capable professionals who put a strong management structure in place.

Bang on.  Loathsome as Garry Cook might have been in many respects, he put in place a structure that worked and continues to work.  Sure it is backed up with almost unlimited spending power, but there is a structure and, just as importantly, football people are at the heart of it.

[mr woo]

The difference between Lerner and the Arabs at Citeh is that they decided to hand the running of the club over to capable professionals who put a strong management structure in place.

Bang on.  Loathsome as Garry Cook might have been in many respects, he put in place a structure that worked and continues to work.  Sure it is backed up with almost unlimited spending power, but there is a structure and, just as importantly, football people are at the heart of it.

Valid points, but if the Abu Dhabi investment portfolio collapsed tomorrow and all Man Citys players pissed off elsewhere, leading to the team going into freefall, would anybody still be speaking of Garry Cook and their management structure in such glowing terms?

I think money has more to do with making a garden look rosy than some want to believe.