Would it be more fun if we went down?

[Dante Lavelli]

There have been far, far more clubs who have gone down and got themselves into trouble than have 'recharged'.

Thinking out loud here:

West Ham, Newcastle, WBA, Leicester and Sunderland (to an extent) have gone down and it not damaged them.
Wednesday, Forest, Leeds and maybe Derby as the opposite.

I class teams like Hull, Burnley, Sheff Utd, Watford as not being top-league clubs. 

...and I've probably a missed a few others.  Regardless, it looks to me that relegation does not appear to be a life sentence with decent management and a bit of luck. 

[Toronto Villa]

Relegation won't be the end of the world. I'd just rather we not have to go through it in order to rebuild the club.

[The Laughing Policeman]

Trouble is Toronto, we can't start rebuilding the club until Randy sells us and even that looks along way off.

[sirlordbaltimore]

Relegation won't be the end of the world. I'd just rather we not have to go through it in order to rebuild the club.

If we can't sell the club when it's in the PL, with all those riches there's absolutely no chance we'll be sold when we're in the Championship. They will be no rebuild because Randy will still be in charge and his cronies will still be running the show in the boardroom. It's like being on bloody death row for what seems like an eternity to me

[The Left Side]

Trouble is Toronto, we can't start rebuilding the club until Randy sells us and even that looks along way off.

Nailed it

[placeforparks]

Relegation would be humiliating for a club of our size

our club is being humiliated already.

we're a joke.

[QuintonVilla]

We'll be down by March so by the time August rolls round we'll have come to terms with it.

Let's be honest could it be any worse than today? VP was soulless and lifeless. We had nearly 10,000 empty seats against Arsenal, no atmosphere and absolutely zero chance of winning the game before it even kicked off.

[SoccerHQ]

There have been far, far more clubs who have gone down and got themselves into trouble than have 'recharged'.

Thinking out loud here:

West Ham, Newcastle, WBA, Leicester and Sunderland (to an extent) have gone down and it not damaged them.
Wednesday, Forest, Leeds and maybe Derby as the opposite.

I class teams like Hull, Burnley, Sheff Utd, Watford as not being top-league clubs. 

...and I've probably a missed a few others.  Regardless, it looks to me that relegation does not appear to be a life sentence with decent management and a bit of luck. 

Leicester went down to league after their prem relegation in 2004. They need another relegation to get that bounce back.

[old man villa fan]

Relegation won't be the end of the world. I'd just rather we not have to go through it in order to rebuild the club.

If we can't sell the club when it's in the PL, with all those riches there's absolutely no chance we'll be sold when we're in the Championship. They will be no rebuild because Randy will still be in charge and his cronies will still be running the show in the boardroom. It's like being on bloody death row for what seems like an eternity to me

It is sometimes better to buy something when it is at it's lowest so as to have something to build up.  It will cost less to invest in players to get us promoted than it would to keep us in the PL.

[tomd2103]

Relegation won't be the end of the world. I'd just rather we not have to go through it in order to rebuild the club.

If we can't sell the club when it's in the PL, with all those riches there's absolutely no chance we'll be sold when we're in the Championship. They will be no rebuild because Randy will still be in charge and his cronies will still be running the show in the boardroom. It's like being on bloody death row for what seems like an eternity to me

It is sometimes better to buy something when it is at it's lowest so as to have something to build up.  It will cost less to invest in players to get us promoted than it would to keep us in the PL.

Might be a flight of fantasy, but how low would we have to go for a fan takeover to become a possibility? 

[IFWaters]

Re a fan takeover - when we go down I think Lerner should name his price to sell to the fans - if not 100% but maybe the controlling share - say 51%.

Say he says 51% for £51 million then is that impossible for the fans to raise ? Eg 25,500 shares at £2,000 each ? To buy our club ?

And perhaps the option to buy him out of the remaining 49% for £98 million when we get back to the prem.

Perhaps it could be the only positive of this awful mess.

[dave.woodhall]

Re a fan takeover - when we go down I think Lerner should name his price to sell to the fans - if not 100% but maybe the controlling share - say 51%.

Say he says 51% for £51 million then is that impossible for the fans to raise ? Eg 25,500 shares at £2,000 each ? To buy our club ?

And perhaps the option to buy him out of the remaining 49% for £98 million when we get back to the prem.

Perhaps it could be the only positive of this awful mess.

And if you did get that sort of money - which you never will - where does the "He should spend £x million on players" come from?

[curiousorange]

For the last five years, give or take the odd semi final win or shock victory at Stamford Bridge, i've been a miserable football fan. Every season has got progressively worse while the league above us gets more hyped and pumped full of cash than ever. Teams that have no earthly business beating us look like Barcelona and I don't even follow us via radio because I'd rather swallow a pool of vomit than listen to the same old guff. At least one day in every seven gets ruined by the grisly business of analysing the match. I haven't submitted anything to H&V in about two years because it would just sound like a suicide note.

Now, compare that to handing out a few thrashings and a rebuild under the radar with a decent tactician, good coaching and some new faces who would kill for the chance to get promoted with us. Sounds okay to me. It's the few months thrashing and wailing first that are bothering me.

[tomd2103]

Re a fan takeover - when we go down I think Lerner should name his price to sell to the fans - if not 100% but maybe the controlling share - say 51%.

Say he says 51% for £51 million then is that impossible for the fans to raise ? Eg 25,500 shares at £2,000 each ? To buy our club ?

And perhaps the option to buy him out of the remaining 49% for £98 million when we get back to the prem.

Perhaps it could be the only positive of this awful mess.

And if you did get that sort of money - which you never will - where does the "He should spend £x million on players" come from?

Re a fan takeover - when we go down I think Lerner should name his price to sell to the fans - if not 100% but maybe the controlling share - say 51%.

Say he says 51% for £51 million then is that impossible for the fans to raise ? Eg 25,500 shares at £2,000 each ? To buy our club ?

And perhaps the option to buy him out of the remaining 49% for £98 million when we get back to the prem.

Perhaps it could be the only positive of this awful mess.

And if you did get that sort of money - which you never will - where does the "He should spend £x million on players" come from?

Generally speaking Dave or anyone else who knows, how do fan takeovers worK?  I seem to remember reading something about Swansea and their fans buying a club for £1.  Is it then a case of running the club by it's means or are you still relying on a couple of welathy investors throwing money at it?  How does it work in Germany, as there are some pretty big clubs over there who have that set up?

[Lobsterboy]

I'm completely torn on this one - do I want Villa to drop down to the Championship, lose any half decent players we have left and play the likes of Rotherham and Brentford each week? No

On the other hand do I want to continue to see us act as cannon fodder for the likes of Man City, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, Man U every season, constantly loiter round the bottom six and then hope to stay up by virtue of being marginally less shit than three other teams? No

I'm resigned to relegation and not looking forward to it one jot but surely it can't get any worse?