MikeMcKenna

Agree, as you say they are total car crash! My finance guy has done a basic breakdown which I will try to summarise later, but essentially the addition 21 mill in costs are 15 mill player costs 3 mill severance - lambert? 3 mill - Fox plus additional staff costs I have West Ham's figures for same period somewhere I will try find a link, but iirc correctly they made a reasonable profit on 120 mill turnover which is similar to ours. But it would be useful to compare theirs to ours to understand costs/staff etc. Reference The 17 mill loss relating to player transactions mentioned in note 27, doesn't that relate to 15/16?

As we are about to be relegated, I doubt these accounts are actually that material to our value. Being in the championship, no SKY money, reduced sponsorship/commercial etc will determine our value. Our sales could drop by up to 60 million if not more. We will get the first 25 mill parachute payment, so next year sales inc parachute say 83 mill at best This explains why they are desperately trying to reduce staff costs, offload players etc Valuing the club now is very difficult. Theoretically it is worth less now than he paid originally given it's soon to be Championship status. Assuming he still wants 150 mil, who would pay that for a Champsionship club with big doubts over whether and when we can return to the PL? Even 100 mill seems expensive. Any new buyer will have to invest heavily again.

Fox was appointed 21st August, so 9 months of the year was his and he was with us for almost the full season. He couldn't effect sponsorship but commercial is more ongoing and its decline can be fairly laid at his door.

Has anybody got accurate figures on how much Randy Lerner has invested in Aston Villa? Purchase price, loans etc If yes what does it represent in $$$$

And it begins. I seriously believe the club is clearing the decks and we are going to struggle next season. Hollis is by any other name an administrator who has come in to slash our costs and raise as much as he can from the sale of players. Hence the rumours of various players moving on. With King saying something about there being 'more difficult times ahead' I think we should brace ourselves.

"...which we've been trying to get for years..." Show me where? Whenever was there a sustained campaign against those that run the club or their strategy since RL arrived? Like 1968 we have started to voice our anger and call for change. I know personally back then that some also had a half empty attitude to any form of protest constantly saying 'nothing will change' but change DID happen because of protest. Doing nothing begets nothing. Like 1968 we have no idea whether OTDO74 will work but like 1968 we are doing something.

Who said protests, don't work? Yes times have changed but protests still create pressure and make the news. The situation now is almost indentical to 1968. If OTDO74 isn't making waves it wouldn't still be making news. Article tonight in BM.... http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villa-fans-protest-brought-11010565 A section of Aston Villa fans have reached such a breaking point with their club's demise that they have launched protests at Villa Park. The 'Out the Door on '74' movement prompted supporters to leave their seats early in Villa's Premier League defeat to Everton last week and similar action is planned for Sunday's Villa Park home match against Tottenham and the following home fixture against Chelsea. Villa are not renowned for having the most militant fanbase in football, but they do have some history of rallying fans to bring about positive change. John Russell can vividly remember helping to organise the first ever fans’ protest meeting at Aston Villa in 1968, which is believed to have been the first in the English game. With modern-day technology, football followers can come together to air their grievances in all manner of fanzines, internet forums and social media sites. But in the late 1960s, there was no such platform for a diminishing fanbase to vent its frustration about the demise of its beloved club – until Russell and his friend Brian Evans became so disillusioned with Villa’s board that they took the unprecedented step of rallying fellow fed-up fans into action. A woeful defeat to Preston on November 9 1968, which left the claret and blues marooned at the foot of the old Second Division table, was the catalyst, recalls Russell. “We provisionally booked Birmingham Town Hall, which was going to cost us £200, then contacted the Birmingham Mail’s Bob Blackburn, who was the Villa reporter,” he explains. “He came back and said ‘why don’t you hire Digbeth Civic Hall instead? It will only cost you half as much, it only holds half as many and if the Villa supporters wreck it, no-one will be too bothered. If they wreck the town hall, no-one will be too pleased’.” Russell and Evans had no idea how successful the meeting would be, even when around 1,000 disgruntled Villans packed into the Digbeth venue on 21 November 1968. The size of the turnout merely prompted pangs of fear for the pioneering organisers who were unsure how to address the crowd or what to say. They needn’t have worried. “In the end, it was solved by the directors of the Villa themselves, who sent the longest telegram in history,” remembers Russell. “I wish I’d still got it. It really was three or four feet long. We gathered together in a back room with the crowd getting really restless because the platform had cleared and they wondered what the hell was happening. “It was the most ambiguous telegram and we had no idea what it meant, but Brian Evans, who chaired the meeting, said ‘I don’t care what it says, just go out and say it says Aston Villa is up for sale’. So we did.” Russell paints a picture of a board of directors years behind the times, with the interests of the club at heart but without the necessary nous to lead Villa into the future. (MMcK: Not much has changed 58 years on) He admits that the inaugural public meeting in Villa’s history did not suddenly result in an overnight change with the old power-brokers instantly selling up . But the Villa fanatic, who made his first visit to Villa Park as a five-year-old for a reserve game in December 1944, believes it was a watershed moment. “The club was going absolutely nowhere,” says Russell. “You can get the general idea how depressing things were. “We just felt that the men in charge had lost the plot. We didn’t feel they had much idea about how to run a football club. "The sheer number of people at our meeting and our collective frustration was the kick up the backside that they needed. “They took it as a signal that perhaps they weren’t up to it, which they weren’t.” After tentative enquiries but no firm offers from several half-interested parties, the board traded their shares to one Herbert Douglas Ellis, then a director at Birmingham City, for a reported £55,000 in December 1968. Regardless of the opinion-splitting supremo that Ellis would go on to become, his takeover just over 40 years ago had moved Villa forward, despite a brief step back via the Third Division.

As someone said recently on Twitter, it as if Lerner has run over a black cat and is forever cursed. I don't think it is bad luck, I think it because he is just crap at running a business/football club, had the wrong strategies etc Appointing Hollis is imo just another attempt to push through cost savings or even worse....

Rob You mention 'something' is happening but all I have seen is paper rumours and suggestions from someone who said they speak to a low level employee who said 'something is happening'. I do not trust the current ownership/executives to get any changes right. I have also been told by low level employees that 'something is happening' in that they have sacked a number of employees, made others reapply for their jobs and cut out the biscuits. Cuts, Cuts and more cuts..... If some of the other rumours are to be believed they are letting the high earners go and that Garde is to be replaced by Bruce. Whoopy do.... The Bright Future is back on again. Anyone can say something is happening but it doesn't mean it's a 'good something' or that it will be positive for the club. Nothing in the next few weeks would surprise me apart from Lerner saying he is putting more money into the club and is committing to us getting back to the PL quickly. The accounts which are now officially overdue will be interesting.

My fear is that we go from one manager to another hoping they will eventually get it right. The latest rumour is Steve Bruce which is going to go down like a lead balloon with many if true, whereas others may say, he has a proven record in the Championship and be placated for another while. It just goes round and round and imho nothing will change under Randy Lerner, Fox etc as the Business Strategy is wrong. The club is broken and they don't know how to fix it

Stevo have PM'd you

Steve it is definitely NOT an anti-Garde protest. I was simply trying to illustrate that Fans have been protesting for years. I sent several tweets from my personal account with images which showed fans protesting about managers, Lerner, the board etc etc

Funny how he is so keen to defend club at all costs.

I really don't agree. We will sell more players and I think we could struggle next year to make an impact.

Good questions/points mate

My sense is that there has been a siege mentality at AVFC for years when questioned by the media. In recent times it has also felt like the fans are the enemy! It really is ironic thinking back to how Krulak tried to suck up to us. When he had a strop that was the turning point.

Trouble with that mate is that it could lead to a ban

Guys here is the latest press release following the man City game http://outthedooron74.co.uk/press-releases] Also we are working on a Open Letter to Randy letter for next week. If anyone has any ideas please post here. We know how tempting it is to abuse but please keep them clean :-)

Forget it mate, I struggle to take any thing you say seriously now.

Sorry mate, I don't agree with you. "Wanting to go" is what I and thousands of others do. It is ridiculous to say we are condoning the management of the club. Those that don't go to games any more have made no difference. I would rather they all turned up and protested in some way. A sold out VP park calling for Lerner Out that then walked out on the 74th minute in their masses would be a massive statement. When fans turn away they often don't come back, no matter how well we do. I know people who used to go to every game and then stopped going during the Ellis protest years. Many just got out of the habit and never came back when Lerner took over despite all the big money and relative success. If they wouldn't come back during Lerners first three seasons I don't know what would get them back. The most vociferous opponents to the OTDO74 campaign have tended to be those who don't go to games. That's their choice and I respect their right to do as they please, but imho they have lost any right to demand that I or others boycott and should in turn respect our decisions to keep going to matches. Currently the club is completely broke, nobody apart from the players is making money. As you know I despise Lerner but he is still having to put money in - if he stops we are insolvent and believe it or not I think there is a chance we could go into Administration. The rumour is that the finances are going to show another big loss. There comes a point where Lerner would be financially better off putting Villa into Adminstration than cutting his sale price. People will scoff at the idea but it really isn't that far fetched when you consider Lerner is a preferred debtor, Reform Acquisitions in the UK losses can be used to gain future tax breaks by the parent company Reform Acquisitions in the USA. I don't understand all this in detail but there is a tipping point. People are losing their jobs at VP and the screws are really on - they are cost cutting everywhere. Some of the staff have been told to reapply for their jobs. One of the staff told me at Everton that it felt the club was already in Administration! During the last 5/6 years the gates have been falling, but it hasn't made any difference to the direction of the club. The same was true of the Ellis years, Between 2001-3 when attendance money was more important, average gates dropped to around 31K but Ellis carried on. The gates are down by up to 15% since O'Neills years and it hasn't made any difference. Boycotts organized or personal have never worked and never will in my opinion beyond losing long term fans and future generations forever. The OTDO74 campaign maybe imperfect and have little visible effect but I think it has had a much bigger impact behind the scenes than people realize. Doing nothing generates nothing, doing something might change something.

I have obviously spoken to a lot of the media over the last two weeks and generally the consensus amongst them is that the Villa Press Office is appalling. The incident with Garde at the Press conference reflects the fact that the media really don't like the Villa PR guys and the publicity OTDO74 has had is another illustration. I met a guy from one of the main TV channels and asked him if he had asked the Press Office for a club comment after the protest. He laughed and said "Are you joking? They NEVER talk to us." A newspaper guy basically said ' the press loved reporting the protests given their relations with AVFC"

Gary, Just suggestion mate. Just go with what you think people will chant :-)

How about Out The Door on 74 - We won't take it anymore!

Your vociferous and continued opposition is strange and now amusing given your comment in v Everton pre match thread "I will be watching on TV but I promise to walk into the kitchen on 74 !" Thanks for your support assuming you actually made the arduous walk into the Kitchen. I will remind myself not to take your future posts seriously.

By the way our posts from https://www.facebook.com/outthedooron74/ have now reached over 37000 people which is staggering. If that many turned up v Spurs and massive numbers walked out imagine how big that story would be. :-)