Goodbye Paul Faulkner.

[rob_bridge]

Goodluck to him. He often seemed to be scape goat of sorts but he was just doing the jobs asked of him. It can't have been easy working in his capacity at this club for the last couple of years particularly. It's been a mess.

I agree mostly. You could argue that during the past couple of years he's been working under the same financial restraints as Lambert. No-one knocked him when he was arranging deals for Milner, Bent and Young.

Didn't we sign both Milner and Young pre-Faulkner?

Yes - pre him being CEO.

And the club no choice but to sign Bent or someone of his ilk as we were deep in relegation mire and the majority of the 1st team squad had been alienated

[London Villan]

Off the pitch - good
On the pitch - some of the most baffling decisions in the history of the club

It does point to clearing the decks before a takeover... along with Keane's part-time role. What other club would allow the manager's assistant - who probably has more day-to-day contact with the players - to not be full time...

[RussellC]

He officially became CEO at the end of the 09-10 season, he was COO for a couple of years before that.

A change that was, in my opinion, purely so he could put more pressure on mon to clear out the overpaid dross in the squad.  I think that small power shift is what led to mon leaving, basically a guy who mon had used as an assistant in the transfer process was suddenly promoted above him meaning the rules changed.

That's purely speculation on my part but the timings all seemed to fit it being a breakdown of the relationships following the boardroom changes.

I'd forgotten that Faulkner was there as COO initially to be honest. I just remember there being a period without us having a CEO for a while, after Richard FitzGerland left.

I guess a lot of this is down to speculation. It's difficult to attribute praise or criticism without really knowing the full role that he had to play in each deal, be it commercial or footballing.

[Clampy]

Goodluck to him. He often seemed to be scape goat of sorts but he was just doing the jobs asked of him. It can't have been easy working in his capacity at this club for the last couple of years particularly. It's been a mess.

I agree mostly. You could argue that during the past couple of years he's been working under the same financial restraints as Lambert. No-one knocked him when he was arranging deals for Milner, Bent and Young.

Didn't we sign both Milner and Young pre-Faulkner?

Yes - pre him being CEO.

And the club no choice but to sign Bent or someone of his ilk as we were deep in relegation mire and the majority of the 1st team squad had been alienated

That's not true. The Bent deal was worked on as soon as Houiller became manager. He probably would have come in whether or not we'd been struggling.

[rob_bridge]

Goodluck to him. He often seemed to be scape goat of sorts but he was just doing the jobs asked of him. It can't have been easy working in his capacity at this club for the last couple of years particularly. It's been a mess.

I agree mostly. You could argue that during the past couple of years he's been working under the same financial restraints as Lambert. No-one knocked him when he was arranging deals for Milner, Bent and Young.

Didn't we sign both Milner and Young pre-Faulkner?

Yes - pre him being CEO.

And the club no choice but to sign Bent or someone of his ilk as we were deep in relegation mire and the majority of the 1st team squad had been alienated

That's not true. The Bent deal was worked on as soon as Houiller became manager. He probably would have come in whether or not we'd been struggling.

Maybe he would have, a bit of supposition on you part but thank fuck he did. Just a shame he didn'tjoin at the start of January if the deal was being worked on in September..

[paul_e]

Off the pitch - good
On the pitch - some of the most baffling decisions in the history of the club

It does point to clearing the decks before a takeover... along with Keane's part-time role. What other club would allow the manager's assistant - who probably has more day-to-day contact with the players - to not be full time...

The top bit is exactly how I view the club for the last 4 years and as I've said I genuinely don't think Faulkner has anything like the control over the playing side you'd expect from someone in his position.

I reckon if you gave him and Lambert the roles of commercial director and sporting director it would be a more accurate reflection of our structure.  I might well be wrong and I certainly don't claim to know this as fact but if you look at comments made both Lambert, Faulkner and Lerner in the last 2 years you see a definite pattern of Lambert reporting directly to Lerner and Faulkner being left to get on with the commercial aspects.  An effort he'd have been limited in by the poor results on the field.

[Gareth]

This explains why we have not heard a word from him since the 'For Sale' sign went up.....thought it was odd that he hadn't been spouting the business as usual mantra.

[SashasGrandad]

I think it is wrong for many on here to blame PF for what happens on the pitch.

He has done an excellent job in my view behind the scenes, considering how poor the team has been in recent years, he has done well to keep getting sponsorship etc.

He will have no problem getting another job.

[The Adventurer]

Good riddance. One down only a few more to go! 

[hilts_coolerking]

Once he finished his GCSEs he was always going to move on.

[Toronto Villa]

I don't think there should be any surprise between the timing of the two major incidents this week. Faulkner and Randy have a close relationship and I don't believe for a second that Faulkner would have pulled his chute one day after Randy's statement without there being any prior conversation.

There will always be admin staff to complete the paperwork. While we have a vacancy in that department I'm sure someone else can step in albeit temporarily and fill the key functions ahead of a new ownership group arriving. Lambert has also suggested a couple of players in after the WC so that is another week or so away so there is time to firm up deals and I cannot believe that any of those would be jeopardized just because we don't have a CEO.

For me this is just one more indication of a deal being a step closer. Randy suggested that talks have been productive so we may not be too far away now.

[LeeS]

Why didn't he take this step at the New York meeting when the season ended? 

Perhaps he did and they're just announcing it now?

If only that prankster who phoned the restaurant had asked the right question...

[Holte L2]

Good luck to him. Thought he got undeserved stick on here. Why people think a Chief Executive is likely to be in charge of things like appointing managers and deciding how much transfer money we have to spend I don't know. It's obvious that the Chairman is likely to be making decisions like that. Who'd spend hundreds of millions on a club and not even want to decide who the manager was?

He got us the biggest shirt sponsorship deal in our history, the biggest kit manufacturer deal in our history and generally modernised the presentation of the club... so you can now read all about Villa on our official Chinese website if you want to, for instance.

Hopefully his departure indicates that a deal may be completed at some point before Christmas.

Randy made it clear at the time, that Paul's task was to recruit new mangers when appointing TSM.

[pauliewalnuts]

I'd agree (TV) re a deal being closer, but only if Lerner hadn't said yesterday that there wasn't an imminent deal.

I also think replacing CEO role now will be about more than people doing admin. We complained for ages that we didn't have people with football experience running things (with relation to Faulkner). At least he'll have got some experience over the last few years. Now he's gone and we wouldn't be able to appoint a CEO if we tried, so Robin Russell is stepping in.

Apparently he's a financial genius but less of a football person than Faulkner.

That's what I don't get. I understand the arguments that Faulkner should go / has been party to some awful management, all that, yes, but I can't see how him leaving now is anything but a negative for us.

It just contributes to that sense of drifting neglect.

[Toronto Villa]

Paulie, imminent could mean that it won't happen next week. Remember the time between Randy being first suggested and then taking over was very short. Faulkner will likely have had people that reported to him that have learnt the ropes. Or at least have the ability if not the outright experience to get the main things done on that position. I just cannot see the two incidents being exclusive of one another. Randy statement was supportive of the club and it's intentions ahead of the season. For me he's engaged while things are moving along with the sale.

Like all of this, nothing is perfect. We're for sale after all and it is July. But that said if the club is sold in August, and a new manger installed (should that be the situation) in late July then it would be the same as what happened when Randy took over in 2006 and we did ok in the end.