Randy Lerner

[ChicagoLion]

Most of the players brought in aren't good enough. Hence why we have 5 points on 1st December.......5 points is horrific - I wince when I look at the Prem League table.

Yep and there were plenty of people saying it was purely down to the Manager, no doubt that Sherwood lost the plot but no doubting that you can not replace Vlaar Delph Benteke and Cleverly with Ayew Gana Amavi and Vertout.
Chuck in the basket case Guzan and you have a recipe for disaster.

[kippaxvilla2]

One Randy Lerner, one Randy Lerrrrrrrrner.

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The biggest problem is that we didn't replace or improve key positions.

Guzan is a poor keeper, he has an error in him and has cost 's points this season and in the past few.

Vlaar was never up to scratch on the rare occasions he was fit. We brought in a player way past his prime who has been a disaster and a right back. What we needed was an eprienced left sided centre half to bring Okore on.

I think the midfield of Sanchez, Veretout and Gana is alright. It's got the best balance of anything we've seen involving KEA and Westwood et al over the past few seasons.

The biggest problem is up front. Anew looks a good player and his starts to goals ratio is decent and improving, but I feel he is a second striker. We need a focal point and a goal scorer.

Sherwood clearly picked Lescott, Richards and Gestede as a substitute for Adebayor. He abandoned hopes of signing a keeper and he's left us in the mire.

Lerner 's  is ultimately responsible for leaving us in the position of trying to regenerate an entire squad in one summer. If he had any sense left he would give Garde big money as he gave Houllier big money to get a striker and a centre half. Time will tell if he even tries to give it a go.

[Dave]

Most of the players brought in aren't good enough. Hence why we have 5 points on 1st December.......5 points is horrific - I wince when I look at the Prem League table.

Yep and there were plenty of people saying it was purely down to the Manager, no doubt that Sherwood lost the plot but no doubting that you can not replace Vlaar Delph Benteke and Cleverly with Ayew Gana Amavi and Vertout.

We didn't. We replaced Benteke with Gestede and Vlaar with Lescott. Clearly neither of which were going to be good enough.

Ayew is an upgrade on Weimann and Amavi is clearly an upgrade on whichever of Luna/Bennett/Cissokho/Richardson was considered our left-back before we signed him.

And I would say that Veretout has shown enough to be considered an upgrade on the Cleverley that we saw for 90% of last season.

[Dave]

Between the 3 of them they've started 2 league games this season and have 0 goals and 0 assists and I dread to think what they'd be costing in wages never mind the fees. As much as we're struggling i'm happier with what we have, especially long term.

For context, Ayew has as many goals for us in his last five league games as Townsend has scored for Spurs in his last forty-seven.

But apparently has shown nothing to suggest that he's better.

[LeeB]

The single biggest recruitment error was not getting a new keeper, and starting with the man who'd lost his place to a 36 year old who you've let go on a free.

That just smacks of incompetence.

[Phil from the upper holte]

The single biggest recruitment error was not getting a new keeper, and starting with the man who'd lost his place to a 36 year old who you've let go on a free.

That just smacks of incompetence.

Probably one of the reasons that Guzan's confidence is shot to shit

[Villa in Denmark]

The single biggest recruitment error was not getting a new keeper, and starting with the man who'd lost his place to a 36 year old who you've let go on a free.

That just smacks of incompetence.

Probably one of the reasons that Guzan's confidence is shot to shit

I'd say that was more down to a serious of minor f¤¤k ups culminating in the mother of all f¤¤k ups at Man City.

Dropping him / removing him from the firing line was almost a humane decision.

A decent goalkeeper and centre back instead of Lescott and we'd look a lot better. Okore getting fit and Richards to right back would improve us further.

[brian green]

Our problem is very little to do with the continental signings of the summer and it is time that Sherwood spin was knocked on the head.  Like DW I never expected anything from us pre Christmas as new players settled in. What has blown that theory out of the water is the abominably awful performances of the players the imports were added to.  The performances of Guzan, Richardson, Westwood, Agbonlahor and Clark with the added rubbish of Blackburn's Gestede and Stripeyfilth's Lescott are why we are where we are.

[Walmley_Villa]

Our problem is very little to do with the continental signings of the summer and it is time that Sherwood spin was knocked on the head.  Like DW I never expected anything from us pre Christmas as new players settled in. What has blown that theory out of the water is the abominably awful performances of the players the imports were added to.  The performances of Guzan, Richardson, Westwood, Agbonlahor and Clark with the added rubbish of Blackburn's Gestede and Stripeyfilth's Lescott are why we are where we are.

Have to agree Brian, the experienced players especially at the back have contributed massively to where we are.

[Mortimer's Bear]

Most of the players brought in aren't good enough. Hence why we have 5 points on 1st December.......5 points is horrific - I wince when I look at the Prem League table.

Yep and there were plenty of people saying it was purely down to the Manager, no doubt that Sherwood lost the plot but no doubting that you can not replace Vlaar Delph Benteke and Cleverly with Ayew Gana Amavi and Vertout.
Chuck in the basket case Guzan and you have a recipe for disaster.

Guzan has made some decent saves in the last few games.

[SheffieldVillain]

Lerner 's  is ultimately responsible for leaving us in the position of trying to regenerate an entire squad in one summer. If he had any sense left he would give Garde big money as he gave Houllier big money to get a striker and a centre half. Time will tell if he even tries to give it a go.

I really hope we do go down the route of bringing in two/three players of real quality (striker, centre half, left back to cover Amavi) rather than trying to spread the money across five/six lesser signings. Ayew, Gana, Veretout and Richards were decent signings but there are such gaping holes in the team that they need some help.

If Sherwood / Reilly / whoever was responsible really thought Gestede could ever be a replacement for Benteke I question their sanity. You can tell from watching him for five minutes exactly what he can do (head the ball unbelievably well) and what he can't (everything else). I feel sure there must have been another striker available somewhere in the world for 5m who would have been of more use.

[oldhill_avfc]

Our problem is very little to do with the continental signings of the summer and it is time that Sherwood spin was knocked on the head.  Like DW I never expected anything from us pre Christmas as new players settled in. What has blown that theory out of the water is the abominably awful performances of the players the imports were added to.  The performances of Guzan, Richardson, Westwood, Agbonlahor and Clark with the added rubbish of Blackburn's Gestede and Stripeyfilth's Lescott are why we are where we are.

The fact is that if you assess each player one-by-one maybe only a couple are good enough to play at this level  - new and existing players alike.  After seeing the first game of the season, I felt (and posted on here) that we could easily finish rock bottom - that was based on what I saw as massive limitations of the new players and the known weaknesses of the existing ones. 

I agree Sherwood is trying to spin his way out of it to protect his reputation, but he's as culpable as the rest of the 'committee' for not ensuring enough quality was brought in to replace all the key weaknesses. 

If he didn't agree with the plan and the extent of its execution he should have resigned and then pursued the club for constructive dismissal.

[Malandro]

Our problem is very little to do with the continental signings of the summer and it is time that Sherwood spin was knocked on the head.  Like DW I never expected anything from us pre Christmas as new players settled in. What has blown that theory out of the water is the abominably awful performances of the players the imports were added to.  The performances of Guzan, Richardson, Westwood, Agbonlahor and Clark with the added rubbish of Blackburn's Gestede and Stripeyfilth's Lescott are why we are where we are.

  After seeing the first game of the season, I felt (and posted on here) that we could easily finish rock bottom

You did better than me, I thought we'd be mid table easily!

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How was anybody able to make an assessment on the likes of Ayew and Veretout after a few games when they've hardly played until now?