The Randy Lerner thread

[Big_John_10]

Perhaps Talksport asked the wrong question - I don't know, I didn't hear it.

They were discussing how villa were in danger of finishing low and how they managed to finish strong after two good wins and get a 9th place finish. He spoke highly of the club but sounded surprised that he had no contact with the owner at all.

[Houlston]

 

Or maybe McAllister was part of the reason it all kicked off with Dunne and Collins. Maybe McAllister and Lerner had already fallen out. Maybe Lerner thought the guy was an idiot or didnt like him.

I'd find it highly unlikely that if these scenarios were true Lerner would be happy for G mac to take over the first team.

 

Just because he may not have liked him doesnt mean in the short term he wants the best solution but long term it was a no go.

 

Also you are happy to admit Lerner hasnt got a clue so why suddenly is there applied logic or sound thinking on Lerners part to these scenarios.

 

My point is non of us know either way, there's one thing criticising team selections players etc but when it comes to a passing comment made by someone on a radio about a situation non of us know about or what the 'norm' is or what contact was made, why side or point the finger at anyone?

[PaulC]

If the worst does happen this season do you think our **** of an owner will have the decency to apologise to the supporters of this club through TV or Radio media or will we get some half arsed press release from Faulkner and the re-opening of the Twitter account they used during last summer?

Yes he should apologise for loaning the club 125 million or whatever ever amount he has loaned us. If anybody was interested in buying the club and paying off the loans then fine but its a pointless have a pop at Lerner all the time when they is nobody out there who wants to buy the club

Ellis was no saint either. The club won the league in 81, he took over and got rid of Saunders and we went into a bigger dip that what is happening now. He also made a fortune out of Villa.

[mykeyb]

OK Paul so who has to carry the can for where we find ourselves now?

 

He owns the club, he appointed Faulkner a man with no experience of running a sports franchise (sic), he appointed two directors to the board who both had a great deal of experience, both resigned after short stints and if the rumours are correct both pointed out that the cause Lerner had set AVFC on was unsustainable.

Lerner continued to till he got to the point where even he realised that he couldnt sustain it and instead of coming up with a plan to reduce overheads over a more managable time period he pretty much turned the tap off. He has loaned the club millions of pounds not given he will want as much back as he possibly can, that might be the reason we as a club are stuck with him.

 

In his time as owner he has appointed 3 managers all of whom have questin marks about their ability, maybe Lambert can prove he is up to the job, time will tell. I have seen more players leave on free transfers than perhaps at any other premiership club after taking some bloody good wages from us.

 

He has lost interest in the club and I believe if someone was to offer to pay him what he had spent & loaned the club he would be out of here tomorrow. There is a lot of people who think that if we get relegated Lerner will dig deep to get us back up at the first attempt.......I believe he will do no such thing. He wont recoup the money he has spent so far so he is not going to throw money at the problem again. He is more likely to distance himself further, we will have to live within our means, those means will have been dramatically reduced because of the loss of TV revenue and as someone who can remember the dark days of the old 3rd division I wouldnt be surprised if this fantastic owner we have according to some fans has bought a Premiership club and turned it into a Championship also ran.

 

The Wolves had the Bhatti Brothers....... we have Randy Lerner.

[briny_ear]

OK Paul so who has to carry the can for where we find ourselves now?

 

 

Just a wild punt, but I'm guessing it's going to be MON. 

[PaulC]

OK Paul so who has to carry the can for where we find ourselves now?

 

He owns the club, he appointed Faulkner a man with no experience of running a sports franchise (sic), he appointed two directors to the board who both had a great deal of experience, both resigned after short stints and if the rumours are correct both pointed out that the cause Lerner had set AVFC on was unsustainable.

Lerner continued to till he got to the point where even he realised that he couldnt sustain it and instead of coming up with a plan to reduce overheads over a more managable time period he pretty much turned the tap off. He has loaned the club millions of pounds not given he will want as much back as he possibly can, that might be the reason we as a club are stuck with him.

 

In his time as owner he has appointed 3 managers all of whom have questin marks about their ability, maybe Lambert can prove he is up to the job, time will tell. I have seen more players leave on free transfers than perhaps at any other premiership club after taking some bloody good wages from us.

 

He has lost interest in the club and I believe if someone was to offer to pay him what he had spent & loaned the club he would be out of here tomorrow. There is a lot of people who think that if we get relegated Lerner will dig deep to get us back up at the first attempt.......I believe he will do no such thing. He wont recoup the money he has spent so far so he is not going to throw money at the problem again. He is more likely to distance himself further, we will have to live within our means, those means will have been dramatically reduced because of the loss of TV revenue and as someone who can remember the dark days of the old 3rd division I wouldnt be surprised if this fantastic owner we have according to some fans has bought a Premiership club and turned it into a Championship also ran.

 

The Wolves had the Bhatti Brothers....... we have Randy Lerner.

No-one knows what his intentions are . Comparisons with the Bhatti Brothers are unfair. He has put major investment into the club and we spent 20 million in the summer. He backed Houllier with the signing of Bent, Mcleish witn Nzog and Hutton. Our wage bill is still too high! yes he's partially to blame for the choice of managers. Mcleish was a no brainer. Yes I do mainly blame Oneill for our current predicament. Perhaps Lerner was at fault for backing him for so long.

But how many people on here didn't want Lambert? He had done wonders with Norwich. Had a great pedigree as a player. I still think he's the right man whether we stay up or not.

[Morpheus]

You will find that there were one or two posters who didn't want Lambert including myself and i have yet to see anything from him that would suggest he is the right manager for us.

[HeyAnty]

Lerner is just a complete arsehole and he has presided over 3 consecutive seasons of failure and misery.

The sooner he goes the better.

I don't know why anybody would want to be an owner of a football club. He has invested a stack of money to try and get us into the champions league, unfortunately he saw the money was wasted and then he decided to cut the wage bill because we were living way beyond our means. Ok there's little contact but I think people are too harsh on him.

Its the way he invested it is the problem. Spends, spends, spends then slams on the brakes was the problem. No planning what so ever. A joke of a way to run any business. Its a perfect case of a child who has a new Toy and plays with it for a while. Eventually they get bored of it. Sure he doesnt even come to games any more

[PaulC]

Lerner is just a complete arsehole and he has presided over 3 consecutive seasons of failure and misery.

The sooner he goes the better.

I don't know why anybody would want to be an owner of a football club. He has invested a stack of money to try and get us into the champions league, unfortunately he saw the money was wasted and then he decided to cut the wage bill because we were living way beyond our means. Ok there's little contact but I think people are too harsh on him.

Its the way he invested it is the problem. Spends, spends, spends then slams on the brakes was the problem. No planning what so ever. A joke of a way to run any business. Its a perfect case of a child who has a new Toy and plays with it for a while. Eventually they get bored of it. Sure he doesnt even come to games any more

Yes maybe you are right he has lost interest, maybe his interest went after the financial meltdown and he lost a lot of his personal wealth. The question is who is going to buy our club. He wont sell it for the price it bought it and who can blame him for that. I'm sure football clubs are just toys to these rich people, but its easy for us fans to say spend spend spend when its not our money.

[HeyAnty]

I didnt say spend spend spend. Control the spending within the clubs means over a period of time. If he had done that we wouldnt be staring relegation in the face the past 3 years.

[PaulC]

But we spent 20 million in the summer, not many clubs spent more. Ok he didn't spend much in January but you don't get value for money in January. Look at QPR. I would hardly say hes slammed the brakes on.

Maybe once we get all the deadwood off our wage-bill he will invest a bit more heavily again

Edited April 26, 2013 by PaulC

[mykeyb]

The value of the club is directly related to how he has run the club, the fact he wouldn't get the full value of his investment back is completely of his own making.

His time at the browns has proven he is clueless.

If he isn't going to sell he needs to get someone in who well run not only the playing side well but also be able to run the business side properly too.

Had he actually listened to Fitzgerald or Cunnah at the time then we may have been in a much better financial position than we are now.

The last thing he will get from me is sympathy, I hope desperately that we avoid the drop but if we don't Lerner is going to be very very unpopular

[HeyAnty]

But we spent 20 million in the summer, not many clubs spent more. Ok he didn't spend much in January but you don't get value for money in January. Look at QPR. I would hardly say hes slammed the brakes on.

Maybe once we get all the deadwood off our wage-bill he will invest a bit more heavily again

20 mill is the least he could spend. We had no squad, we bought 7 or 8 players with that after we sold 4 players for around that amount each.

we both agree that Lambert is still the man for the Job. Remains to be seen if Lerner is, will let you know in sept.

[TRO]

OK Paul so who has to carry the can for where we find ourselves now?

Just a wild punt, but I'm guessing it's going to be MON. 

Hush your mouth...he was the messiah.

[TRO]

The value of the club is directly related to how he has run the club, the fact he wouldn't get the full value of his investment back is completely of his own making.

His time at the browns has proven he is clueless.

If he isn't going to sell he needs to get someone in who well run not only the playing side well but also be able to run the business side properly too.

Had he actually listened to Fitzgerald or Cunnah at the time then we may have been in a much better financial position than we are now.

The last thing he will get from me is sympathy, I hope desperately that we avoid the drop but if we don't Lerner is going to be very very unpopular

Lerner listened to o'neill instead that is why Fitzgerald left...but at the time, that would have been the popular vote. Time has a habit of changing the view of things.

Had all the good money been spent on benteke type signings we would'nt be having this debate and we would'nt be languishing in the lower echelons of the league.

Mon cannot be blamed for all the bad signings, but he certainly put us on the back foot in terms of poor return of signing and IMO was instrumental in Lerner losing interest, because I believe he genuinely believed in Martin and it was only when the players bought in the main proved to be pigs in a poke.....is when he pulled the rug from underneath him.

As from mon's exit it has just got gradually worse.

Unless I see a succession of benteke rated signings, I don't honestly see any change soon.

[Big_John_10]

Mon cannot be blamed for all the bad signings, but he certainly put us on the back foot in terms of poor return of signing and IMO was instrumental in Lerner losing interest, because I believe he genuinely believed in Martin and it was only when the players bought in the main proved to be pigs in a poke.....is when he pulled the rug from underneath him.

We were finishing 6th, getting more points each year and finished 6 points off 4th. I doubt it was this that made him lose interest.

I think it's more to do with his wage bill spiralling out of control when compared to the money the club was making. And there was only one man responsible for that.

[sutherland]

This year we will finish 6 points off 16th.

 

Exciting & Entertaining aint it!

[CI]

You will find that there were one or two posters who didn't want Lambert including myself and i have yet to see anything from him that would suggest he is the right manager for us.

Pretty much this. I found the singing for lambert at carrow rd last season a bit embarrassing, he's done nothing to warrant the villa job and overall his tenure so far has been disastrous for all concerned .

[PaulC]

Lambert took over at Norwich when they were in div 1, just after they lost 7-1, he won the div in his first season and the following season Norwich got promoted to the Premiere league and then finished in 12th, 9 points above Villa. No he did nothing to warrant the Villa Job did he

[TRO]

Mon cannot be blamed for all the bad signings, but he certainly put us on the back foot in terms of poor return of signing and IMO was instrumental in Lerner losing interest, because I believe he genuinely believed in Martin and it was only when the players bought in the main proved to be pigs in a poke.....is when he pulled the rug from underneath him.

We were finishing 6th, getting more points each year and finished 6 points off 4th. I doubt it was this that made him lose interest.

I think it's more to do with his wage bill spiralling out of control when compared to the money the club was making. And there was only one man responsible for that.

It may have been when just got hammered by Newcastle after finishing 6th and then went on to make a mockery of 6th

It's like I have said before this 6th business is like an albatross

The results got us to 6th the football in content was not sustainable it was smash and grab hoof ball.

We paid way over the odds in terms of fee's and wages for players who had limited quality.

Had the true quality of player been there, we could have gone on from 6th to truly challenge with poise and purpose.

At the end of the 3rd season of 6-6-6 my suspicion is mon knew it was not repeatable and when he went for more money to fix it....the penny dropped with Lerner and Faulkner. The rest is history.

Seems like Sunderland was not much different....went in like a lion and out like a lamb.

Martin o' Neil's models are not sustainable IMO