HanoiVillan Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 Lerner for the huge amount of mistakes over the past 9 years. I mean, who spends money they can't afford trying to win a lottery of finishing fourth. Lerner for the ridiculous cutbacks. This is not NFL buddy. We can go down. Lerner for the four year contract to Lambert. I mean, **** hell. Lambert for driving the morale of the players down. Lambert for being too scared, for trying not to lose before trying to win and for killing any confidence the players had. Lambert for the tactics which have taken away the freedom from players, which they struggle to get back. Fox for dithering whilst Aston burned. This is an excellent summary. I also like the option given in the poll for 'the system', which has escaped too much scrutiny on here and elsewhere. FFP is killing football, and seemingly that was its entire point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingman Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 You have to look at the person who employs these people, Lerner! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicho Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 Ultimate responsibility lies with the top manager as it always does with any business so should be looking at Lerner. In the short term it has been Lamberts fault, the tactics, performances, desire, coaching, subs ect have been terrible this season, he should have walked if he wasn't being pushed. what has been served up is worthy of relegation and I imagine our last 38 games in this division have us relegated. However he should have been sacked at the end of last season meaning his performance want good enough for nearly 2 years. So you have to look at the higher ups, they set the modus operandi and Lerner was happy with scrapping safety and that has set us up to fail. Ultimately Lambert did what he was told from a budgeting point of view and any ounce of fire and inspiration that we felt he had when he came was either extinguished or was never there in the first place. And regardless of potential he became another poor selection. Only one man has been at the helm for the last 5 year of soul destroying football and terrible operations management. We the fans are not to blame but we put enough pressure on to get Mcleish out it took us far longer to do it to Lambert. Our passion for this club as a group was on the wain and I think only now that we are on the brink have some we woken up. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFCforever1991 Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 Lerner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 one thing I've never seen discussed here, when the FFP was being cooked up who was our sponsor and how much did they pay us? I can't remember how long we actually had acorns for, if it was 3 years that roughly £25m down on what we could be, then at the time you add that we were 6th, in Europe, in cup finals etc so should have been negotiating for £10m+ shirt deals so the loss of potential earnings since is probably about another £10m So in reality we shot ourselves in the foot to the tune of around £35m in the years before you can only spend what you earn rules came in, no one mentions that as one of lerners bad decisions That to me just shows how football has changed, and not for the better, during lerners ownership 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodgyknees Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 one thing I've never seen discussed here, when the FFP was being cooked up who was our sponsor and how much did they pay us? I can't remember how long we actually had acorns for, if it was 3 years that roughly £25m down on what we could be, then at the time you add that we were 6th, in Europe, in cup finals etc so should have been negotiating for £10m+ shirt deals so the loss of potential earnings since is probably about another £10m So in reality we shot ourselves in the foot to the tune of around £35m in the years before you can only spend what you earn rules came in, no one mentions that as one of lerners bad decisions That to me just shows how football has changed, and not for the better, during lerners ownership Do you know what, that is a really good point. Considering we now know he couldn't afford to fund us, that was a stupid decision. He really was like a kid in a toy shop with £100 to spend and no parent to help him make good decisions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UpTheVilla26 Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 You could click at least 4 of them answers, easily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozvillafan Posted March 1, 2015 VT Supporter Share Posted March 1, 2015 Lerner for his blind faith in his managers. Lambert for believing he had what it took. He didn't. By a long way. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginko Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 All started with MoN for me. He blew too much mony. That started the ball rolling. People moan at Lerner but he's spent 100s of millions on our club. And Lerner appointed MON. Doug will say otherwise I'm sure Doug had his two cents worth and Randy listened, but ultimately it was Lerner's decision. I don't think many of us were even against giving MON the job at the time, I certainly wasn't. The fact is, however, that Randy kept him in the job for as long as he did and he gave him far too much power and control, so Lerner is still ultimately to blame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danceoftheshamen Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 (edited) 80% Lerner, 10% the players, 5% Lambert and 5% the fans That's how i see it. The decline was clearly triggered by whatever happened between Lerner & O'neill, my guess is that Lerner changed his mind and pulled the rug from under (or finances) MON who then walked as he no doubt knew what was coming as a result. Lerner then brought in Houllier who tried to change the whole ethos at the club but of course had his health issues so we will never know what might have been but as it was.......FAILED! He then brought in McCleish against 99.9% of the fans better judgement and also pulled the funding down and we saw the real start of the demise... i remember well being staggered at the lack of investment and the rate at which the better players were being flogged off to clear the wage bill...This was the real start of the demise!..Here is where i do apportion 5% of the blame to us fans though. If we are honest and remove the anti Sha specs for just a fleeting moment (I know difficult isn't it lol!) then we never gave the guy a hope so unsurprisingly again it ........FAILED!! So we come to Paul Lambert, this time i feel Lerner bowed to fan pressure in appointing him, we were afterall chanting his name when we played away at Norwich lol! So in an attempt to repair damaged bridges caused with the McCleish thing i feel Lerner decided to go with the fans choice......But there was an issue!! He continued to withdraw the funding and "the incredible shrinking squad" (as i remember it being labelled) continued to shrink and reduce in quality at a staggering rate, Lambert performed a minor miracle in my opinion by keeping us up twice but eventually lack of funding came home to roost and we are where we deserve to be right now based on investment. the football was getting worse by the week and Lambert had an epiphany moment i feel when he went to watch Pep Guardiola's operation at Bayern and tried to implement it here midway through a season in which we were already struggling.... This confused the players and again not enough funding was offered to support such a drastic change in January thus our terrible form as the team were somewhat caught betwixt & between and confidence plummeted.....This spelled the end for Lambert the fans turned and that was that!.....FAILED! So now to Tim Sherwood .. he has now 11 games to get at least 17 points or so, Stoke at home and Newcastle away are games we always seem to lose every season so no surprises there, but the S*** just got real now and we have 2 games upcoming in which we usually get 4 points if not 6 .....We need a 6 badly and then we have a chance....anything less and we are relying on getting a result or two at other grounds we perennially lose at like City, Utd or Spurs! Over to you Tim Edited March 1, 2015 by danceoftheshamen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 I've been reading on here enough times that we have enough quality in the squad, so for me it has to be the players who are mainly responsible. You can blame Lerner for lack of investment but these players should be good enough to keep us up. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danceoftheshamen Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 (edited) I've been reading on here enough times that we have enough quality in the squad, so for me it has to be the players who are mainly responsible. You can blame Lerner for lack of investment but these players should be good enough to keep us up. Hear you Paul but our key players just are not good enough, Gabby.....Erm? the guy has ruined himself by trying to become Gabriel Scwarzenegger and he is clearly totally ineffective now, he still offers a threat in the oppostions eyes as no doubt they hate pace but he is simply not fulfilling that threat and is totally ineffective..Or is it the way the team is set up maybe? goodness knows but he never scores and rarely even threatens to score! Benteke.... Since he got sent of against Spurs it's like his heads gone Vlaar...Please don't get me started, a player who's seeing out his days if ever i saw one, clearly he's off in the summer and he's just seeing out his contract. Guzan.... His form also appears to have suffered a little with quite a few gaffs i can recall this season... I though Given looked a better keeper against Leicester yet he never gets a look in! Delph... He peaked last season which helped keep us up last year but for me since he signed a new deal he's done very little and is just rather... Meh! Doesn't score (But then neither do any of our players) and gives the ball away in key area's way to often for my liking. And those are our best players!! No wonder we are struggling! They are just average players in pretty much any other Prem team.. I feel Benetke could be a superstar but he simply seems to lack the desire, Maybe that's where a new manager comes in but desire is not something you can teach it has to come from within and that's what scares me. Edited March 1, 2015 by danceoftheshamen 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PussEKatt Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 Lerner and Lambert. Lerner for trying to stay in the strongest league in the world by selling our best players and replacing them with players from lower divisions and Lambert for agreeing to do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 Gary Glitter. and Lerner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
powell91 Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 every thing on that list is at fault in someway but every one of those faults lead back to lerner he has killed this club well and truly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam3773 Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 Roy Keane. Things were kind of good when he was here! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PieFacE Posted March 1, 2015 VT Supporter Share Posted March 1, 2015 (edited) Lambert. Say what you like about Lerner, We've invested enough to be better than we are. Lambert completely failed. Edited March 1, 2015 by PieFacE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharkyvilla Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 O'Neill still for me. He **** up Sunderland as well after us with his wastefulness. Everything since then has been one disaster after another, but the catalyst was still O'Neill and Emile **** Heskey. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 It's beyond me how anyone can blame Lambert. We've got him to thank that we're still a Premier league team. Our position is down to Lerner's decision making and external factors like FFP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foreveryoung Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 O'Neil for blowing £150 million, looking at Heskey to be our saviour and paying the likes of Beye £40k a week. We can all blame Lerner, but he trusted O'Neil with his fortune and not only did O'Neil screw the club, he then sued us when things didn't go his way. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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