Poll - Sherwood - got rid

[Dave]

Lerner more or less gave up on Villa over 5 years ago yet still fans defend him.

It's nothing to do with defending anyone, it's to do with understanding that you can't expect someone to take a hit of £50m every season.

Nor should he be expected to run Aston Villa like a lower league club either.

In terms of the finances he's running the club like a mid-table Premier League club.

Which isn't as fun as when he was running it like one trying to become a Champions League club, but nor does that mean that it should see the club spending the last few years between 16th and 19th.

[Clampy]

Lerner more or less gave up on Villa over 5 years ago yet still fans defend him.

It's nothing to do with defending anyone, it's to do with understanding that you can't expect someone to take a hit of £50m every season.

Nor should he be expected to run Aston Villa like a lower league club either.

In terms of the finances he's running the club like a mid-table Premier League club.

Which isn't as fun as when he was running it like one trying to become a Champions League club, but nor does that mean that it should see the club spending the last few years between 16th and 19th.

I can't think of too many 'lower league clubs' who go out and spend £9m on a left back. I doubt we're paying 'lower league club' wages either.

[joe_c]

Lerner more or less gave up on Villa over 5 years ago yet still fans defend him.

It's nothing to do with defending anyone, it's to do with understanding that you can't expect someone to take a hit of £50m every season.

Nor should he be expected to run Aston Villa like a lower league club either.

and he isn't, the finances irrefutably prove that so what is your point?

My point is that we're owned by a billionaire. A seriously cash rich man who bought a play thing and got bored very quickly indeed. Consequently our club is yet again in a relegation struggle.
I mean it's not like he hasn't got the money to get us out of this mess is it?

Translation: Spend more of your money on my hobby

Or "his hobby" more importantly.

Not exactly the same though is it? It'd be like you or I being compelled to keep buying a season ticket until a taker could be found for it even though we had long since lost interest.

[john e]

After selling Milner for a fortune.

Lerner more or less gave up on Villa over 5 years ago yet still fans defend him.

Cheer up mate

You might get on that bongo cam at half time tomorrow

[PeterWithesShin]

As long as it isn't kiss cam as i'll be sat next to Leeg!

[Legion]

As long as it isn't kiss cam as i'll be sat next to Leeg!

I'd love to get on dance- or bongo-cam. I doubt if they'd be pleased with my response, though.

[PeterWithesShin]

I hope it doesn't involve getting your todger out yet again.

[saunders_heroes]

After selling Milner for a fortune.

Lerner more or less gave up on Villa over 5 years ago yet still fans defend him.

Cheer up mate

You might get on that bongo cam at half time tomorrow

Ha!

[Clampy]

I hope it doesn't involve getting your todger out yet again.

Is that why everyone burst into hysterics last time?

[Villa in Denmark]

What Lerner needed to do was spend his money more wisely and protect his investment. Jumping up and down on the trap door with rocks in your pockets is hardly going to attract a buyer.

He should have done that from day 1.  Then maybe the house would have been built on proper foundations instead of a yawning chasm with a trap door in the middle of it.

The money he's thrown into the Villa from the start, if utilised more sensibly would have kept us up at the business end of the table in a far more sustainable manor, negating the need for the horrors of the last 5 years.
If s_h curses the day Randy Lerner first heard of Aston Villa, I feel the same way about the day that Martin O'Neill typed B6 into his GPS.

I might be misinterpreting you, but are you saying he should have kept pouring money in whilst searching for a buyer?
In which case we'll have to disagree. A club that needs an injection of £50M p.a. just to stay around the top 6 with limited potential to improve is going to be less attractive to a club with it's finances in order and ready to start moving again.

As paul_e has pointed out, despite the utterly shit and desperate results over the last 4-5 years, the expenditure is still that of a mid table club.  We've still not been the using the money available well enough.  I hate having to use the word but, hopefully the new structures in place to ensure some form of continuity instead of rip it up and start again will lend some stability to the playing side.  That coupled with an even half decent coach should see us move in the right direction.

The amount he's spent doesn't matter so much as how he's spent it. Throwing money at Martin O'Neill, signing off ridiculous contracts for the likes of TSM1 and TSM2 (offering the latter a new contract after a handful of flukey results at the beginning of last season was utterly stupid). When I say protecting his investment, I mean managing it properly and spending according to its status. In other words, stop crossing your fingers and gambling with unproven staff, hoping they'll get you out of the mess you've created. It isn't working.   

I think we pretty much agree then.
MON years waste of more money than we'll probably ever be able to throw at it again.

Pretty much everything post Houllier has been like an overly dramatic how not to do it instruction manual.

The structure around Fox should hopefully provide the basis for more sensible decision making. The mere fact that Randy is officially not involved day to day, regardless of whether he was or wasn't in practice, can only be a good thing if the trio at the top can actually do what they're paid to do.

Just need them to get rid of TSM III (That Sherwood Muppet) and appoint a decent replacement then take it from there.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Jimbo, tell me when should have Lerner sacked MON? We were going no where slowly under MON, even if by all the luck in the world we'd qualified for the Champions League, we all know we'd have been knocked out of the qualifying rounds.

The thing is, there would have been plenty of muppets that would have argued MON just needed more more to get us where we need to be. The reality is Lerner would have had to spend all the family fortune and taken the club into debt and even then, we'd have complained about ticket prices rising above the rate of inflation.

We need the luck of signing up a decent manager. It's the one thing missing from the Lerner years. Hopefully tomorrow or in the next few days that will change as otherwise, erm.. we go again.

[Pat McMahon]

An obvious point made before is that MON s signings were doubtless negotiated by inexperienced people so we spent loads more than we should have done. I don't blame him for that, I blame the rest of the management team.

We should have done more under MON but in my lifetime we have never finished in the top 6 for 3 consecutive seasons except for 2007-10. That era now seems like a mirage.

[pauliewalnuts]

We should have done more under MON but in my lifetime we have never finished in the top 6 for 3 consecutive seasons except for 2007-10. That era now seems like a mirage.

I don't know how old you are, Pat, but I can honestly say I value winning the league, the European Cup, and four league cups in my lifetime (I'm 47) much more than I do three sixth place finishes.

It's not like we're Newcastle or something.

re MON do you blame him for the madness that saw him go out and spend 20m on a new defence (an entire defence) one summer, then another 20m on another whole defence the summer after?

These deals including the likes of Habib Beye and Nicky Shorey who we pretty much never saw, on account of MON deciding they were shit within weeks of seeing them train.

[eamonn]

An obvious point made before is that MON s signings were doubtless negotiated by inexperienced people so we spent loads more than we should have done. I don't blame him for that, I blame the rest of the management team.

I blame O'Neill for having tunnel vision and only looking at other British clubs when deciding what players he wanted to sign.

[Drummond]

Oh for the halcyon days of John Gregory's unbeaten 13 game run at the beginning of a season.

When you look back, the 90s were pretty good really. Two trophies, European football, Little, Atkinson etc.

God we've had to put up with some dirge since.