The pivotal moment was that Monday in August 2010 when O'Neill flounced off five days before the start of the season and left Lerner in the lurch, not knowing what the hell to do. In that moment Lerner was exposed as a rabbit in headlights and revealed to be out of his depth. The floundering started, austerity was introduced, the managers came and went as we drifted downwards and backwards, and the humiliations came thick and fast as the established sides easily beat us without getting out of second gear, the up and coming Swanseas and Southamptons and Stokes overtook us, and the lower league teams gleefully picked us off in cup competitions. I thought our nadir had been reached last May, and we would begin the journey back to better things this season, but judging by what I've seen recently my optimism may have been misplaced. Even up to as recently as the Brentford game I thought that the team would click and results would come, but the realisation has dawned that what we're witnessing is another mediocre manager, another (with one or two exceptions) team of mediocre players comprising last season's leftovers and a yet another clutch of poor purchases. I'm very much afraid that we are now into season number 7 of the downward spiral. The misery continues...
Agree with every word and every sentiment expressed on this thread. Except ravens don't eat worms. They feed on carrion which makes the roosting on Villa Park an excellent metaphor.In my mind/imagination we walked onto the hangman's scaffold the day Randy Lerner decided that the scaling back of fan expectation was the central plank in a policy of reduced losses at Villa Park. Lambert was sent for, doffed his cap and promised to deliver cut price mid table stability. He actually boasted about reducing the fans' expectations.The big difference between this horrible slump and previous horrible slumps is that in past ones we, the fans never stopped believing that we would rise again, stronger than ever. This time there seems to be widespread acceptance that we will take our place alongside Leeds and Forest and live on our memories.
Quote from: paul richard on October 02, 2016, 04:08:05 PMThe pivotal moment was that Monday in August 2010 when O'Neill flounced off five days before the start of the season and left Lerner in the lurch, not knowing what the hell to do. In that moment Lerner was exposed as a rabbit in headlights and revealed to be out of his depth. The floundering started, austerity was introduced, the managers came and went as we drifted downwards and backwards, and the humiliations came thick and fast as the established sides easily beat us without getting out of second gear, the up and coming Swanseas and Southamptons and Stokes overtook us, and the lower league teams gleefully picked us off in cup competitions. I thought our nadir had been reached last May, and we would begin the journey back to better things this season, but judging by what I've seen recently my optimism may have been misplaced. Even up to as recently as the Brentford game I thought that the team would click and results would come, but the realisation has dawned that what we're witnessing is another mediocre manager, another (with one or two exceptions) team of mediocre players comprising last season's leftovers and a yet another clutch of poor purchases. I'm very much afraid that we are now into season number 7 of the downward spiral. The misery continues...On the other thread someone was criticising me for saying we couldn't attract Bournemouth's manager...let's remember 5 seasons ago when our disappointing season consisted of us finishing 9th...and only a year since we'd been top 6...and only 4 months since we signed at the time England's main striker for 18m....we couldn't attract the Wigan Athletic manager to come here.That's when the warning bells to me about Lerner well and truly went off...a shambolic managerial search that ended up with McLeish and that followed the underwhelming appointment of Houllier.At least Dr Tony's search and appointment of RDM was professional and at least looked good on paper. More difficult during the season but I trust him to get in another suitable candidate.
The rot set in when I started my current job in April 2010. The first game we played after that was the 3-0 Semi Final defeat to Chelsea and things have deteriorated ever since. So if anybody fancies saving the Villa, then please feel free to offer me a job (though I'll clearly spend the majority of my time on the internet instead of doing any work).