New chairman and Lerner ramblings

[ozzjim]

I am willing to give this chap a chance. Thankfully much like replacing Gestede up front, the starting expectation for him is low. A chair quite rightly should be more business or at least organisational minded than football. But the board he builds needs to have football knowledge on it. Good luck to him.

[Villa in Denmark]

Depends on whether he appoints a footballing NED. Not something Fox could have done as CEO, that would have been Lerner's perogative as chairman.

Yes there's a lot of "corporate speak" in the statement, but this is a guy that's spent decades in that environment so that's his natural vocabulary.

If this works how it should, he's been brought in to identify where the whole thing has gone south from an organisational and structural point of view and make sure the board members deliver and appoint extra board members if required, obviously someone with football experience should be first on the list.

Hopefully Lerner's only involvement in future will be if Hollis goes to Lerner for funding as lender of first resort.

[PaulWinch again]

I am willing to give this chap a chance. Thankfully much like replacing Gestede up front, the starting expectation for him is low. A chair quite rightly should be more business or at least organisational minded than football. But the board he builds needs to have football knowledge on it. Good luck to him.

Agreed seems harsh to write him off already.

[LeeB]

I think we'd pretty much all agree that the one thing that could improve this clueless clusterfuck of a management structure would be another executive who knows nothing about football.

I think we need two, just to be sure.

[Pat McMahon]

2. It's a bit rich of Lerner to talk about failure in the last five years when watching it happen and leaving it the point of absolutely no return and fans getting into public confrontations with players before doing anything about it.

That's the part that caught my attention Kippax. Basically " this club has not been on a stable footing for 5 years" screams I have been too inept / disinterested to deal with this. Somewhat neglectful, I would say.

The statement by Hollis reads fine by me. Not very inspiring but as a first communique it is fine.

[pauliewalnuts]

2. It's a bit rich of Lerner to talk about failure in the last five years when watching it happen and leaving it the point of absolutely no return and fans getting into public confrontations with players before doing anything about it.

That's the part that caught my attention Kippax. Basically " this club has not been on a stable footing for 5 years" screams I have been too inept / disinterested to deal with this. Somewhat neglectful, I would say.

Yep.

Although I also noticed the reference that followed, specifically regarding Bodymoor Heath, which made it sound like they thought the management side of things was great, it was all about training ground problems.

[LTA]

2. It's a bit rich of Lerner to talk about failure in the last five years when watching it happen and leaving it the point of absolutely no return and fans getting into public confrontations with players before doing anything about it.

That's the part that caught my attention Kippax. Basically " this club has not been on a stable footing for 5 years" screams I have been too inept / disinterested to deal with this. Somewhat neglectful, I would say.

The statement by Hollis reads fine by me. Not very inspiring but as a first communique it is fine.

His interview on the news earlier was less than inspiring.  The fact that he thought it was one of his mates winding him up says it all about this ludicrous appointment.

[paul_e]

2. It's a bit rich of Lerner to talk about failure in the last five years when watching it happen and leaving it the point of absolutely no return and fans getting into public confrontations with players before doing anything about it.

Not true, this has been arranged for at least 6 weeks, the original statement makes that clear, the timing is a coincidence and nothing more.

I really hope this guy succeeds but there is a lot of corporate speak about 'phases, shake ups, troubled organisations etc and precious little about how we are actually going to improve our lot on the pitch and given Randys appalling record regarding appointments I'm still nervous about what will happen next.

What would you expect a guy who outright states he's not a football man to say in this regard?

The fact that Lerner is stepping back further (is this possible) is a good thing

It's not so much stepping back, it's more replacing the need to hunt him down to ask about finances with walking down the corridor to speak to Hollis instead, that's my view, Hollis will have an overall budget and he'll have total control from there.  I suspect the only involvement from Lerner now will be regarding a buyout and an annual review, which is fine, we need to remove the complexity that is him having to be involved and not wanting to be.

I agree that a football man on the board would be a good idea and I like the idea of Brian Little being the choice for that, hopefully something will come of that pretty quickly.

[peter w]

I am willing to give this chap a chance. Thankfully much like replacing Gestede up front, the starting expectation for him is low. A chair quite rightly should be more business or at least organisational minded than football. But the board he builds needs to have football knowledge on it. Good luck to him.

Quite. We've been run poor;y for a while now so lets see what he can do. Not really sure about his and Fox's role as they surely will cross over. But i get the feeling that fox won't be with us come the summer anyway. the more I hear garde speak the less I think we need a director of football and have a better linear model of Garde - Hollis - Lerner.

[tomd2103]

I think we'd pretty much all agree that the one thing that could improve this clueless clusterfuck of a management structure would be another executive who knows nothing about football.

Does he need to know anything about football for his role though?  There are people on here with far superior knowledge to me about how organisations work, but I see him simply as someone who has been employed to ensure the club is kept on a sound financial footing.  Either that, or he has been brought in with a view to us going down and his job is to oversee the business side of that change. It is the people below him in the structure that should be the 'football men', starting with Fox.  Although I have a major dislike of them, you have to look at the job Peace has done at the Albion during his time there.   Is he really a 'football man'.

The one thing I hope he can improve is the communication with the fans.  He seems to be a football fan himself, so hopefully we will see an end to the type of nonsense that has been spouted by the hierarchy at the club over the past few years. 

[ChicagoLion]

Pretty uninspiring appointment, another accountant.
Described as Dull.

[Martin Wadsworth]

2. It's a bit rich of Lerner to talk about failure in the last five years when watching it happen and leaving it the point of absolutely no return and fans getting into public confrontations with players before doing anything about it.

That's the part that caught my attention Kippax. Basically " this club has not been on a stable footing for 5 years" screams I have been too inept / disinterested to deal with this. Somewhat neglectful, I would say.

Yep.

Although I also noticed the reference that followed, specifically regarding Bodymoor Heath, which made it sound like they thought the management side of things was great, it was all about training ground problems.

Apparently, the toaster is fucked and they have run out of ketchup.

[pauliewalnuts]

The one thing I hope he can improve is the communication with the fans.  He seems to be a football fan himself, so hopefully we will see an end to the type of nonsense that has been spouted by the hierarchy at the club over the past few years. 

That's the opposite of what he said.

[paul_e]

I am willing to give this chap a chance. Thankfully much like replacing Gestede up front, the starting expectation for him is low. A chair quite rightly should be more business or at least organisational minded than football. But the board he builds needs to have football knowledge on it. Good luck to him.

Quite. We've been run poor;y for a while now so lets see what he can do. Not really sure about his and Fox's role as they surely will cross over. But i get the feeling that fox won't be with us come the summer anyway. the more I hear garde speak the less I think we need a director of football and have a better linear model of Garde - Hollis - Lerner.

I don't think that's right, imagine everything is exactly the same but the name at the top is now Hollis instead of Lerner, I believe that's how this is intended to work.

[Ads]

Supports Man City doesn't he?

I think one of our most significant problems has been Lerner inattention with his hand on the tiller. With his complete detachment from any sort of control and with a person who seems to want to deliver the systemic cleanse the club needs to rid the rotten core, be that an attitude of complacency or whatever the case may be, may well be the shot in the arm the club needs long term.