paulfromsutton

Anyone else pissed off OPR are getting M'via for just 7 million and we arent even having a sniff? That is so cheap for him 3 times that price a year ago...

We'll beat Newcastle, West Ham, Reading, QPR, Liverpool, Fulham, Sunderland, Norwich and Wigan. We'll get draws against WBA, Stoke, Chelsea. So that is 30 points on top of what we have at the moment. Trust me we'll be safe.

I mean we do have a quality quality team and once Lambert has instilled the system he wants us to play and we are getting closer to this, we'll be harder to beat.

We have a quality team. In Brad Guzan we have a exceptional GK. Only Cech, Hart and Lloris are better. In Vlaar we have one of the best defenders in the world. Apart from the defences of chelsea and man u he'd walk into any team in league. Clark is going to be exceptional. Lawton will be great for us he has all the talent. In midfield the likes of N'Zogbia, Holman, Delph and Herd is very talented. Once Lambert gets them increasing their work rate their skills will come to fruition. In Benteke we have the best No.9 in the league and Bent is a supreme goalscorer.

I reckon we'll finish around 13th or 14th. Due to our bad start. We have a great team full of talented players. In Lambert we have the best young manager in Britain. I believe.

Are you on drugs we have some good players yea but not many

Holman, Delph and Herd are pap!

Nzog and players like Ireland are very good players........ when they want to be and thats not often.

We need players to be certain of staying up if we get none then its a HUGE risk no way will we be 3 points clear of relegation when the wigan game comes

I don't like Dunne to slow etc

However

He will do the power of good for our defence coming back telling people what positions to be in and being a leader.

Maybe Lerner should have paid a bit more attention to things. You know being the owner and all.

Just unlucky eh?

Oh if MoN quit why did we agree to a settlement out of court? Same old story.

Completely agree with you

We have a professional manager and coaching team who are from this industry currently running the club, so we have this already

. The window is not yet over so this could happen

this is what is happening anyway.

I wasnt talking about the management of playing staff but the business it's self as for the future policy stuff we certainly arent doing it with the youth setup and the transfer policy is unknown to everyone. it would be nice if they said we wont buy anyone over 26 in the summer.

For me we need to buy a centre back, centre mid, AND a left and right winger.

As for who they could I will only pick English based players as not everyone knows every player from every league in the world!

I can't name you a right winger because well I'm not a scout and one doesnt come to mind however

I'd take Lescott, Huddlestone and bring Downing back and heres why.

Firstly we wont need to play 5 at the back bringing Lescott in and having Vlaar, Clark and Dunne allows us to have some good centre backs, Huddlestone is slow but he can also play at centre back, he can pass very well, has a good tackle and will be good in the air for corners at both ends of the ground.

Downing hasnt become a bad player all of a sudden bring him back to familiar suroundings, give him a bit of love and play him every game and I believe he will be the player he was after his first half season with us (the year he was injured until christmas)

This frees us to play N'zog in the middle to if we like or behind the strikers it also allows us to play Benteke AND Bent upfront our strikers are excellent at the club right now and they are both good in the air and will score plenty of goals in a 442 with wing play.

Again also it allows us to play gabby off the shoulder of a defender he isnt going to score goals if he isnt playing in this position and that is why he isnt scoring.

Most will probably disagree with me but with these players I believe not only would we survive but relitively we would thrive I would go as far as saying if Lerner said you cant spend money in the summer I would agree to it as we wouldnt do badly the next year and Lambert could continue with his youth policy and only bringing in young players to the club with sell on values and again good prices

Sell up to someone who knows how to run a sports team or at the very least stop **** around, put a whole team of industry professionals to run the club, put some cash in now to secure the league status and then create a long term vision of building from Youth and put more cash into that to bring more talented 18yr old or less players into the club

I would say around 65-70m and I am sure all of the land around Villa park that came with the purchase aswell?

Now correct me if I am wrong anyone as these figures are from brief memory.. He upgraded the training facilitys at a rough cost of 14m. Rebuilt the Holte Hotel at a rough cost of 4m. The mosiac display on the holte end another 1m, then all the other little bits and pieces like refurbishing the holte end entrance pub etc, trinity road suites, huge cinema screens outside the ground, and the other bumflufferies here and there. All in all an investment of another 25m added to his purchase price of the club. But all in all about 100m let's say he has sunk in on buying and revamping the place.

That's before a player is purchased! I am sure I have read that Randy Lerner has spent well over 200m in 7 years on players (add that to wages and I bet that figure turns to nearly 500m!)

All in all roughly 600m in 7 years!..

I don't think doug could ever match that figure in a 7 year period to be fair!

but 600m and what is there to show for it? ok a nice venue definately but only a Carling cup final appearance and currently 18th in the league and looking like getting worse unless more money is pumped in to save this huge investment.

Now I am no Alan Sugar but if I had ploughed 600m into a business I am going to make sure that if the times get tough I don't **** it all up by ignoring the problem and refusing to fix it.

If Randy was to ever think about selling up he is not going to let an investment this huge go to **** and wipe off any current valuation by dropping down a league and also missing out on a huge windfall of new money deals the following year!

If he is failing to see this than I suggest he sits up and takes notice of PL list of recruits and invests another 20/30m if it is certain to rescue us.

That is an expensive investment and from an outsiders point of view its like he purchased a car and paid shitloads on adding modifications etc. only for your friend to come round (paul faulkner) to have a spin in it but rag the shit out of it and cause you to carry out numerous expensive repairs time and time again of which the mechanics he took it too cost shitloads of money to put right but never actually did the job properly either. Now yes paul faulkner is a clearing in the woods for doing it, but Randy is more of a dick for letting him do it in the first place!

Doug Ellis was a prick and always will be in my view. But I dont think Randy has actually thought about this whole owning a Premier League club being all that is was cracked up to be either hence the new direction this club is now operating on.

.

Well I can see a good amount of back of a fag packet maths here... £63m the club was purchased for, 14m for the training ground, 5 for the Holte modifications..... 82m in total without the players and yea there may be a few million for for sodding around with other stuff call it 85.

Now lets move on to managers and players.

Firstly Randy has picked managers very badly anyone could have pointed out Houlier & Big Eck were TERRIBLE choices! How much money did they waste? How much did it cost to remove them AND their backroom staff?

When it comes to MON yea he wasted money on certain players however he cut the cash off and then gave it to the next manager in Houlier. Hmmm dumb!

The real **** up was wages and contract lengths who gives Given a 5 year deal at his age with his shoulder problems? Dumb Who signs off the contracts? Faulkner! Who employed him? Lerner!

However you come back to it lerner is the cause.

As for the fabled massive amount of money put into signing players?

84 mIllion NET spend over 7 years and only 5.9m in the last 3 years. Thats 12 million a year since Ellis hardly a bank breaker in this day and age.

Which makes a grand total of........ 179m.

Now not being funny thats how much the bigger clubs in the league are sold for. So he hasnt pissed away his investment on the club and players at all so far.

This does not however include wages or costs of sacking managers and I dont think it should either its his own damn fault!

Think of it like this buy the equivilent of Bent when we signed Heskey and we could have been in the Champions League.

I'm not a happy camper and I wont buy in to the bollocks that is the Lerner lover fest hes a saint whos had his lunch money stolen he could sell up if we dont go down and either lose nothing or very very little

Another day gone and no signings. It's ok though not like we are threatened with relegation, shipping goals for fun etc....... Oh wait.

Half way through the window and no signings played a few games in January already and if there was any sort of planning we could have had players in and more chance of gaining some draws/wins

Its just crap

But with the exception of Chelsea, Man City and QPR they are working within the constraints of a sensible wage structure.

Liverpool are slowly removing the big earners like Joe Cole.

All have reduced the amount they spend on Transfers, and are obviously acutely aware that the wage to turnover ratio must be reduced.

Yes of course but you could also say that is due to the loss of the Champions League revenue.

Ask yourself this If we had the same owners as Liverpool and were in the same situation would our solution be the same as it currently appears

I's also say that hes been here what 7 years now? He could have got excellent scouts like Henke years and years ago and started getting the best 15/16/17 yr olds way back then if he wanted a team produced by the academy

None of the clubs I mentioned are slashing wage bills and are spending something we arent doing

I also think we are going down. I think the damage has been done.

We have played 22 games and amassed a pitiful 19 points.

We only have 16 games left to play.

We have the worst goal difference in the league.

Does anyone seriously think we are going to even get to that 40 point 'safe' total?

I don't.

Obviously a lot depends on who we bring in if anyone, who stays fit and what effect Vlaar & Dunne have now they are both back this month

Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool (Now), Sunderland, QPR, Arsenal & Newcastle all of there owners have put a lot of money into the clubs except Arsenal and no one knows truely why Wenger doesnt spend there so I have included them on the list.

The exceptions are Liverpool's first owners, Blackburn, Pompy, & Man Utd for obvious reasons

When you look at the new owners that have generally come to the league they are good owners pumping money in and changing the business models this is what we need in the medium term, in the short term it's simple more players of a higher quality that can change games and keep us tighter at the back

I know, some people don't get it do they. Just because RL allegedly backs the managers he appoints it seems he is absolved of all guilt and blame.

The fact that he keeps appointing the wrong person seems lost on some people.

It's as if he keeps repeating the same mistakes over and over again and expecting a different outcome. Hopefully we all know what the definition is for someone that keeps doing that.

Not lost on me I would go further than just on the playing field he should have also sorted more corperate hospitality than he has and much earlier, rebuilt the north stand using the exsisting planning permission and allowed school children in for free up to a certain level for seating that wont sell out 10000 seats empty against southampton.

The club would have known this at least 2 weeks ago 5000 plus seats would be empty so why not give them away to the school kids get them hooked get them buying food/programs makes no sence just to see them empty

But to be fair to him, having that £30m completely written off is not his fault at all yet comes out of his own pocket. I assume that doesn't include their wages either, or the other 4 or 5 players still at the club who he is paying to do nothing. I don't see how he gets the blame for bad scouting of players, that is down to the manager at the time. I think he set fair budgets for our aims but he is probably not rich enough to lose £30m a year (he's a dollar billionaire I think, not a sterling one, plus the divorce and recession etc). In the long term he is doing the right thing but it has got to the point where he has to spend money this January and ensure that Lambert buys players that will have resale value. Of course it would be nice to hear him speak but he never spoke out during the good times either. The stick lies with the bloke doing the day to day job, Faulkner.

He has 6 billion USD in total apparently but thats not what I wanted to comment on.

You say it's not Randy's fault he lost that money well he sets the budgets, signs the checks, either he or Faulkner negociates the contracts either way they are his fault to as he employed Faulkner.

He employed those scouts and manager.

So how is it not his fault.

20 million on eight players of which Bennett and Bowrey are odd signings the rest have been reletively good. More money is needed it is as simply as that and the issue is compounded by the fact of the huge increase in TV money. The debate shouldnt be should we spend money but who should we be buying.

Lerners appointment of Houlier and McClown was a joke as was there huge payoffs.

Lerners denial of giving the propper funds to MON only to give them to Houlier was a joke!

OPR are trying to buy M'Via our transfer news is we cant sign a player for 6 million

It's all a terrible joke

8th highest in the Premiership back then.... surely we should be able to cover that without the owners input anyway then.....If not two things are apparent either Lerner doesnt know how to grow revenue correctly or we don't pay the going rate to watch a top football team so we didnt get one.