Randy Lerner

[saunders_heroes]

...whether that's Bent keeping us up or the other two (plus Milner, Downing, etc) producing healthy profits on sale.

I'd have said Milner staying would have been worth more to us than any transfer fee. Especially when you consider that fee included Stephen fucking Ireland. We rolled over on that occasion, in stark contrast to when we dug our heals in over Barry and told Liverpool to fuck off.

Milner didn't want to stay though so we ran the risk of holding on to him and losing him at the end of his contract for nothing.  A reported fee of £28m (acknowledging the point that Ireland ended up being nigh on useless) was bloody good value for us, especially as we didn't get relegated as a result of selling him and wouldn't have increased our revenue had we kept him.

If you're going to argue the point about players being worth more had we dug our heels in, the only one to argue is Benteke.  He might just have kept us up this year.  If he had, the financial benefit would have dwarfed the transfer fee we got for him.

Nobody, but nobody, should have sanctioned that transfer involving Steven Ireland when we didn't have a manager. One of the most ludicrous transfers in recent years. If Milner were to be sold they should simply have insisted on cash. Eejits.

Absolutely spot on. No manager at the club and we go and sell one of our best players and replace him with some nut-case one season wonder. Who sanctioned it? It should never have happened, and I said it at the time as well.

[Ad@m]

Absolutely spot on. No manager at the club and we go and sell one of our best players and replace him with some nut-case one season wonder. Who sanctioned it? It should never have happened, and I said it at the time as well.

One of the strongest criticisms of Randy's tenure has been his haphazard approach to appointing managers and how this results in each manager wanting to bring his own players in. 

The usual solution to this which is trotted out is to have a DoF equivalent in charge of player acquisition and then appoint head coaches to fit in with the strategy.  So in this world (which is where we are now with the transfer committee, and which has generally done well) you don't need a manager to be in place to make signings as he would only be one voice of several involved in signing players.

[saunders_heroes]

Sorry, did you say our "transfer committee" has done well?

[Ad@m]

Sorry, did you say our "transfer committee" has done well?

I said our transfer dealings during Randy's tenure has been one of the few areas I think we've performed better than the norm.  Ireland is thankfully a notable exception but as others have said, at the time he wasn't the well known basket case he is now.

[Meanwood Villa]

Stephen Ireland a one season wonder? Must have missed that season. I know he won player of the year but wasn't that the McLeish one when essentially everyone had been shit?

Re blaming Randy for everything, at the end of the day he's the only constant in these last six years of unremitting shit so I think it's fair to say he carries the can.

The way some people talk on here you'd think disaster was inevitable and there was nothing poor Randy could do to avert it. Yet our previous contemporaries Everton and Tottenham are light years ahead of us. Stoke City, Southampton, West Ham have all overtaken us comfortably. Even the likes of perennial lower division fodder Swansea and Palace are better placed, they might both be struggling this year but they're not rock bottom and they've both finished above us each season since they've come up. Hell, look at the last five years and even fucking Albion have been better than us more often than not.

What's the common factor in all of those other clubs who've surpassed us? They haven't had bloody Randy Lerner running the show.

[ez]

Sorry, did you say our "transfer committee" has done well?

I said our transfer dealings during Randy's tenure has been one of the few areas I think we've performed better than the norm.  Ireland is thankfully a notable exception but as others have said, at the time he wasn't the well known basket case he is now.

I'm not sure about that. Under Lerner there's been quite a list of players bought that didn't need to be. O'Neil bought a lot of players but generally picked the same team. Then there's Lambert's young and hungry lot, and all 13 of last summers signings. A lot of these players we didn't make any money on at all.

[Ad@m]

Sorry, did you say our "transfer committee" has done well?

I said our transfer dealings during Randy's tenure has been one of the few areas I think we've performed better than the norm.  Ireland is thankfully a notable exception but as others have said, at the time he wasn't the well known basket case he is now.

I'm not sure about that. Under Lerner there's been quite a list of players bought that didn't need to be. O'Neil bought a lot of players but generally picked the same team. Then there's Lambert's young and hungry lot, and all 13 of last summers signings. A lot of these players we didn't make any money on at all.

Compare it to other clubs though.  Every clubs has hits and misses in transfer dealings.  Generally however our hits have been where we've spent decent money and our misses have been where we haven't spent very much.  Ultimately the latter comes down to the old adage of you get what you pay for.  I don't recall many expensive flops during Lerner's time (Ireland, NZog and Beye spring to mind but not many more) whereas Bent, Milner, Young, Downing, Benteke have all either saved us from relegation and/or produced tidy profits.

[Risso]

There have been many more expensive flops when you add in the wages factor:

Curtis Davis, Stephen Warnock, Marlon Harewood, Carlos Cuellar, Libor Kozak, Jean II Makoun, Shay Given, Emile Heskey, Rudy Gestede, Traore.  All have cost £6m+, or earned a fortune in wages over their contract, or both.  None provided anything like value for money, or likely will do.

[Dave]

Stephen Ireland a one season wonder? Must have missed that season. I know he won player of the year but wasn't that the McLeish one when essentially everyone had been shit?

Probably the one when he won young player of the year and persuaded us to waste all that money on him.

[Meanwood Villa]

Stephen Ireland a one season wonder? Must have missed that season. I know he won player of the year but wasn't that the McLeish one when essentially everyone had been shit?

Probably the one when he won young player of the year and persuaded us to waste all that money on him.

Fair point. He was a one season wonder for someone else.

[Whiney MacWhineface]

Absolutely spot on. No manager at the club and we go and sell one of our best players and replace him with some nut-case one season wonder. Who sanctioned it? It should never have happened, and I said it at the time as well.

I think, and I remain to be corrected here, that there are other internet places and even (gulp) real-life situations where you may have said this, but as far as I can ascertain you didn't say it here. The first criticism from you on the subject was over two years after he joined, at which point even Robbie Savage might have cottoned on he was a bit of a dud.

[Ad@m]

There have been many more expensive flops when you add in the wages factor:

Curtis Davis, Stephen Warnock, Marlon Harewood, Carlos Cuellar, Libor Kozak, Jean II Makoun, Shay Given, Emile Heskey, Rudy Gestede, Traore.  All have cost £6m+, or earned a fortune in wages over their contract, or both.  None provided anything like value for money, or likely will do.

But is that any different to any other club? The majority of those have been regular players over a number of seasons. In modern football terms that's value for money. Kozak, Gestede, and Traore may still come good - especially in the 2nd tier. And Makoun was a waste but I can't imagine his wages were that high when we plucked him out of the French league.

[oswald funkletrumpet]

Sorry, did you say our "transfer committee" has done well?

I said our transfer dealings during Randy's tenure has been one of the few areas I think we've performed better than the norm.  Ireland is thankfully a notable exception but as others have said, at the time he wasn't the well known basket case he is now.

performed better than the norm? jesus wept

habib beye cost 8 million
nzog 25 million
what did we get for reo coker?
what did we get for sidwell?
what did we get for makoun?
what did we get for warnock?
what did we get for dunne?
what did we get for collins?
what did we get for davies?

i think you get the jist

[PaulWinch again]

Cheers Randy you have turned Villa into an utter embarrassment.

[Percy McCarthy]

I wonder if, in his ten years of shit appointments, it has ever occurred to Randy to appoint someone who has previously had a job running a football club.