sellyoakvilla

We tried though. We offered him the option of transfer funds once he had sorted out his massive wage bill. But he had a strop and gave up. We weren't going to be an unlimited supply of money for him, there has to be a line in the sand somewhere. But I do think if we stood firm on the Milner sale and said no MON might have stayed.

The thing is as much as we all want the 'glory days' back, Aston Villa is not just a football club. Randy Lerner has a business to run, which he's currently operating at a loss. Not saying it's not his fault because he should've been a bit more careful with his money and not get so carried away in his opening couple of seasons in charge, but it's happened now and there's not a lot we can do other than cut unnecessary outgoings. One of the main reasons we were so set on McLeish was because Lerner saw him as a manager who could steady the ship without complaining for transfer funds and causing unrest within management. By steady the ship I mean behind the scenes. As much as we all want the club to be getting instant results football doesn't always work like that. We've got to be realistic for the long term future of the club. OK, we may be stagnant for another season (I won't say transitional period because I'm fed up of it being described as that) but our wage bill in ratio to turnover isn't the best. But neither are our attendances. And here comes catch 22. With low attendances and little revenue the only hope we have at making our wage bill sensible is by letting players go and operating on a sell-to-buy policy, or "trading" as McLeish liked to describe it. Now, of course we'd all like 40k attendances every week, but how is that going to happen if the football is, er, well, crap? We all know Villa have our fair share of fairweather fans just like every other club. But without the fans attending the games this is going to be an even longer process. Poor matchday revenue = lack of players in High wage bill = lack of players in Lack of players in = slow decline Slow decline = Decrease in revenue Decrease in revenue = selling assets, or, as we've learnt, selling our best players And then we're back to square one. It's not pretty, it's definitely not what I or any other Villa fan wants, but the way we're being run at the moment is something that needs to be done. Thankfully a lot of our 30+ players on £50,000+ p/w have contracts ending at the end of this season or next. Heskey, Dunne, Beye, Cuellar all out at the end of this season frees up almost £200,000 p/w which is £10.4m p/a... if needs be and we have to let Bent go we'll be saving even more. Again, thankfully, we have a lot of promising kids coming through the ranks who are adequate enough to replace those that will go, and if we need to replace I'm sure we will be shrewd... it's gonna be a long and winding road with a lot of disappointment on the way but as rubbish as it is, the financial status of the club in the long term is more important than a season or two of mediocrity. It's far too easy to call for McLeish's head but he won't be off any time soon. Oh and there's also the fact that Houllier had to be paid off, Martin O'Neill had to be paid off, Birmingham City had to be paid off and if we sacked McLeish there'd be an even bigger pay off. Can we really afford to have another set back in our mission to make the club financially stable before the new UEFA rules come into play? I'm not saying we'll challenge top 4 again but I highly doubt Lerner doesn't care about the club anymore. You can't blame McLeish for taking the job, he was offered it after all. It's just unfortunate for us that he was the only one *silly* enough to accept the job on our terms of no transfer funds, sell to buy, reduce wage bill & combat decline.

The bloke needs time, remember he didn't really have a pre season so he's been playing catch up

FWIW I think Warnock has been one of our most consistently steady players this season, unfortunately though he does have an error in him almost every game and this is often far too easy to look at instead of his decent performances. Most of his errors are early on in games too, seems to be a bit of a slow starter. Not saying he's world class but I don't think he's as bad as everyone is making out due to a lapse in concentration

The only reason I'm giving him the smallest fragment of a chance is because he had the balls to cross the city. But then again if I could almost double my wage I'd do it too. The worst part is that we paid our rivals £3 milllion for him.... sigh

RIP mate. Only met you once at Blackburn away in the Carling Cup (I think) but you were a pleasure to be around and a really sound bloke. You'll be missed. "Holte Enders in the sky."

Death From Above 1979 - 'You're a Woman, I'm a Machine'

Why does Darren Bent need another song? He's already got one and has done f all this season.. Players like Clark and Delph need songs not him

It's obvious there's a decent player in there somewhere but I don't get why whenever a player joins Villa they take the absolute piss to find form. It's happened with so many of our players who have turned out alright in the next season... it's now more than never we need our performers to, well, perform, as we could face even more of a hit in attendance / revenue if we don't sort this out ASAP - and the hangover from that will stay with us for a long, long time. Kind of like my hangover from a day of boozing in Manchester

If you sit behind a goal at home matches, particularly when we're attacking the other goal, keep an eye on him and you'll notice it more... he drifts into the centre far too often and leaves Bannan covering him, thus forth leaving the midfield exposed to any attacks cutting down the wing he's had to leave wide open. This really needs to be worked on as his attacking, generally, tends to be okay. But he's no Kyle Walker and this is why I think we notice his negatives more

On the contrary I believe we really missed him at the back yesterday, not saying we wouldn't have conceded 4 if he was playing as, afterall, we were playing title challengers, but I think we would have been a lot tighter with him there.

His positioning was absolutely shocking yesterday. Willing to give him a chance but with the whole McLeish appointment it means we need results and quick.. so if that means dropping him for someone who has had a better game recently then so be it

He was incredible today. And at Fulham to be fair. I was not his biggest fan but he has proven me wrong. Looking forward to seeing him some more this season!

General, Good win today, impressed with the team. Had my free pie today so thanks for that too. RE: the PA system, I'm in the Lower Holte and it sounded a LOT clearer so well done for sorting that out. But it's too loud! Turn it down!