Faust

Randy Lerner has millions to spend. It shouldn't be automatically assumed that Villa have millions to spend. I'd be very suprised if we spent more than £40 million from january till the start of the next season. Randy hasn't got money that expandable, with a fortune of around 800 million, minus the club purchase it soon starts eating away. I'd say Randy has set asside an initial £100 to £200 million to spend on the club to get it turned around (including the purchase) You think Lerner would be happy to see a quarter of his personal fortune spent on Villa? If he's envisaging that amount of initial outlay, how long would it be before he could expect to see a return on his investment? Even if we post profits of £20m a season for ten seasons, with all of that cash flowing into Lerner's account, he'd still only be breaking even. He'd get a better return on investment by leaving the money in a current account! My assumption has always been that, after this coming window, our new management will be hoping to fund everything else from some hefty long-term sponsorship deals, increased TV money, higher league finishes and higher gates. At the time of the merger, I guessed that Lerner might be willing to spend a further £30 million of his own money to get the ball rolling - I still think that figure will prove about right.

I don't know about you, but what I want for Villa is long-term, sustainable success. I want us to be challenging for the top four spots in the league every season, I want us to be competing against the best in Europe and to have a tilt at the title from time to time. Like it or not, achieving that kind of improvement is going to require gradual change - not a step-change. For one thing, we don't have unlimited financial resources. We're not a billionaire's play-thing. As a result, we have to spend wisely. We can't waste money. If Lerner DOES sanction a big spree this Jan, it's going to eat into the budget for future transfer windows. Do you want that? What if that first spending spree doesn't produce immediate results? I'm sure that, when Tevez and Mascherano joined West Ham, their fans - and, presumably, Pardew - thought that they'd be safely in the UEFA spots. Hasn't happened for them, has it? But these are the calibre of players you'd like to see us sign, I'd assume. There are two other reasons I can think of why our progress has to be gradual. First, if we're buying from the top-drawer of footballing talent, we're going to be competing for their signatures against top-drawer teams. Like it or not, we have to be able to offer success to these players before they'll come - they're not likely to take a gamble on us when they could get guaranteed Champion's League football elsewhere. At the moment, the best we can hope for are players like Petrov - players with proven quality who are still slightly below the very top tier. Second, the best way to manage change is to manage it gradually. I don't want to see us buy a hatful of star players in one fell swoop who then fail to gel, spark dressing-room unrest, fall out with each other, the manager, and the more established players and leave everyone laughing at our failed gamble as we splutter to a mid-table finish. The right way to achieve long-term success IS to add more quality and more depth - but to do it steadily. You saw how we were torn apart by Liverpool last weekend. We're a long way from being able to play that kind of football and it'll take us some time until we can go toe-to-toe with teams like that. If we try take a giant leap forward, we'll just land on our arses.

Doug, been the hardworking bloke he is gets £200,000 a year ish. when the company floated he pocketed a chunk of the millions for selling his shares. And every year without fail at the AGM he would use his shares to vote on giving the chairman a bonus for the hardwork of loosing us millions a year. at the last VFC protest about him he had took £8mill out of the club. and never put a penny in. and now hes got £25mil from the sale so thats £33mil ish. For basically been sh*t a running the club. But i digress. Sorry for going OT So, when you talk about "taking money out of the club" you mean "being paid for his role as chairman"? I think you'll find that the same thing happens at every company. And, as a shareholder, he's more than entitled to sell his shares. Would you prefer that he didn't sell them?

If the club has been run first and foremost to line Doug's pockets, why has the board not paid shareholders a dividend for (as far as I can recall) the last three years? Because of the massive losses dougs been racking up. And why do that when he could more easily vote for his bonus!!! :evil: I'm sorry - I don't follow that. Villa has been run to line Doug's pockets and the evidence is the fact that the club has been making losses? What do you mean?

Actually, I've seen reports claiming that the AV06 consortium contains not one but two billionaires. It's entirely possible that they've got more financial clout than Lerner. Personally, everything I've read and heard about Lerner's bid makes me confident that we'll be in good hands with him as the chairman. But I'm not going to dismiss the possibility that other bids might be better for us.

If the club has been run first and foremost to line Doug's pockets, why has the board not paid shareholders a dividend for (as far as I can recall) the last three years?

What absolute rubbish. There's a world of difference between people speculating, whispering and cooking up wild theories on a message board and a journalist calling up contacts, prodding people who are "in the know" and writing an article based on what they're able to dig up. I'm willing to state - here and now - that there will be a bomb attack in Baghdad in the next few days which will kill upwards of ten people. If and when that actually happens, would you then claim that I managed to scoop all of the journalists who cover that event?

Not by me, you weren't. I told you that in order for Ellis to step down, someone else needed to step up and that we didn't know a) if anyone was willing to do so at what price they would be willing to do so and c) whether they would share our ambitions for the club. Now the club has issued a statement claiming that there ARE interested parties, which (if you believe the statement) takes care of a). But and c) are still big unknowns.

To be fair, unless either of us have combed through Sunderland's financials and scrutinised the consortium's business plan, we're not really in a position to say whether the price they're paying is cheap, expensive, or fair value.

That debt belongs to the company, does it? Would that be the company which you've just bought? Seriously - where did you get the idea that the new owners of a debt-laden company are not liable for the company's existing borrowing? Of course they are! Buying a company means you buy both its assets and its liabilities. If those liabilities are sufficiently large then it may mean you can get the company on the cheap - it certainly doesn't mean you can ignore them altogether.

Well, indeed. Still, let's hope that the Mail isn't going to be deterred by this. It's pretty clear that the club doesn't like this kind of coverage, so they may yet be able to lever some info out of them. At the very least it may just force Ellis to think more carefully about what it is that he's doing.

Exactly. The only thing that the stock exchange prohibits is releasing information selectively - the idea is to prevent a situation in which some investors find out that the share price is going to plummet / rocket and are able to take advantage while the rest of the market remains in the dark. There's absolutely nothing stopping the club from discussing this in public - as long as the content of that discussion is simultaneously released to the broader market.