Paul Faulkner interview.

[SheffieldVillain]

Spot on Brian.

Yes, agree, sums up most fans frustrations. Yet there's still people on here supporting this abysmal regime.

What? People on a Villa fan forum supporting the club? Disgraceful.

[bertlambshank]

Spot on Brian.

Yes, agree, sums up most fans frustrations. Yet there's still people on here supporting this abysmal regime.

You have to support them,just because you don't agree with them we still have to back them.It's called football.

[Monty]

I'm not so concerned about Bent, he has his enormous flaws like most of our players and was paid considerably more for them. I was always worried about the money spent and I happen to think that something had to be done. It may have been done too quickly and sharply, but we couldn't just keep doing what we were doing.

The problem for me is the complacency and insular nature of the club. They seem like the England cricket team - they show no apparent understanding at board level of football outside of B6, and place so much value in personal relationships that they forget that this sport is being done, on a budget, a lot better by other clubs. Lambert's style of play is stil incredibly limited and limiting, brutal, boofy, repetitive and neanderthal. On Monday, the most completed pass for us was Guzan to Benteke. But the board are so unconcerned with things like this that they don't even see anything wrong.

I don't want a Ken Bates. I don't want an Abramovitch in interference terms. But lots of clubs have people at board level who understand football, who follow the game, who try to think about the sport, what's going on and where it's going. Our board know so little that they're blind to any link between style of play and results, or style of play and fan discontent, and what the manager does. All Lambert will have to do is go to them and say 'I want to play entertaining football' and that will be good enough for them. It's inadequate.

[Legion]

Spot on Brian.

Yes, agree, sums up most fans frustrations. Yet there's still people on here supporting this abysmal regime.

Supporting the team and having a different opinion.

[Villafirst]

As a ST holder of 25 years plus I'll always support Aston Villa, I just can't stand the people currently running the club.

[brian green]

I support the team.   I always have and I always will.   Nothing will ever change that.   Nothing.

I have nothing at all against Grant Holt.   The word I hear is that he will be expected more than anything to put a bit of iron into our attack and bollock the slipshod.   I would not be at all surprised if he did not finish the season as our highest goal scorer.   I remember being totally gobsmacked on hearing that we had signed bluenose Peter Withe.

What I am so angry about is that £24 million has been pissed away on Bent and everybody at the club behaves as though it was inevitable.   Club directors are supposed to direct the affairs of the club, managers are supposed to manage.   We are rattling our begging bowl for loans and cut price deals and behaving as though Bent went from prize asset to prize prat for reasons nobody can quite fathom.

[Mister E]

As a ST holder of 25 years plus I'll always support Aston Villa, I just can't stand the people currently running the club.

but did you ever? - Ellis was a dead hand and served the club poorly at a time when we could have really pushed on.

[TonyD]

I support the team.   I always have and I always will.   Nothing will ever change that.   Nothing.

I have nothing at all against Grant Holt.   The word I hear is that he will be expected more than anything to put a bit of iron into our attack and bollock the slipshod.   I would not be at all surprised if he did not finish the season as our highest goal scorer.   I remember being totally gobsmacked on hearing that we had signed bluenose Peter Withe.

What I am so angry about is that £24 million has been pissed away on Bent and everybody at the club behaves as though it was inevitable.   Club directors are supposed to direct the affairs of the club, managers are supposed to manage.   We are rattling our begging bowl for loans and cut price deals and behaving as though Bent went from prize asset to prize prat for reasons nobody can quite fathom.

We have never really had a good track record of making money from buying and selling players.  It goes back way before RL.   

[paul_e]

The thing with Bent though is that we were always going to make a loss, we bought him at the peak of his value.  Despite that he should still be carrying £8-10m but he isn't because of his injuries, it's easy to criticise people at the club for him being left out last year but he didn't deserve to be starting at the time, he wasn't the same player that we signed.

I know he did well last night and I hope it continues but he's got 2 in 15 in the league this year and he offers very little when he's not scoring.  He was the right signing when we got him and he looked like he was going to be a big player for us but the change in manager and sale of the 2 guys getting the ball to him started him on a descent and then he had 18months of barely stringing 5 games together without injury.

Most of his time at Fulham he's had the same problem for them as he did for us last year which is that he's been half a yard off the pace.  By all accounts he was much more like his old self last night so maybe the change in manager at Fulham has given him the impetus he needed and if he goes on to have a strong finish to the season who knows what will happen with him in the summer.

[David_Nab]

Buying and selling looking back under RL has overall been a disaster.Milner/Downing and Young are the 3 stand out's that we sold at a profit for big fee's but if you say the proceeds then went on Bent/Ireland /Nzog/Hutton and Given there is not much if any resale value there.

The amount of players in the Randy years who have come in for a sizable fee and literally had to be let go for free  is embarrassing.Some transfers don't work out, every club has that but dear god we have had a bad run with every manager under Randy.

[TonyD]

Buying and selling looking back under RL has overall been a disaster.Milner/Downing and Young are the 3 stand out's that we sold at a profit for big fee's but if you say the proceeds then went on Bent/Ireland /Nzog/Hutton and Given there is not much if any resale value there.

The amount of players in the Randy years who have come in for a sizable fee and literally had to be let go for free  is embarrassing.Some transfers don't work out, every club has that but dear god we have had a bad run with every manager under Randy.

This.

[Rigadon]

I think arguing about form and points on the board comes secondary to what we are seeing week in week out in terms of the teams performances.  We may be mid-table, but we are a poor side currently.  Hopefully that changes with a few decent signings and a return to form for Benteke.  If it doesn't I do think we'll be looking over our shoulders in April / May.

As for 'aiming to compete in the to half of the table'?   How sexy.

[Mister E]

Buying and selling looking back under RL has overall been a disaster.Milner/Downing and Young are the 3 stand out's that we sold at a profit for big fee's but if you say the proceeds then went on Bent/Ireland /Nzog/Hutton and Given there is not much if any resale value there.

The amount of players in the Randy years who have come in for a sizable fee and literally had to be let go for free  is embarrassing.Some transfers don't work out, every club has that but dear god we have had a bad run with every manager under Randy.

we made on Barry as well but your overall point is valid.
In hindsight, the strategy Lerner should probably have adopted was to have a DoF ... But then he would not have enticed MON into the manager role and he'd clearly identified him as the manager he wanted.

[rob_bridge]

Brian's right.

I want to see entertaining football. Jeeps we can't compete with the mega clubs but we should not be consistently struggling against dross at home. I want to see Villa in the Top 8 not scrambling around with also rans and never rans.

I want to see and hear Villa Park rocking. I want to se fans smiling. I want people at the club fron the tea lady to C.E.O. to be galvanised and the current underlyi g malaise reversed.

I want less Corporate Speak from Faulkner. I want more honesty and less bullshit. Lots of fans on thus forum don't appreciate being patronised with double speak. He can save that for his FA chums. 

I want the Manager to stop mumbling the same rubbish after another home defeat.I want domestic cups to be a priority. We will not win the league in my lifetime. We can win these though.

Come on Villa - rise up again.

[Dribbler]

I want to see entertaining football.

Yeh, this 'simple' thing seems to get lost in a lot of discussions when people say we are progressing. Look we're 11th in 'mid-table' they say, we've got more clean sheets than last year, and our income to wages expenditure is looking much better now too etc., etc. Maybe that's all true, and these are things that are important & show some underlying improvement, albeit against a petty low benchmark, but ultimately i usually end up sat there thinking, 'yeh, but our football is still mostly shit and painful to watch' and the reason i watch football is to be entertained.