DCJonah Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 I didn't think anything could make me feel more miserable about Villa and the mess the club is in, but the fact that some fans are still blaming the disastrous financial management of the club on O'Neill and dredging up all the old nonsense that used to be put out regularly on this topic has actually succeeded in deepening my gloom. He is partly to blame though. There are certainly a whole host of other people to blame as well, Lerner being the main culprit of course, but his **** ups helped to set in motion a series of disasters. I'm not sure how they did. Weren't we 6th with the 6th highest wage bill? And after he left we were still giving out big money to Ireland, bent, given, nzogbia and Hutton before extreme cost cutting set in. I don't think the position we were in was such a shambolic one then, it was just made much worse thanks to houllier, mcleish and then extreme cost cutting under a poor manager. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avfc1982 Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 100% Randy Lerner. The last 5 seasons of cutbacks and the constant downgrading of the club is to blame for our decline. Lerner decided he would no longer invest money into the club, so he sold our best players and replaced them with cheap foreigners and lower league crap on £10k per week. This has gone on for FIVE years and is finally coming home to roost. He has got away with murder at Villa. Ellis must be scratching his head in disbelief. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacbuddies Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 100% Randy Lerner. The last 5 seasons of cutbacks and the constant downgrading of the club is to blame for our decline. Lerner decided he would no longer invest money into the club, so he sold our best players and replaced them with cheap foreigners and lower league crap on £10k per week. This has gone on for FIVE years and is finally coming home to roost. He has got away with murder at Villa. Ellis must be scratching his head in disbelief. He probably doesn't even realise what is going on. This is the numpty that sold us to Lerner and believed we would qualify for Europe if we stuck with McLeish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoony Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 I voted Lerner, but it's impossible to blame just him Martin O'Neill shares a huge portion of the blame for me. If we didn't have such an arrongant and hopeless manager at the helm when Lerner was blindly, stupidly giving out money, then maybe we'd have got lucky and someone less out-of-touch with the realities of football and less ignorant of long term cause-and-effect than Mart O'Neill may have spent it more wisely. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 I didn't think anything could make me feel more miserable about Villa and the mess the club is in, but the fact that some fans are still blaming the disastrous financial management of the club on O'Neill and dredging up all the old nonsense that used to be put out regularly on this topic has actually succeeded in deepening my gloom. He is partly to blame though. There are certainly a whole host of other people to blame as well, Lerner being the main culprit of course, but his **** ups helped to set in motion a series of disasters. I'm not sure how they did. Weren't we 6th with the 6th highest wage bill? And after he left we were still giving out big money to Ireland, bent, given, nzogbia and Hutton before extreme cost cutting set in. I don't think the position we were in was such a shambolic one then, it was just made much worse thanks to houllier, mcleish and then extreme cost cutting under a poor manager. He also wasted a hell of a lot of money at a time when it was much easier to get into the top 6. And I don't know why people always use the fact that we wasted money under Houllier and McLeish as some sort of argument that O'Neill isn't to blame as well. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AshVilla Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 The players had it to easy under Lambert and that's why were in the situation we find ourselves Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexbelowsound Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 We need to find a real life Sheldon Cooper to give us the algorithm for determining what proportion of blame goes to each individual involved during Lerner's tenure. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCJonah Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 I didn't think anything could make me feel more miserable about Villa and the mess the club is in, but the fact that some fans are still blaming the disastrous financial management of the club on O'Neill and dredging up all the old nonsense that used to be put out regularly on this topic has actually succeeded in deepening my gloom.He is partly to blame though. There are certainly a whole host of other people to blame as well, Lerner being the main culprit of course, but his **** ups helped to set in motion a series of disasters. I'm not sure how they did. Weren't we 6th with the 6th highest wage bill? And after he left we were still giving out big money to Ireland, bent, given, nzogbia and Hutton before extreme cost cutting set in. I don't think the position we were in was such a shambolic one then, it was just made much worse thanks to houllier, mcleish and then extreme cost cutting under a poor manager. He also wasted a hell of a lot of money at a time when it was much easier to get into the top 6. And I don't know why people always use the fact that we wasted money under Houllier and McLeish as some sort of argument that O'Neill isn't to blame as well. Because it shows that we were still able to spend decent money and offer decent wages even after Mon wasted a lot of money. So to me that meant we could have recovered but instead poor managerial and financial decisions continued once he left and we made a poor situation worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 40% Lerner 60% Lambert 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackbauer24 Posted March 1, 2015 Share Posted March 1, 2015 It serves no purpose now but the blame lies with Lerner 99%, maybe 1% could be attributed to the new FFP but that's more likely to be blame in any future we have. MON has no blame; he gave us some successes and bought both well and badly. He was a manager, if Lerner was giving him too much power then that's his fault not MONs. McLeish, Houllier and Lambert accepted a job and tried their best. I agree with their appointments to differing amounts as any fan does but I don't BLAME any of them, even if I didn't like aspects of their appointments. I think we've had some bad luck, but probably no more than any other team if we are honest about it and don't just feel sorry for ourselves. It is Lerner who has strangled this club. It is Lerner who has mismanaged the finances. It is Lerner who has either employed managers he shouldn't have, or let them go on too long. It is Lerner who has abandoned us. It is Lerner who ignores the fans and treats them with contempt. It is Lerner who has not stuck to a plan and needed multiple CEOs. It is Lerner who has brought this club to its knees. I fail to see how the blame can be attributed anywhere else. I feel for Sherwood as he will be given some blame when we get relegated, or he'll be blamed if we fail to move on next season should we be lucky enough to survive. He doesn't stand a chance and the circle will continue; Despair - new manager - optimism in face of continued poor form - patience dwindles - despair... Only Lerner moving on will change this circle; nothing will change until he's gone. I really don't want to say 'I told you so' as I hate seeing my club like this (and I know it's early) but Sherwood will have no bigger impact on our position in football than the three managers before him, the only real change has been when Lerner gave up. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRO Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 I didn't think anything could make me feel more miserable about Villa and the mess the club is in, but the fact that some fans are still blaming the disastrous financial management of the club on O'Neill and dredging up all the old nonsense that used to be put out regularly on this topic has actually succeeded in deepening my gloom. Briny, you just can't ignore the calamity of signings O'Neill made and blame all that on the owner...The financial running of the club is sure, Randy's responsibility, but it isn't the first time a chairman has been duped by a manager who threatened to know what he was doing....think we had him, as well for good measure. The fact that most of the signings made by MON and subsequent managers has set the club back. If you are saying those signings that were poor,should have been vetoed by Lerner, O'Neill would have lasted 2 years not 4.....Further more that was the very thing that the fans were against HDE for, so i think a bit of double standards is at large there. It is always hard to argue against the fact that the man at the top is ultimately responsible....but this is football and you know that bye and large the manager runs all the things that matter....even CEO's are secondary to managers who have built empires for themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fun Factory Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 I think by sacking Lambert, it has further shown who is really to blame for this long term death spiral- Mr Lerner. At first we were perplexed about all those Cleveland Brown fans who said he was a rubbish and clueless sports owner. Well, now we know. When you think Kenwright at Everton has done miles better in the past five years with less personal money and a worse stadium then that shows how bad Lerner has done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRO Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 A club like Aston Villa....don't recover easily from the amount of poor signings we have made over the years, I'm not sure what normal owner could sustain it. You all know the facts....Darren Bent was a mitigating disaster of a signing....no that was not O'Neill but the catastrophe just rolled on and on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRO Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 I think by sacking Lambert, it has further shown who is really to blame for this long term death spiral- Mr Lerner. At first we were perplexed about all those Cleveland Brown fans who said he was a rubbish and clueless sports owner. Well, now we know. When you think Kenwright at Everton has done miles better in the past five years with less personal money and a worse stadium then that shows how bad Lerner has done. or is it that his managers have just bought and developed better....when have our academy produced the likes of Rooney, Barkley,Coleman etc. Randy has cocked up....but not with some of the things folk blame him for.....His main fault for me is appointing the wrong managers.....he don't sign the players or coach them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 The option for the boogie seems to be missing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRO Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 The reason folk baulk at the idea of apportioning any blame on O'Neill...is purely down to time...he is not here, so he has no blame. His poor spending left a scar on Lerner IMO...and a scar on the clubs finances.....what would any of us do if it was our money. He was a manager during a period of time that we had more money available to a manager for signings than at any time in our history....if you go by the number of good ones v bad ones he blew it, he blew the opportunity paying over the odds on transfers and wages and very few sell on values. He also in my view blew away the confidence of the owner to carry spending.....and subsequent managers and spending did nothing to reverse the trend In short, for years, we have bought badly. past managers are not always directly to blame, but they leave a legacy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRO Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 .....shouldn't have started this....like digging up old bones. we need to concentrate all our energies proactively. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danceoftheshamen Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 I agree Tro though part of the issue was surely that MON had funds but not that many top players wanted to come here so he kind of had to spend it on the next level down? Who knows but the Heskey signing was just shameful lol! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briny_ear Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 I didn't think anything could make me feel more miserable about Villa and the mess the club is in, but the fact that some fans are still blaming the disastrous financial management of the club on O'Neill and dredging up all the old nonsense that used to be put out regularly on this topic has actually succeeded in deepening my gloom. Briny, you just can't ignore the calamity of signings O'Neill made and blame all that on the owner...The financial running of the club is sure, Randy's responsibility, but it isn't the first time a chairman has been duped by a manager who threatened to know what he was doing....think we had him, as well for good measure. The fact that most of the signings made by MON and subsequent managers has set the club back. If you are saying those signings that were poor,should have been vetoed by Lerner, O'Neill would have lasted 2 years not 4.....Further more that was the very thing that the fans were against HDE for, so i think a bit of double standards is at large there. It is always hard to argue against the fact that the man at the top is ultimately responsible....but this is football and you know that bye and large the manager runs all the things that matter....even CEO's are secondary to managers who have built empires for themselves. There is so much that is wrong in this post, but I absolutely refuse to be drawn into a pointless discussion about Martin O'Neill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marka Ragnos Posted March 3, 2015 Author VT Supporter Share Posted March 3, 2015 (edited) A few days ago, when I started this thread, I was in a pretty dark place along with a lot of other supporters, and this thread served to help vent some of the frustration I, for one, was feeling. But I have to admit that I've been set straight by some of the relentless hope of my fellow Villans in other threads, and while this thread has been fascinating to read, I've already found myself moving beyond it, in a way. If we do go down, there WILL be a reckoning of some sort, and accountability WILL be discussed, but at the moment, I'm all about the "The Call To Arms" -- not much I can do from thousands of miles away, I suppose, but still ... -- and focusing on the fight, personally. But I also understand why it really helps to try to make sense of this possible tragedy. That whole "those who don't understand the past ..." adage comes to mind. Edited March 3, 2015 by Shifted To Neutral Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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