Popular Post Chicken Field Posted November 17, 2016 Popular Post Share Posted November 17, 2016 (edited) I blame Martin O'Neill a lot, Randy came in, knew nothing about the game, but had high ambitions and a lot of trust, he let O'Neill do whatever he wanted (Which according to some articles is what he requires) and did not interfere at all. Even though we had the most exciting football at Villa park for ages during O'Neill's tenure, the money wasted on older players with no possibility of future profits and the money we spent on wages was crazy. Even though the football is the best that we had seen for ages, O'Neill had massive flaws. He always had his favorites, he did not want to use Right backs, he was awful at buying strikers, he only seemed to be interested in buying domestic players (if rumors are to be believed, he wanted Heskey instead of Falcao), did not use his substitutes and did not like the youth players. (Biggest mistake at Villa for ages is that we bought Zat Knight and Curtis Davies instead of using Gary Cahill). A lot of mistakes from an outdated manager. We ran out of steam every season, but he just did not figure out how to fix it (he never changed his starting 11, players became fatigued). Randy Lerner though should have hired a football man straight away, someone that controlled O'Neill and someone that would have stopped us from hiring McLeish, who single handedly divided the fans from the board and players, creating a horrible atmosphere, which we have not been able to get rid of since. Edited November 17, 2016 by Chicken Field 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grasshopper Posted November 17, 2016 Share Posted November 17, 2016 top post ^^^^^^^^ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briny_ear Posted November 17, 2016 Share Posted November 17, 2016 (edited) 2 hours ago, Chicken Field said: I blame Martin O'Neill a lot, ... Randy Lerner though should have hired a football man straight away, someone that controlled O'Neill and someone that would have stopped us from hiring McLeish, who single handedly divided the fans from the board and players, creating a horrible atmosphere, which we have not been able to get rid of since. Right, that reads to me like you actually blame Randy Lerner a lot. He owned the **** club after all and showed himself totally incapable of running it. It's not as if, freed from the evil clutches of the demon O'Neill, he started making good decisions about the club. In fact, he plunged from disaster to disaster and every decision he made seemed worse than the last. I also wonder about the version of events you have set out here in which Lerner just left the entire strategy of the club to O'Neill and had virtually no input to the way things developed. I suspect that many of the decisions made by all Lerner's managers were in response to the expectations he created. Edited November 17, 2016 by briny_ear Elegance of drafting (well, you did ask) :) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicken Field Posted November 17, 2016 Share Posted November 17, 2016 6 hours ago, briny_ear said: Right, that reads to me like you actually blame Randy Lerner a lot. He owned the **** club after all and showed himself totally incapable of running it. It's not as if, freed from the evil clutches of the demon O'Neill, he started making good decisions about the club. In fact, he plunged from disaster to disaster and every decision he made seemed worse than the last. I also wonder about the version of events you have set out here in which Lerner just left the entire strategy of the club to O'Neill and had virtually no input to the way things developed. I suspect that many of the decisions made by all Lerner's managers were in response to the expectations he created. Randy Lerner certainly is too blame a lot to, as he is the one that let O'Neill do as he wanted to. Imagine a good manager with the funds and freedom that O'Neill had, someone who had bought in more smartly with a view for the future. The amount of money we used was incredible under O'Neill. He over spent on so many average English players, it was ridiculous. (Davies, Reo Coker, Harewood and so on) and most of the players did not have any resale value at all (exccept for Young, Milner and Downing, which were, to O'Neill credit, amazing signings) Well, when Lerner eventually did step in, O'Neill left the club. Lerner is/was to naive to know what to do/expect, he thought it would be enough to just throw money into the club. It is very clear to see that no one looked at our finances whilst O'Neill was in charge, looking at our wage structure we had at the time. In 2011/12 we paid £83 million in wages and our turnover was only £92m, this is a ridiculous amount and something a manager with a long term view of the club surely would have considered and stopped. O'Neill obviously did not consider this and there was no one at the club who stopped him. I can't imagine any decent manager would create a wage bill like that. O'Neill is an amazing manager for lower teams, but that is the only thing he is capable of. He should have gotten us into the top 4. After O'Neill. Lerner did create expectations, sadly these were negative expectations, lower the wage bill and stay at the same level as we were, which is nearly impossible, especially with the long term contracts we had with the crap that O'Neill signed. Krulak (I know I know he is an asshole, but he is the only one that has talked about it) said that O'Neill was unwilling to listen to them and bring the wages under control and resigned when we were forced to sell Milner, showing that he expects full control of a club and won't listen to others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted November 17, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted November 17, 2016 Both Lerner and O'Neil were criminally negligent. I know for a fact that Habib Beye was on a frightening wage. Now that is disgraceful for a player as bang average as him but add to that MON never really played him, not even on the bench most of the time. It was so to totally unnecessary for us to have given those kind of wages to a player like that. Whilst we had a modicum of success we paid to achieve much much more. In that respect MON was a failure. Around that time our wage bill was far exceeding that of Spurs who were always there or thereabouts as well. I mean even today HARRY KANE earns the same as or less than we were paying Gabby and Nzogbia and would have had to pay Adama Traore. Paying big wages in itself is not so much the problem as paying good big wages to lots of and the wrong sort of players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted November 17, 2016 Share Posted November 17, 2016 Wait, so it's Martin O'Neill's fault for spending the funds made available to him and then Randy pulling the plug, generally not giving a shit and running us into the ground for 6 years after he left? Revisionist bollocks. Sorry. Managers come and go, they often make mistakes and sign shit players on stupid wages. That's the way it is. That Randy allowed that to happen to the degree that it did and then basically mugged everyone off by yanking the plug, before flip flopping like a fish out of water (apt) for years afterwards while he looked for a price nobody was ever going to pay, is on him and him alone. **** that guy. I don't hate him anymore, but **** him. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted November 17, 2016 Share Posted November 17, 2016 (edited) Going back to the O'Neill years is going over ground that has been trampled over a thousand times. The way I see that time is that when he joined we had just finished 16th. In 4 years he had a net spend of around 70 mill, less if you take into account that Milner was sold just after he left, and in those four years we finished 6th three times and had a couple of good cup runs. During those three 6th place finishes we had the 8th, 6th and 6th highest wage bills in the league. For me given what he spent and the fact we were trying to break the Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool strangle hold on the top 4 along with Everton, Spurs and a Man City spending extortionate amounts, we did OK under O'Neill. No more no less. The argument that Randy wised up and decided we had to cut costs leading to O'Neill leaving falls a little flat on its face as months after he left we splashed out 25 mill + on Bent and Makoun, signed Bradley and Walker on loan and at the end of the 2010/11 season, a year after O'Neill had left, our wage bill was higher than it had ever been. Regardless of whether you believe that O'Neill spunked millions up the wall no player was on a contract signed under him since 2012 and Lerner had ample time and chances to sort the club out yet made poor decision after poor decision which led to us going down six years after O'Neill left. For me the most striking stat is that between 2006 and 2015, a boom time for the Premier League, our non tv commercial income went up by less than 10%. The reasons we struggled so much financially went way deeper than decisions made by the numerous managers. I acknowledge there were many bit part players, who were all employed by Lerner by the way, who had a hand in why we went down and why our finances were in such a poor state but the man most and ultimately responsible is Randy Lerner. Edited November 17, 2016 by markavfc40 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post dont_do_it_doug. Posted November 17, 2016 Popular Post Share Posted November 17, 2016 O'Neill takes an awful lot of shit for what basically amounts to Habib Beye. Some of his high earners include Young, Carew, Milner, Barry, Downing and Petrov. Dunne and Collins blew up in the end without him, but formed one of the best defences in the league under his tutelage, if not the very best. He wasn't perfect, but the decimation of Aston Villa came after he was gone. The signings of Ireland and N'Zogbia were far more detrimental. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentVilla Posted November 18, 2016 Moderator Share Posted November 18, 2016 It seems I woke this morning in 2010 Fancy. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted November 18, 2016 Share Posted November 18, 2016 10 hours ago, dont_do_it_doug. said: O'Neill takes an awful lot of shit for what basically amounts to Habib Beye. Some of his high earners include Young, Carew, Milner, Barry, Downing and Petrov. Dunne and Collins blew up in the end without him, but formed one of the best defences in the league under his tutelage, if not the very best. He wasn't perfect, but the decimation of Aston Villa came after he was gone. The signings of Ireland and N'Zogbia were far more detrimental. MON deserves shit, the players hated him and he treated various players like garbage. FACT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briny_ear Posted November 18, 2016 Share Posted November 18, 2016 7 minutes ago, Demitri_C said: MON deserves shit, the players hated him and he treated various players like garbage. FACT That may be so, although I think your bold use of the word FACT may be a bit questionable (). However, this is a thread about Villa finances, and whether the players hated MON or not seems totally irrelevant to the state of our accounts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted November 18, 2016 Share Posted November 18, 2016 (edited) 2 minutes ago, briny_ear said: That may be so, although I think your bold use of the word FACT may be a bit questionable (). However, this is a thread about Villa finances, and whether the players hated MON or not seems totally irrelevant to the state of our accounts. Maybe...maybe not I know this as a fact as its well known I am friends with a ex villa player who was under the MON era. I saw the messages when he left. Edited November 18, 2016 by Demitri_C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briny_ear Posted November 18, 2016 Share Posted November 18, 2016 46 minutes ago, Demitri_C said: Maybe...maybe not I know this as a fact as its well known I am friends with a ex villa player who was under the MON era. I saw the messages when he left. However, this is a thread about Villa finances, and whether the players hated MON or not seems totally irrelevant to the state of our accounts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morley_crosses_to_Withe Posted November 18, 2016 Share Posted November 18, 2016 (edited) MON gets the blame from me for not getting us to the Champions League when we actually had a chance due to our horridly poor home form under him. One season we had one of the very best away records, but a below average home record. He just didn't know how to set us up at Villa Park in order to get consistent results; and just a slight up tick in results, a different way of playing, would have made all the difference. Regardless of how much other teams were spending, or our relative wage bill, or net spend, that poor home record was purely down to lack of his management skills. What could have been if we had a manager with a bit more tactical invention and foresight. Everything else is Randy's fault. Edited November 18, 2016 by Morley_crosses_to_Withe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodders0223 Posted November 18, 2016 Share Posted November 18, 2016 14 hours ago, dont_do_it_doug. said: Wait, so it's Martin O'Neill's fault for spending the funds made available to him and then Randy pulling the plug, generally not giving a shit and running us into the ground for 6 years after he left? Revisionist bollocks. Sorry. Managers come and go, they often make mistakes and sign shit players on stupid wages. That's the way it is. That Randy allowed that to happen to the degree that it did and then basically mugged everyone off by yanking the plug, before flip flopping like a fish out of water (apt) for years afterwards while he looked for a price nobody was ever going to pay, is on him and him alone. **** that guy. I don't hate him anymore, but **** him. Most of them don't walk out on the dawn of a new season. Martin O'Neill can go **** himself, he showed the club and the fans zero respect. He is an utter piece of shit. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briny_ear Posted November 18, 2016 Share Posted November 18, 2016 5 hours ago, rodders0223 said: Most of them don't walk out on the dawn of a new season. Martin O'Neill can go **** himself, he showed the club and the fans zero respect. He is an utter piece of shit. And the relevance of this to the subject of the thread - Villa's finances - is...???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted November 18, 2016 Moderator Share Posted November 18, 2016 23 minutes ago, briny_ear said: And the relevance of this to the subject of the thread - Villa's finances - is...???? Pretty obvious. Every time a club changes manager it leads to changing (some of) the players ,as new manager doesn't rate all of old manager's players...etc. which means spending money. When it happens at the last minute, then it means there's no time to have an orderly change of things over the summer, so it leads to panic buying in January, which means having to pay more than you'd like. It means players on big wages not being used, the disruption leads to better players wanting to leave and a downward spiral. It was niaive of RL to leave MO'N unchecked to spend and award pay rises and all that, and he ultimately is responsible, but MO'N still wasted and overpaid an F ton of money. Lots of players bought with no sell on value. He was partly to blame for the overspending, though not ultimately responsible. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodders0223 Posted November 18, 2016 Share Posted November 18, 2016 50 minutes ago, briny_ear said: And the relevance of this to the subject of the thread - Villa's finances - is...???? Ask the 10 posters I was replying to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodders0223 Posted November 18, 2016 Share Posted November 18, 2016 (edited) 20 hours ago, dont_do_it_doug. said: O'Neill takes an awful lot of shit for what basically amounts to Habib Beye. Some of his high earners include Young, Carew, Milner, Barry, Downing and Petrov. Dunne and Collins blew up in the end without him, but formed one of the best defences in the league under his tutelage, if not the very best. He wasn't perfect, but the decimation of Aston Villa came after he was gone. The signings of Ireland and N'Zogbia were far more detrimental. Sidwell, Reocoker, Davies, Shorey. Wouldn't have minded if he used them. Wasn't Heskey allegedly given a 3 year 65k deal...at 31? Nothing dodgy about that. Oh, Harewood, how many starts? Routledge played what....a few Uefa games? You cannot be giving out 40k - 50k a week deals for bench warmers at this time, you just can't! Edited November 18, 2016 by rodders0223 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted November 21, 2016 Share Posted November 21, 2016 On 18/11/2016 at 19:20, rodders0223 said: Sidwell, Reocoker, Davies, Shorey. Wouldn't have minded if he used them. Wasn't Heskey allegedly given a 3 year 65k deal...at 31? Nothing dodgy about that. Oh, Harewood, how many starts? Routledge played what....a few Uefa games? You cannot be giving out 40k - 50k a week deals for bench warmers at this time, you just can't! Quite right. How many of those bench warmers you mention were on £40-50k? Reference your earlier point that he's a prick for walking out in the eve of the season, totally agree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts