dn1982

Let's hope we get an owner so rich that any fines issued because we broke FFP are small change!! I think moaning about what can be spent and what can't is extremely premature!!

Last season we finished very strongly because we had a settled side with every body playing well and virtually no injuries. Contrast that too the end of this season and it's a massive difference. Loss of key players through injury added to the loss of from of others made it a very tough season for all. If Lambert gets sacked once a takeover happens I wouldn't be too bothered as the way we played towards the end of the season was awful but if he stayed I believe he knows that he has to do a lot better. From how the team plays to his purchases to probably most critically our home form which has been unbelievably bad! I do think given more backing and hopefully with a strong No2 who isn't just a yes man he can get us playing how we did at the end of his first season and I'm sure the fans would come around as we all want to see us winning. I understand the constraints he's had to work under and I also know it wasn't good enough regardless but I can still believe he can do better given better resources what puzzles me is why even if they want him gone no matter what some people can't see he's worked under some tough constraints.

That above story, or his career since quitting playing does not tell me he has any tactical nous or managerial capabilities. It just tells me he's a hard man to please

 

What possible use is that ?

Exactly, if it is just some thug to frighten the sh*t out of the younger players then they may as well have hired Vinny Jones. Roy Keane was a useless manager in the fizzy pop league and he hasn't done anything except be a moaning pundit for the last 3 years. On what planet could his appointment possibly be construed as significant progress?

Not exactly accurate he did well at Sunderland and not so well at Ipswich. He is definitely a character who will spilt opinion and it'll will either be inspired or blow up before Xmas. I don't know what he's like as a coach but he's certainly in demand so cNt be that bad. If his high standards and winning mentality rub off on the players that alone would be worth his appointment. What it means for Lambert long term is another matter as if results don't go his way there's a ready made replacement breathing down his neck!

I find it amusing that people are against keane because there's no proof he's a good coach but then in the same breath advocating Laursen instead.

Very good point. Regardless of his managerial record he seems to be a wanted man either as a coach/manager/pundit. It may be he's a good coach but hasn't got the diplomacy skills to be a manager. Hopefully he's winning mentality and high standards can rub off on the players that alone could be priceless especially on the next crop of youngsters. I can't see it being a long term appointment as I think he'll still want to be top man but he may have massive effect in the mean time.

Seems nailed on then. Not sure what to make of it. What will he bring? Will there be another addition? What's does it mean if we get taken over? It poses more questions than answers. Hopefully Keane will stand up to Lambert a bit when he comes up with his formations as the other 2 didn't seem to do anything and for every good result against bigger teams there was 2 bad ones against lower teams. I'd still like an attacking coach of sorts as our movement is awful off the ball!

I won't lose any sleep if this guy isn't interested just hope that it doesn't follow that if the Independent Journalist is wrong about this then he'd be wrong about 6-8 intereted parties.

 

unfortunately I think it does  

 

If Randy hasn't been able to find 1 buyer in 2 years (estimate) - then we are unlikley to have uncovered half a dozen in just under 3 weeks .......all IMO of course....

2 years? I'd say he's been looking to sell but the club hasn't been in a healthy enough position to do so hence the cuts. This summer is the first where we look healthy (ish) financially as to attract buyers so I'd say it is plausible that in the last 6 months there has been interest. This would fit in with the initial we are sold if we stay up rumour. Only time will tell though.

I'm usually a sceptic but even I don't really get the outrage over this one. The fact he owns a sports group which has access to an extensive scouting network and many contacts within the game makes me believe that he'd be exactly the sort of guy who knows how to run a football club.

His moral sanctity really isn't that big an issue to me although as already clarified, there isn't enough evidence to go around labelling him a terrorist-dealer etc. Regarding the prostitution thing, he was acquitted and incase anyone has missed it, the basic principal is that you have to assume that acquittal equals innocence unless evidence comes along to suggest otherwise.

Edit: Also we've had a 'nicey-nicey' owner in Lerner and look what a joke he has proven to be.

At least Lerner put money into local charities and the refurbishment of established entities already at the club. At least we have a youth model and threads on this forum like "Jack Grealish" where we'd love to see another youngster given the chance to prove themselves at first team level.

This guy (if true, etc.) is basically us completely selling the soul of Aston Villa, becoming a money club and gaining plastic fans. Maybe we're the next Man City?

Then again, this all seems to appease the majority of fans on here who want nothing more than;

a ) Money thrown at the club

b ) Success

Maybe that's all football is really about these days after all.

Football is a game pal, you play games to win. I'd love to know what this soul is that people keep banging on about, is it our single European Cup? Wouldn't you rather we be trying to win another European Cup?

I also don't understand why you think we would stop having a youth setup all of a sudden.

 

**** nonsense to be honest mate.  I follow football because I love the game and Aston Villa were the club closest to my heart growing up.

 

In my lifetime, I've seen us win TWO TROPHIES.  That's 27 years of winning, essentially, **** all.  I have no entitlement to winning things.  I'd love to see us win another European Cup; I doubt this will happen.  Despite how most people feel about certain footballers, I love the fact we've fielded Agbonlahor, Albrighton, Delfouneso, Gardner etc. as local lads playing for a local team.

 

Chelsea have none.  Man City have none.  If this is the route we all want to take, fine - let's just get bought out by someone who has no emotional connection to the club and sell our soul.  If there is substantial financial backing, the youth setup will be obsolete; or, to further, it will exist but be pointless.  See: Chelsea, Man City.

 

If you're asking me what I'd prefer; a backer throwing £1bn at our playing staff at us being instantaneously successful or having a poor owner who cares for the club, but we get relegated I'd take the latter everytime.

Would you be happy if Lerner stayed didn't invest but attended more games? Or Doug Ellis bought the club? This crap about the soul of a club is just something to try to say football changed since SKY. The 'SOUL' of a club is it's fans simple as that. Now I want to see a successful Villa team and I couldn't care how that's achieved. Did Abramovic care about Chelsea when he bought it? Did you see the owners of Man City when they won the title? Do you think they cared about Man city 10 years ago? All you can ask for is a committed owner who values our clubs traditions as Lerner did and when he couldn't keep us competing he's trying to get us someone who will. I believe Lerner will try to get us an owner with the right ideas for taking us forward if that's spending a billion in doing so or running us properly but investing wisely I don't care as long as we start progressing. I say bring in the hookers if it makes us successful life's too short to be hanging around the relegation places every year!!

Good for RL I suppose as, if true, it will drive the price up and may start a bit of a bidding war.  He could conceivable get £250m for us. Which would be a result for him.

Hopefully he's named his price and they're the first to match it. Going into an auction which I doubt would happen doesn't really mean you'd get the best owner.

First thing I want to know is what he is worth before moving to the next question.

I seen an article last night saying $3 billion

 

Due to FFP, the net worth of our owners is pretty irrelevant nowadays.

Its all about business acumen and links to bring in major sponsorship.

I think PSG show that statement and the FFP itself to be a mockery. FFP will only hurt middle clubs and owners from getting to the party not from the big clubs and owners from buying there way in.

Fair enough but to win things you have to seriously spend money and that brings the profit down if there is any at all. It's one thing getting for 6th and a whole other game getting to 1st

 

Do you know how many shirts Villa sell?

 

Do you know how many shirts Man Utd sell?

 

Similarly the advertising and marketing deals are worlds apart.  There's money to be made from the Premier League if you do it right.

 

Shirt sales are paltry compared to what most people think. United sell about 1.4 million shirts a year, of that, they make about £2 from shirts sold by third parties, and £15 sold in the club shop. The money, as you say, is in sponsorship, which increases based on brand visibility, rather than shirt sales

 

I'll not get into a debate on the quantities or values, but I think you'd be surprised at how high the sales figures are and the profit made through the club shop.  Certainly, though, shirt sales has a knock-on effect to the sponsorship deals.  Whoever wins the Utd contract this summer will be paying a minimum of £600m over 10 years.  Plus they've managed to sell separate sponsor deals for kit and training.

The sales figures are as I said above. Man U sell more than anyone else in the world, and the latest available figures for their shirt sales were 1.5m in 2012/13. The cut the club gets from sales is also as mentioned above, around £2 per jersey sold outside official streams, and in or around £15 sold through official channels. The most a club like United would make from shirt sales (just kits, not counting any of the other stuff, mind) is around £22.5m, but  it's most likely somewhere around half that. That is very little all things considered.

 

Sponsors aren't paying to get their name on a jersey Joe Bloggs is wearing down the pub on a Tuesday night, they're paying to get it on the back cover of every newspaper in the world, on every bit of promotion the club does and on matches watched by millions every week. I doubt they could care about whether United sell 1.5m jerseys again this season, or if it dips down to 1.2m - just like United won't particularly care.

Not sure if I've missed something but shirt sales and sponsorship are 2 different deals. Shirt manufacturers pay clubs to wear there kits and then get a cut of shirt sales aswell. Then you'll also get the shirt sponsors. Man UTD look like getting £60m a year from Nike and they'll get £53m from Chevrolet as of next year this has nothing to do with sales just exposure. Simple thing is the better you do the more exposure you get on TV therefore being more attractive to sponsors. Shirt sales are only a small part of this.

Is Barry free too?

Yes, though the Mail says West Ham is willing to give him £65,000 a week, so he's not that free.

Maybe he'd be willing to lower his wage more to spend his last few years with Villa? I mean it's not all about the money for some... (just clinging onto hope haha)

When you're entering the twilight of your career, you follow the money if it makes sense. Unless we would offer Barry at least £60,000, I don't think he would even consider our offer.

Is he a Villa supporter like Lescott?

No. Throughout his whole career here the minute any team showed an interest in him he wanted out. First Portsmouth, then Liverpool, finally City and he got his move, can't imagine him coming back

That's true, I'd forgotten that about portsmouth, what year was that?

He was at the club 12 years. Portsmouth had a bid rejected when we was in turmoil. The only mistake he made was that piece in the Sunday papers about going to Liverpool and after that he was still one of our best players. Also if rumours are to be believed he wanted to come back last summer so I'd hope that would still be the case. I don't think money is his main motivator now as he left us for trophies and as a top level premier league player has been earning loads for his whole career. IF we got him and Lescott we would have the experience and nous needed. I also think Barry would help develop Delph and teach him when to take people on and how to keep things ticking over better.

Yes it is. The outcome of Fulham's season has nothing to do with the performance or otherwise of Darren Bent.

 

I don't think a single person would say they as a club made good decisions, but Bent played under 4 managers last season and none of them could get a level of performance out of him in order to justify keeping him in the side. 

 

So to try and suggest Lambert should have got more out of Bent is a pretty unjustified criticism.

The outcome of Fulham's season did have something to do with Darren Bent as he was one of the squad players contributing (or not) to their season.

 

He only started 11 league games under the 3 managers (not sure how you get 4) with 2 of those managers being sacked for under performing.

 

IMO Lambert potentially could have used Bent better and then used the money he would have saved strengthening other positions where we actually needed new players.

I'm a bit baffled by the logic. 4 managers didn't think Bent did enough to warrant a place in a team worse than us yet he would have had a bigger impact here! He showed he couldn't play with Benteke and the way we set up didn't suit him upfront on his own. To get the best out of Bent you need wingers which we don't have. Also they agreed a 3 million loan fee and to pay his wages of 60k+ 'a week which is about 2.5m over the season so we saved/made about 5.5m on that deal. To me that's good business for someone who may have played 10 times in the season.

Except every single media report on the matter and the fact it took Sid and the players to stand up to Culverhouse in the end.

 

 

Except not one single media report has said the two 'had complete autonomy' that is just something you've invented or someone else did and you've repeated it. It plainly isn't true.

 

And no the reports did not state that it took Sid and the players to stand up to Culverhouse in the end, that is just another invention I'm affraid.

 

In peoples rush to be critical of Lambert it seems like people are happy to just invent circumstances to add weight to their argument.

 

The idea the two had a complete autonomy is an utter nonsense.

I think you're forgetting that anything tweeted is now counted as fact if it gets more than 2 retweets!!

How's this for a bit of ITK....I was with an agent on Friday, an agent who looks after quite a few players including on of our own, he said PL said his goodbyes at the end of the season thinking he was leaving. Something has surely changed if true.

It fits in with us having buyers initially and then something happening to stop it. Whether that's them pulling out or that we received a better offer and are going through the motions. It could also be a load of crap before any one says so but I hope it's the 2nd option and all will be revealed shortly!

People do have short memories on Ellis, the man who couldn't find the cash to buy Erik Bakke.

as opposed to lerner the man who couldnt afford to give us some cash in the january windows to try and help against relegation

No no no, not couldn't afford. He chose not to. The same way he chose not the previous January and the one before that.

Just checking did we get relegated? And I thought we brought 2 players in in January? One a first choice LB. And another a back up striker who hardly played. Unless they played for nothing of course.

It's only been a week and a bit since the announcement was made.  Long way to go yet.  Still hopeful we will have a new owner before the World Cup ends.

 

True - my worry is that Randy has been trying to sell us, without success for considerably longer than that.

If he doesn't sell quickly, then I fear the maliase will accerlerate into a rapid decline

 

Yep. There are only three possibilities that explain the recent announcement:

- The idea of selling the club has only recently popped into Lerner's head.

- He has been trying to sell for ages and has finally found a buyer.

- He has been trying to sell for ages without success, but has announced that the club is for sale to take the heat off himself after an awful season.

 

If it's the third one we are in big trouble.

I doubt it's the first because of the cutbacks and if it's the 3rd I'd have thought the statement would have been worded differently so as not to sound desperate and therefore damaging his ability to demand a high price for us. For this reason I think and hope it's the 2nd but nothing would surprise me at the moment!!

I haven't listened to it but I think he says the new people are in due diligence and therefore one can not have idle musings about such events until it's come to it's climax or something like that!

BEDLINGTON Terriers football club may be forced to close if it cannot clear thousands of pounds of debt.

 The Chronicle

You wouldn't expect a sponsor to step in though would you? I know to him it's pittance but you don't get rich giving money away!

 

I thought he was more than a sponsor, the honoury president or something plus he's the Lord of the area you'd think he'd want to help for the sake of the community. I know he'd already helped them out financially but to do all that and then suddenly not help out with this reminds me of Randy a bit. Plus the whole thing of speaking to them through his solicitors.

It seems he had family roots in the area so as a one off paid for stuff and took them on tour so they made him honorary president. It doesn't mean he has to bail them out every time. He was never an owner or anything and I'd say the only way they could contact him was through his solicitors as I doubt he went to games or supporters meetings!

I've just read an article about this Bob RIch where it states that he refused to pay 15,000 pound loan that the Bedlington Terriers had taken out and now they could be faced with a winding up order. This was February of last year.

 

BEDLINGTON Terriers football club may be forced to close if it cannot clear thousands of pounds of debt.

 

The Chronicle

You wouldn't expect a sponsor to step in though would you? I know to him it's pittance but you don't get rich giving money away!

Someone needs to tell everyone that Grealish does not play right wing ffs.

Albrighton played left right and centre last year.

It seems some people are that negative towards our club at the minute they miss certain points. Albrighton has been offered a contract it's less than what he's been offered from other clubs. Why aren't people asking why A player who was injured for ages and only got back to form the last couple of months of the season and a Villa fan isn't showing loyalty to HIS club? He is rumoured to have been offered 35k a week which is more than he's worth now I don't blame him for taking the best offer for him but don't moan at the club for putting a price on his ability.

 

Why didn't the club offer him a contract before the end of the season then? As far as I know, they still haven't offered him a new contract and he'll be joining Leicester. Maybe you know more than I do.

How much is he worth a week? 15k 35k 100k he did nothing to warrant a deal up until the last few months. I'd like him to stay but if he can double his wages elsewhere it's not the clubs fault and he'd be easily replaceable with out current crop of youngsters grealish and graham.

 

You just said it isn't the clubs fault that Marc isn't being loyal. Now you're saying he hasn't done anything to warrant a new deal.

I said up until the last few months he hadn't done anything to warrant a new deal now if he picks the best offer for him it's not the clubs fault. We'd be silly to match the reported wages on offer. Read it anyway you like we won't match what he has been offered but he could always show loyalty to his boyhood club and sign what we offer but money talks not a criticism that's football. How much do you think he's worth a week?

It seems some people are that negative towards our club at the minute they miss certain points. Albrighton has been offered a contract it's less than what he's been offered from other clubs. Why aren't people asking why A player who was injured for ages and only got back to form the last couple of months of the season and a Villa fan isn't showing loyalty to HIS club? He is rumoured to have been offered 35k a week which is more than he's worth now I don't blame him for taking the best offer for him but don't moan at the club for putting a price on his ability.

 

Why didn't the club offer him a contract before the end of the season then? As far as I know, they still haven't offered him a new contract and he'll be joining Leicester. Maybe you know more than I do.

How much is he worth a week? 15k 35k 100k he did nothing to warrant a deal up until the last few months. I'd like him to stay but if he can double his wages elsewhere it's not the clubs fault and he'd be easily replaceable with out current crop of youngsters grealish and graham.

It seems some people are that negative towards our club at the minute they miss certain points. Albrighton has been offered a contract it's less than what he's been offered from other clubs. Why aren't people asking why A player who was injured for ages and only got back to form the last couple of months of the season and a Villa fan isn't showing loyalty to HIS club? He is rumoured to have been offered 35k a week which is more than he's worth now I don't blame him for taking the best offer for him but don't moan at the club for putting a price on his ability.

I think playing alongside Terry and then playing alongside Baker would make anybody look worse!