makouns_grin

Bloody typical, start well and then concede a pen!

cant argue with the team we've put out there at all. eck looks like he knows he's close to the end of his reign, so he's pandering to what the fans want because that is not an alex mcleish lineup

Yeah he's really close

Ireland will do **** all as usual, just start with bannan.

WILL face criminal charges.

Shame.

You can give a big club a run for their money in games without having big names. Look at Norwich at Old Trafford, or Swansea at home against Manure as well. These are teams who haven't got the best squads in terms of value, but still take the game to the opposition. Under McLeish we roll over.

How long have those respective managers been at those clubs?

In time Meh/10

How justin timberlake can call himself an actor ill never know

Perhaps because he can act and has done in more than one film.

Its a similar argument when people tried to claim DiCaprio couldn't act as well..

So tell me where is this apocalyptic mess so many on here refer to?

We're in a completely false position in the table IMO due to the games we had at the start of the season. If we don't pull our finger out in the next couple of weeks we will be right down there.

Thats partly true.

But dont forget all the teams below us have to play these harder teams as well as themselves.

This is what Lerner and Faulkner will have to continue to do if they keep appointing the wrong man. You can't think that performances at the moment are acceptable?

I know O'Neill had his fair share of poor games and Houllier had more than most. The difference between these two and McLeish was that we had plans in games (albeit poor ones in Houllier's case). McLeish is sucking the life out of us with his brand of nothing football.

Everybody saw this coming pretty much, us, small heath, sections of the media, other fans and yet Lerner went ahead and appointed anyway. I think you would have a very good point if we appointed Ancelotti (never going to happen) and results still went the wrong way. However, the man we appointed got a team (and doesn't matter who it was) relegated twice in four years.

Lerner and Faulkner have got us into this mess, and are having to pay the price now because they can't even seem to grasp basics on appointing a manager.

Any other manager would be given time though, thats how the board see it; they cannot be swayed by fan opinion otherwise there would be a new manage/players all the time!

Anyone other than Ek would be given longer than 4 months no doubt imo.

I think we're playing shit lots of the time, but Arsenal we're playing shit at the start of the season and some Arsenal fans wanted Wenger out and Owen **** Coyle in there!

Do you see what i mean, the board cannot just make these decisions willy nilly?

People moaning they want this manager or that manager, get the new manager in he is shit, brilliant what we do then?

He was appointed for a reason, god knows why i wouldn't have but then i dont know how to run a football club or how much things cost etc.

Fans are passionate but they rarely know what their on about.

You might be right, maybe they think they are, but that makes the appointment all the more baffling as McLeish has no track record or pedigree in doing that.

I refuse to believe that even Faulkner was stupid enough to make a managerial appointment on the basis of a letter of recommendation?

You are trying to make sense of what is fundamentally, nonsense!

To you me and most other fans it doesn't make sense because Ek has a pretty shit track record. That along with the fact that he is ex small heath clouds a lot of peoples opinions.

He was appointed because the board felt he could do a job under the con straights of a limited budget that we are now running under, which seems to be the apocalypse to some people.

There is no other reason, unless there is some conspiracy that Lerner and co actually want us relegated and **** over, which makes no sense either.

Or instead of seeing change as a bad thing, the board sit down and decide what their short, medium and long term objectives are. They then decide on a manager with a philosophy that reflects those objectives and begin to put in place a structure that nurses those objectives.

Everyone knows that this process might be painful, that there will be some blips along the way, but as long as everyone adheres to the plan, eventually, albeit slowly, promising signs begin to show.

OR

Hire a recently relegated manager who managed our biggest rivals, is the antithesis of football with the personality of a drain pipe. Encourage him to placate the dressing room by adopting the previous (lack of) coaching methods and hope that mid table mediocrity is achievable to protect the investment whilst we play to a set of rules nobody else is paying the slightest bit of notice to.

You choose.

Unless they actually think they are doing the former part of your post, which folk refuse to do because of the current form past history of the manager?

Anyone could write the latter part of your post about any manager, especially if they were negatively biased against them.

Unless you think they are trying to **** over the club and make us worse along with relegating us, how does that help them?

You'll have a point come summer though, not after 4 months.

So if I own a business that is going down the pan because of poor management are you seriously suggesting that I should let it carry on because it might cost me some money I didnt really want to spend...........

How do you know its going down the pan, have we been relegated or gone out of business or even close too?

You only think its going down the pan because you dont like the manager or chief exec.

Again, if Lerner listened to the fans, there would be a new set of players and a new manager every week!

You just cannot keep changing things so soon, because the fans have decided it so.

Season ticket sales are down

Attendances are down

No real pick up on cut price ticket deals

Fans disallusioned with management

Players playing like they dont care

Chairman absent

CEO with no footballing background running affairs

Merchandising down

Dont panic.................carry on regardless and listen to Makouns Grin.

So get a new manager in willy nilly, someone anyone who aint McCleish and after 4 months when there is no improvement get another manager in because the fans are moaning then as well? Because the way some people go on the new manager would have to have us playing like Arsenal to bother watching us again.

So basically spend money, because when he was nobody was bothered with the chairman being absent or the ceo having no football experience.

Again my few posts back looks like we would have no attendance if we were anywhere other than the premier league as everyone is so obsessed with it!

Cracking 'support'.

So if I own a business that is going down the pan because of poor management are you seriously suggesting that I should let it carry on because it might cost me some money I didnt really want to spend...........

How do you know its going down the pan, have we been relegated or gone out of business or even close too?

You only think its going down the pan because you dont like the manager or chief exec.

Again, if Lerner listened to the fans, there would be a new set of players and a new manager every week!

You just cannot keep changing things so soon, because the fans have decided it so.

Why do some fans think the criticism that Lerner is getting now is solely because he has turned the financial tap off.....

Because if he spent shit loads of money next month, on players a new manager a new chief ex he would be a brilliant owner again! Without a doubt.

As stanthemanisgod was saying everyone was quite happy for him to improve the training ground and other bits and bobs along with employ o'neill and buy players.

Now this is not happening, all his actions good or bad are just shit!

Because if he appointed a new manager a new chief ex it would at least show he understood where the problems lie and would be showing a desire to sort it out.

If its just about spending money how come most fans would want any money availble in January (if any) would prefer it to be spent on getting a new manager who could get more out of the players we already have rather than give our current manager it to buy a player or two.....

What if he can not afford to do so though?

Get the club into masses to debt to please some fans, who will then moan about us being in masses of debt?

Why do some fans think the criticism that Lerner is getting now is solely because he has turned the financial tap off.....

Because if he spent shit loads of money next month, on players a new manager a new chief ex he would be a brilliant owner again! Without a doubt.

As stanthemanisgod was saying everyone was quite happy for him to improve the training ground and other bits and bobs along with employ o'neill and buy players.

Now this is not happening, all his actions good or bad are just shit!

If you're still singing his praises when he takes us down...I'll doth my cap at you.

So he should possibly threaten the future of the club by spending on new manager and new players that the fans agree with, basically ones that are flavour of the month?

Dont believe the doom merchants peddling their sly nasty little comments, if Villa are relegated it would be a terrible terrible thing.

But the world wont end, as soon as the season finishes Villa Park wont just suddenly disappear into the ground. There will still be a club to support, you know like all the other 100s of clubs and fans that support clubs outside the premier league.

Are they all permanently depressed because they are not in the premier league? Not celebrating goals or wins, in fact not even watching or supporting, because its SOOOO bad?

We'll be threatened with not enough finances? Really so all the penny pinching currently is for what reason again?

Fans in particular not just Villa fans are obsessed with money and the premier league. When in reality over 3 quarters will no doubt never get to see their team in the holy land of the top 4.

To the everyday fan there is not too much difference to finishing 6th to finishing 17th. The increased money based on place finished might help a little but not enough to get to the holy land. Might be enough to sign a slightly better player, who if is too good will be snapped up by a club with too much money.

If you finish 5th or 6th your in a european competition everyone moans about because its a bit shit and you have to play all your league games on a Sunday.

The world of football is not just this one league!

he point we all seem to be missing is that Lerner has not simply turned the tap off on spending because he cant afford it. Yes he may be nursing some burned fingers, but it's not as if he or the club are in any kind of financial trouble.

What has become clear is that the level of spending was not sustainable, and even if it was it would be fruitless. We would need spending to exceed what it was at the height of the Lerner reign in order to establish ourselves as a regular top 4 team. On top of that the big clubs have moaned to UEFA that that chavvy Citeh have won the lottery and moved out of their council house into their street and they dont like it.

The UEFA rules will affect the majority of clubs, Citeh may have just done enough just in time to fall the right side of the line when it is finally drawn, but even still there's talk in the club of reducing spending over the next few years to appease UEFA.

Yes we can sit here and argue that wealthy owners can find ways too artificially boost income, but as we've seen with City the rest of the footballing world are going to make sure UEFA have a proper look at it, and we still have not heard the official UEFA findings into that deal. When the regs come in it may well be that the money receievd for the gound naming (well maybe not all of it) can be counted as an officvial source of income.

The issue this all boils down to is the level of the club's income. Now Lerner is not to blame for that being limited to the level it is now, we have to look at our previous owner who failed to realise the significance of the PL, SKY and the CL. Lerner came in and had a pretty good go at forcing the issue, but in reality he was never going to achieve any long term gains based on the money available.

It's funny how he's gone from the very model of a foreign owner to the worse owner ever and all he's really done is stop splashing the cash. Before it was oh look at the training facilities, look at the ground, the Holte pub, isn't our support of Acorns wonderful. Now it's all he's left us with is a decent training ground and a shitty pub. No wonder we get stick from other clubs!!

Oh why do I let myself believe these things?

Speaks volumes that the greatest thing Lerner could possibly achieve is selling the club.

Well done randy, shit load of cash spent and no better off thanks to your idiotic decisions and poor financial control of your investment. Superb!!

If its so easy why are you or all the other folk on here abusing him not doing it?

No owner is perfect, yet ours was perfectly acceptable when spending money, has tried to improve the info structure of the club when the money was there and the timeframe to spend it.

Now doesn't have enough money to continue to do it and is messing it up somewhat.

Its easy for us to sit at a keyboard saying sack him, hire him its so easy.

The same way fans suddenly suggesting having NRC back, hindsight makes it so easy (although not because he is still shit anyway..)

For all we know sacking the manager or the anit christ of a chief exec might mean we cannot sign players for another couple of transfer windows.

Again you'll shout, well a decent owner or cheif ex would never be in that position! Bollocks, nobody is perfect, we dont know all the ins and outs.

New owner, more money.

New owner in, not enough money..

Oh.

New owner, more money blah blah blah.

The word he allegedly said was 'negrito' which means 'little black man', I don't see how that isn't offensive anyway :S

He called him a negro, which he admitted to, and his defence was it is not offensive in Uruguay.

Yet he's been living in Europe for 6 years and did not know this?

Absolute tosh.

Where does he admit it?

Why did we let go NRC again? It was just so dumb. I know we have to cut the wage bill but we have no other players like him. No replacements whatsoever.

Heard it all now.

Hilarious people think he is selling.

Perhaps those same people will be chuffed with some Venkeys type owners?

Could happen just as much as another City owner, grass is not always greener.

I suppose it would be something else to moan about, run the new owners out of town because they are not spend spend spending.

Tell me how the board are any worse than Venkys right now? Forget about the lack of spending for a second. I'll leave you to figure out the rest.

How about

Venkeys done anything to improve their club long term, unless having a decent training ground is making us shit?

Ah thats why Randy has made improvements.

He cannot afford anymore improvements now and doesn't like telling fans about it.

Out you go mr owner we've had enough of you now, your terrible terrible appalling owner!

Hilarious people think he is selling.

Perhaps those same people will be chuffed with some Venkeys type owners?

Could happen just as much as another City owner, grass is not always greener.

I suppose it would be something else to moan about, run the new owners out of town because they are not spend spend spending.

When did Doug face the music?

Disturbing that some so called 'fans' are trying to spread bollocks about fall outs etc, with no ounce of proof!

How about this, he was out buying Randy's xmas present. About as much merit as claiming he has fallen out with anyone.

Keep hearing about how he is going to be sold, why would anyone buy him when he's been shit, something people seem to be forgetting.

We've created less than last year but he's also missed a lot of the chances we've created for him!

Its on the Metro website

In **** 360p.

I know they want to create hype, but they're really starting to piss me off with all this cloak and daggers shite. Stick a 1080p version on youtube and let us have at it.

Edit - Just watched. Want to see. Want to see now. Why I have to wait?

Eh?

It was originally released by Warners on Apples trailers page, including 1080p...

Jesus thank god that has finished, worse series of Dexter by a mile, almost saved by the last 10 seconds.