DCJonah

... now where have I heard that used in defense of mediocrity before.... ? Agreed. The fear of the unknown should not put us off.

Apparently Sherwood is safe but Fox could possibly go, which I hope isn't the case because he seems to be doing a great job. I could live with that.

Sounds promising. My hope is that this deal has been in discussion for a long time and fox and now Sherwood are part of the deal.

With recent Sherwood quotes. Maybe this should be put back in the villa section.

Its not just Lambert. Bennett has also looked nothing but average at Brighton. You are right, just galling righting off another £3m. Yep, we've really struggled to get a decent player in that position recently.

Oh please stay Christian.

That's a very one sided view of things. To bring some balance to the force you could mention the club records broken under Lambert. The 5 consecutive relegation worried seasons. The fact over half of his time here we've got less than 50 points season after season. You need to go back to the 60's to find a worse run.

Don't like the idea of the club being in debt, so wouldn't want that but I'm very open to a change of ownership.

We need to sort out lb properly in the summer. Giving bennett another chance would be a mistake IMO.

Its not going to buy a squad of top players but wasting that money during a period where finances were bad, delayed the recovery from the initial problems. That was money just paid in compensation, add in the cost wasted on players signed by those managers and the money lost by finishing lower in the league. It then starts becoming big money. Come on, everyone in the country could see hiring McLeish was never going to succeed. And a lot had doubts over houllier when he was appointed. True and I dont have an issue with his appointment. He was my number one choice. But we've suffered more than we had to sticking with him and again, low league finishes in a time where money for position in the league is ridiculous is costing the club. Especially when FFP is so important now. I agree and I think there's lots to be positive about. But it hasn't happened yet, we've barely survived in the league for the 4th straight year and during that time been one of the worst villa sides in the history of the club, certainly the worst period in my supporting life time. When the good times come I'll give credit but until then I think the criticism over the way we've been run and the decisions made are more than fair.

I'll move it here at the request of blandy You dispute those figures, well that's a good start. And £22 million wouldn't make much difference? To a club trying needing to cut costs already? Strange logic that one. What would my plan be? Pretty simple, don't hire two awful managers, pay millions in compensation and continue to sign players on huge contracts. I'm happy where the club is right now also, but that doesn't change the last 5 years and how that now effects us long term. And gamble? What gamble would have been worse than hiring McLeish and sticking with Lambert. If anything the last 2 months have shown how easy life would have been for us if we'd only managed to hire a proper manager once over the last 5 years.

Didn't realise that. I still think it was a poor decision as he was out of the game for a good few years though. He really did come in and ruin most of the good things that were left by MON. I don't think that's fair. He came in and implemented his own style with the players he had minus by far or best player of the previous season. A style which had started to pay dividends towards the end of his short reign. I don't think the game had moved on at all between 2007 and 2010 to be honest. I thought he was very poor. We went from having a top defence to conceding goals for fun and playing Young as a number 10 for most of the season was a very poor decision, we also became a team that just rolled over and died once going behind. It did improve by the end and we had a strong finish but that linked in with Houllier being too ill to be around the club. I thought it was a poor appointment when it happened and it was a miserable season to watch until the last few games. Compared to the last few it was probably like watching barca week in week out but at the time it was a big drop from what we saw before and we had only lost Milner.

Didn't realise that. I still think it was a poor decision as he was out of the game for a good few years though. He really did come in and ruin most of the good things that were left by MON.

He's not but it's not the odd mistake that's the issue. It's one after the other, the over spending with MON, the poor appointment of houllier and the abysmal appointment of mcleish were terrible for us. And during that time, when we were supposed to be fixing the issues from MON we handed out huge contracts to bent, ireland, hutton, nzogbia and given. Now while a few of those have finally contributed positively to the club, I don't think anyone could argue they've been worth the wages we've paid out on them. [quote} Please tell us how much compensation was paid in total - what's the exact figure!? I'd like to know so we can put it into perspective in the grand scheme of things. [/quote} I believe at one point it was reported to be around £18 million, but looking at the figures on the last page it seems much worse than that. Imagine that spent on the squad and i think it's clear that's played a part in restricting the money we've been able to spend over the last few years. So the club have been paying for his bad decisions. The structure of the club from top to bottom - from the coaching staff to the chief executive - is excellent; the finances are heading in the right direction and look sound; we are FFP compliant for both the PL & Europe; and, despite a period of spending that didn't fit in with the fans' arbitrary transfer desires, we've got a bloody talented squad. Don't agree with the first part, scraping by and playing the way we have for years does not vindicate it for me. Had it none been for his poor decisions, we could have recovered from MON much more easily than we have. The rest I agree with, but like I said earlier, 2 months ago we were heading down as one of the worst teams the league had ever seen. It's picked up due to the appointment of one man but that doesn't cancel out how bad it was before. That's yet to be seen. Scraping survival for the 4th consecutive season is hardly evidence of it all being fixed. It certainly looks more positive but we've been in positions before where it looked much better and ended up being awful. And your choice to harbour no hard feelings but not for me, I've never had a period as a villa fan where i've enjoyed following the team less, i'm still looking forward to the day he leaves.

For me with these must win games I'd go back to the 2 up top. Since playing as a striker again Gabby has been very good in most matches. Nzogbia has played well but I think gabby makes us more dangerous.

Who said that? The point is his bad decisions led to a bad situation getting worse. You said it was down to FFP when in reality decisions made from the owner, after the initial mess, continued to make things worse. Your choice I guess, did you believe the general when he said we were going for top 4 with McLeish? You're right, no one really does, not even you. So like I said I'll base it on the evidence I see, which is the worst period of my Aston villa supporting life. Haha come on. 2 months ago we were going down as one of the worst teams in premier league history. Allowing Tom Fox to hire Sherwood was a good decision but that doesn't cancel out years of crap. As I originally said I'll go by the actions in the summer, not what's said in a pr interview.

Yes and to make life easier we paid millions and millions in compensation to houllier, Birmingham city, McLeish, Norwich and Lambert. You seem to ignore that when considering why the clean up process needed to be harsh. Compared to managers and players we've had and do have, the abuse he gets is considerably tame. And I see little evidence to suggest he really cares. We all thought we were getting finances sorted to leave us stronger but last season saw the real reason was that he could try and sell the club. And no man who really cared would have left Lambert employed to the point we did. I've heard this numerous times and so far we seem to have made mistake after mistake. I see little evidence to make me think the future will be different. Like I said I'll see what the summer brings and if he changes his statement.

I think nzogbia has played well but I'd have gabby straight back in as soon as he's fit.

Just thought I'd pop in and thank him for the Roy Keane appointment. Another great move from Paul, glad we were able to provide Roy with a couple more chapters while he helped us be so shit.

When you look at the fees paid for soldado, laukaku and bony the past few years, we'd be stupid to accept anything under £30 million.

I think this should be posted after each good performance under Sherwood.

That's probably true but that's not being unlucky. That's poor leadership from the top of a multi-million pound business. I couldn't disagree more. He hadn't managed a team for around 5 years because of serious health problems.

Disagree, spending without thought for the future was a big issue with MON, he has to take responsibility for that. Houllier had been out the game for years and had serious health issues, a massive gamble and then Mcleish just made things worse. Lambert seemed a smart choice but wage limitations and sticking with him for so long made things worse. He keeps making awful decisions and thats why I have little faith that things will be good under him.

What if he doesn't sell the club? What if he thinks **** it, I've gone this far, with the restrictions in place and the right man in Fox at the helm (in Lerner's opinion) and a bright young manager why not have another go. It wouldn't be the first time somebody had a genuine change of heart. Being pragmatic, I am also of the view that what difference does it really make now? It's all about the structure of the club and the revenue it can generate. FFP is an abomination in many ways, but it is here to stay and we need to find a way to work within it. If the age of austerity is over (and I agree we shall see to a degree this summer) then I'm willing to let bygones be bygones I suppose. I'm really not in the mood for more upheaval unless absolutely necessary. I guess this summer will show us certain things. If it's different and we're going to be ambitious within FFP then yeah, i agree, lets get on with it and see where it goes. I just don't have much faith that Sherwood will have much more to play with than Lambert did. .....but sherwood has already said to the contrary Wouldn't be the first time the actions of the club didn't match the messages being sent out.

Then the gamble was hiring mcleish and sticking with lambert. McLeish was a mess start to finish. Lambert should've gone earlier, that's certain, but if he had, would we have gotten Sherwood? Pie in the sky really. Maybe getting rid of Lambert earlier would've relegated us, we just don't know. All I'm concerned with is the right decision was made, the right man was brought in, and things look up for the first time in a long time - with Lerner still owning the club. But we've said this before. Things looked up when he first came and hired MON and that led to problems and things looked up when we sacked mcleish and hired lambert and that came close to ending in disaster. Things do look up, but history with Randy Lerner doesn't point to it going anywhere while he is in charge.