Randy Lerner

[Pete]

More specifically I suggested that his bravery is basically unknown to all but those who served alongside him. 

I'm not going to comment on his record a a Villa director, but in response to your comment above:

the Marines came under a heavy volume of mortar fire and sustained several casualties. Although seriously wounded himself, Captain Krulak unhesitatingly left his covered position and, thinking only of the welfare of his men, fearlessly maneuvered across the fire-swept terrain to ensure that his Marines were in effective defensive locations and capable of repelling an expected ground attack.... Captain Krulak fearlessly moved to a dangerously exposed vantage point from which he pinpointed the principal sources of hostile fire and skillfully coordinated fixed-wing air strikes and supporting artillery fire on the enemy positions, silencing the fire.....After repeatedly exposing himself to the relentless fire to supervise the evacuation of the casualties, he then personally led the platoon back to the main body of his Company across 3,000 meters of rugged mountain terrain to another patrol base and, although weak from loss of blood and the pain of his injuries, steadfastly refused medical evacuation until the arrival of another officer on the following morning.

[saunders_heroes]

I'm with VID on what he says. Whilst the spending is not what it was during Lerner's early years, it's not as if managers have been forced to build a team on free transfers and loans. I think we can all agree that some of the players that have come in haven't been good enough though.

Most of the damage was done in that period when we were signing the likes of Luna, Bennett, Westwood, Bacuna, Tonev, Bowery, Lowton, Sylla - were all those in Lambert's first season? Near enough I reckon.

The problem wasn't so much that we signed these players - signing them with a view to developing them wouldn't have been the worst idea - it was that we signed these players and most of them found themselves playing week in, week out, when they were patently not good enough at that time - combined with some home grown players who certainly weren't good enough.

Alex Ferguson is his pomp wouldn't have been able to do a thing with that motley crew, and the fact that we signed them all around the same time tells us that it was entirely down to Lerner wanting to hack away at our wage budget. It was entirely down to austerity which let's face it is the root cause of our decline.

[aj2k77]

I'm with VID on what he says. Whilst the spending is not what it was during Lerner's early years, it's not as if managers have been forced to build a team on free transfers and loans. I think we can all agree that some of the players that have come in haven't been good enough though.

Most of the damage was done in that period when we were signing the likes of Luna, Bennett, Westwood, Bacuna, Tonev, Bowery, Lowton, Sylla - were all those in Lambert's first season? Near enough I reckon.

The problem wasn't so much that we signed these players - signing them with a view to developing them wouldn't have been the worst idea - it was that we signed these players and most of them found themselves playing week in, week out, when they were patently not good enough at that time - combined with some home grown players who certainly weren't good enough.

Let's take Bowery for instance. How many other managers would have thought he was good enough for a premiership club? I know he didn't play much but Randy didn't cut the spending to the extent that resorted to Lambert having to buy a player who wasn't even good enough for League 1, never mind the Premiership.

No, but he did exert pressure to reduce the wage bill, which is another influencing factor.

Pretty sure the general mantra from the club at the time was "its not the transfer fees, it is the wage bill"

The end result was still the same

But maybe we had to, otherwise we wouldn't have done it.

i don't believe we had to reduce it that much, that quickly - that's what caused the problems. Too much of a cut, much too fast.

I can't remember if it was the first or second Lambert season but our wage bill actually increased rather than decreased by a couple of million for the season.

[Chris Harte]

I wonder if there is an opportunity for Aston Villa to become a supporter owned club, is there a possibility of crowdfunding enough money to buy out Randy Lerner?

Someone had a similar idea on the thread below:

http://www.heroesandvillains.info/forumv3/index.php?topic=55288.0

[pauliewalnuts]

More specifically I suggested that his bravery is basically unknown to all but those who served alongside him. 

I'm not going to comment on his record a a Villa director, but in response to your comment above:

the Marines came under a heavy volume of mortar fire and sustained several casualties. Although seriously wounded himself, Captain Krulak unhesitatingly left his covered position and, thinking only of the welfare of his men, fearlessly maneuvered across the fire-swept terrain to ensure that his Marines were in effective defensive locations and capable of repelling an expected ground attack.... Captain Krulak fearlessly moved to a dangerously exposed vantage point from which he pinpointed the principal sources of hostile fire and skillfully coordinated fixed-wing air strikes and supporting artillery fire on the enemy positions, silencing the fire.....After repeatedly exposing himself to the relentless fire to supervise the evacuation of the casualties, he then personally led the platoon back to the main body of his Company across 3,000 meters of rugged mountain terrain to another patrol base and, although weak from loss of blood and the pain of his injuries, steadfastly refused medical evacuation until the arrival of another officer on the following morning.

That's all well and good, but has he ever thrown a kettle over a pub?

[saunders_heroes]

HOORAH!

[Billy Walker]

Remember a few years ago when we had an influx of Cleveland Browns fans on the board having a nose, things turned out almost exactly the way they said they would.

Here's an article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer from 2005. Swap "Browns" for "Villa" and it could have been written yesterday

Browns lose president as fans lose confidence;



Here's what Browns owner Randy Lerner should learn from the Phil Savage fiasco: The team's fans are tired, shell-shocked and a little scared.
It has been 10 years since the original Browns moved to Baltimore, seven years since they were born again as an expansion team. In that decade, it has been one mess after another for this franchise of broken dreams.
Year after year....
Sunday after Sunday....
Loss after loss....
The fans keep renewing their overpriced tickets to the sold-out games. They keep coming, and yes, they keep complaining because they love this team so much.
They love the Browns of Paul Brown. Of Jim Brown. Of Otto Graham. Of Bernie Kosar. Of Brian Sipe. Of Paul Warfield. Of Mack and Byner. Of Minnifield and Dixon.
Not Butch and Carmen. Not Warren, Green and Garcia.
They long for the Browns of their youth, the Browns of their parents and grandparents. Those teams didn't always win and never went to a Super Bowl, but they were Browns teams that seemed to appreciate what it meant to play in front of some of the NFL's most passionate fans.
What we have now is a crisis in confidence, a sense that the family is falling apart, and the leader doesn't get it. That's why it was critical for John Collins to leave his position as team president, allowing Savage to remain as general manager.
The front office infighting is the fault of Lerner, who couldn't keep his friend and marketing man Collins from tinkering with Savage's football department. No matter what the spin is on the story, the fact is the team nearly lost Savage. The problem was the meddling of Collins and the reluctance of Lerner to stop it until it was nearly too late.
Since 1999, the Browns have been through five supposedly starting quarterbacks, four coaches and three player personnel types.
In three years under Lerner, the team has had three coaches, (soon to be) three presidents and 33 losses....

The parallels there to what has happened at Villa are too striking for me to ignore.  Randy Lerner is simply a very poor leader for a big business.  He seems to lack every trait required to be a successful owner: poor judgement of character, poor vision, poor strategist, infirm of decsision...you name it.  I don't doubt he lacks integrity and I certainly don't doubt that he is a decent person but he clearly isn't fit to run large sporting operations.

For me, personally, Lerner is now every bit as as toxic as Doug was.  I want him and everything associated with him so out of Villa Park it isn't true.  People will make the fair point that maybe we would be best sticking with Lerner because the next owner who comes in might be even worse - if the Browns are anything to go by it could be out of the frying pan and into the fire?  My view on that is that we are already toasting in the flames with Randy.  If there are no potential buyers out there I really would be up for the fans somehow getting ownership of the Club.  I'm at the stage/age now where I desperately want Villa to reclaim a place at the top table. I want to see the highest of standards, pride back in the Club and success that all Villa fans and the people of Birmingham can bask in.  I want us stuffing man utd and arsenal at Villa Park again.  If Lerner can't do it and there are no potential buyers out there who want to do it I'd be all for the fans trying to make something happen.  There are no guarantees, of course, and I know a lot of folk will be thinking what on earth can we as fans do to get the Club back on top?   Fair enough.  I just cannot, cannot stomach any more of Randy Lerner, he is now doing far more harm to the Club than good.

[dave.woodhall]

You are never, ever going to get a fan-based takeover. The initial cost would be way too high and bearing in mind the abuse our current owner gets for not spending his own money, where would further investment come from?

[hvkfa1]

Remember a few years ago when we had an influx of Cleveland Browns fans on the board having a nose, things turned out almost exactly the way they said they would.

Here's an article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer from 2005. Swap "Browns" for "Villa" and it could have been written yesterday

Browns lose president as fans lose confidence;



Here's what Browns owner Randy Lerner should learn from the Phil Savage fiasco: The team's fans are tired, shell-shocked and a little scared.
It has been 10 years since the original Browns moved to Baltimore, seven years since they were born again as an expansion team. In that decade, it has been one mess after another for this franchise of broken dreams.
Year after year....
Sunday after Sunday....
Loss after loss....
The fans keep renewing their overpriced tickets to the sold-out games. They keep coming, and yes, they keep complaining because they love this team so much.
They love the Browns of Paul Brown. Of Jim Brown. Of Otto Graham. Of Bernie Kosar. Of Brian Sipe. Of Paul Warfield. Of Mack and Byner. Of Minnifield and Dixon.
Not Butch and Carmen. Not Warren, Green and Garcia.
They long for the Browns of their youth, the Browns of their parents and grandparents. Those teams didn't always win and never went to a Super Bowl, but they were Browns teams that seemed to appreciate what it meant to play in front of some of the NFL's most passionate fans.
What we have now is a crisis in confidence, a sense that the family is falling apart, and the leader doesn't get it. That's why it was critical for John Collins to leave his position as team president, allowing Savage to remain as general manager.
The front office infighting is the fault of Lerner, who couldn't keep his friend and marketing man Collins from tinkering with Savage's football department. No matter what the spin is on the story, the fact is the team nearly lost Savage. The problem was the meddling of Collins and the reluctance of Lerner to stop it until it was nearly too late.
Since 1999, the Browns have been through five supposedly starting quarterbacks, four coaches and three player personnel types.
In three years under Lerner, the team has had three coaches, (soon to be) three presidents and 33 losses....

The parallels there to what has happened at Villa are too striking for me to ignore.  Randy Lerner is simply a very poor leader for a big business.  He seems to lack every trait required to be a successful owner: poor judgement of character, poor vision, poor strategist, infirm of decsision...you name it.  I don't doubt he lacks integrity and I certainly don't doubt that he is a decent person but he clearly isn't fit to run large sporting operations.

For me, personally, Lerner is now every bit as as toxic as Doug was.  I want him and everything associated with him so out of Villa Park it isn't true.  People will make the fair point that maybe we would be best sticking with Lerner because the next owner who comes in might be even worse - if the Browns are anything to go by it could be out of the frying pan and into the fire?  My view on that is that we are already toasting in the flames with Randy.  If there are no potential buyers out there I really would be up for the fans somehow getting ownership of the Club.  I'm at the stage/age now where I desperately want Villa to reclaim a place at the top table. I want to see the highest of standards and, pride back in the Club and success that all Villa fans and the people of Birmingham can bask in.  I want us stuffing man utd and arsenal at Villa Park again.  If Lerner can't do it and there are no potential buyers out there who want to do it I'd be all for the fans trying to make something happen.  There are no guarantees, of course, and I know a lot of folk will be thinking what on earth can we as fans do to get the Club back on top?   Fair enough.  I just cannot, cannot stomach any more of Randy Lerner, he is now doing far more harm to the Club than good.

What a great post. The thought of those people having access all areas at Villa Park and BMH makes me feel sick to the pits of my stomach, as if we have had burglars in. It in no good people trying to compare Lerner with Ellis. We wanted Ellis to go and he did. Now we are left with a total shambles. The regime of Lerner is totally indefensible. He is grossly incompetent in running the club.

[cheltenhamlion]

We wanted Ellis to go for a bloody long time before he did. On his own terms.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

I agree with the general consensus above. Lambert's three summers had three different approaches - mainly lower divisions, mainly lesser European leagues, mainly grizzled old pros. A mix of the three throughout might have seen his approach work, but instead you had players such as Westwood, Lowton and possibly Bennett, plus our home-growns, thrown in as regulars and playing when they were clearly in need of being dropped. The same has happened now with Guzan.

The young and hungry thing was, I thought, incredibly naive. At the centre of it were two enormous miscalculations

1. That if you threw the kids into the premier league, it'd be hard, but they'll blossom into decent performers - "they just will".

2. That if you convince yourself that it'll work, it will work, despite the obvious fact that, were it that easy, everyone would be doing it.

The biggest miscalculation with the 'young and hungry' that doomed it to failure from Day 1 was that we didn't have the right manager to execute the plan, we needed a manager/coach that could both develop the players and obviously keep us up. Lambert had absolutely nothing on his CV to even hint that he was the man for the job, yet the board insisted in forcing a square peg in a round hole.

[Chris Harte]

I can't remember if it was the first or second Lambert season but our wage bill actually increased rather than decreased by a couple of million for the season.

You  provided me with the figures here:
http://www.heroesandvillains.info/forumv3/index.php?topic=55324.msg2986524#msg2986524

[themossman]

We wanted Ellis to go for a bloody long time before he did. On his own terms.

Quite. All this Doug revisionist shite. If he'd been serious about selling when he should have, we might have had a takeover before citeh spoiled things and maybe had a better chance of that top 4 thing. We were heading for relegation by the time he left, as a result of which Lerner started from a low base.

[bertlambshank]

Changing Randy's Wiki page is just plain stupid.Time for everyone to cool down a bit.

[sirlordbaltimore]

You are never, ever going to get a fan-based takeover. The initial cost would be way too high and bearing in mind the abuse our current owner gets for not spending his own money, where would further investment come from?

This.