danceoftheshamen

I agree with a lot of what villacas & drat 01 are saying here. I too believe that Lambert arrived with the brief to lower wages which included not using Warnock, Hutton & one or 2 others etc. I wonder if Bent was also discussed & Lambert was told that he had "x" amount of games to decide whether he wanted to keep him or sell him to raise funds prior to us activating an "appearance clause" in his contract or something along those lines? Regarding the 20m kitty he got, i think it is highly relevant that he had also lost the services of Cuellar, Collins, Heskey, Petrov & a few others. If you look at it he signed Vlaar, Lowton, Westwood, Benteke, Bennett & Bowery & had Holman already incoming through no choice of his own of course. So really it was a case of trying to just replace the players we lost from last seasons squad.. something like this: Warnock - - Bennett Hutton - - Lowton Collins - - Vlaar Petrov - - KEA Heskey - - Bowery? Bent - - Benteke?? Plus Holman, who was AMC's signing anyway & maybe Paul though he could be a back up option to Steven Ireland or something. I guess he also thought that Clark & or Baker were sufficient to cover the departure of Cuellar So i think he did pretty well to replace that lot with only 20m but to just stand still every one of those signings had to at least match the impact/performance level of the player he replaced & this was where it was a risky plan. Sadly i feel Bennett has been no better than Warnock & indeed on form Warnock is surely better than what we have seen from Bennett or indeed Stevens & Lichaj. You can understand why Lambert would have thought he was well covered in that position though. It is touch & go as to whether Vlaar has outperformed Collins & with Dunne being injured all season this has put too much pressure on Clark & Baker to cover him & Cuellar. Dunne, Collins & Cuellar v Vlaar, Clark & Baker? I do think Clark & Baker will be good players in time but they have been exposed for me this season.. & Kea is no Petrov yet either... so this for me is why we have been weaker than last season... A mixture of too much too soon & a bit of bad luck with injuries in key positions.. It is no coincidence that we are weak in defence & DCM primarily.. We needed KEA to work as Petrov was a very important player for us & captain don't forget. We also needed Dunne back being our only truly experienced premier League defender left. So with Dunne hopefully coming back soon & Kea now back from ACN this will hopefully help for the run in. Our season could rest on how these two perform from now on in though i fear.

I still think the problem is, what would happen if we spent 30m & didn't get the windfall next season.

I reckon he is merely preparing for a sale & he thought 20m in the summer would keep us half way up the table by this point..As it is he has seen how bad we are & just thought "stuff this" & rather than invest any more just decided to give up, pull the plug & then sell up asap & if we go down so be it... I reckon if we do he'll just sell as many players as he can like Benteke, Bent etc & then sell up cutting his losses. I just cannot fathom any other scenario. If we stay up great he gets a huge windfall & weighs things up again at that point maybe?

Aston villa = A Rolls Royce with a 50cc moped engine powering it.

So glad we lost against Millwall now... Has saved us from the even worse humiliation of losing to Luton in the next round

We really are back to the "Corner shop" thing aren't we....The circle has been completed.

Is off by the looks: The rats are starting to scurry already http://tinyurl.com/a864urm

Harewood? He's not even on that list .. But to answer your question .. No. i don't want the ones on your list back. My point was that whether the players on that list were good, bad, indifferent, crap or whatever is irrelevant.. & obviously Heskey, & Beye were among the worst on that list as you well know, but the fact still remains that the squad was decimated & we were in desperate need of extra bodies in pre season. The squad was desperately threadbare when Lambert arrived & a budget of 20m was nowhere near enough to fill all those holes with quality players & that i actually thought he had done Ok in this regard. So do you disagree with that? What i meant by "Myth" was that i have lost count of the posts on here claiming Randy had been generous by giving Lambert this 20m transfer kitty. It is often implied that this is in some way a further personal investment on Randy's part taking his personal investment to up to 250m etc when it is in fact just money generated by transfers..So the Myth i am getting at is the Myth that this was an additional personal investment of some sort by our owner. Randy has indeed invested a lot of money in the club of course he has, but i don't see how reinvesting money generated by player sales can be classed in the same light. Lambert was given 20m yes but he was also given a very threadbare squad which was desperately short in numbers. He inherited a squad that had survived by the skin of it's teeth last season & had been decimated still further since then with the losses of Collins, Cuellar & Petrov amongst others. Yes the quality of many of those sold/released was poor anyway but we did have some "Stars" & established Internationals in that lot too which have not been replaced... So yeah i'd prefer a number of those back here for sure although thats never going to happen obviously.

It's clear one of the big problems is Kea's lack of form/injury. Coupled with Dunne's injury which dragged & dragged. The Bent thing is a mystery though.. I mean was Lambert told pre season he only had "x" amount of games he could play him due to this rumoured "appearance clause" or something? Hence he had the necessity to buy Benteke? Guess we'll never know though you could be forgiven for thinking it may all be part of this wage slashing thing.

I think this debate between "is it Randy or Lambert" will run & run lol! The problem here is that it's surely clear that Lambert had been told that the likes of Cuellar, Collins, Warnock etc were to be culled to reduce wages. As for midfield i think due to the timing of his appointment he had very little time to accurately assess the squad "under pressure" & indeed maybe over estimated our strength in both defence & midfield.. although it's clear he is now, having had some proper time & matches to assess things, well aware that we need work but he's had the finances to do that work severed from above.. Lets not forget he only had half a summer to try to sort this mess before the season started... Thats not a lot of time & it was obvious that certain issues would become apparent in his first half season here... Thing is he has now had the rug pulled.. so really there is no way he has had enough chance to assess properly or been given any opportunity to do anything about it now that he is no doubt aware of what we need much more clearly. The fact is that from the signings he has made Bowery, Benteke, Vlaar & Lowton have all done ok. Holman wasn't his signing anyway & really the only problem is the Left back situation... Thats not a bad ratio to me. I think what we are forgetting is that this squad was decimated (yet again) in the summer including most of our remaining experienced heads. Add to that the loss of the club captain Petrov ( the player who very significantly would be the solution to our DM problem if able) Then the injury to one our hottest prospects... in midfield... in Gary Gardner... then the Makoun fiasco even Heskey was playing in there last season which highlights just how desperate we were in that department even then. So is it any wonder we are so weak in midfield? As for defence well thats easy You can't lose Cuellar, Collins, Dunne, Warnock & Hutton all in one go, replace them with Vlaar, Stephens, Bennett & Lowton & expect anything other than problems. Thats 5 very experienced & established Premiership players most of whom are internationals & who were themselves conceding an average of 2 goals per game..... So we replace them with rookies lol!... Only gonna go one way! I see Paul Lambert as having a jigsaw puzzle which has some key pieces missing & which also has some pieces which are actually from a completely different puzzle altogether so no matter how hard he tries to fit them in they simply won't fit together properly... This is the problem regarding tactics maybe.. Whichever tactics he uses doesn't suit one area of the team as is evident in the fact that when we attack we are vulnerable & when we defend we have no threat.... Maybe another manager would find a way who knows? Lambert has had the weakest ever Villa squad handed to him with a brief to decimate it still further.. The 20m was nowhere near enough to repair the damage inflicted over the last 3 seasons.. No wonder it got spread so thinly. I actually think it's remarkable that he found us 3 or 4 good players with that & it was just inevitable that some of them would not work quite so well... Although they may yet come good don't forget. But this was still nowhere near enough. Over the last 2 years we have lost the services of Emile Heskey------------------------free Alan Hutton (Ousted) Steven Warnock (ousted) Stilian Petrov (ill) James Collins-----------------------2.8m Carlos Cuellar----------------------free Jean Makoun (loaned)------------1.3m Nathan Delfounso (loan) Jermaine Jenas (end of loan) Habib Beye--------------------------free Gary Gardner (serious injury) John Carew-----------------------free Ashley Young --------------------£15.8m Stewart Downing-----------------£20m luke Young------------------------£1m Brad Freidel----------------------free Nigel Reo Coker-----------------free Robert Pirez----------------------released Michael Bradley----------------- (end of loan) Moustapha Salifou--------------free Isaiah Osbourne-----------------free total: 41.8m in the season previous with Milners departure etc it was 25m from transfers so £66.8m since MON left. How much have we spent on transfers in that period? approx 72.7m!! so altogether a spend of 1.9m per season!! So much for the 20m myth!! Thats 21 players with 1st team experience we have lost/sold by the way!! I havn't included the others!!

I still like Paul Lambert, the problem is he has one hand.... in fact scrub that he has both hands, tied behind his back. The one by having no power to bring in desperately needed new recruits, which he has no doubt identified having had enough time to fully assess the squad (apart from Dunne) & the other in that the players he has got keep making playground errors with basic defending from set pieces & missing sitters in front of goal... They seem to have the attention span of a Gold fish & just switch off mentally in games. This is whats killing us in my opinion & what the causes of that are i would have down as they cannot handle pressure very well. Many of them have never experienced this kind of pressure before being from lower leagues or having never tasted the "goldfish bowl effect" that is the Premier League before. Now this has effected confidence compounding the issue. This would also explain the "headless chicken effect" which wreaks havoc when we concede a goal. I do actually think if we could get a couple of back to back wins under our belts we would see a very different side... trouble is i simply cannot see any Premiership team gifting us a win at the moment which is what we need to start the ball rolling & especially not two in a row thats for sure. As for the lapses in concentration it does make you wonder if there are issues regarding application & focus. It's almost as though there are dietary issues or some of the players are out on the lash the day before a game or something... Who knows but something doesn't add up quite right. It could of course be another sign that they are simply crumbling under the pressure due to being a bit "green" so to speak. As for Lambert doing anything wrong, the only thing apparent is that It does "appear" that he makes some odd substitutions but then he has very few options & if the players were good enough we would still get results despite this. Added to that he obviously sees a lot more than we do of course so i am sure sometimes a substitution may seem odd to us but is done for reasons we are blissfully unaware of. The only other thing i would criticize is his body language at times. This definitely sends out bad signals which the players will pick up on & it does usually coincide with the "shoot ourselves in the foot sessions" which we seem to enjoy towards the end of every game... I wonder what our position would be if we removed the last 25 minutes of every game this season.... I don't think it's a coincidence that this is the "pressured" part of the game when the opposition are going for it more..

Sometimes you do get the impression that HDE is still chatting to Randy don't you.... Can envisage the chat going along like this HDE:"I hear the fans are a little upset Randy?" RL: "Weell yeeeah Doug waaad do i do?" HDE" Oh don't worry i had it for 25 years, just leak a story to the local press that your going to sign somebody half decent..Then either put in an offer which you know his club will reject or at the last minute say he changed his mind or there was a hitch over wages or something"... "Works a treat my boy believe me" RL: "Reeearlly? But won't thaat urpset them morre?" HDE:... "Thing is that by the time the fools realize whats gone on the Window will be closed anyway.... "Takes the heat off old boy you should try it" (Winks in a knowing kind of way) RL: "Got yerr on thaat Douglas" HDE: "By the way i know a guy who's really good at ice sculpting................"

We have a saying in my work You either talk the talk or You walk the walk We also have an expression for those who constantly talk the talk over & over but never actually produce any results.. we call them "Am-A-Gonna's" Am-A-Gonna do this Am-A-Gonna do that But they never actually do anything This just reminds me so much of those involved with Aston Villa at the moment. .

Oh good we're out... What a shock... Not! This now goes down as the worst team i have ever seen in Claret & Blue (& Yes i'm including West Ham, Burnley in that too) My reaction tonight was one of ..........."Oh" in a really tepid "Meh" kind of way. I am past caring about this ridiculous football club. Shame on you all at Villa! You are an absolute embarrassment to the name. Still every cloud has a silver lining... At least that means i don't have to endure watching that lot in the FA cup again this season Can't we just forfeit the remaining points this season & save us all the waste of time, money & embarrassment of watching it.... One things for sure though... I won't be.. Villa Park is now on my "avoid" list. Right i'm off up the bookies to put a fiver on a 0-5 defeat against the barcodes

Lol!.. Just ask them how they'd feel if one day God came down & closed all the shoe shops down... & you said "they're only shoe shops"... They should understand then.

Ditto this ^^^ I find that villatalk is far more interesting than watching Villa actually play these days.. Its a bit like watching a really fascinating soap opera albeit somewhat depressing. But at least on villatalk you sometimes get your hopes lifted, even though lately they are always dashed again pretty quickly, whereas watching the team actually play is just a constant & painful reminder of how poor they are.

So it appears that our transfer policy is .. so long as the transfer fee is ridiculously low & the player is happy to play in the Premiership on Championship wages just in case we go down we can do a deal?... Hmmmn I wonder why they won't come?

Hmmmn!? So he is preparing to sell? Or maybe has said something along the lines of ....."Right thats enough!.. That wage bill is now coming down & if it means relegation so be it!"

Cannot disagree with that at all... The whole club is a farce as things stand.

Absloutely.... you can understand his reluctance to invest more... Especially as it still has to be repaid by the club with interest so in a sense the more he invests the more he shackles his club financially. So a bit of a no win situation in that respect & of course he has to do that under the regulations.

Of course he doesn't but that wasn't my point, my point was that he must have recouped some of that which doesn't seem to be accounted for in any of the stories, articles or posts i see everywhere.

I do actually think that Lerner isn't that overly concerned if we go down now. Has probably weighed up what the costs involved in "guaranteeing" staying up would be against what the actual "losses" would really be if we went down. So... Losses: 1. 70m in new tv money, 2. A bit of a drop in gate receipts etc... Lets say we lost 8000 from the average with a spend per head of £50 per match thats about 400,000 down per home game so around 8m - 9m ish. 3. Then a drop in sponsorship money, as is already apparent with Genting not renewing amongst others most likely.. This i havn't a clue on overall but lets take a wild guess at another 10m? Gains: 1. A parachute payment of approx 16m 2. The cost in transfer fees & wages to "Guarantee" we would stay up would appear to be significant bearing in mind we have one of if not the worst squad ever at this club. So this may well need another 20m plus the wages which may add another 10-15m so there's 30-35m again. We may of course survive with less but i am guessing they would be looking at this as irrelevant unless it would absolutely ensure safety because otherwise it could put us in an even worse position if we increased the wages & spent big on transfer fees only to get relegated anyway which you have to say is a massive possibility. 3. By going down many of the clubs top earners would want out thus reducing the wage bill still further. It may not be all of them but some would leave for sure & certainly more than if we stayed up. Difficult to put a figure on this of course but lets say another 20m in wages off the bill & some money gained from transfers of another 20m 4. As we know some contracts are ending naturally anyway so this would surely finally get the clubs wage bill fully under control with maybe just a couple to shift on at some point. Again the figure for this is difficult to pinpoint but it must surely be another 7-10m? off the wage bill as a rough guess. So that would mean we would lose out on about 89m but would technically "gain" around the same if not actually a little bit more 90 - 100m although that "gain" would be spread over Parachute payment (16m) Savings made by not having to spend on transfer fees & wages to stay up (30-35m) Player sales due to relegation (20m) Savings on wages due to relegation (20m) This would also mean another massive chunk off the wage bill which would surely put the club in a very healthy position regarding the sustainability issue which we all know has been the main target of Randy since the change of plans in 2010. So for me maybe the plan is that if we do manage to stay up then great & the extra TV money would enable us to then maybe strengthen in the summer properly. If we do go down then so be it... But we would then have the wages under control more or less & we would go all out to get back up. A gamble for sure but maybe a calculated one to a point. The one thing it appears that is not an option, is to push the wages right back up again in an all out attempt to stay up (this would explain the repeated comments from Lambert that he wouldn't pay silly wages which is often what happens when buying players at this time of year) So no i think any signings will only come in if they fit in with the overall plan (which may well include relegation hence the lack of willingness to sign any big names etc) In other words if they come they will have to be ok with wages on the lower end in case we go down.... Hence no signings as yet.

I see all this "investment of 250m" talk all the time but what about the monies he has recouped from that? Player sales & the like? Milner, Young, Downing etc etc.. I mean there's what 40m ish just there & you can't tell me all that has been reinvested surely? I mean with the income from tv, prize money etc & the money raised from sales for the last 3 seasons now he must be getting some of that back? I'm no accountant but hey!

For me it's becoming more & more obvious that we are doing a big fat zero... This surely points to a concern that we will get relegated?

A good football team