Randy Lerner

[Tony Erdington]

Must admit I am getting fed up with the Lerner bashing

He has us up for sale - no one wants us
He has spent god knows how many millions, specially in the early years, to improve us on and off the pitch until it started to go west
Calls to get over here to sort it out - would be followed by "Fuck off Lerner"

What is he meant to do? Give us away just to pacify the fans baying for blood
The one big thing I blame him for was trusting a snake like MON with all the investment money

Of course he is naïve and inexperienced and he has painfully learned a great deal during his reign but some of the abuse he is a getting is way over the top
Imagine if it was your £250 million investment up for sale - would you drop 50- 100 million off the price to pacify supporters thirst for change
There has to be a buyer
We need to be careful what we wish for sometimes

What about his lack of communication? he comes across as someone who really doesn't give a shit anymore ( which is just about the worst crime any owner could commit in football). I don't expect him to be hawking himself to the press every day like Sullivan and Gold and I don't mean Krulak piping up with his bullshit. We must be the only organisation I can think of that has absolutely no comms strategy. Is it any wonder that we don't trust a bloke who we haven't heard from for a couple of years now? He makes the "elusive" Bhati brothers look like media whores. Brought it all on himself, I'm afraid     

Lord Lucan, has more to say than Randolf

[OzVilla]

Rearss te Lerner bashing, I agree that Lerner means well, I'm sure he wants success as much as anybody and there's no doubt owning the Villa has severely dented his fortune. He's also done some really great initiatives off the pitch that made me proud to support this great club.

Trouble is though that judgement is ultimately reserved for performance on the pitch and quite frankly that side, which is the whole point of the club, has been dreadful, potentially calamitous if we do end up relegated.  And he's had form, look at the Browns.

I wish he'd never bought us and to be fair he probably feels the same way.

Which begs the question - if you, or anyone else, wished he hadn't bought us, then who of all the potential buyers at the time would you have preferred? LLVF Mike Neville? The Comers? Ray Ranson? Nicholas Padfield? The fact is that even then, pre-Manchester City, pre-crash, pre-Chinese stock market collapse, there was still a limited field of potential owners and Randy was the best of a bad bunch.   

Yes it's a good question becuase it's none of those you listed.  And hindsight is a wonderful thing.

But the people were out there,  Fenway Sports, the Mansoors, the Chinesse chap whse name escapes me at Athletico,  they were there.  None of us can say if any contact was attempted or not but they were there. We know this because they bought in to other clubs of a similar or lesser stature.

[Villa in Denmark]

And all brought in 3-5 years after our takeover.

[Dave]

If we were 6th no one would give a fuck if Randy was ever at VP or BH or never turned up. Where Randy physically is isn't the problem.

Quite - do Spurs fans give a toss that Joe Lewis has hardly ever seen them play since he bought them? No, because he's employed the right people to make sure things run themselves.

As long as we're paying the right people to make good decisions, then Randy can turn up as little or as often as he'd like.

In fact, based on how things have gone when he was the one making the day-to-day decisions, the fewer that he is making himself the better as far as I'm concerned.

[LeeB]

I think Lerner is an American Cult leader who is trying to create a mass suicide pact with us as his victims.

That's probably as close to reality as any other theory.

[dave.woodhall]

Rearss te Lerner bashing, I agree that Lerner means well, I'm sure he wants success as much as anybody and there's no doubt owning the Villa has severely dented his fortune. He's also done some really great initiatives off the pitch that made me proud to support this great club.

Trouble is though that judgement is ultimately reserved for performance on the pitch and quite frankly that side, which is the whole point of the club, has been dreadful, potentially calamitous if we do end up relegated.  And he's had form, look at the Browns.

I wish he'd never bought us and to be fair he probably feels the same way.

Which begs the question - if you, or anyone else, wished he hadn't bought us, then who of all the potential buyers at the time would you have preferred? LLVF Mike Neville? The Comers? Ray Ranson? Nicholas Padfield? The fact is that even then, pre-Manchester City, pre-crash, pre-Chinese stock market collapse, there was still a limited field of potential owners and Randy was the best of a bad bunch.   

Yes it's a good question becuase it's none of those you listed.  And hindsight is a wonderful thing.

But the people were out there,  Fenway Sports, the Mansoors, the Chinesse chap whse name escapes me at Athletico,  they were there.  None of us can say if any contact was attempted or not but they were there. We know this because they bought in to other clubs of a similar or lesser stature.

At the time we were up for sale these people were quite clearly not out there otherwise they'd have bought us. It was hardly a secret that we were available.

[Clampy]

Must admit I am getting fed up with the Lerner bashing

He has us up for sale - no one wants us
He has spent god knows how many millions, specially in the early years, to improve us on and off the pitch until it started to go west
Calls to get over here to sort it out - would be followed by "Fuck off Lerner"

What is he meant to do? Give us away just to pacify the fans baying for blood
The one big thing I blame him for was trusting a snake like MON with all the investment money

Of course he is naïve and inexperienced and he has painfully learned a great deal during his reign but some of the abuse he is a getting is way over the top
Imagine if it was your £250 million investment up for sale - would you drop 50- 100 million off the price to pacify supporters thirst for change
There has to be a buyer
We need to be careful what we wish for sometimes

I couldn't agree more. Don't get me wrong, he's not beyond criticism and neither should he be, but some of the stuff that's been written about him is just shameful.

[NeilH]

Yep, I would also concur with all of that. Randy’s biggest failing was to give MoN the keys to the safe and let him loose on the transfer budget, I believe that this coupled with his changing personal circumstances have left him burnt and looking for a way out. He’s made it perfectly clear he wants to sell, but we are simply not a viable investment due to the change in the global market and the unattractive nature of a Birmingham club to gazillionaires.
Every time I read the vitriol written about him I think to myself, if I were Randy I’d sell to the first charlatan with a suitcase of money – As supporters of a Midlands club, we ought to be very careful what we wish for given the experiences of a number of our neighbours.

[eamonn]

I think Lerner is an American Cult leader who is trying to create a mass suicide pact with us as his victims.

That's probably as close to reality as any other theory.

One of Randolph's last utterances, on 12th of May 2014:

On a personal level it is time for me, like the Shunammite, to dwell among my own

Are we not men or are we not Shunammites ?
Maybe we're just Devo.

[villadelph]

Theres always an excuse for Randy to rationalize putting the club on the back burner. Divorce, personal issues, family time.. I really don't care anymore. He's lowered the clubs standard so far to the point where staying up is mission complete. Just telling McLeish and Lambert to keep us in the league is pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

The guy is a joke. He's a joke in the (former) owners circle in the NFL. I'm not happy with him. He sets a terrible example and masking it with a decent club outreach program is semantics.

"The clubs up for sale, there's no buyers.. what do you want him to do?"

How about not ruin the clubs value and appeal to the point where we look like a poison chalice doomed for failure.

The guy is a clown. He doesn't know how to set up a hierarchy. He had no concept of the annual investment it would take to improve and stabilize the club. He had no idea which combination of directors and managers would create a good on-field product.

He's done nothing but conduct underfunded, unsupervised failures in his tenure as a sports franchise owner. It's idiotic, and claiming ignorance, disinterest or inability is unacceptable.

Year in year out we call for the managers head and Randy is miles away "watching" our games from his iPad in between strokes at his country club.

Fugg off ya bum.

[Salsa Party Animal]

We need someone who will put in effort, money, heart and appoint right people. Just like Doug Ellis but more modern and less tight fisted.

He should have appointed Villa men to run the club, and he got scared off after Martin O'Neill experiment and Manchester City's financial muscle. If he kept Steven Stride or appoint someone like him, we wouldn't be in a mess as he will say hang on we are not paying 60 grand a week for this player. 

What we need is an modern Arsene Wenger and we haven't found anyone like him. We also haven't found right man to lead the club from the top and manager to transform the club.  If I had say 2 billions pounds I would be able to sort the club out and if I am interviewing for an manager and not knowing what I need, I would have 2 out of Brian Little/Graham Taylor/Ron Atkinson and Ian Taylor in a interviewing team. So I can get right feedback from other 3 people which one to go for.
   

[aj2k77]

Yep, I would also concur with all of that. Randy’s biggest failing was to give MoN the keys to the safe and let him loose on the transfer budget, I believe that this coupled with his changing personal circumstances have left him burnt and looking for a way out. He’s made it perfectly clear he wants to sell, but we are simply not a viable investment due to the change in the global market and the unattractive nature of a Birmingham club to gazillionaires.
Every time I read the vitriol written about him I think to myself, if I were Randy I’d sell to the first charlatan with a suitcase of money – As supporters of a Midlands club, we ought to be very careful what we wish for given the experiences of a number of our neighbours.

I have no idea how Lerner planned on growing the club sustainably with or without Champions league funding, and that's because he had no idea either. His entire plan seemed to revolve around making the middle tier of the trinity a corporate section and get in to the champions league and that's basically it. Every step of the way his plans have been un thought out, lacking any depth, just plain lazy.

The vitriol he's received has been on the basis of he's acted brainless and is running the club in to the ground and it's hard to argue otherwise. He clearly is way out of his depth in the business of sport and doesn't employ the rightly qualified people to run it in his absence. If he wanted to sell the club to anyone just to spite us then I'd say it would be the most pathetic thing he's done, seeing as we never asked to be run poorly and have done nothing other than continually support the ever increasing shitefest he's helped produce. He's gotten off very lightly considering we are a club now in their 6th season of relegation troubles, have an increasingly poor first team, increasingly less goals, wins, whatever stats you want to throw at it we suck and pay for the ''privilege'' of watching this rubbish, if he feels hard done by then no wonder he sanctioned employing dim Tim.

[PeterWithesShin]

If we were 6th no one would give a fuck if Randy was ever at VP or BH or never turned up. Where Randy physically is isn't the problem.

Quite - do Spurs fans give a toss that Joe Lewis has hardly ever seen them play since he bought them? No, because he's employed the right people to make sure things run themselves.

As long as we're paying the right people to make good decisions, then Randy can turn up as little or as often as he'd like.

In fact, based on how things have gone when he was the one making the day-to-day decisions, the fewer that he is making himself the better as far as I'm concerned.

Agree with all that.

[PaulWinch again]

We need someone like Doug Ellis? come off it, there's revisionism and then there's just plain lunacy.

Also yes it would be great if we could find a great new owner, but apparently there isn't one out there who wants to buy us. Lerner can't be sacked, he's the owner and until there's a suitable buyer we just have to deal with it. We just need to hope that as Fox learns the ropes he'll make some important decisions, specifically at the moment firing the manager.

[saunders_heroes]

Must admit I am getting fed up with the Lerner bashing

He has us up for sale - no one wants us
He has spent god knows how many millions, specially in the early years, to improve us on and off the pitch until it started to go west
Calls to get over here to sort it out - would be followed by "Fuck off Lerner"

What is he meant to do? Give us away just to pacify the fans baying for blood
The one big thing I blame him for was trusting a snake like MON with all the investment money

Of course he is naïve and inexperienced and he has painfully learned a great deal during his reign but some of the abuse he is a getting is way over the top
Imagine if it was your £250 million investment up for sale - would you drop 50- 100 million off the price to pacify supporters thirst for change
There has to be a buyer
We need to be careful what we wish for sometimes

Well I'm fed up with Lerner turning our club into a bloody joke.
But bless, let's not upset him by saying anything.