PB

I havent seen all that much of him, but I must say that against Braga he made two passes that probably only Gareth Barry in a recent vintage villa shirt could have even imagined, let alone completed.

Football fans making heroes of their team's players? Bastards

I think you have that right too. I remember his early games for Villa as an attacking midfielder and he was shocking, games just passed him by. I actually think he's a very good holding player. He is very limited going forwards but he rarely gives the ball away and is a very effective tackler. He doesnt have the passing ability of Makoun, who I thought was our outstanding player last night (again) but he does do the simple 'housework' jobs very well.

I think you have that right.

Fir about 3 years now Petrov has faded at about the 60 minute mark in games. When he's fresh he's really a very decent player. Should he be captain? Who else is there? We're not exactly overflowing with candidates are we?

Premier League: There are in theory four clubs whose financial muscle will always blow us out of the water, and another two who all things considered should finish above us. I think we're competing with Everton and Sunderland for 7th-9th. Cups: McLeish has a good Cup record I think, at least Quarters in both Players: We seem thin on the ground, but then we do have this whole raft of players who cost us a fortune in wages and transfer fees who so far have done nothing of note to date to justify that level of expenditure. Ireland, Beye, Heskey, Cuellar, Delph - if these players can play more to their alleged ability and stop taking the club for a free ride then maybe we arent as badly off as we might think. Yes, that was a straw I was clutching at. Clark, Bannan and Albrighton are also now all in their make or break seasons, so there's another straw. What do I want: For us to continue playing 'properly', but adding some backbone and spirit, some mental toughness, some togetherness. What do I expect: I expect to be underwhelmed, and largely disinterested. The Premier League is broken, and every passing week it loses its appeal.

PS. On the Joey Barton issue, I like players with character, a bit of spunk, bit of naughtiness to them. Less of these plastic non-entities pls. [edit] Sadly his wages are likely to be a big no-no

My point is I agree with you, stupid money is being spent on players and we are falling down the line and the table because of this.. we cannot keep up with them financially.. I wish it was a different league, they are all in the premier league.. £30m for a club like Villa is massive for a club like City they can afford to put the whole lot in reserves.. and that's the problem today really with football. Sure, but ultimately the likes of Ireland and Delph in particular have to show what we paid so much money for. They arent going anywhere else, no-one is going to take on their wages. Hopefully McLeish can get them to play to their potential. If he can, then the midfield might not be as weak as it is made out to be. If he cant, then we're a bit screwed until these guys contracts run out tbh. Thankfully Makoun seems to know what he's doing.

Agreed, and I like his honesty too. Are you listneing General K?

About the same price Man City paid for Silva.. Yeah, but what's your point? Thats them, this is us. Different league, isnt it? Putting it simply. Aston Villa are unable to compete with Manchester City. Also Aston Villa are unable to compete with Manchester United Aston Villa are unable to compete with Chelsea Aston Villa are unable to compete with Arsenal Furthermore Aston Villa have less resources than Liverpool Aston Villa have less resources than Tottenham Comparing what we are able to do, against what they are, is a bit like banging your head against a brick wall. Fun for a while if you're into self harm, but ultimately a bit pointless. In a good season we might give Liverpool and Spurs a run for their money, but realistically we are competing with Everton and Sunderland. How does our midfield stack up against theirs?

Without wishing to agree or disagree, that "lightweight and poor" central midfield cost us a whole shed load of money. Whats the combined transfer fees for Petrov, Ireland and Makoun? Over £20m? The recently released Reo-Coker was also very expensive Do you suppose we could move any of them on, to get them off the wage bill? If not, we are pretty much stuck with what we've got. Here's hoping Ireland discovers he's a proper player again. Hope being the operative word I guess. [edit] And I forgot completely about Delph .... so thats a midfield that cost nearly £30m ..... blimey

Speak for yourself If I had a billion pounds I can think of about a billion better things to do with it than piss it away on a football club tbh

I'm not all that convinced that there is a lack of money to buy players, just to pay them. Once NZogbia is signed then as AM has said himself, there wont be any more. Will it be good enough? Good enough for upper mid table? I would certainly hope so. Good enough for a top four finish? Very unlikely. I think we just need to re-evaluate where we are going. Should Lerner sell up? Well, who to? It seems to me that of all the recent takeovers Randy is still far and away the standout, perhaps not with the money of the Man City mob but in most other ways. Compare him with the guys in charge at QPR, or the mob just left Liverpool or Carson Yeung etc. We could have done a whole lot worse, and the 40 odd % who voted against him might want to bear that in mind. I'd like him and his henchman to be more honest, in the way McLeish has been in recent days, and I think we can all live with that.

As an aside, a requirement to break even is imo a de facto salary cap of something less than two thirds for a club with Villa's income and fixed outgoings, given the £35m loss figure quoted in that BBC article. Seems like non wage costs are about £45m for that year? (Wages of £80m, Turnover of £90m, loss of £35m) if so, then our wage bill needs to be £45m to comply, not the £60m I had assumed (50% in other words). I dont know what that £45m of fixed outgoings is for? Seems alot

No, perhaps my use of the term 'over budget' has confused the more pedantic element on here. The 'budget' I am referring to would be the 67% of wage/revenue 'target' which is I believe the figure UEFA intend to enforce. I also havent been able to find this figure anywhere written down (not that I have looked all that hard tbh, having better things to do), it is just what someone who I believe knows what they are on about told me. if he is wrong, then so am I. Even so, it would strike me that a figure of 67%, as I believe i have said more than once, should be about where the figure should be aimed at. We dont want to crash and burn. I believe )as you appear to) that the original plan was to budget for a champions league place, or at least to put in place the funding to achieve that. Clearly that has been reviewed in the light of our failure in that regard and Manchester City's emergence (not to mention Liverpool's mad spending spree). So qualifying for the Champions League no longer requires sneaking past a faltering Arsenal, it also depends on other clubs with vast resources (compared to ours) failing. If we were to put together a budget now, aimed at finishing fourth, would we be able to make the figures add up in a sustainable way? Probably not. Winning the title? Certainly not. Finishing upper mid table? Maybe. I think the club needs to be run on a sustainable footing. We had a shot at buying into the elite, and it didnt work. Now we need to get our figures back in line with our income. I suppose it is then possible that Randy would sell.

Well, I dont, but I assume, as I just said, that the BBC journalist knew more or less what he was talking about. Should have an issue with what he wrote, then you might be better off querying him, rather than me, who is just quoting his figures as the BBC is traditionally a reliable (although not perfect) source of information. They are certainly not given to wild speculation or making rash assumptions as a general rule, although perhaps this particular journalist is? Maybe he is part of a wider conspiracy? Under normal circumstances, how would you plan a future budget? Say for the year 2013-2014? One might factor in some growth, or decline in revenue, based around various assumptions and trends and around predicted performance, competitor activity etc. In this specific case it would be rash to budget for an income that was 30% higher than the current figure, I'm not sure any accountant would get away with such a prediction. i think one might predict an income figure for 2013-2014 that was more or less what we have currently. So our future budget, assuming we have a reasonable business plan and not some wild eyed fantasy, is perhaps likely to be quite similar to our current budget, and if, as I have been (I believe) reliably informed, the wage cap is at 67% for UEFA competition , it seems likely that further trimming is required (assuming the BBC fella has his numbers right).

Assuming the players wages represnt the lion's share of the total wages the club pays and that the numbers from the 'Wages & Revenue (sustainability )' thread are correct ( ish ), which I believe they are, then the total sum as things currently stand calculates to a number between 40 mil and 50 mil per year. That's not nearly 88% of the turnover, unless the Villa pays really big money to ordinary employees, i.e. non playing staff. Well, I havent read that thread, I was merely basing my assumptions on what was on the article I linked to. As it is the BBC, one might assume it had some credibility. The 88% figure has been bandied about for quite a while too, since MON left anyway, so I dont think the Beeb just pulled it out of thin air, although i suppose you;d need to ask the journalist in question where he got his figures from. All I can do is the quote the BBC as my source and leave people to make their minds up about which source they prefer

Perhaps you ought to have read further through the thread then, PB : this was a subsequent post. Without repeating the entire post, my initial point of that next post was: Indeed. As your thread the other day suggested, it is a combination of the two (as I assume that the figure PB used to illustrate the wage bill issue was working back based on a sensible wage:revenue ratio). Yeah, the figures I quoted came from the BBC website , an article published in March. This article stated that the last available figures showed our wage bill as 88% of turnover, as opposed to the 67% it would need to be under UEFA FP regulations that come into effect in 2013. On our current turnover, that equates to £20m per year, or nearly £400,000 per week higher than the UEFA FP regulations allow, thus barring us from entering European competition from 2013 unless the figure is brought under control. Even if you disregard the UEFA FP regs, I think its pretty clear that the wages/revenue ratio should be at the sort of 2/3rds level anyway so that the club will still be here in 100 years time. As I also said earlier in the thread there is little point in us trying to blame anyone for that figure being currently so high, as without knowing the exact nature of the roles taken by Lerner and O'Neill during the latter's tenure as manager we cant know who was making what decisions. On the one hand, you might say that Lerner gave it a real go and properly backed his manager at the time with a budget fitting a top 4 club (a club with a turnover £30m higher than ours) in the hope that by qualifying for the Champions League the revenue from prize money and more probably sponsorship would increase by the right sort of level. Some people might argue that given such a budget, it was reasonable to expect a manager of Martin O'Neill's reputation to achieve Champions League football. Having failed, for whatever reason, to achieve that target, and with the subsequent emergence of Manchester City, who we are unable to compete with on financial terms, the same people might then say that Lerner's duty of care to the long term future of the club is to accept that the attempt to buy our way in failed, that we had a small window of opportunity and didnt take it, and that we now need to put ourselves as a club into a position where the books are properly balanced. In that sense, given that a player towards the top of our wage scale earns about £50,000 per week, to lose £380,000 per week is a nett loss of something like 7 reasonably top earners from the wage bill. We still have some way to go to achieve that, as I would speculate that we remain something like £150-175,000 per week too heavy wages wise despite recent sales. Others might argue that Lerner should have had a tighter rein, that he shouldnt have allowed O'Neill to run up such a huge bill and place the club potentially in such jeopardy, and maybe there is something in that too. So basically, I'm not sure how you propose we can reach this 67% wage limit by increasing turnover by £30m per year (over 30%) in the space of 2 years, given that we cant compete financially with three of the top four, and have significantly lower revenues than at least another three clubs also. Where is this £30m going to come from to support the wage bill as it was?

Could that not also have been written as: It appears our revenue was £600,000 per week under budget for a couple of years. What should a good, responsible club owner do in that situation? I'm not sure what you;re getting at, other than to say that the club revenue should have been increased to allow for the increased wage bill of an additional £600,000 per week that you appear to be suggesting. Other than by acquiring Champions League football, with its attendant riches, how do you propose such a feat be achieved? Given that you cant compete in the Champions League without your wage bill being within budget especially?

I don't believe it is as black and white as you paint it. On fan message boards everything is black and white. There are no shades of grey

Are you saying the owners are incompetent then? I dont think I'm all that interested in a debate about blame. I have my ideas, you have yours, etc. All a bit pointless. What interests me is this. if you had came in as Villa's owner in say March, and found a wage bill that over the previous year had been £380, 000 per week over the UEFA fair play limit, what would you do, as a fan of Villa? £380,000 per week is 9 or 10 first team players. Thats the scale of the problem. What is the scale of the solution?

It appears as if our wage bill may have been £384,000 per week over budget for a couple of years. What should a good, responsible club owner do in that situation?

Which goalkeepers actually do come and claim corners? Not many, if any. Cech is the only one I can really think of. And Gomes, which leads to disaster. I seem to recall Tony Adams talking about David Seaman, another keeper constantly 'criticised' for staying on his line. Adams, iirc, said words to the effect that he liked playing with Seaman cos he always knew where he'd be (on the line). This made his decision making as a defender easier. I seem to recall Southgate saying more or less the same about DJ too, but for the opposite reason (ie, James would ALWAYS ALWAYS come for crosses, even if he shouldnt). I think what defenders hate is a keeper who sometimes comes, and sometimes doesnt, as that creates confusion and uncertainty.

Thats an interesting result so far. Fully expected it to be the other way round

Aren't we back to the oranges v oranges debate rather than something that was 'demonstrated beyond any doubt'? I can be prone to the odd bit of hyperbole, please forgive