Randy Lerner

[AVH87]

Surely Lerner won't want to sell us at the moment with the price he'd get now buyers won't consider us a PL side, he'll have to hope we come straight back up and then get rid.

[aj2k77]

The saddest thing about the position we are in and the amount of press coverage we have got recently is that there has been nothing about any interest in anyone purchasing the club from Randy.

Obviously 95% of that occurs behind confidentiality agreements etc but it would be a rare light in the tunnel of mediocrity if a takeover story broke.

The club is a mess from top to bottom and we're about to lose about 40% of our turnover and have the image of a rotting sardine. The only people interested right now I imagine would be vultures looking for a cheap deal.

[Billy Walker]

Surely Lerner won't want to sell us at the moment with the price he'd get now buyers won't consider us a PL side, he'll have to hope we come straight back up and then get rid.

Anything that Randy hopes or puts his mind to tends not to work out or happen and  I have absolutely zero faith in Lerner getting us straight back up. At this point in time the ideal solution for him and us would be for him to sell on right now whilst we still have a chance of staying up.  The impetus such a deal could give us might keep us up and help him save face.  If we did go down at least he wouldn't go down in history as the owner on whose watch we sank... Right, all we need is that potential new owner to show up *sigh* ...

[dave.woodhall]

Surely Lerner won't want to sell us at the moment with the price he'd get now buyers won't consider us a PL side, he'll have to hope we come straight back up and then get rid.

Anything that Randy hopes or puts his mind to tends not to work out or happen and  I have absolutely zero faith in Lerner getting us straight back up. At this point in time the ideal solution for him and us would be for him to sell on right now whilst we still have a chance of staying up.  The impetus such a deal could give us might keep us up and help him save face.  If we did go down at least he wouldn't go down in history as the owner on whose watch we sank... Right, all we need is that potential new owner to show up *sigh* ...

I'm not sure there's even been so much as a serious enquiry in the past two years.

[john e]

80-90% of Villa fans who don't post on message boards wont even know who the General is
so I doubt if many of them are getting all worked up about it

You'd be surprised. People who don't use heroesandvillains.info can read as well you know. Blinky has been in the press often enough down the years for a fair portion of fans to know who he is.

Same would go for Tom a Fox as well,
your the one that would be surprised to find the majority of Villa fans don't live in our little internet bubble, and find everything they do and say worth analysing

[Gareth]

Surely Lerner won't want to sell us at the moment with the price he'd get now buyers won't consider us a PL side, he'll have to hope we come straight back up and then get rid.

Anything that Randy hopes or puts his mind to tends not to work out or happen and  I have absolutely zero faith in Lerner getting us straight back up. At this point in time the ideal solution for him and us would be for him to sell on right now whilst we still have a chance of staying up.  The impetus such a deal could give us might keep us up and help him save face.  If we did go down at least he wouldn't go down in history as the owner on whose watch we sank... Right, all we need is that potential new owner to show up *sigh* ...

I'm not sure there's even been so much as a serious enquiry in the past two years.

I'd agree, which is the worrying thing, we are going to end up having to trust his regime to get us back up next year.....mmmm

[tomd2103]

The saddest thing about the position we are in and the amount of press coverage we have got recently is that there has been nothing about any interest in anyone purchasing the club from Randy.

Obviously 95% of that occurs behind confidentiality agreements etc but it would be a rare light in the tunnel of mediocrity if a takeover story broke.

The club is a mess from top to bottom and we're about to lose about 40% of our turnover and have the image of a rotting sardine. The only people interested right now I imagine would be vultures looking for a cheap deal.

I think even those looking for a cheap deal will bide their time in the hope that we fall further and the asking price comes down further. 

[Billy Walker]

Speaking purely as a layman, I just can't understand how no one in this era of unprecedented Premier League interest and exposure could find Aston Villa a potentially brilliant investment.  It's all been debated to death on here, I know, but is there a club with more potential out there in terms of location and infrastructure? To get the stadium up to 50-60k would only require developing a portion of the ground; over eight million people live within a fifty mile radius of the city.  The history and tradition of the club is up there with the very best. 

 What is holding potential investors back?  If it's FFP how on earth can such a thing be said to be helping the game when it is allowing clubs like ours to implode?  Is it that Randy is simply dithering and is not totally committed to selling?   Could it be political, maybe there are investors out there but they are being steered to other parts of England as part of the UK government's economic strategy?

 I have no idea what is going on.  I tend to try and keep a level head about things when it comes to Villa but the situation we now face, I genuinely feel, has the potential to lead us back to a place as dark as the one we faced in the late 1960s. You could plot the club's performances on a graph and if you did you would see the trend over the past five years is that unless we have a huge level of change in terms of ambition, investment, leadership and motivation, we are going to continue to sink.  In effect, if Randy remains at Villa he is going to need to do exactly what he did when he first arrived at the club: invest big.   That just ain't going to happen.

[PeterWithe]

My own view is that savvy businessmen aren't interested as far too big a % of the income has to be spent on staff to turn a serious profit, for those looking to do it as a vanity project, there are already lots of clubs owned by incredibly rich individuals, what ego driven businessman want to spend half a billion quid and still not be able to sit at the top table?

[dave.woodhall]

My own view is that savvy businessmen aren't interested as far too big a % of the income has to be spent on staff to turn a serious profit, for those looking to do it as a vanity project, there are already lots of clubs owned by incredibly rich individuals, what ego driven businessman want to spend half a billion quid and still not be able to sit at the top table?

I think that's pretty much right. When you look at how much it would cost, and what kind of success you'll get, a superyacht or a private Caribbean island are a lot more attractive.

[ez]

Is there a survival plan?
The reason we are spending so much time talking about the General, is because no one from the club has told us what the plan is in this transfer window.
Twist or stick?

There probably isn't a plan. Remember talk of a five year plan early on. Paul Lambert and a 'project'. Now the latest offering, Garde and the beginning of something big. All a bit vacuous.

[themossman]

I think Lerner well and truly busted the myth that in the sky money era premier league clubs are a money spinner. As well as the myth that we have the potential to swell our support by converting neutrals in the area, given there were no signs of this happening even when we were the up and coming club and jostling with Arsenal for 4th place.

So, I agree with you PW, there's not an obvious way out of this from an ownership perspective. Let's face it billionaires looking for an ego project will have their pick of clubs better than us, more undervalued than us and better located than us (well, in London).

[cheltenhamlion]

A few point. Firstly, even if General Krulak wanted to be here,  he isn't well enough to travel transatlantic. Secondly, he has nothing to do with the running of the club and hasn't done for years. Third, it is unfortunate that The Sun always call him when they want a Villa quote and he still hasn't grasped "no comment" as the best way to go. With him seeing Randy as a surrogate son he will always come out swinging in his defence.

I am interested in the comment a couple of pages back that seems to be aimed at AVST though. To just disregard an elected board as some kind of club flunkies, desperately trying to wangle a job at the Villa, does them a great disservice.

[Billy Walker]

I think Lerner well and truly busted the myth that in the sky money era premier league clubs are a money spinner. As well as the myth that we have the potential to swell our support by converting neutrals in the area, given there were no signs of this happening even when we were the up and coming club and jostling with Arsenal for 4th place.

So, I agree with you PW, there's not an obvious way out of this from an ownership perspective. Let's face it billionaires looking for an ego project will have their pick of clubs better than us, more undervalued than us and better located than us (well, in London).

The sad thing is there were signs of this happening.  In the first couple of years after Lerner's takeover crowds were consistently on the up.  We broke the 40k seasonal average for the first time in a long while.  If the investment had kept coming and if the momentum had been built upon I have no doubt the crowds would have continued to rise. Villa fans are no different to, say, Man City fans.  Invest and take care of the club, make the people dream, give them a winning team and people will come out to watch.

[bicky]

80-90% of Villa fans who don't post on message boards wont even know who the General is
so I doubt if many of them are getting all worked up about it

So do you have to post  to have any knowledge of the club you have supported for 56 yrs?