Randy Lerner

[Richard E]

I'm pretty sure we've been 8th or 9th in the ''wages league'' that one of the Sunday papers, the Observer, I think, publish on the results page on Sundays. The above suggests a bit of a drop.

The Independent

[saunders_heroes]

and that list shows you don't have spend loads of money on transfer fees, salaries and agents to compete. You need good players, through good scouting, good managers and coaches and confidence, Pardew, Koeman, Ranieri and the clubs they manage have done that.

Our wage bill is dropping as our league positions drops. Can you not see a link there?

[themossman]

and that list shows you don't have spend loads of money on transfer fees, salaries and agents to compete. You need good players, through good scouting, good managers and coaches and confidence, Pardew, Koeman, Ranieri and the clubs they manage have done that.

Our wage bill is dropping as our league positions drops. Can you not see a link there?

Except if you leave the top 6 aside there's barely any positive correlation between wages and league position this season.

[boboonthecorner]

Does everybody really believe RL is the anti-christ or the victim of terrible advice for the last few years. I don't know enough about the behind the scenes running of the club as so many people seem to? Everything seemed great when he had better advice but the last few years its got worse and worse. As I said I don't know but this has crossed my mind....

[old man villa fan]

and that list shows you don't have spend loads of money on transfer fees, salaries and agents to compete. You need good players, through good scouting, good managers and coaches and confidence, Pardew, Koeman, Ranieri and the clubs they manage have done that.

Our wage bill is dropping as our league positions drops. Can you not see a link there?

Except if you leave the top 6 aside there's barely any positive correlation between wages and league position this season.

Top 6 aside, there is not much between them. In fact, the spread is less than the jump from 7th to 6th.

[Jimbo]

Does everybody really believe RL is the anti-christ or the victim of terrible advice for the last few years. I don't know enough about the behind the scenes running of the club as so many people seem to? Everything seemed great when he had better advice but the last few years its got worse and worse. As I said I don't know but this has crossed my mind....

He's not evil, vindictive or in any way nasty, but he is very stupid, naive, aloof, capricious, detached and completely out of his depth. As Matt Law said, he and the club have made bad decision after bad decision, and they have been too arrogant and complacent to listen when people warned them where the club was heading. There is no evidence to suggest things will improve any time soon.

[Locko]

Our gormless, disinterested, distant owner has given up completely. I don't expect Lerner to endlessly plough his own cash into the club, however, for the club to be remotely self sustaining,I would have expected the owner to put to in place a proper management structure with qualified individuals in their respective positions. How long did we muddle along with a call centre manager running the show? Lerner is epically stupid.

 What next? A shoestring budget by championship standards and player acquisitions who are the cream of the conference?

I'll take anyone over Lerner. His wealth is a double edged sword, he has such considerable wealth he is completely insulated from any losses we make and as such can ignore what is going on. We are the rich kids discarded toy in the corner. Any leveraged buy out means the owner has to be actively engaged in making us a functional business again. That will do for me.

[VillaAlways]

Our gormless, disinterested, distant owner has given up completely. I don't expect Lerner to endlessly plough his own cash into the club, however, for the club to be remotely self sustaining,I would have expected the owner to put to in place a proper management structure with qualified individuals in their respective positions. How long did we muddle along with a call centre manager running the show? Lerner is epically stupid.

 What next? A shoestring budget by championship standards and player acquisitions who are the cream of the conference?

I'll take anyone over Lerner. His wealth is a double edged sword, he has such considerable wealth he is completely insulated from any losses we make and as such can ignore what is going on. We are the rich kids discarded toy in the corner. Any leveraged buy out means the owner has to be actively engaged in making us a functional business again. That will do for me.

This is a great post. Same way Lambert was allowed to muddle along for weeks without an assistant manager and not even a handful of coaching staff. Shocking!

[Toronto Villa]

and that list shows you don't have spend loads of money on transfer fees, salaries and agents to compete. You need good players, through good scouting, good managers and coaches and confidence, Pardew, Koeman, Ranieri and the clubs they manage have done that.

Our wage bill is dropping as our league positions drops. Can you not see a link there?

Yes and I am hoping for it to drop a bit more so that by the end we are top of the league.

You really do miss the obvious every time. That you don't need to spend the most to be a competitive side, yet the needle snapped off so long ago that you refuse to acknowledge that outside of those clubs who have so much to force a huge divide there is no real correlation between money spent and league position.

[themossman]

They both play a role obviously, but as TV says our bigger problem has been the decisions around how to use the money rather than the amount of money available, applying to both fees and wages. How many mahrez's could you have got for an agbonlahor at the start of this season?

[Ads]

If our wages for last season were £65million, then you'd expect, given the likely wages of Benteke, Delph and Cleverley, even accounting for Richards and Lescott that we would be up £100k per week in wages, roughly  £5 million over the year.

With relegation reducing the bill by 30%, even before the high earning deadwood of Gabby, N'Zogbia, Richards and Lescott, would see the wage bill drop to circa £42 million in the second division.

[Dave]

If our wages for last season were £65million, then you'd expect, given the likely wages of Benteke, Delph and Cleverley, even accounting for Richards and Lescott that we would be up £100k per week in wages, roughly  £5 million over the year.

With relegation reducing the bill by 30%, even before the high earning deadwood of Gabby, N'Zogbia, Richards and Lescott, would see the wage bill drop to circa £42 million in the second division.

For comparison, Championship wage bills range from £3.5m (MK Dons) to around £66m (QPR). Most are around the £20m mark.

[Risso]

One that had passed me by, but I've just read that Bolton are bottom of the Championship, £173M in debt and subject top both a transfer embargo and a winding up petition from HMRC?

Yep. Eddie Davis lives over here, and doesn't want to keep propping the club up any more. A cautionary tale about what happens to clubs who make losses, get relegated and then don't go back up quickly.

But of that £173m, didn't they have about £150m of it at the time they were relegated? Not that this means we don't need to care about our finances, but it's not quite the same situation as we would find ourselves in.

It would be if Lerner decided not to prop the club up financially any more. The debts are not necessarily the problem, having insufficient working capital to carry on trading is.

[Ads]

So we'd be above the average, but even with a drop in income of say 40%, we'd still be a nudge under 70% of turnover ratio.

Shift those four players and you'd free up £10,000,000 in wages, enough to buy 7-8 of the best Championship or lower end Premier League players. Which is why we'd go straight back up, as beyond Sunderland and Newcastle if they drop, nobody in that league can compete financially with that.

[Dave]

One that had passed me by, but I've just read that Bolton are bottom of the Championship, £173M in debt and subject top both a transfer embargo and a winding up petition from HMRC?

Yep. Eddie Davis lives over here, and doesn't want to keep propping the club up any more. A cautionary tale about what happens to clubs who make losses, get relegated and then don't go back up quickly.

But of that £173m, didn't they have about £150m of it at the time they were relegated? Not that this means we don't need to care about our finances, but it's not quite the same situation as we would find ourselves in.

It would be if Lerner decided not to prop the club up financially any more. The debts are not necessarily the problem, having insufficient working capital to carry on trading is.

But that's supposition that isn't really backed up by what he has done up to now isn't it? Is it now twice or thrice that he has converted the loans owed to RAL to equity?