The Takeover Thread - Recon Group - NOW WITH NEW POLL

[ROBBO]

Forget Lambert he is just passing through and  will be a blip in our history, the person who should be getting heat is the owner and  he only watches by cable.Why in all the billionaire owners do we get the dumb one.

[The Left Side]

Forget Lambert he is just passing through and  will be a blip in our history, the person who should be getting heat is the owner and  he only watches by cable.Why in all the billionaire owners do we get the dumb one.

This, there will be a time when PL won't be our manager and RL will get his poop in a pile and hopefully sell us onto another custodian.

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

As a club I think we do have a strong ethos...the Acorns thing, the McGregor statue, the Lamp, the VMF thing and its allotment, the Community work etc etc...all of this I am very proud of. It reflects the nature of our wonderful football club.

BUT...it doesn't extend to the Manager and his team and the players and the stuff on the pitch.
The absent owner is bound to be a factor, but a strong CEO (in owner's absence) has got to be massively influential and I thought the appointment of Fox would start to show some clear change of course.
It hasn't. Just the same turgid, inevitable, not-quite-good-enough, another-season-near-the bottom kinda guff that I find something of an insult to Aston Villa Football Club.

[Dave Cooper please]

Stuck in the M6 traffic last Monday night I took to musing on the blows which have been inflicted on the Villa in the last four and a bit years.   I attempted to determine which had been the worst blow.

Was it O'Neill's flounce?  No.

Was it our rolling over and never putting the club's side of the O'Neill flounce?  No.

Was it the appointment of a manager with a bad heart?  No.

Was it the rejection of the club by one manager after another in our search to replace GED?  No.

Was it the appointment of an ex Small Heath serial relegation specialist?  No.

Was it the appointment of Lambert?   Not even that.

I believe that the blow which holed us below the water line was that Randy Lerner announced that he wanted rid of the club before he had a buyer tied up.   I suspect that he did have one who failed to go through with the deal and it resulted in the situation in which we now find ourselves.

I can only speak for myself but I can take the defeats, I can take the awful football, I can take the incoherent dullard of a manager, I can even take the threat of relegation.   What I can't take and which is the deepest source of my Villa pain is that we are for sale and nobody wants us.

I think it was 20p on a pint at half time, a new low in a long line of new lows.

[OCD]

Lambert might only be passing through but the question is how much damage he will cause whilst he's here.

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

Lambert might only be passing through but the question is how much damage he will cause whilst he's here.

This.

[silhillvilla]

Lambert might only be passing through but the question is how much damage he will cause whilst he's here.

The same can be said of Lerner.

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

Lambert might only be passing through but the question is how much damage he will cause whilst he's here.

The same can be said of Lerner.

Indeed.
And will go much deeper than Lambert's Folly!

[mr underhill]

surely the two are indivisible. Depressingly, as long as Lerner's here, so, seemingly, is Lambert and between them, they have the power to totally screw the club through hitherto unseen levels of incompetence.

[paul_e]

The issue I have with the "he's never going to get sacked" line is that there were a lot of people saying exactly the same about McLeish in the last few weeks before he got sacked.  I think the key is that Lerner doesn't like replacing managers during the season and last summer he was too busy hoping for a sale to worry about it.  That said there's never been widespread calls for the manager to go so early in a season before (i.e. before the January window) so if this weekend goes badly and the murmurings become full on calls for his head I think he could still go.

[saunders_heroes]

The issue I have with the "he's never going to get sacked" line is that there were a lot of people saying exactly the same about McLeish in the last few weeks before he got sacked.  I think the key is that Lerner doesn't like replacing managers during the season and last summer he was too busy hoping for a sale to worry about it.  That said there's never been widespread calls for the manager to go so early in a season before (i.e. before the January window) so if this weekend goes badly and the murmurings become full on calls for his head I think he could still go.

McLeish didn't sign a new 4 year deal just weeks before he was sacked though.
Of all the madness surrounding the Villa over the last few years the awarding of a 4 year contract to Paul Lambert after what he's dished up is the most deranged thing yet.

[Monty]

McLeish didn't sign a new 4 year deal just weeks before he was sacked though.
Of all the madness surrounding the Villa over the last few years the awarding of a 4 year contract to Paul Lambert after what he's dished up is the most deranged thing yet.

It showed that Randy isn't actually a calm, cool-headed decision maker who waits to see how it goes, like some in the media like to portray him viz. his tolerance towards managers - in fact, he's a love-blinded, rash, gushing puppy of a man, who can't see the difference between friendship and business, and calls this inability 'loyalty'.

[Toronto Villa]

The issue I have with the "he's never going to get sacked" line is that there were a lot of people saying exactly the same about McLeish in the last few weeks before he got sacked.  I think the key is that Lerner doesn't like replacing managers during the season and last summer he was too busy hoping for a sale to worry about it.  That said there's never been widespread calls for the manager to go so early in a season before (i.e. before the January window) so if this weekend goes badly and the murmurings become full on calls for his head I think he could still go.

McLeish didn't sign a new 4 year deal just weeks before he was sacked though.
Of all the madness surrounding the Villa over the last few years the awarding of a 4 year contract to Paul Lambert after what he's dished up is the most deranged thing yet.

it is nuts on all levels. I still think it only protects a little more than it did prior to the new deal though. There is a tipping point to everything so the new new deal merely nudged him a little further down the mountain. He's managed to undo any good work from the start of the season in a few miserable weeks and once again stands close to the top on the verge of staring into the abyss.

[Villa in Denmark]

I've been thinking about how Randy has operated here, with the Browns and his other "good deeds" activities.

I think at heart he's genuinely good willed and aware that he has had and continues to have a very privileged existence.

Aware from sports he's viewed as a philanthropist given his hefty donations to various causes that serve some wider community good and contribute to civic life, whereby he makes a donation and trusts the recipients to use the donation wisely within the parameters he's specified.

I don't know how it was off the field with the Browns, but that's certainly how he's been with us off the field. (Acorns, community engagement, The Holte Pub, restaurant, mosaics etc.)

Unfortunately for us he's approached running a football club with exactly the same philanthropic mindset.

He made a donation (transfer fees and wages, apparently with a budget of approx £250M over and above what the club earned itself) and trusts the recipients (MON) to use the donation wisely within the parameters he's specified (qualify for CL). 

Unfortunately for all concerned the budget ran out, MON scuttled off when he was told that the piggy bank was empty and we've been in limbo ever since, doing just enough to survive, waiting for a new owner as Randy, as is his right, decided he wasn't prepared "to go again", particularly as Man City had completely changed the landscape of football finances

I think he genuinely thought the sale was as good as done when he made the announcement - it would match the way it played out with the Browns, and was somewhat stunned when it fell through.

Still can't explain (and I don't think any of us will ever understand) signing McLeish or the new contract for Lambert.

[Ron Manager]

I've been thinking about how Randy has operated here, with the Browns and his other "good deeds" activities.

I think at heart he's genuinely good willed and aware that he has had and continues to have a very privileged existence.

Aware from sports he's viewed as a philanthropist given his hefty donations to various causes that serve some wider community good and contribute to civic life, whereby he makes a donation and trusts the recipients to use the donation wisely within the parameters he's specified.

I don't know how it was off the field with the Browns, but that's certainly how he's been with us off the field. (Acorns, community engagement, The Holte Pub, restaurant, mosaics etc.)

Unfortunately for us he's approached running a football club with exactly the same philanthropic mindset.

He made a donation (transfer fees and wages, apparently with a budget of approx £250M over and above what the club earned itself) and trusts the recipients (MON) to use the donation wisely within the parameters he's specified (qualify for CL). 

Unfortunately for all concerned the budget ran out, MON scuttled off when he was told that the piggy bank was empty and we've been in limbo ever since, doing just enough to survive, waiting for a new owner as Randy, as is his right, decided he wasn't prepared "to go again", particularly as Man City had completely changed the landscape of football finances

I think he genuinely thought the sale was as good as done when he made the announcement - it would match the way it played out with the Browns, and was somewhat stunned when it fell through.

Still can't explain (and I don't think any of us will ever understand) signing McLeish or the new contract for Lambert.

Sums it all up. A good guy but out of his depth in a sport he really doesnt understand.