I do seem to be getting plenty of education here.(before you say it ,do,nt i need it ) I only wish you very correct people were more interested in advancing the clubs ambitions! Than taking the piss. Do you not care what has happened to the Villa,since the present incumbent became owner of our club?
Apologies for the monster post.
What has happened since he took over is:
Years 1 -4. He trusted completely in manager who was extremely popular with the majority of the fans, spending huge amounts of cash on assembling the squad the manager wanted.
When the present incumbent owner questioned how many more players the manager needed, when he only used the same 13-14 players anyway, and why should he pay the likes of Habib Beye £40K per week to turn up for 8-9 hours training per week, said manager stropped off.
It then became apparent that the majority of the money "invested" could just as easily have been thrown on the bonfire for all the good it had done the club, as the man he had trusted to invest his money wisely had in fact pissed most of it up the wall with only 2 half hearted attempts at the Europa league, a losing League Cup final and losing FA Cup semi final to show for the thick end of £200M, and the majority of the squad having no resale value due to the combination of age and wages / length of contract.
Year 5. Having been left in the lurch at no notice, the current incumbent owner struggled to find a suitable replacement, he chose a man with a wealth of experience at managing at the highest levels, but who hadn't been managing day to day for 2 years. Finding the squad in divided and morale apparently in tatters he took up the challenge of trying to get the players into shape, physically and mentally, to play in the PL. A significant proportion of the squad didn't like actually working for their money after the MON days of 45 minutes 5 a side constituting the training regime, and openly revolted. (One of our most senior players had returned from the summer break, looking not much fitter than that guy from Luton).
When it was obvious during the January transfer window that we needed someone to score the goals that weren't being scored he sanctioned a further £18M to solve the problem. Towards the end of the season, the new manager succumbed to health problems and was not able to continue the rebuilding job he'd started.
Year 6. A complete brain fart appointing McLeish, I'll give you that, but still backing his manager with the £9M for N'Zogbia and the contract for Given as evidence. At the end of the season, when it was clear that McLeish would no longer be tolerated by the fans, he was gone as soon as the season had finished and the search for a new manager began.
Year 7. Appointment of a promising young manager, who was a popular choice with the fans. Football and results wise anywhere between disappointing and disastrous depending on how kind / harsh you want to be.
Years 8&9 The big question from here on in has been how true are the rumours that Lambert hasn't spent all of the transfer funds available to him. and how much blind loyalty has he shown Lambert? He's admitted he wants to sell, it would appear he's not prepared to sell to the first chancer that knocks on his door. (how much would fans of our less illustrious neighbours want to turn back to the days of the Brady Bunch instead of Hong Kong's richest hairdresser)
He came, he gave it a real go, unfortunately putting all his faith in the wrong man, tried to restore some semblance of order to our finances whilst keeping the club going. Having got it to the point where it's now not a distressed asset, he's trying to sell it.
The only things I can really pick him up on are.
1.) the blind faith in MON. He should have been stopped at the end of year 3 when he wanted to spend the best part of £30M replacing the entire back 4 he'd spent £50M on the previous summer, but hindsight is wonderful.
2.) McLeish - Nothing else needs to be said
3.) Accepting the god awful football that Lambert served up last year and not turfing him out in the summer.
Once he'd realised he couldn't finance our way into the CL (Man City pretty much precluded a further run at it, especially under MON and his 70's tactics) he's paid out approx a further £50-100M to get the club to a point where it's actually saleable to a sensible owner who hopefully can come in and start to move us up the table again.
Yes he could have sold between Houllier's departure and appointing Lambert, but it's not just that he'd have got less for the club then, I suspect that a whole different calibre of buyer could be tempted now that the finances are straight. (I doubt there's much net difference between what he could have sold for having sacked McLeish, and what he hopes to get today, compared to what he's continued to put in to the club in the last 2½ years)
