NurembergVillan

Football advisor is a bad turn of phrase on my part. What I'm trying to say is that we'd have benefitted, and still would, from someone in there who understands and has experience of the football industry. I'm checking out of this conversation now. It's become about O'Neill and I'm bored of reading it for the Nth time on VillaTalk. The key point for me is that our board lacks people with genuine football industry experience. Whether that's somebody like Graham Taylor, who is a former football manager AND chairman, or Peter Kenyon who has worked in sporting goods and been a successful football club chairman, many of the mistakes we have made - during MON's tenure and since - wouldn't, I believe, have been allowed to happen.

On that day in 2010 the teams looked like the below. I don't think we fared too badly in terms of what we spent of fees and wages. Where we came off worse was value for money. Tottenham 01 Gomes 03 Bale 04 Kaboul 20 Dawson 26 King 32 Assou-Ekotto 05 Bentley (Lennon 73) 06 Huddlestone 14 Modric 09 Pavlyuchenko (Gudjohnsen 87) 18 Defoe (Crouch 72) Substitutes 27 Alnwick, 19 Bassong, 07 Lennon, 08 Jenas, 12 Palacios, 15 Crouch, 17 Gudjohnsen Man City 38 Fulop 03 Bridge 05 Zabaleta 28 Toure 33 Kompanyyellow card 11 A Johnson (Wright-Phillips 77) 24 Vieira 34 De Jong 25 Adebayor 32 Tevez (Richards 88) 39 Bellamy Substitutes 37 Nielsen, 02 Richards, 04 Onuoha, 15 Garrido, 16 Sylvinho, 08 Wright-Phillips, 14 Santa Cruz Aston Villa 01 Friedel 05 Dunne 24 Cuellar 25 Warnock (Heskey 74) 29 Collinsyellow card 06 Downing 07 A Young 08 Milner 19 Petrovyellow card 10 Carew (Delfouneso 74) 11 Agbonlahor Substitutes 22 Guzan, 02 L Young, 23 Beye, 04 Sidwell, 20 Reo-Coker, 14 Delfouneso, 18 Heskey

I was going over there for a third interview with Under Armour. I was working for Umbro at the time and we were being bought by new owners - a company called Iconix, who have their head office in New York. Iconix made me a great offer to work for them but remain in Manchester as Creative Director of the Umbro brand, so I accepted that and that's what I do now. I could have gone to live in Baltimore, but instead I'm staying here and hoping to move to New York in the next few years.

But with the players that were signed the wage bill should never have been that high. We didn't have a squad (we had a core of around 14 players who warranted those wages and earned the league placings) that justified that outlay. Conversely, with the money we were spending we should have had a better squad that would have finished higher up the league. In 2010 at the start of May we were 5th in the league only on goal difference from Spurs and 3 points ahead of Man City. We went to the Etihad with a tired squad, got beat 3-1 and ended up 6th. If we'd spent the money better we wouldn't have had Luke Young, Beye, Sidwell, Reo-Coker and Heskey on the bench. Roughly £25m of players there and about £250k a week in wages. Whilst I've been quick to criticise Hughes' work at City, Vincent Kompany was in their team that day. He cost roughly the same as Luke Young.

That's pretty much what I'm trying to say mate, yes.

That's not really the point I'm trying to make, it's just the rabbit hole the conversation has gone down. I entered the conversation to say that I felt Randy invested enough money in the first 3 years to get us 4th place but that it wasn't well spent. A football advisor then, and indeed still now, would have been a huge benefit to ensure that we were getting value for money.

I'll use an analogy - You buy a house that needs "modernisation". You buy it with the intention of doing it up to then increase the value beyond what you've spent on the house and the improvements. Say it costs you £200k and by spending another £80k you can make it worth £400k. You hire an interior designer to spend the budget you have in mind believing that when's he's finished you'll have a valuable asset. You know nothing about interior design and let the designer spend the budget however he sees fit and take his word that what he proposes to buy will satisfy your ambition. After 3 years the work still isn't complete and everyone who comes to view the house can see that ridiculous money has been wasted on expensive taps in the spare bathroom, outdated chintzy curtains and an un-necessary loft conversion. A different interior designer, or same one being monitored by an expert, would have spent the same money (or less) achieving your ambition to invest into the property in order to make it more valuable. All you've been left with is a load of expensive furniture that you can't even sell on eBay, a nursery, and garden that wins "best lawn" every year. That analogy actually turned out better than I expected...

If MON was the main football man though, his argument would be "give me £65k a week for Heskey and we'll get CL football and all it's monetary benefits". With nobody to challenge that he had a free run at it. The finance people are partly responsible, but if the policy was speculate to accumulate there was nobody in the club to ensure that the speculation was being undertaken appropriately.

Aren't you arguing against yourself there? If his decision making in a sport "he fully understood" was holding his team back then surely an advisor was essential in a sport he didn't understand? I think Browns fans would argue whether it was a sport he fully understood though. If there had been a GT type figure around then MON wouldn't have been able to run rings around him throwing lucrative contracts at players who didn't deserve them.

If it's anything like Star City I'm staying away.

It did, but our aim was top 4 whilst theirs was Champions hence them spending even more. Spurs have invested heavily, yes, but similarly they've sold a lot of players for profit down the years too. Carrick, Berbatov, Modric - all players they've sold and then re-invested into the squad. That's another failing of ours. When we've sold star players we've not replaced them with like for like.

Lerner's first mistake at VP was not having a proper football person around him in the early days. Someone like Graham Taylor as an advisor would have helped things massively and we likely wouldn't be in the mess we are now.

They finished 3rd because the manager invested the money badly and they didn't win enough matches because he's not a good manager. It could be argued that we finished 6th because the manager invested the money badly (we're still paying the price) and didn't rotate the squad well enough so we didn't win enough matches (we never won a game in March under MON iirc).

Don't you dare be suggesting a Picnic...

I shed a tear the day these chaps were taken from the shelves...

They weren't trying to break the top 4, they were spending to win the league. And they gave the money to Mark Hughes, who spent it on Kolo Toure, Roque Santa Cruz, Robinho, Emmanuel Adebayor and put Stephen Ireland on £80k a week.

It's on sale for £15 on Steam until 6pm today. Do I buy it?

I was booked on a flight to Baltimore for an interview just before Christmas. I didn't go.

I've been, but was only there for a day. Had to meet Hristo Stoichkov in the Hilton Hotel. Nice hotel though.

If you like Japanese/Asian fusion food you HAVE to go to Koi at the Bryant Park Hotel (it's at Bryant Park and W40th St, so only a few blocks from TImes Square). The food is exceptional and not over priced for NYC. The architecture inside is breathtaking and there's a great beer-cellar style bar downstairs. Plus Bryant Park itelf is a beautiful little square so it'll be a romantic night out. You can order a proper main course or else a few smaller dishes or sushi. The kobe beef potstickers (Asian dumplings) are beautiful and they do a great softshell crab too. They have more orthodox dishes like tuna and salmon too though. I try to go every time I'm in New York. If you want something a bit more tradtional then Pastis in the Meatpacking District is a great spot. As the name suggests it's French-angled food but is ever popular - http://www.pastisny.com/ For somewhere off the beaten track try La Esquina, a Mexican place that looks like a taco stand from the street. That's because it is. But if you've booked, or you've timed it right, there will be a woman by an internal door who will show you downstairs and through the kitchen into a little restaurant/bar that does great food - http://esquinanyc.com/ With any of them, the sooner you can book the better. I guess it'll depend on what you're after and what you want to spend though. Give me more details and I'll give you more ideas! If you're looking at a decent budget (say £100 for the two of you) then you should be ok for any of those places. It'd have to be Koi for me though - http://www.koirestau...rk/galleries/1/ Give me a holler if you want any tips on clubs or bars etc too.

For Newcastle? £35m.

Posh lad then? Her family lived in Little Aston.

Chamakh on his way to West Ham.

Like - 2 Jags Prescott. If I was a fat northerner-come-good I'd probably be him too. Disklike - Cyril Smith. Fat northerner-come-somewhere he shouldn't have.

At least that would mean he'd stay in position.