Randy Lerner

[saunders_heroes]

What proof of poor advice are you basing that on? If anything I'd say he's been too stubborn to listen to any advice more than anything else. He's inflicted 6 seasons of austerity and misery onto us, and he couldn't give a shit about the consequences either. I think you're being too kind to him to suggest it's all down to "bad advice", and he knows full well what he's doing.

[Brend'Watkins]

He listened to the advice of Alex Fergueson.  In fact he bragged about it, or rather, the General did on his behalf.

[dave shelley]

Who advised him to appoint:

a) Houllier

b) McLeish

c) Lambert

d) Sherwood

e). who didn't advise him that an open chequebook policy under MON was financially suicidal and by dint, gave poor advice.

There's five instances for a start.  By going down this road all we are doing is going over the same ground ad nauseum and boring the shite out of other posters. 

Personally, I think all that can be said about Randy Lerner has been said and the only time we should discuss him in future is when he either sells or changes his policies to the betterment of Aston Villa.  But, as I say, that's a personal opinion.

[saunders_heroes]

The problem I have with your posts is the assumption he just got unlucky because he listened to the wrong people. I'd suggest he is the chief protagonist in our downfall because he just got bored of the club. I don't go with all this "bad advice" tripe, and you're always going to attract crap managers when their only remit is to lower the wage bill on an annual basis.

[SashasGrandad]

Years ago when we sold Andy Gray to Wolves - that could have been a disaster - but it wasn't . Seem to remember we did OK in the following couple of years.

[john e]

the most important decision is appointing the manager, get that right everything is a lot easier, get it wrong 3 or 4 times and you get what we have

you don't appoint a manager thinking he will fail, there was some good reasons for Houlier and Lambert, Sherwood did a job short term and now Garde who most people on here respect

but none have done what we hoped, and we reinvested the 50 million from Benteke and Delph in the summer so its not like we haven't spent on new players and the money was syphoned away

a lot is just down to bad luck i'm afraid,
 anyone can say they would have done it different with hindsight, but you only have to look at the old threads of Houlier, Lambert, N'zogbia, Lesscott, Richards, Garde, Ireland and a host more to realise that most of us get it wrong a lot of the time to,

we are just wrong on the internet not in real life

[brian green]

I think the Martin O'Neill years were when the termites got into the basement.  What we are witnessing now is the inevitable consequence of getting the foundations wrong.

[themossman]

For me, the big problem was the attempt to go from A to C whilst missing out B in between. We had a splurge and hope approach under MON which was clearly not sustainable unless, perhaps, we had achieved CL football.

When that went wrong we rushed towards the misguided young, cheap and hungry approach without respecting the fact that you can't cut aggressively without creating knock on effects like the failure to attract good managers and the ruining of players who get hot-housed into key roles in the squad or the toxic effects of having bad attitude chancers clogging up the squad who are vastly more well paid than those putting a shift in.

[Villa in Denmark]

The problem I have with your posts is the assumption he just got unlucky because he listened to the wrong people. I'd suggest he is the chief protagonist in our downfall because he just got bored of the club. I don't go with all this "bad advice" tripe, and you're always going to attract crap managers when their only remit is to lower the wage bill on an annual basis.

And the problem I have your posts is that you seen certain that he's done this deliberately. I notice that you can't raise a single cogent point to specifically answer just one of Dave's.

He's done it deliberately? That means he's thrown away £250 million, just to piss of a hundred thousand Villa fans? Really? You honestly believe that?

The "just got bored with it" gives the same answer. He's chucked £250M away because he can't be arsed?

Or alternatively he's just someone who's inordinately shit at running a sports club.

Either he's been badly advised or he's been too cocksure to seek advice.  The appointment of Hollis was the final act of relinquinshing any form of involvement. Something he should have done from day 1.

[tomd2103]

The problem I have with your posts is the assumption he just got unlucky because he listened to the wrong people. I'd suggest he is the chief protagonist in our downfall because he just got bored of the club. I don't go with all this "bad advice" tripe, and you're always going to attract crap managers when their only remit is to lower the wage bill on an annual basis.

And the problem I have your posts is that you seen certain that he's done this deliberately. I notice that you can't raise a single cogent point to specifically answer just one of Dave's.

He's done it deliberately? That means he's thrown away £250 million, just to piss of a hundred thousand Villa fans? Really? You honestly believe that?

The "just got bored with it" gives the same answer. He's chucked £250M away because he can't be arsed?

Or alternatively he's just someone who's inordinately shit at running a sports club.

Either he's been badly advised or he's been too cocksure to seek advice.  The appointment of Hollis was the final act of relinquinshing any form of involvement. Something he should have done from day 1.

I think that is somewhere nearer the truth though.  Either that or he realised just how much money it was going to take to get us competing for trophies and a Champions League place and decided against it. 

As mentioned above, it is all in the past now though and continually going over it is pretty futile.  All it now serves as is an example of how to not run a top flight football club.

[Villa in Denmark]

The problem I have with your posts is the assumption he just got unlucky because he listened to the wrong people. I'd suggest he is the chief protagonist in our downfall because he just got bored of the club. I don't go with all this "bad advice" tripe, and you're always going to attract crap managers when their only remit is to lower the wage bill on an annual basis.

And the problem I have your posts is that you seen certain that he's done this deliberately. I notice that you can't raise a single cogent point to specifically answer just one of Dave's.

He's done it deliberately? That means he's thrown away £250 million, just to piss of a hundred thousand Villa fans? Really? You honestly believe that?

The "just got bored with it" gives the same answer. He's chucked £250M away because he can't be arsed?

Or alternatively he's just someone who's inordinately shit at running a sports club.

Either he's been badly advised or he's been too cocksure to seek advice.  The appointment of Hollis was the final act of relinquinshing any form of involvement. Something he should have done from day 1.

I think that is somewhere nearer the truth though.  Either that or he realised just how much money it was going to take to get us competing for trophies and a Champions League place and decided against it. in the hole he was and shat himself. 

As mentioned above, it is all in the past now though and continually going over it is pretty futile.  All it now serves as is an example of how to not run a top flight football club.

I'd suggest is closer to the truth.

Everything post Houllier has been panic management.  I also suspect that at least some of the money has been from the Lerner family trust rather than his own bank account and they've been increasingly reluctant to fund things.

[DeKuip]

I think the Martin O'Neill years were when the termites got into the basement.  What we are witnessing now is the inevitable consequence of getting the foundations wrong.

True, we're one of a number of clubs who have suffered because wealthy owners have come in thinking they know something about the game they're investing in. Man City's Dubai owners inherited Brian Marwood from the Thai era and then added more football brains at executive level (the two guys from Barcelona) and entrusted these people with the footballing decisions.
Randy has blown a fortune by making the wrong choices and then not spotting the signs of termite infestation.

[dave.woodhall]

I think the Martin O'Neill years were when the termites got into the basement.  What we are witnessing now is the inevitable consequence of getting the foundations wrong.

True, we're one of a number of clubs who have suffered because wealthy owners have come in thinking they know something about the game they're investing in. Man City's Dubai owners inherited Brian Marwood from the Thai era and then added more football brains at executive level (the two guys from Barcelona) and entrusted these people with the footballing decisions.
Randy has blown a fortune by making the wrong choices and then not spotting the signs of termite infestation.

As Doug once said - business people lose all sense and reasoning once they get the scent of the dressing room in their nostrils (or something like that). How else do you explain the way a businessman like Mike Ashley has fucked up at Newcastle and going back further, NTL losing an absolute fortune investing in us? 

[brian green]

I suppose the exception that proves that rule is Kenwright.  He has strained his relatively modest fortune to the limit for Everton and looks like reaping the deserved benefit.  Perhaps being an impresario he is a natural steel balled risk taker.  Naive he ain't.

[saunders_heroes]

I suppose the exception that proves that rule is Kenwright.  He has strained his relatively modest fortune to the limit for Everton and looks like reaping the deserved benefit.  Perhaps being an impresario he is a natural steel balled risk taker.  Naive he ain't.

And he's put his heart and soul into the club, unlike our esteemed owner.