Board Randy's 12 Month No Show ?

[Raver50032]

To be fair Big John,

United already were there and super rich, Arsenal and Chelsea too. Liverpool to a lesser extent.

 

We shouldn't accept mediocrity, of course we shouldn't. However, the madness unleashed at Man Ciy has rather dented the whole affair and made things almost impossible for everyone else.

 

Where AVFC are currently coming from, our model is flawed as well. Though I shouldn't moan because we pick from the clubs 'lower and smaller' than us, should any of our starlets show promise, it won't be long before the 'too good for Villa' mantra appears and the Top 7 nobble us with cripplingly derisive bids.

 

We couldn't keep our best players for long even when MON was in charge - I doubt we'll be able to keep our promising 'stars' given our lowly standing in the league right now. Only seems to be one sure way out of this mess... and it smells like bank notes. Sad, but true IMO.

[PaulC]

 

but since the city take-over realism has set in

That's one club. Since one club got rich you've accepted surviving trying to reach mid table?

 

 

Its not just one club though is it because other clubs have spent bigger just to keep up. its raised the bar and spoilt it for the rest of us. Perhaps if Oneill had of been wiser in his spending and not been so parochial we might have managed our goal. If we had of had lambert  as manager then who knows what might have happened.

[Big_John_10]

but since the city take-over realism has set in

That's one club. Since one club got rich you've accepted surviving trying to reach mid table?

Its not just one club though is it because other clubs have spent bigger just to keep up. its raised the bar and spoilt it for the rest of us. Perhaps if Oneill had of been wiser in his spending and not been so parochial we might have managed our goal. If we had of had lambert as manager then who knows what might have happened.

Seems a pretty weak acceptance that our owner has no ambition. I seriously hope the majority of our fan base are not like this.

[Big_John_10]

In terms of other teams spending and us not being able to compete I think we'd still be around top 7 if Lerner hadn't **** up the managerial appointments. The serious spending cuts came in with Lambert but if we hadn't **** up with houllier and Mcleish those cuts probably wouldn't have had to be so severe.

I think he gets away with those appointments far too easily, they seem to just be shrugged off when in reality those decisions have probably damaged the club as any cut backs in spending.

[PaulC]

Mcleish I agree was a mistake but Houllier might have been good if it hadn't of been for his health problems. At least Lerner recognised the problem with Mcleish and got rid of him after one year.

[Shaw_nuff]

Just ignore this if it's already been posted somewhere, but a guy who did an internship at Villa this year recently did an AMA on reddit.com/r/soccer, and said a few very interesting things about the club, for example

 

The changes that Villa have made since the Lerner takeover had been amazing. They are doing some amazing stuff that will put them leagues ahead of other teams in the years to come. Also how they are preparing themselves on the field under the leadership of Lambert is great...

think that the way that Lambert and Co. are buying is amazing. The average age of the team is like 24/25. And they are all promising.

I think that its one of the first big clubs moving the entire mindset of the staff and the mantra of the club to creating a capitalist venture. Someone earlier on here spoke about how some of the clubs are pretty prehistoric in the way they handle business. I hate to say it but the fact the US figured out how to market sports to the masses and make money. Lerner is bringing that mindset and business strategy to your club.

Just saying I think all that will be very beneficial in the future.

Just thought this gives an interesting insight into how the club is being run under Lerner. Full thread is here.

 

 

Lerner is a man whose money is wrapped up in a western 'binge' credit industry that is on its knees and will never recover. Once they can't keep printing money any longer the US is screwed. This is the only reason for his change in strategy.

[danceoftheshamen]

Ok here's where i am with this,

 

I like the current idea of buying cheap and young up & coming prospects....to a point!    Personally i think we need a thread of top class players to pull it all together i have to admit but there you go and i am clearly amongst many other in having this opinion indeed amongst many professionals in the game too such as Dwight Yorke and several others i have heard pass similar comment.

 

As for how big are Aston Villa? For me we have a very large but largely sleeping fan base...... Why sleeping?!... Well because of 30 years of mediocrity that's why, that's enough to comatose the most passionate fan. The Frustrating Ellis years when we all knew just an extra bit of ambition would have seen us challenging... He bought the Champions of Europe don't forget and if memory serves we needed strengthening after the heroic exploits of the early 80's and bought Andy flipping Blair instead.

 

This is also in my opinion why we are thought of as smaller than we actually should be in many quarters. Many fans, pundits & media editors were not even alive the last time Villa ruled Europe and prior to that it was some 80 years since we were the original super club if you will being the "Barcelona" of the first quarter century of competitive football. Then we had the early 1900's to the late 1940's which lets be honest were dominated by two rather horrid World wars and football i presume, although it was obviously long before my time, took a bit of a back seat. Then we had the 1957 FA cup victory before disappearing into the dark days of 3rd division football and near administration until Ellis "part 1" saved the club.in the 60's... Then we slowly got back through the 70's and of course peaked in the early 80's as we all know under the Bendalls and Ron Saunders with our first title win in 80 years.... Then typical Villa, Our owner went on some weird power trip and Saunders departed.. A European cup win in the bag then Ellis came back and i think still thought it was the 60's and ran the club with a distinct lack of ambition for 25 years... this period was very damaging for the club... had we capitalised on the Euro win fully i truly believe we would be the equivalent of say Arsenal now if not even higher.. but you simply cannot run a Rolls Royce with a Ford Escort budget for two and a half decades without it breaking down at some point. 

 

So thats how i see us.. A Rolls Royce of a club which has deteriorated beyond recognition due to poor maintenance for many years... the question is can this Rolls Royce ever be back to it's best?

 

Well Lerner came in and mistakenly thought that giving the car a good service and changing the driver would work but he sadly picked a Rally driver instead of a Formula one driver who sadly blew the engine!!!

 

Now we have a new man in Paul Lambert... I do think he is the Grand Prix driver we have been looking for but sadly now we have the situation the we have the driver but he has been given an underpowered engine which simply has no chance of keeping pace with the big boys no matter how well he drives.

 

 

This does not change the fact though that Aston Villa is a Rolls Royce of a club if only the owner had the funds to run it properly!!

 

Hopefully the gradual restoration and modernisation which we are witnessing works and this club can at last take it's rightful place amongst the games elite once again.. Forget Chelsea & Man City they are unavoidable playthings of the rich but a Rolls Royce is a Rolls Royce and class is permanent..  Villa will be back one day but who knows when?.. And then the fan base will awaken at long last but they need to see consistent evidence to counterbalance an incredible amount of disappointment and false dawns before they truly believe again.....

 

Over to YOU Randy Lerner!!! 

[terrytini]

In a City of 1000000 people, and a furthre 2500000 within an hours travel we have averaged about 30000 for decades. We have won 3 major trophies since the 2nd World War - and ther are plenty who dont count the FA Cup as major.

Whilst we have much to be proud of our owner is barely - if at all - in the Top 10 richest in the League.

I would love us to prosper as much as anyone but I think a lot of the talk is unrealisitic.

Of all the possibilities open to us, the current plan - and I hope and beleive there is a plan - is both realisitic and offers the hope for some success.

The one thing I wish they would factor in is the match day experience. It is expensive, it is spent with an increasingly aged, silent (or complaining), audience, and it is , frankly, increasingly bleak. Away games are infinitely more fun.

They need to slash the cost, get singing/supporting areas, and much more. That is the area I wish I could see real ambition.

[Morpheus]

Cutting the price of tickets can only be achieved if more people can be attracted to Villa Park and to do that they must have something entertaining to watch on the pitch. That hasn't been happening for some considerable time now and is unlikely to happen in the near future if the cost cutting continues.

[danceoftheshamen]

I think we have been averaging 30,000 for decades due to the lack of ambition which has been consistently shown by the owners in all honesty.  It's more a matter of belief in my opinion as to why fans stay away mixed in with cost and time availability. Belief is a big thing and frankly the fan base don't believe any more in many cases. This lack of belief is understandable too it has to be said, with 30 years of let downs, lack of ambition, poor football and of course the annual selling of our finest players.

 

People are hurting financially out there and need a good reason to part with £50 to £100 + on a regular basis and frankly if the product isn't up to scratch, which indeed it hasn't been for a long time, then most won't do it. The MON years were evidence of this to a point as attendances jumped to over 40,000 but the football, although better, was still rather average in my opinion. This kind of dulled the impact somewhat as frankly it wasn't nice to see us being hammered week in week out and our home form was largely no better than poor to average under him.. No surprise then that the attendances didn't rise still further.

 

I do think though that if things start to click and we start to dominate games more rather than being persistently dominated by teams at home, results improve and this is maintained with genuine hope of a European place being the norm and even occasionally, on a good year, an intrusion into the top 4 or beyond, then the fan base will emerge finally and i can easily see 50,000+ at Villa Park... Never going to happen as things stand of course but hopefully we are at the beginning of something special and this may be achievable in five to 10 years time maybe?

 

Here's to hoping.

[briny_ear]

Mcleish I agree was a mistake but Houllier might have been good if it hadn't of been for his health problems. At least Lerner recognised the problem with Mcleish and got rid of him after one year.

Actually, Houllier is the one I blame most for the step change down from top 6 challengers to relegation strugglers. He took on a squad that had been competing for top 6 in the previous season (admittedly we had lost James Milner), fell out with a lot of our experienced players, encouraged mediocre youth players like Bannan, failed to introduce new talent to replace those he had demotivated and banished from the squad, introduced tactics that the players clearly couldn't understand (and that obviously didn't work), recognised the defence was leaking goals badly but said he couldn't solve the problem during the 10/11 season, and then spunked £18m of Lerner's money to buy Bent in a panic to help us stay up.

 

To be fair, bringing Kyle Walker on loan was a good move and helped the defence to avoid a complete horror show, but all in all that was one of the worst season's performances by a manager  I have witnessed for a long time and it sometimes maybe gets overlooked because of the nightmare that followed under McLeish.

[Big_John_10]

I also think Houllier was a major problem.

Started the rot and then Mcleish just finished the job.

If Lerner hadn't made such a shit appointment we'd be in a very different state right now.

[danceoftheshamen]

For sure Houllier was simply not up to the job and his heart and mind was never really with the club due to health and his affinity with the Scousers, As for McCleish? well that was simply unreal it has to be said. Virtually destroyed the club that but at least he maintained our Prem staus i guess...just.

 

It's really not surprising we struggle to fill Villa Park is it when you look at all this bizarreness...

 

Going back to belief being an issue in my opinion i have to ask just what is the medium to long term plan for Aston Villa? Anybody know? I mean i think the short term plan is to run the club on a shoestring and hopefully manage to stay in the Prem whilst we hopefully get a decent team together?...eventually.

[Shaw_nuff]

Good post Mark but there's expectations and there's realism. I saw the glory days and even under Oneill I thought there was a glimmer of hope we might get in the champions league and enter the big time again, but since the city take-over realism has set in. High expectations can only lead to disappointment. So unless we get a multi billionaire take over the club we are never going to be where we'd like us to be. Regarding crowds we've never really sustained large crowds.  When we won the league in 81 we averaged 33000. Yes the crowds built up until we peaked at 40k average. There's no doubt with sustained success we would fill our ground but Newcastle get 50,000 every week regardless

 With the greatest respect PaulC 33,000 back then was immense. It was the dark era of hooliganism and the peak of Thatcherite industrial break-ups.

 

NUFC averaged 17,000 in 1981, so all their BS about 50,000 turning up just to see a shirt is just that. I'm surprised we get anything over 25,000 with the constant dross served up at home for years, even decades.

[danceoftheshamen]

 

Good post Mark but there's expectations and there's realism. I saw the glory days and even under Oneill I thought there was a glimmer of hope we might get in the champions league and enter the big time again, but since the city take-over realism has set in. High expectations can only lead to disappointment. So unless we get a multi billionaire take over the club we are never going to be where we'd like us to be. Regarding crowds we've never really sustained large crowds.  When we won the league in 81 we averaged 33000. Yes the crowds built up until we peaked at 40k average. There's no doubt with sustained success we would fill our ground but Newcastle get 50,000 every week regardless

 With the greatest respect PaulC 33,000 back then was immense. It was the dark era of hooliganism and the peak of Thatcherite industrial break-ups.

 

NUFC averaged 17,000 in 1981, so all their BS about 50,000 turning up just to see a shirt is just that. I'm surprised we get anything over 25,000 with the constant dross served up at home for years, even decades.

 

 

Exactly 

 

If you put virtually any club through what has happened here over the last few decades i doubt many if any would still have gates of 30,000 plus on a bad year or 40,000 plus on a half decent year... Especially recently with our pathetic home record of something like won 1 drawn 1 and lost 93 or whatever it is and no trophies in what 15 to 20 years?!... For me the mere fact we still exceed 30,000 is testament to the strength in depth of the fan base rather than the other way round.

[PaulC]

Fair enough in 80/81 probably only 2 or 3 clubs averaged more. Man Utd 45,000. I don't know what Liverpool averaged but it would have been more than 33,00. Arsenal 32,000 and Chelsea only 17,000. Chelsea weren't as big as us until Abramovich took over. Our crowds have held up pretty well in recent seasons. I remember the cost of  admission in 87/88 was £3.50

[thetrees]

I think that memories can fade a little. The inaugural Premier League season, when it all began (sic) was arguably the best in living memory in terms of the style of football played at VP.

Our opening fixture attendance was big, 29k against reigning champions Leeds, followed up by a Saturday 3p.m. attendance against Southampton of just under 18k. A few other 19k and 20k during the season, with some 30-35k as things got exciting.

Some cracking away attendances that season as well:

Chelsea 20k

Everton 22k

Man City 23k

Arsenal 27k

Sheff Wed 30k

Spuds 33k

Scum 36k

My, how things have changed.

[smetrov]

For sure Houllier was simply not up to the job and his heart and mind was never really with the club due to health and his affinity with the Scousers, As for McCleish? well that was simply unreal it has to be said. Virtually destroyed the club that but at least he maintained our Prem staus i guess...just.

 

It's really not surprising we struggle to fill Villa Park is it when you look at all this bizarreness...

 

Going back to belief being an issue in my opinion i have to ask just what is the medium to long term plan for Aston Villa? Anybody know? I mean i think the short term plan is to run the club on a shoestring and hopefully manage to stay in the Prem whilst we hopefully get a decent team together?...eventually.

 

I sometimes wonder if its even that. Remember last Jan when were starring down the relegation barrel ? - Lerner backed his manager to the tune of £1.5m........ was he bothered if we went down ?

[Tayls]

For sure Houllier was simply not up to the job and his heart and mind was never really with the club due to health and his affinity with the Scousers, As for McCleish? well that was simply unreal it has to be said. Virtually destroyed the club that but at least he maintained our Prem staus i guess...just.

It's really not surprising we struggle to fill Villa Park is it when you look at all this bizarreness...

Going back to belief being an issue in my opinion i have to ask just what is the medium to long term plan for Aston Villa? Anybody know? I mean i think the short term plan is to run the club on a shoestring and hopefully manage to stay in the Prem whilst we hopefully get a decent team together?...eventually.

I sometimes wonder if its even that. Remember last Jan when were starring down the relegation barrel ? - Lerner backed his manager to the tune of £1.5m........ was he bothered if we went down ?

We spent very little last Jan yea - but I think we eventually showed that we didn't need to spend anymore at that point. Obviously they wernt to know that but someone somewhere must have had trust in the players we had.

[danceoftheshamen]

 

 

For sure Houllier was simply not up to the job and his heart and mind was never really with the club due to health and his affinity with the Scousers, As for McCleish? well that was simply unreal it has to be said. Virtually destroyed the club that but at least he maintained our Prem staus i guess...just.

It's really not surprising we struggle to fill Villa Park is it when you look at all this bizarreness...

Going back to belief being an issue in my opinion i have to ask just what is the medium to long term plan for Aston Villa? Anybody know? I mean i think the short term plan is to run the club on a shoestring and hopefully manage to stay in the Prem whilst we hopefully get a decent team together?...eventually.

I sometimes wonder if its even that. Remember last Jan when were starring down the relegation barrel ? - Lerner backed his manager to the tune of £1.5m........ was he bothered if we went down ?

We spent very little last Jan yea - but I think we eventually showed that we didn't need to spend anymore at that point. Obviously they wernt to know that but someone somewhere must have had trust in the players we had.

 

 

I do think a relegation was seriously considered to be an acceptable part of the "plan" although if we could avoid it then great.

 

But the question still remains... Does anybody have a clue what the medium to long term plan is for Aston Villa? I think it's very relevant as how can you believe in something if you don't really know quite what it is your'e supposed to be believing? 

Edited November 2, 2013 by danceoftheshamen