Randy Lerner

[Risso]

Very good analysis Django, and while you can nitpick and argue about your rating of individual players, the overall point you make is spot on.

[rob_bridge]

All well and good but as stated before we have to consider wages.


CNZ cost us 9.5m. No he didn't. He has cost us £26m. 5m a year. And that is just one flop.

Add the (comparative) wages in and many of them come up short. Shorey joined us not Portsmouth even when they were spunking money like there was no tomorrow (which it transpired to be very dark).

[django]

That post is very interesting django and also should highlight that if the finances have been mishandled , it is clearly within the contract issuing side more so than actual player fees, plus the payments to managers we have put out of work.

Shows an average net spend of 13.15 million a season over the ten years, gross spend off 27.57 million a season, league average over the same time 33.15 million per season, incoming fees of 14 million a season.
Players in and out of 45 over the ten seasons and only 5 players apart from those brought in August that are still here or on loan.

First five seasons 88.85 million in total net, averaging 17.7 million a season
Last five seasons 42.65 million in total net, averaging 8.53 million a season.

So half the spend in the last 5 years, but interestingly 29 players in first 5 years spending an average 17.7 per season
37 players in the last 5 years spending 8.53 on average per season. Equating to average player cost first 5 years 3.05 million, to the spend on the last 5 years 1.15 million per player.
Buy monkeys but dont feed them peanuts, in Villas case buy monkeys and feed them caviar in the form of their contract.

I thought it was interesting seeing the average spend alongside our own, we effectively gave up competing when MON left. I can understand the need to cut costs, but combined with some bizarre managerial appointments, Houllier, Macleish and Sherwood and the contrasting styles...from counter attacking to expansive to defensive to gung-ho the squad has never had any chance to progress. It's slash and burn every couple of seasons and start again, but without the finances to support that kind of rebuilding.

Clubs with less support and less investment than us have survived in the league because they have a plan like Swansea, or because they can adapt to changes in circumstances/management and build on what they already have rather than lurching from crisis to crisis. It all points to rank bad management and oversight at the club.

[Villa in Denmark]

That post is very interesting django and also should highlight that if the finances have been mishandled , it is clearly within the contract issuing side more so than actual player fees, plus the payments to managers we have put out of work.

Shows an average net spend of 13.15 million a season over the ten years, gross spend off 27.57 million a season, league average over the same time 33.15 million per season, incoming fees of 14 million a season.
Players in and out of 45 over the ten seasons and only 5 players apart from those brought in August that are still here or on loan.

First five seasons 88.85 million in total net, averaging 17.7 million a season
Last five seasons 42.65 million in total net, averaging 8.53 million a season.

So half the spend in the last 5 years, but interestingly 29 players in first 5 years spending an average 17.7 per season
37 players in the last 5 years spending 8.53 on average per season. Equating to average player cost first 5 years 3.05 million, to the spend on the last 5 years 1.15 million per player.
Buy monkeys but dont feed them peanuts, in Villas case buy monkeys and feed them caviar in the form of their contract.

I'll have to disagree with you on that point.

Look at the players who we lost big time on, just on fees.
2007/08 Reo Coker - Paid £8M and a small fortune in wages and left for nothing.
2008/09 Curtis Davis Paid just shy of £10M, let go for ca. £2M
              Carlos Cuellar Paid £8M and left for nothing
              Luke Young Paid £6M left for a nominal fee.
2009/10 Stephen Warnock Paid £7M left for nothing.
2010/11 Stephen Ireland - Notionally £8M left for nothing.
               Darren Bent Paid £18M - left for nothing.
               Jean II Makoun Paid £6M - left for a nominal fee
2011/12 Charles N'Zogbia Paid £9.5M - will leave for nothing.

I'll leave out Lambert's £1M punts as we're probably at around 30% recovery which isn't great, but isn't awful.

That's £80M out of the door and what £3-4M back?

If we could have recovered a third of that outlay through decent squad management (and not issuing completely barmy contracts that make it nigh on impossible to shift those surplus to requirements before they run their contracts down, that would be an extra £25M to have invested back into the squad.  Not enough to challenge at the top end, but plenty to have avoided the shit sandwich that was January.


             

[Risso]

It's a combination of fees and wages for crap players that have done for us.  Marlon Fucking Harewood probably robbed us of £10m, and as for £65K a week for Heskey, it just beggars belief. 

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

Right now, I dislike Randy Lerner more than Donald Trump.

[pbavfckuwait]

VID there's a surprise you disagree with what I have wrote, just for a change hey.

If you read another post further down that page I state that from memory 27 players on that list left on a free, had contract cancelled or never came close to what we paid for them, this is poorly balanced out on the likes of Downing, Benteke etc and also you are agreeing with my point, even thou you don't realise it and how painful that will be when you acknowledge it, that the contracts issued placed the club numerous times in a position where they were willing to let go for nothing, cancel or take a big hit.
Look forward to your next post.

[Villa in Denmark]

There's no doubt the wages have sucked us dry, but we've also pissed money out the door on fees.
Christ Liverpool managed to salvage nearly 50% of the Andy Carroll fee didn't they?

Half sensible squad management could easily have put an extra £20-30M into the kitty without doing anything earth shattering.  Almost 10 years in before we appoint someone to look after managing the contracts is mind boggling.  We've done f##k all for 10 years to actively manage the value of the club's most valuable assets. That didn't even need an ounce of football knowledge, just basic common sense.

[KevinGage]

Good to see that in black and white - or red, yellow and green.

Of course the average will be swelled by the top 4, who can spunk £150 million in one window (Yanited) or £50 million + on one player (Citeh).

An average for the 16 clubs below the top 4 would be interesting, and I'd still say we'd be below average even compared to that lot since at least 2013.

[django]

Luke Young was not a flop He performed decently at both right and left back!

Maybe, and obviously people will disagree with my assessment of peoples relative success and failures, but Luke Young cost £6M a lot for a full back at that time (Middlesbrough had paid £2.5M for him the previous year) he then had one season as regular right back before being kept out of the team (by Carlos Cuellar playing out of position) and in his second and third seasons he was a semi regular filling in across the two full back positions.

Luke Young can hold his head high and say he never let anyone down in his time at Villa, but his signing for us was not a success.

[Villa in Denmark]

VID there's a surprise you disagree with what I have wrote, just for a change hey.

If you read another post further down that page I state that from memory 27 players on that list left on a free, had contract cancelled or never came close to what we paid for them, this is poorly balanced out on the likes of Downing, Benteke etc and also you are agreeing with my point, even thou you don't realise it and how painful that will be when you acknowledge it, that the contracts issued placed the club numerous times in a position where they were willing to let go for nothing, cancel or take a big hit.
Look forward to your next post.

Sorry if you feel it's personal, it's not. Debate the post, not the poster etc.

You quite clearly state that you think it's the contract issuing side that's screwed us which is what I disagreed with.
Yes the rest of the post ties in with what I wrote, but then surely that means you've started to argue against yourself?

[django]

Good to see that in black and white - or red, yellow and green.

Of course the average will be swelled by the top 4, who can spunk £150 million in one window (Yanited) or £50 million + on one player (Citeh).

An average for the 16 clubs below the top 4 would be interesting, and I'd still say we'd be below average even compared to that lot since at least 2013.

Yeah I thought about doing that and then I realised I'm supposed to be working!

The reason we have had so many players leave for free or substantially less than we paid for them is down to the lack of a coherent transfer policy. Sometimes you overpay on a player, or there career goes back a step and you lose money on them. But we have spent loads of money on players who then don't feature at all, you end up being stuck with them while they cost you money on wasted wages AND you lose any transfer value.

[pbavfckuwait]

VID I agree with you, thought the post where I stated 'staggering incompetence" would have gave the game away, total mismanagement no other way to describe it, but another point it should raise that as we have gone smaller and smaller net spend, the quality as we have seen has dipped alarmingly and yet we are not the big spenders over the ten years that maybe at times we have made ourselves out to be. 13.5 million average is not a staggering amount.

[pbavfckuwait]

To clarify the above post, it can be classed as staggering (13.5 mill) if we have been as mismanaged both on the playing and admin side like we have been , I suppose.

[Villa in Denmark]

Ah, didn't see that post.  It slipped under your larger post that I quoted. If you'd asked me to guess I'd have said that both 2008/09 and 2009/10 would have been net £40-50M.  They certainly felt like it.

Yes I'd agree staggering incompetence would be a fairly rational description.

Absolute and total f##kwittery of the highest order would also do the job for me.