Panto_Villan

Again, I'm not trying to single you out here, as I appreciate you've actually provided some reasons in response, but your first two sentences contradict one another. If the most important thing is how well the team are doing on the pitch, then surely the overspending under MON should be cancelled out? As a genuine question, would you rather that Lerner hadn't given MON that level of money and did more of a Kenwright at Everton style financial straightjacket job? That would come with its own set of risks; relying very heavily on the skills of the manager. Much of the criticism seems to cut both ways - we were challenging for the CL at one point that counts against Randy because he overspent, then we did badly subsequently and it's Randy's fault because he didn't spend enough (I'll admit here that individual posters aren't always stating both of these views at the same time). I don't disagree that he made a bad choice with McLeish but I think Houllier could have turned out well had he not had his health issues - so I'd say there he made one terrible decision and one mediocre one. The point Risso makes is an interesting one - personally, I think people are generally happy with it at the time but much less happy when the crows come home to roost and you have to deal with the financial fallout. I guess it's just human nature, the same reason why people spend their overdrafts.

Of course he can win. But it's going to take time and its going to take more than just a win the first game of the season. We've had a truly awful few years in a row which has mainly been down to the decision making of the owner. Forgive me if I'm not out chanting his name because he finally started to do a few things right. If Ireland had to play our next game and did ok, made a few good passes would you seriously expect people who have completely slagged him off, and rightly so, to do a complete 180 degree turn? Or do you think they'd wait for him to do it a few more times before they completely changed their opinion of them? There's still no proof that Lerner wants this team to be anything other than one that survives with a wage bill that's cheap. I don't know about others but even though I don't like Lerner I not someone who will never change my mind about him. I've given him credit and praise for how we've gone about our summer business and for the way we handled the Benteke transfer request. If we continue to do these things I will continue to praise him. Personally I think it would be ridiculous for people who don't rate him to completely change their mind because of one game. You've obviously changed your mind on Lambert so I wasn't singling you out as someone who will always persecute him whatever he did, I was just using your post as an example. However, my previous longer post did point out a number of things that I think he has done well that people appear to give him little or no credit for - for example, the £30m redevelopment of Bodymoor Heath that the club is still reaping the rewards from, the way the club does business, or the way he stumps up tens of millions every year to cover the loss. I was sorta of hoping you'd reply to that post rather than the throwaway one a few posts lower. Which specific decisions are you referring to, though? Alex McLeish was a huge mistake, but he was only one mistake. I think it's a fallacy that he's not backed the club financially, and I think the fact the wages got unsustainable was because he actually backed the manager too much (the thing people are criticising him for not doing). I may have missed some other things, but I don't think he's actually made that many bad decisions. I think the Bannan thread is beyond any of us

Smetrov is an example of a poster who is continually stating the opinion that the club will never achieve more than mid-table mediocrity until Lerner starts spending more. Your above post is blaming Lerner for backing the manager too much. He can't win. It's also noticeable that this thread has had about two positive posts in it after the Arsenal victory, whereas the Lambert thread has had about 200. I can see why Lambert is more directly responsible, of course, but it does illustrate what Mantis is talking about.

People moaning that we've not spent enough money are assuming that Lambert actually wants to spend lots of cash (have you guys ever met a Scotsman before?). Lerner has done plenty of good things for the club. Never been shy with transfer fees - £18m on Bent for example. He's backed every new manager with money, and we've had quite a few of them recently. When we sell a player, we get a damn good price for him: Milner, Barry, Young, Downing. He didn't cash in on Benteke this summer when the sharks were circling. The club has a good reputation for the professionality of its dealings in the transfer window. Aalborg even cited it as a factor why they refused a slightly higher offer for Helenius when we were negotiating with them. He's put money into redeveloping the stadium (the pub) and the training ground at Bodymoor, as a result we now have excellent facilities that a lot of the younger players cite when they're interviewed on why they joined. That cost some £30m. We finished 6th three years in a row under MON. He's hired Lambert and stuck with him when times were bad. Most people's criticism of him seems to boil down to three things: He hired McLeish. I won't defend him here at all, because it was a shocking decision and nearly got us relegated as well as destroying a lot of fans faith in the club. Massive error, no question. He's not investing enough in the club. I don't agree with this, because he's spent a lot of transfers already (as mentioned above) and the club is losing something like £50m a year already. That's about £150,000 a day that's going down the toilet...and people are calling him a tightarse? The fact he's not willing to spend the GDP of a small country to get us into the Champions League is hardly a reason to hate the man. If an anonymous benefactor donated £50m to the club he'd be hailed as a hero but Lerner is investing that every year and people seem to hate him because he's allegedly not spending enough. He owns the club, so ultimately he's responsible for the huge loss the club makes every year. Partially true, maybe, but ultimately this is only the case because he's backed the managers (like MON) who put people on ludicrous salaries. But if he hadn't backed the mangers with enough cash, people would hate him for that too - see point 2). Do I think Randy Lerner is the best club owner ever? No. Would I rather have him than Mike Ashley? Yes. Dave Whelan? Yes. Bill Kenwright? Yes, I would. At the rate of current loss, AVFC would financially destroy Lerner in 12 years. The fact he wants to reduce the wage bill a bit is not a reason to crucify him. Have some perspective, please...the man has spent more money on AVFC than the entire of VillaTalk ever will.

I do think that even if we get smashed by Chelsea and the couple of games after, most people will be able to think back to last Christmas and know that the team know how to get out of an apparent death spiral and back to winning. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

I predict he'll make a bunch of defensive howlers during the season but we'll love him anyway.

I think it'd be best to judge the state of our defence after 4-5 games rather than after the first one. Takes a bit of time to get going. For what it's worth, I think we'll be better than last season defensively but still not what you'd describe as watertight.

His points are perfectly valid. His job is to help Villa win, not to keep a stuff upper lip while people foul him. I'd prefer we played a slightly cynical game and won rather than losing with great sportsmanship - why be the soft team everyone likes to play against?

You don't agree with people being positive about the manager, Morpheus? That's a shock -I don't think you've ever expressed that sentiment before. Can everyone stop rehashing the same debate about Lambert's first season that we had during the entire season and the entire off-season? It's really tedious now and we know where everyone stands.

I adore Guzan, he's an absolutely brilliant player and I'm so glad we have him. I can literally only remember one howler he has ever made in the time I've been watching him, and it didn't lead to a goal. Thankfully nobody seems to be trying to buy him, because I think we'd REALLY miss him if he went.

I'm excited. Gonna be having a BBQ with an Arsenal-supporting mate who described Benteke as "a Belgian Heskey" when we signed him. I hope he gets a hat-trick. I kinda suspect we're going to get spanked but I don't care. Just keen for the season to start, not been this excited for a new season in years!

I'd rather have Lambert than Bent and as the two do not seem to be a good match, I'm glad this deal has happened.

(I was actually going to say he looks a bit like Idris Elba but I'm not sure if that makes me sound like a racist or not.)

WHY DON'T WE JUST TALK ABOUT DARREN BENT? He's a nice looking chap, isn't he? Looks a bit cheeky.

Except he actually would have played football in that season. I guess we'll get to see if PL actually did make a massive blunder in freezing him out (as some posters claim) at the end of the season.

Initially disappointed to read it was a loan deal. Much less disappointed given they're paying the full wages and £2m for the privilege of borrowing him. Be lovely if he had a great season (not being able to play against us obviously) and we got a good price for him next summer....more than the £4m or so that we were looking at this year. Or is there a buy-out clause in the loan for a certain amount of money? Maybe I'm being overly optimistic but I think Faulkner has done well here.

Goodbye Darren, all the best. I'm sorry it had to end this way but we've met someone new who just makes everything feel real again. It was fun while it lasted though.

I thought it was much better than the original Bioshock because the characters were more interesting - I thought Rapture got a bit tedious after a while too, the most memorable parts being the visual design of the Big Daddies and that level in the theatre with the statues (which I loved). The bad guy(s) in it were so one dimensional that I didn't really feel the reveal was very exciting at all. Also the combat was endless waves of splicers. Infinite, I thought, was excellent aside from a few frustrating fights (the ghost) and some of the use of tears to advance the plots (ah, we can't be bothered to move this heavy stuff...tear!). I thought the visual design was superb and the attention to detail was great, I thought Elizabeth was one of the best companions in gaming as she's invulnerable and doesn't get stuck on scenery, and has much more character than Alyx from HL2. I initially thought the ending was a bit underwhelming when it began, until it got to the very last reveal....which I didn't see coming at all and really liked. The graphics and sound / voice acting were very impressive too. People are right that the Handymen are a poor imitation of the Big Daddies though, and that it does meander a bit in the middle of the game when the Vox do their stuff. I also thought some of the gunplay got a bit repetitive - but overall I thought it was a fantastic game compared to the standard grimdark shooters that usually get served up these days.

I hope he's their Steven Ireland.

If you look at the defender and where he's holding himself, I reckon he broke the collarbone when he landed rather than when he hit Benteke. I did my collarbone doing something similar but it was mostly because I was a moron and fell on the point of my shoulder instead of just doing a sort of high-speed bellyflop that would have looked sillier but probably done me less damage...

"Droll" means whimsically amusing. "Dull" means boring.

I have been flicking through RAWK after a poster above mentioned their overzealous moderation and it's genuinely hilarious how many threads they lock. One quote from a mod is "We never have and never will allow speculation on RAWK", referring to transfer things or even the news coverage of Sterling being put in the cells for a night (which isn't even speculation). WTF do you plan to talk about if speculation's not allowed? Their stated reason for all this is a whole bunch of threads are turned into endless rehashes of "we have shit owners" because of a vocal minority of posters who are always derailing the threads with complaints (sound familiar?) but the result of it is ludicrous. You're not allowed to complain at all. "Persistent negativity" results in a short-term ban, so you're only allowed to post in the love-ins about Stevie G etc. http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?board=2.40 I must admit there's a couple of posters on the site I'd like to stop being so unrelentingly negative all the time, but that's not the answer.

I did not think his strikes were sufficiently atomic.

Quality! Benteke is such a monster. I hope we don't have to play Belgium at the World Cup.

Yeah, but he's upped his game since then. Been working on it in the off-season apparently.