vazquez

* "We will finish 4th" maybe you ment 14th? * "Manager will be backed" We have replaced Downing with cheaper option and bought goalkeeper to replace our previous number 1. Is that backing or did you mean that when angry fans ask McLeish to be sacked then you back him? Is it backing that you have got rid of about 10 players and still manager needs to sell before he can purchase? Is it backing that there is 4 days left in the window and you haven't made the money available? We haven't lost but we have played against three very average teams in Wolves, Blackburn and Fulham. And the performance has been poor, just HOOF it up and hope that Bent can rescue us. We are going to fight for the relegation with this team, manager and directors. Now the wage bill is something like 60% from last season, have you made similar saves in the non-playing staff (Faulkner, Lerner and other directors), thought not.

wembley here we come!

From what I saw (between 15 - 45 minutes and 55-90minutes). I think we were not able to hold the posession, Braga had something like 60% of the ball. They had much more chances and shots, so not overly pleased. Given played ok, maybe could have saved the one. 7. Clark was awesome in 1-to-1 situations, but he was also guilty for poor marking few times. Still 8. Luke Young MOM for me, don't know why others seemed to not like his effort. Up and down all day long. 9. Dunne generally solid, but few easy freekicks given away and few mistakes. 7. Warnock up and down like L.young, but Clark had to cover quite a lot. decent 7. Petrov started really well with Makoun, but faded after 30 minutes. He would be clearly our best midfield player if he still had the pace and engine. 7. Makoun played very well, impressive, if he had more support from our other midfielders we might actually keep the ball for more than 1 minute. 8. Gabby from what I saw was not played in the wing but in somekind of weird role in the central midfield. Was totally useless there, when Bent went off and Gabby was moved as lone striker he started to play better. 5. NZogbia, linked well with Petrov and Bent, but others should have helped him more. Good start though. 8. Heskey rarely loses the ball, but he is missing the football brain and engine, what you need in midfield.He has pace though. 6. Albrighton was totally bullied by the Braga players, lost all the 50/50 balls.5. Ireland. Looked hungry, and got in to good positions. 7. Bannan, lost the ball once in dangerous position and gave it away easily few times, but in the short time played still ok and linked up well with Ireland. 6. Bent. Superb as allways. No service, lot's of running. 8.

Gardener played ok, of course opponent players at that point were getting tired and there was more room in the field, but still good fearless performance. Really loved the way he went for ball in our goalkeeping zone and tackled Drogba out of way with his shoulder. In another note I also thought Delph played well, he seemed very hungry, maybe through inexperience gave the ball away few time but still before Bannan came in he was clearly the player with best attitude (willingness to do anything win the ball) on Villa side.

"action speak louder" and "we will challenge for top 4", I guess you probably hope to take those back. In paper Chelsea, United, City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs are light years ahead of us. Even Everton has stronger and larger squad than us (and they are officially broke). This is of course on paper and in one game anyone can beat anyone, but to beat four of those teams during a whole season... You must really think McLeish is the second coming. If we look start of last year I actually I think signing Makoun, Bent, Given, Ireland and maybe N'Zogbia is very good in terms of quality. But when we have same time sold A.Young, Milner, Downing, Carew, Sidwell, NRC, Shorey, K.Walker, Friedel and likely Cuellar (all good PL players) we are down in numbers. I'm ok with reducing the wage bill, but to do it like this in the space of one season will make life hard next season (to talk about 4th spot does not help that). To rely heavily on youth sounds great, but experience wins you games (especially when the going gets tough). Fingers crossed Bent or Collins don't get injured. I hope that the board has evaluated other possibilities for cost savings than the playing staff (other personel, maybe reduction of board compensation) and all possibilities for increasing the income (allways harder). I expect us to finish around 10th, if we have a good cup run and avoid relegation battle, I'm already very happy next year. As long as we progress as team and are ready to challenge 2012-13. Is Randy prepared to spend yearly the turnover + 13M from now on, like the UEFA Financial Fair Play rules state as the highest possible yearly spending? I think that is one of future key KPIs for good owner.

Great signing to be (N'Zogbia)! Thanks Randy & Co!

Approve as well, although it has been very bad 12 months. First MON left - no explanation but paid compensation (so something that RL doesn't want to go public happened). Poor season with Houllier, under McAllister good run of games secures PL for 2011-12 and Blues relegated :-). A.Young sold (we all knew this would happen), number of players released (everyone expects that we have replacements planned). Houllier replaced with McLeish (OMG moment for most, even though GH was not really wanted either). General says actions speak louder than talk. Downing sold and no replacements for our star players (Everyone unhappy including me!). Given signed, not enough. McLeish informs we are relying to our youth setup and we are strugling to sign player because of 1m difference in valuation (manager backed up?). I'm all up for us being inside the UEFA Financial Fair Play rules, but Board must take big part of the blame on our salary levels. Most of the time our actions (General!) make the board look Clueless (my view of most americans anyway). I hope our youth setup is good enough, because I have less trust in Dunne, Warnock, Ireland and Heskey to show up when the going gets tough. Anyway so far based on the 5 year time period Randy still has my support. But if it is true like discussed in some medias that Randy has actually loaned all the money from the Lerner Trust for Villa signings and now Villa has to pay the money back, while mr. Lerner has charged Aston Villa for his "Managerial Services" my mind might change.

We are cutting the first team playing staff wages, have we restructure on same scale (at least -20%) elsewhere. Have the Board of Directors reduced their wages by 20% because failing to achieve goals set? I know these are very rough numbers, but based on conversation here in Forum's our revenue is 90+ M, our total wages aroung 75M and first team playing staff wages around 45M. I think we have to reduce our wages and we have to some extent rely on our Academy instead of buying squad players. But to increase revenue we have to have star players, and with the likes of A.Young, Downing, Carew gone I can only see Albrighton and Bent getting the crowd of their seats next season.

If he really accepts 55k/week then 2 year deal is ok, with option on our side to extend it with one year. I hope though that this the only old person we are signing. We already have enough players closing on the retairment (Dunne, L.Young, Beye, Petrov, Heskey).

Let's say our playing staff current wage bill is around 45M (after Friedel, A.Young, Salifou etc.) and then you have the manager, management, coaches and so on (probably another 10M). I'd say our max tolerable wage bill according to UEFA rules is around 60M, so we have around 5M to spend on wages and we have key positions like goalkeeper and central midfielder open. It would be nice to get rid of non contributing high earners like Heskey, Ireland and Beye (around 8M in wages), but you will notice that no-one is intrested. Hutton is a great player, but he would demand a big wage and that is one position we really are covered at the moment. Also I'd like to think that we should have policy to mainly sign young players and only older players when they are extremely good (I know Hutton is not so old at 26, although he looks like 35). So my main targets for this transfer period would be: Dann (24years, 10M + 45k/week), Nathaniel Clyne (20years, 4M + 25k/week), NZogbia (25 years, 9M + 60k/week) and goalkeeper (maybe Given on a 2 year deal with 3,5M + 55k/week). Dann only if we can sell Dunne, Clyne only if we can sell Warnock, NZogbia as replacement to A.Young. I expect great things from players like Clark, Barker, Albrighton, Delph and Hogg. Lichaj, Gardner, Bannan, Delfouneso, Herd and Weimann are decent squad players.