Randy Lerner

[Big Dick Edwards]

ExlDawg, while your summary is pretty much spot on, someone has to take the blame for allowing O'Neill to overspend so massively on over-priced/overpaid players he never used, to the point where the policy got us into severe financial difficulties. The buck stops at the top, does it not?

[glasses]

If MON spent all the money, how do you explain Darren Bent, Makoun, N'zogbia, Given being given massive contracts and left for bugger all.

There has been investment, it's just been given to shit managers and we've had no backroom nous. He is ultimately to blame for not putting a structure in place to protect his investment. I take on board the argument that MON wouldn't allow it when he was here, but not setting one up when he left is the root of all the issues since

[supertom]

ExlDawg, while your summary is pretty much spot on, someone has to take the blame for allowing O'Neill to overspend so massively on over-priced/overpaid players he never used, to the point where the policy got us into severe financial difficulties. The buck stops at the top, does it not?

Yes.
Any manager given Carte Blanche is going to make the most of it, regardless of whether they'll use the dosh wisely (which O Neill didn't entirely do). That said O Neill will doubtless counter that for the money we didn't recoup on half his signings, we made a lot on Young, Downing and Milner.

[ExclDawg]

ExlDawg, while your summary is pretty much spot on, someone has to take the blame for allowing O'Neill to overspend so massively on over-priced/overpaid players he never used, to the point where the policy got us into severe financial difficulties. The buck stops at the top, does it not?

But to that point, how would he know he wasn't going to play those players until after he already spent the money on them?  I think that was the biggest point of contention, wasn't it?  He was asking why he was paying so much for guys like N'Zogbia Habib Beye to sit on the bench and that if he wasn't going to use them, he needed to sell them.  So MON up and quit.

[Sexual Ealing]

ExlDawg, while your summary is pretty much spot on, someone has to take the blame for allowing O'Neill to overspend so massively on over-priced/overpaid players he never used, to the point where the policy got us into severe financial difficulties. The buck stops at the top, does it not?

But to that point, how would he know he wasn't going to play those players until after he already spent the money on them?  I think that was the biggest point of contention, wasn't it?  He was asking why he was paying so much for guys like N'Zogbia to sit on the bench and that if he wasn't going to use them, he needed to sell them.  So MON up and quit.

MON didn't sign N'Zogbia.

[Ormy Droid]

ExlDawg, while your summary is pretty much spot on, someone has to take the blame for allowing O'Neill to overspend so massively on over-priced/overpaid players he never used, to the point where the policy got us into severe financial difficulties. The buck stops at the top, does it not?

Yes.
Any manager given Carte Blanche is going to make the most of it, regardless of whether they'll use the dosh wisely (which O Neill didn't entirely do). That said O Neill will doubtless counter that for the money we didn't recoup on half his signings, we made a lot on Young, Downing and Milner.

Doesn't quite make up for the tens of millions he wasted on all the other useless fuckers he bought and hardly ever played though does it?

[ExclDawg]

MON didn't sign N'Zogbia.

Sorry, it was Habib Beye I was thinking of.

[Legion]

Who?

[ExclDawg]

Who?

I'm not sure either ... but whatever it was cost £42,000 a week.

[ExclDawg]

If MON spent all the money, how do you explain Darren Bent, Makoun, N'zogbia, Given being given massive contracts and left for bugger all.

There has been investment, it's just been given to shit managers and we've had no backroom nous. He is ultimately to blame for not putting a structure in place to protect his investment. I take on board the argument that MON wouldn't allow it when he was here, but not setting one up when he left is the root of all the issues since

I do agree with you that he's hired some crap managers and front office personnel.  He was pretty amazing at doing just that for the Browns as well.  But I guess the argument is that he really couldn't bring in any "game changers" as managers after that 2010 season.  The ship was already on fire and sinking.  He was paying crazy salaries that he had to unload and ticket sales were falling off the map as well.  No manager worth his salt was really going to walk into a situation like that.

By no means am I saying Lerner is blameless.  He has this amazing "Bizarro King Midas" thing going for him, where everything he touches/hires turns to shit.  But before 2010, nobody had any problem with him.  I just don't know what obvious thing he could of done that would of dramatically turned things around for the club.  We still had to unload tons of salary and some top manager wasn't going to take on that task.

[sickbeggar]

ExlDawg, while your summary is pretty much spot on, someone has to take the blame for allowing O'Neill to overspend so massively on over-priced/overpaid players he never used, to the point where the policy got us into severe financial difficulties. The buck stops at the top, does it not?

Yes.
Any manager given Carte Blanche is going to make the most of it, regardless of whether they'll use the dosh wisely (which O Neill didn't entirely do). That said O Neill will doubtless counter that for the money we didn't recoup on half his signings, we made a lot on Young, Downing and Milner.

Doesn't quite make up for the tens of millions he wasted on all the other useless fuckers he bought and hardly ever played though does it?

yep. the fact that the 14m profit he made on the likes of Milner was entirely eaten up and surpassed  by buying and paying the wages of MFH and reo-coker for 3 years seemed to have escaped his attention or is conveniently ignored. Ditto for Young and Downing.

[Ad@m]

But before 2010, nobody had any problem with him.  I just don't know what obvious thing he could of done that would of dramatically turned things around for the club.  We still had to unload tons of salary and some top manager wasn't going to take on that task.

By 2010 it was too late unfortunately.  The major error was in putting 100% blind faith in MON - by the time he flounced out it would've needed a miracle for us to not struggle. 

That said, we also shouldn't have been relegated within six years and that's definitely down to Randy following every bad managerial appointment with another bad managerial appointment.  He's clearly just not very good at sports administration - we were happy to write the Browns experience off as a one-off when Randy arrived but in hind sight, running sports teams just isn't something Randy's any good at.

[oldhill_avfc]

Agreed that it was too late by 2010, but not quite for the reasons you mentioned.

The problem was that he spent heavily on the playing side but didn't put in place the structures to make it all sustainable.  In particular he needed to markedly increase the commercial revenue and (and don't laugh here) he also needed to expand the ground and of course fill it to sustain the Champions League status if were ever lucky enough to achieve it.

I'm not trying to be clever here with the benefit of hindsight - I said it at the time.

It's only now that I think the structure is being put into place, although arguably with the wrong personnel - both Faulkener and Fox seem to be a position or two too senior for their ability.

[ChicagoLion]

The Idea that there was not much he could do after the MON flounce is far fetched.
He could have got somebody that knew the English Game to advise him.
He could have Hired any body but Mcleish. He could have got rid of Lambert when it was obvious the wheels had come off instead of handing him a new contract. He could have taken a bit more interest in what was happening at the Club.
The list of could have should have is endless.

[Nelly]

I've always thought Lerner has invested massive to good amounts into players and not to forget has has written off loans the club owed to him/his family. I'm another who believes that he should have tried to set up the clubs infrastructure alongside the first team. I've always thought his biggest problem was naivety with the people he trusted to run the club day to day. We've been crying out for someone with experience. Nice guy I'm sure, genuinely has tried his best probably, but arrogant in his inability to get the right people in to manage the club rather than friends of his.