VillaAndLoyal

Pacbuddies, learn to have a bit of respect. You clearly weren't at the game today were you? Our away fans were incredible today - absolutely amazing. There were so many times we could have "turned" on the team and McLeish as, let's be honest, we are so dire at the moment. But, all game, for 90 minutes, we supported the team and literally roared them on to get something out of the game. Alex McLeish is quite clearly going in the summer, if not before, that is patently obvious. Dont_do_it_Doug is exactly right when he says - protesting now is just far too late - it should have been done months ago. Instead of putting your energy into urging people to attend a protest before the game - which will change nothing as he's leaving anyway - why not urge every Villa fan going to stand and sing for 90 minutes? That would have a far greater impact on the Club's fight against relegation. Everyone shares your views about the manager, but protesting now is far, far too late. A protest should have been organised long ago. We now have two matches to save our Premier League status, and we need today's support at the Tesco Arena replicated at Villa Park, where the most negativity usually is. When the going gets tough, the Villa stick together and support the team.

Yes, we know our players are shit, we know McLeish is beyond shit, and we know we're in big **** trouble. But, do you know what? Why the hell isn't anyone mentioning our fans? The away support was incredible today, absolutely incredible. The best for many a year. There were so many points in the game where we could have "turned" but instead we carried on supporting the team and literally did roar them on to get something out of the game, when in all honesty, we are desperately lacking in any sort of quality. The away end was bouncing like we'd won at the final whistle - heaven help the Tesco Arena if we'd have got that winner, it would have been absolute bedlam. Albion's fans sat with their mouths open gawping at our support for most of the second half, although they'd never admit it, and the players coming over to thank us at the final whistle said it all. This is what it means to be Villa. So for one night, **** the negativity. And give some credit where it's due. When the going gets tough, the Villa stick together. Undoubtedly the Midlands' finest Club.

This thread should be temporarily suspended as NOTHING else matters today than three point for the Villa. Come on lads!!! **** off Boggies!

Julie, Paul Franks on WM, normally a half decent radio hack, constantly bangs on about our 'absentee owner'. Recently he did this two Mondays on the trot, on both days of which Mr Lerner had arrived early morning. Uninformed journalism at its worst, unless WM is just trying to attract TalkShite listeners. Last week the owner arrived at 0830 on Sunday morning (which I found strange), and left at lunchtime yesterday, so again a reasonable shift. I admire you constantly sticking up for our owner BUT - he was in the UK for 5 days, not necessarily at VP. The press said quite clearly he was in London on Wednesday. He does have other interests over here ( the Lerner Gallery for example) and the one way to show his commitment to AVFC is turning up at games - or is he doing the same as many on here and boycotting them Thanks Denis! I don't stick up for the owner particularly, I just report facts that throw out some of the things that are written about him. I agree that he may be working on other business interests while he is here, but I suspect that the vast majority of his time is spent on Aston Villa. Ths suspicion is backed up by the fact that his UK visits were much less frequent prior to the takeover, when he didn't even own an aircraft capable of flying westbound without refuelling. I believe that his intentions are good, a belief backed up by the amount of money that he has invested into the club, money that he is never likely to get back. I appreciate the fact that a decaying club off the pitch has been lifted to having some of the best facilities in the league, although i acknowledge that does not help the playing side. He was ill advised and foolish over O'Neill, i think that he did everything right in the manner in which he sought out and appointed Houllier, and I think that the appointment of McLeish was crazy. But whoever has had the job, he has backed them in the transfer market and, in the cases of O'Neill and McLeish, he has been seriously let down. I agree that he might not be a great 'sports team owner', whatever that is, but he is the best owner that Aston Villa have had in my lifetime and with the right manager, and perhaps one or two capable, hands on , board members, things could look much better in a couple of years time. And there are no buyers, so I prefer to support him. I'm sorry, but this is simply not true. You moan about people who don't stick to the facts, when you don't yourself. Who exactly let Lerner down re: O'Neill? Faulkner? Or O'Neill himself? If you mean Faulkner then that stems back to Lerner anyway because it was Lerner's choice to surround himself with his mates instead of footballing people. And if you mean O'Neill, that is also a daft statement to make, considering O'Neill was by and large a success at this club. It was not O’Neill who sanctioned the unsustainable and suicidal transfer and wage deals. I'm really getting fed up with people still blinded by some sort of "he's better than Doug, so he must be a really good owner" mentality among a lot of fans. See my detailed post in the 'Lerner: The fans will always own Aston Villa 2006' thread for some actual facts about this so-called "best owner in your lifetime". If that is indeed the case, then it doesn't say much for the quality of our past chairman. Randloph Lerner has and is a complete and utter failure and is fully culpable for this god awful mess we find ourselves in thanks to two and a half years of spiralling decline. Read my aforementioned post if you honestly can't understand why.

Usually I would be buzzing for this game, but I'm positively dreading it. We're going to have the piss taken out of us all day, and they are so fired up for this that should they win, the ground will go **** mental. It did last season, and that was a relatively nothing game compared to this. They absolutely hate our guts and I just cannot see anything other than a loss. I'm going for a straight forward 2-0 loss coupled with a day of sheer agony. They say football is an unpredictable game, but we are so utterly predictable under McRelegation that I cannot see an upset. An upset, how low we have sunk. I'd chop my right testicle off to get a last minute winner - it would be better than any of Gabby's against Blues and I'd probably end up on the pitch with a fair few others. But alas, one can dream.

Lerner is the one who has created this whole mess. He and Faulkner know precisely nothing about English football. So what exactly do you think a pre-match team talk given by one of them is going to consist of? Banking advice for the players?

Don't shoot the messenger John, there is a difference between reporting what he said 6 years ago and accepting that his intentions (then) were good. If your post was pointed at me, you are wrong to assume that I support him. I was simply highlighting his comments - back then. No not aimed at you. There are people who clearly support him and use he fact he has good intentions as the reason. Like I said in my first post, I find it very strange. I find your comments extremely strange. Randy Lerner seems to know little about Football so he puts his trust in MON who he is convinced does ( and so did I at one stage) The manager makes a fist of c 100 mill buying on the whole dross.....The previous chairman would not have been so benevolent as he would have interfered in some of the dross and would have been criticised by the fans for doing so .....Randy gives him a free reign and get dogs abuse. Nothing like a bit of double standard to set the heart racing is there. Randy is **** if he does and **** if he don't. fact is the O'Neill has **** the club....temporarily hopefully and the 2 followers have done nothing to arrest the decline. Seriously, what on EARTH are you talking about? "Randy Lerner seems to know little about Football so he puts his trust in MON who he is convinced does..." - Randy didn't appoint O'Neill, Ellis did. Randy knows nothing about football, agreed, so instead of surrounding himself with footballing people and Aston Villa people, he appoints a former American credit card manager who was previously working in a bank. Fatal mistake number one. How you can possibly sit there and seriously say this god awful mess is down to O'Neill is just so beyond my comprehension I think you're on a different planet. You make it sound like the "free reign" Lerner gave Martin should be applauded, no, THAT is exactly why we are now in this financial mess. O'Neill didn't just get a briefcase of £100 million and told to go out and spend it. Lerner and/or Faulkner would have had to rubber stamp every single transfer fee and wage deal agreed while O'Neill was at this club. How is it O'Neill's fault that he kept asking for money and getting it? Any one of us would do the same if we were working under such clueless owners who knew nothing of the financial suicide they were creating until it was far too late. We had a wage bill higher than that of Spurs, how the hell is that O'Neill's fault? Lerner is the chairman, he ratified the ludicrous spending and that is his fatal mistake number two. Blaming O'Neill is just absolutely laughable with a capital 'L'. He has hired two managers himself, and both have been complete and utter disasters. Houllier was brought back from the Premier League abyss and was quite clearly such a bad appointment. He talked us down, fell out with the players, admitted to throwing games, insulted the club and its fans on more than one occasion, and almost relegated us. Lerner was so panicked that he smashed the Club's previous transfer record to bring in Darren Bent to score the goals to keep us up. Fatal mistake number three. He then appointed McLeish, and to be honest, I don't need to go over this again, he is statistically the second worst manager in our entire history. Fatal mistake number four. When he finally realised how catastrophic his spending had been, instead of scaling back gradually, he has done it far too deep, far too quickly. This, along with the shocking managerial appointments, has left us fighting a losing battle. Fatal mistake number five. Mr Lerner has also created this 'culture' I would call it, of spin, much like that which we see from politicians. He tried to keep fans appeased by putting his poodle Krulak on here for a while, and when the going got tough he scarpered. We've had Faulkner releasing statements only this season saying 'top five was still the aim' when every man and his dog could see top five was not even vaguely on the agenda this season. These blatant lies, to the fans, have not helped his cause one bit. There have also been many reports that under Lerner an almost Gestapo of over-zealous stewards have risen to prominence, who actively ban supporters from displaying negative banners and placards inside the ground. Is this a chairman who has the fans' thoughts at the forefront of his mind? I think not. Fatal mistake number six. After the financial nightmare Lerner created under O'Neill, which culminated in an out-of-court settlement of about £12 million, you would have hoped he'd be more frugal with his money. Clearly not. Despite Houllier's previous medical history and high probability that, in a massively high pressured Premier League environment, his problems could surface again; Lerner decided to offer him a long-term lucrative contract. Less than 12 months on he was left regretting that decisions by losing yet more millions in compensation. Surely now he'd realise? No, not yet folks. Going against every Villa fans' better judgement he hired Alex McLeish on another long-term lucrative contract, making him the 20th highest paid manager in world football (yes, you really can't make this shit up) and it now looks very, very likely he will be forced to sack him in the near future. This will lead to yet more millions in compensation being wasted by our owner. And did I mention that we paid our biggest rivals about £4 million in compensation just to acquire his services? Yet more millions shamefully wasted. And some people say he has learned? Fatal mistake number seven. Anyone can hand out free scarves, renovate a pub and put mosaics on the Holte. But every single 'key' decision of Lerner's tenure has been a complete and utter failure, of that there is no doubt. Any rich tycoon can chuck money at a football club. It takes a proper owner to come up with a plan, do it sustainably, hire logical managers, surround himself with footballing people and think about the club's long-term future. Lerner has done none of this and is culpable in all aspects of the substantial mess we now find ourselves in - yet you still blame Martin **** O'Neill? Oh deary me

11 predictions of 0 wins. We win first game. Pretty dismal predictions indeed. Unfortunately it's pointless predictions of extreme doom and gloom that totally distract from anything decent many posters may have to say. After many comments such as 'joke' and 'disgrace' in the Keane thread when we were rumoured to be agreeing a loan deal, I've stopped taking their over the top negative spoutings with a pinch of salt. I have started to find their posts amusing and I have developed a sense of pity towards their condition. 8) It so happens that the many people you described as having a "condition" because of their negative viewpoints may have actually just been realistic all along. If the current plight of our Club cannot be described as "doom and gloom" then I don't know what would.

Good post. ^

Precisely. You're missing the point, the validity of any statement would be nullified as you or whoever writes it does not represent a 'body' of fans. You'd be much better off formulating a letter, then asking fans to print it, sign it and post it to Villa Park. That way, the hard bit is organised through this thread, and the fans that want to demonstrate in this way are able to. But just because the majority may agree with the sentiment of any letter does not give you the right to say you speak for the majority. I'm not missing any point. If a letter was formulated and distributed to all Villa message boards, twitter pages and Facebook fans' pages such as Villa Fans United then changes, tweaks and alterations could be made and sent off to the club, from the fans. This idea that just because not every single Villa fan in the entire world has given consent means you can't say it is "from the fans" is rubbish. No-one wants him here so as long as any letter was widely distributed and agreed, then what is the problem? It's a mute point anyway though as nothing will get done and this letter will remain fictitious.

I think we'll maybe manage 2 points in the next 3 games. Where does that leave us? We absolutely battered Bolton first half on Tuesday, but the trouble is because we couldn't score, youngsters just haven't built up the levels of stamina that comes with maturity to play 90 mins week in week out...which is why we're flagging and looking poor most second halfs. I think your being extremely optimistic. Baggies will be gunning to put a nail in our coffin. I can't see anything but a loss against Spurs and then we have to go to Norwich on the last day and possibly require a win to stay up. I cannot emphasise this point enough. I was there last season when they beat us for the first time in god knows how long, and their fans went absolutely mental, like they'd won the FA Cup. I know a lot of our fans are indifferent about Albion, but make no mistake they hate our guts and are so fired up for this game. They'd love nothing more than to give us a large helping hand towards relegation. I'm going on Saturday and quite frankly I’m dreading it. Read their message boards and they are counting down the "sleeps" until they play us. Are we going to match their desire? It's a must-win game for us but I'd be absolutely amazed if we got anything out of this game. I'm preparing myself to feel nigh on suicidal come Saturday night.

Don't be too harsh Rich, he probably slipped on his keyboard again...

Well said.

I feel you've missed the main point of my post then. The Messi line and this subsequent response only proves that. You said "Lerner has only appointed two managers, and they have both been complete and utter disasters in every single way". You can't see how that might turn into a discussion about the merits of the first manager if, say, the other person in the discussion doesn't think one of them was a "complete and utter disaster in every single way". Anyway, that's why I avoided it, as I've said earlier. I didn't miss the point of your post at all. You said "if Lerner gets his next managerial appointment correct and results come back then the majority of fans will be happy" did you not? I said, in response, that going by the evidence before us how likely is that to happen? Not very is the answer. Your point was and still is based on guess work. I'd love to know how I've completely missed your point. Any in depth discussion about Aston Villa is likely to bring up O'Neill in some form or another, particularly when one person in the discussion cannot see the disastrous and shambolic mistakes made by our owner. But I didn't actually mention O'Neill in that post, as you suggested. Houllier was a complete disaster - from the point he walked into the club and suggested our natural position was 8th to 12th, until the point he received a massive compensation pay-off due to ill-health less than 12 months after taking up the role. Again, how you can say otherwise is staggering.

Hold on, first you say I'm wrong in saying that only the manager has changed, then you yourself say Ashley has never pumped money in and still isn't i.e. he's doing things 'the same' as he always did. Which is it? Has he changed in his approach to pumping money in or not? Because that's the manager's job. As well as coaches, managers tend to be followed around by their chief scouts and they implement what they believe to be the scouting network that they want at a club. I'd be amazed if Ashley had any input into how his scouting network changed. It's not sour grapes at all and you should probably do me the decency of assuming I'm not here on a point scoring mission. I remember at the time he was appointed that there was uproar amongst their fans about how it had come about. Pardew IS a good mate of Ashley from before being manager there. He hired him after (or during) a piss-up and gave him a big fat long contract. At the time it smacked of hiring nothing more than a mate. It's not at all sour grapes. More power to them. But he did to a certain extent luck into it, not least because Pardew has never done as well previously as he is doing at Newcastle so there was nothing to suggest he was a saviour. Again, I don't want to go into this because the old tinfoil hats come out. Everyone knows the reality of the façade of that appointment and who O'Neill had agreed to work under and it does this discussion no good to try and obfuscate history by making it an issue. Yes Lerner did all those things. He learned the hard way. I didn't hear us complaining while he was doing it mind you. Hindsight is 20/20. If we'd cracked top 4 this would be a very different discussion and we'd be heralding Randy. But his gamble didn't work and now he is tightening the belt. That's an example that he has learned or is at least learning from his mistakes. So it doesn't make sense to suggest that he won't have learned anything from the McLeish appointment considering he has learned in other aspects. Again, similar to above, it's all hindsight. At the time Ashley was being lambasted as a clueless buffoon who bought a plaything, had no idea how to run it, refused to put money into it and got it relegated. Then we move on to the Pardew appointment that we've already discussed and now all of Ashley's flaws (and they are flaws) have been forgiven as somehow being prophetic at the time. The first bit about Ashley wasn't worded very well. What I meant is you implied the only thing which is now bringing Newcastle success is one flukey managerial appointment - what I am saying is Ashley's approach has remained constant all along and now the scouting network is in place, and he has a manager able to spot emerging talent, his approach is paying dividends. I'm sure you are aware that, especially in this day and age, the boundaries between manager and owner at many football club's has been blurred like never before. I think it would be very naive to think Ashley has not had a key say in poaching this potential talent through an extensive scouting network, especially given his previous notoriety for not spending huge sums of money. What exactly do you think they talked about when discussing the terms of the managerial job? All of what you say about Ashley "lucking" into the appointment and hiring him "after a piss-up" is just rumours regurgitated from the national press and has no substance really in a serious discussion. I'm fairly confident Ashley wasn't pissed when he suddenly just decided to 'stick a mate in charge'. He's a successful businessman outside of football remember, I think it's far more likely that he made a calculated risk which is now proving fruitful. Your paragraph about Lerner is so wrong I don't even know where to start. You honestly think if we'd have secured Champions League that one season, things would be completely different now? Ask Everton fans why that assumption is so wrong. We'd need to secure CL football for at least five seasons in a row to even come close to having the amount of financial power Spurs have, let alone your Arsenal's, Chelsea's and United's. Getting into the Champions League that season wouldn't have changed a thing. The fact is, and it is a fact, that Lerner spent so unsustainably that it was always going to take years to recover - whether we reached Europe's top competition for one season or not. You say none of us moaned at the time, but the true extent of his feckless spending didn't materialise at the start, did it? You say he has learned things by 'tightening the belt' - well that's the line he would spin you certainly. I would say he's realised how much of his money he has wasted, and panicked. It doesn't mean he's actually learned how to put things right, as this season suggests. Any rich person could chuck money at a football club. It takes a proper owner to come up with a plan, do it sustainably, hire logical managers, surround himself with footballing people and think about the club's long-term future. I'm not for one minute saying Mike Ashley is suddenly a perfect example of this, but Randolph Lerner certainly isn't. He's a joke, and has been ever since he stepped foot in this place.

What response was that Richard?

:shock:

The exact reason why I made the Messi point was because what you were saying was not a legitimate point based on any evidence, merely guess work and what-ifs. I simply amplified the point I was making, and then backed up with evidence, why everything points to the fact that his next managerial appointment is just as likely to be as bad as his first two. My first paragraph didn't even mention O'Neill, so I'm not sure why you think it would have led to a debate surrounding him?

Mike Ashley has not 'proved this season to be a very good owner of a football club'. The only thing that has changed is that he got a managerial appointment right. Any changes to scouting networks was done by Pardew. Ashley got lucky. He hired his mate on a 5 year contract and gave him the keys to the Rolls as it were. He is doing precisely what Randy did with O'Neill (minus the 'mate' part) and Pardew seems to be doing a whole lot better with his Rolls than Martin did with his. Every reason you think Ashley is now all of a sudden good is because he got one appointment right. And on paper, Alan Pardew was nothing like the success that he has so far turned out to be. Ashley essentially lucked into it. Randy might need to luck into a good appointment too. He probably does. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. What I do know is that we don't currently have one, so why not throw the dice? If we get snake eyes again then we get snake eyes again. We're only back where we are now. But we might get better than that. I know it's better than sitting around waiting for the inevitable. And who knows. You say something in Randy's head won't have clicked. Maybe not that extreme but I'm willing to bet he doesn't want to go through all of this again. I'm willing to bet he has learned something, even if it's as small as going about it a different way. Either way it's immaterial. For me we have to throw the dice. Worst case we get as bad as we've already got. But maybe we won't. Why not quote the first part of my post? You're not right about the "only thing that has changed is his managerial appointment" at all. Ashley has never pumped millions upon millions into the Club, and for many years he got slated for it, but now he has appointed a manager who has turned things round. You say the scouting network is solely down to Pardew, how do you know that? And, even if it is, Ashley gets a lot of credit for making that correct appointment that clearly fitted in with the way he wanted to build success. There's no point in pretending otherwise and to say he just "lucked" into it stinks of sour grapes quite honestly. At least give credit where it is due. He has not done "precisely" what Lerner has done at all, he's done the exact opposite. You're also forgetting the fact that Lerner didn't appoint O'Neill, Ellis did. But even so, Lerner threw and wasted tens of millions of pounds towards O'Neill with no safeguards, no caution, and no consideration for the long-term. Lerner acquired his play-thing and just chucked money at it. Look how much good that approach has done? Ashley has very much done the opposite, braved the early criticism, and is now proving that his approach is far better in the long-term.

And if Villa sign Messi we might play better. Looking at the evidence before us, neither are likely to happen, are they? Lerner has only appointed two managers, and they have both been complete and utter disasters in every single way. The inevitable firing of McLeish (leading to yet more millions wasted in compensation) will eventually be down to Lerner having no other choice (due to falling club revenues) don't somehow kid yourself that it means something in his head has suddenly 'clicked'. He should never have hired him and, having done the unthinkable, he should have fired him long, long ago. He has absolutely no credibility left and I still find it astounding that intelligent people still cannot see the wood for the trees. Mike Ashley is such a poor example when talking about Lerner. Mr Ashley, despite his obvious failings, has never chucked money at Newcastle and has actually proved this season to be a very good owner of a football club. He realised that instead of investing millions; creating a brilliant scouting network to poach the best talent for the cheapest prices is definitely the way to build long-term success at a club like Newcastle. All of this is so far removed from Randolph Lerner it's quite frankly painful to talk about.

Completely agree with you there BOF. There are hundreds of managers who were a better choice than Alex McLeish at the time of his appointment, and probably even more so after almost 12 months of his tenure.

McLeish was simply offered a ridiculously lucrative contract at a Club steeped in history and tradition. Who wouldn't have taken that job? As much as he is an utterly shite manager, I don't actually blame him, as we knew how bad he was even before we appointed him. Who is keeping him in the role? Who appointed him in the first place? Where the anger is being directed, and where it should be directed, are two completely different things.

Why wouldn't you agree with him? Randolph Lerner, the chairman, has created this whole mess ultimately. No-one else.

Precisely.

The vast, vast majority of Villa fans want McLeish out with immediate effect, realising his position at this club is untenable. I'd argue it has been that way since he first signed the contract on the dotted line, but that's another point. If you read the OP again, you will see this was an idea in which supporters from a range of internet messageboards and fans' pages could get involved and be behind. These sources represent tens of thousands of Villa fans. Considering 13,000+ people joined a campaign before he was even appointed, trying to stop the inevitable happening, I find it highly amusing that you think any potential statement on behalf of the fans would be coming from a "minority" and a few "internet warriors". Please do wake up. I'm glad you find it amusing. Nearly as amusing as stating that the message boards represent "tens of thousands of fans". Take your own medicine and "wake up". You still haven't answered my point though, have you? Quite clearly any statement, if done correctly, would be coming from a majority of Villa fans. How you can say any different with a straight face is just completely beyond me. I'm not sure to what extent technology has hit your household yet, but there are most definitely tens of thousands of Villa fans 'online' nowadays. The vast majority of these do not want Alex McLeish. I did not just state 'messageboards' now, did I? Show me evidence to the contrary and I will gladly retract any previous comment I've made. The official Aston Villa Facebook page has 509,843 people following it, just using one example. Yet you think a fans' statement about McLeish would be coming from a few internet warriors? Christ, maybe you should take some of my medicine? I think you are missing my point entirely. Whilst yes, the majority would agree with what the statement would potentially say. The fact it could come from group of say 200 people, is the worrying thing. Oh dear, I think someone got confused with having the Internet and being a member of a forum. It's okay dear - I'll pay for a course for you. Yes, well done, there are many Villa fans "online" - how many of these are part of a forum? Actually, how many people are actually active on a forum? As a side note - yes you did mention message boards - diddums, try again. Oh dear indeed. Nevermind medicine, I think you need to learn to read. You've already demonstrated you didn't read the OP correctly, and now me. Yes, I did mention messageboards, where did I say I didn't? What I, quite clearly, said is that its not the only online source where we have thousands and tens of thousands of fans. What don't you understand about that? Please feel free to read my previous posts again.