villa4europe Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 I don't mind Lerner if I'm honest, would even go as far as to say I have a degree of sympathy for him I believe he bought us for genuine reasons and wanted to compete, then Man City happened, then FFP happened, I think he saw the writing on the wall as to what we are seeing right now in the PL and other leagues and wanted nothing to do with it The problem was his insistence of radio silence, he should have screamed from the rooftop about what a shit idea it was but instead he just let it happen, then walked away years before he sold us I still think we were the club hit hardest by FFP and whereas I said Doug has killed us before I'm of the opinion it was the rule change that has killed us (for a really long time too, I'm not sure we'll ever do another thing in my lifetime if these rules stay) rather than Lerner 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulC Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 1 hour ago, lexicon said: He may well have been but he was mentally ill tbf - not really fair to lump him in with others who are just dickheads. i know that but this was when he was a player at the peak of his career. I would never say anything about anybody who suffers mental health problems as being a sufferer myself. As I said before this is thread is a poison chalice because unless we know them its impossible to judge them as people. You can only go on personal experiences. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 45 minutes ago, villa4europe said: I don't mind Lerner if I'm honest, would even go as far as to say I have a degree of sympathy for him I believe he bought us for genuine reasons and wanted to compete, then Man City happened, then FFP happened, I think he saw the writing on the wall as to what we are seeing right now in the PL and other leagues and wanted nothing to do with it The problem was his insistence of radio silence, he should have screamed from the rooftop about what a shit idea it was but instead he just let it happen, then walked away years before he sold us I still think we were the club hit hardest by FFP and whereas I said Doug has killed us before I'm of the opinion it was the rule change that has killed us (for a really long time too, I'm not sure we'll ever do another thing in my lifetime if these rules stay) rather than Lerner Regarding Lerner, I heard somewhere his finances were hampered due to his divorce. I am not sure how factual that is. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jas10 Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 McCormack & N’Zogbia. Stains on the club, absolutely useless and cost us dearly… 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zhan_Zhuang Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 4 hours ago, theboyangel said: Yep - odious bloke. Met him several times socially and professionally and he was an utter self obsessed, big-time Charlie word removed! Also thought he only played well when his contract was due for renewal. I know it’s a contentious one but I couldn’t stand him… I met Hendrie a few times too, his best mate lived next to my Uncle....however he was very young back then (funnily enough we are the same age). Seemed ok to me, I actually liked him as a player. On his day absolute quality and a scorer of some excellent goals, for some reason the goal at Arsenal sticks in my mind... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 2 hours ago, AJ said: Regarding Lerner, I heard somewhere his finances were hampered due to his divorce. I am not sure how factual that is. Yeah there was some stuff at the time that his wife had taken a big chunk of his cash, I'm not sure if he was only a billionaire thanks to the exchange rate too, he's worth around $1.2bn so not a £ billionaire I look at the acorns stuff and the charity stuff he was trying to do and then the league voted on getting greedier and greedier 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 2 hours ago, villa4europe said: I don't mind Lerner if I'm honest, would even go as far as to say I have a degree of sympathy for him I believe he bought us for genuine reasons and wanted to compete, then Man City happened, then FFP happened, I think he saw the writing on the wall as to what we are seeing right now in the PL and other leagues and wanted nothing to do with it The problem was his insistence of radio silence, he should have screamed from the rooftop about what a shit idea it was but instead he just let it happen, then walked away years before he sold us I still think we were the club hit hardest by FFP and whereas I said Doug has killed us before I'm of the opinion it was the rule change that has killed us (for a really long time too, I'm not sure we'll ever do another thing in my lifetime if these rules stay) rather than Lerner I would say Lerner was more inept than malicious. He hired the wrong people everywhere in the club except Nicky Keye who must have done every job Krulak asked Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliffy Biro Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 Tony Xia - nearly ruined the entire club by being an absolute fraud. Can't be overstated just how close we were to being in big big trouble. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarethRDR Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 17 hours ago, VillanousOne said: Stefan Postma Doesn't belong in here. I mean we've all had a larf, but I'm struggling to see what makes him a word removed? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 Lerner was the type of bloke to have some former FBI agent running around threatening to beat people up for him. In an attempt to curb his personal losses he drove this club into the championship and into the hands of a complete manic who almost finished the job. Look at the people who he surrounded himself with, Krulak, Fox, Hollis, King etc etc. Like with Ellis beforehand I won't have this revisionism. He may or may not be the biggest prick who ever owned the club, but that's more to do with the state of the other blokes than him being this poor, misunderstood delicate flower. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talldarkandransome Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 My other half met Doug when she worked on the railway, she said he was lovely. I went to an end of season bash at Villa when Collymore was there. He spent the night having women put phone numbers in his pocket and Southgate spent the night ignoring all the fans and refusing to speak to them. Don't remember a great deal else about the evening. In general footballers are knob heads, even at school all the best players thought they were better than us tryers. Tony Xia almost ruined Villa and for that he is top of my list Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chine Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 Tony xia has to be top for me , closely followed by Yorke and Delph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 (edited) 22 hours ago, VBM said: I absolutely hate David O'Leary. Always talking the club down - " we can't compete the Charltons of this world etc" Gabby, can **** right off. 3 stone overweight, utterly unprofessional and proud of it. Robbed the club blind for years. Yeah O'leary surely worst as a manager in recent times (someone like Black was just out of his depth). Came in and constantly banged on about Leeds for first season but results meant it wasn't a big thing. Then spent the next seasons going on about "small squad" "great bunch of lads" and "fans were fickle". Probably all true but really grates when results went downhill as they did. All the other poor managers we've had like Sherwood, Lambert and McLeish have all respected our tradition and standing in the game at least but with O'Leary there was never much personal connection and he just wanted to go back to Leeds. Edit; As for players at least Gabby for first half of his spell here gave us some great moments before it all slowly went wrong. McCormack was worst for not doing much on the pitch and being pretty unprofessional off it with the gate incident although sure he'll come out with his own story eventually. Thought for his status in the game Lescott was a terrible leader when he turned up aswell, massively disappointing signing. Then you have the ones who seem to lose all motivation when getting a new deal. Bacuna was one of those. Edited November 13, 2021 by VillaChris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talldarkandransome Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 On the other side of the coin, I've met a few of the legends and they behaved as such. Really nice down to earth people. Used to chat with Brian Little regularly on twatter and he was always lovely. No longer on social media, so I'm now stuck with you lot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 2 minutes ago, VillaChris said: Yeah O'leary surely worst as a manager in recent times (someone like Black was just out of his depth). Came in and constantly banged on about Leeds for first season but results meant it wasn't a big thing. Then spent the next seasons going on about "small squad" "great bunch of lads" and "fans were fickle". Probably all true but really grates when results went downhill as they did. All the other poor managers we've had like Sherwood, Lambert and McLeish have all respected our tradition and standing in the game at least but with O'Leary there was never much personal connection and he just wanted to go back to Leeds. He is still the closest a Villa manager has got to the the Champions League place since it went to the top 4. 4 points off 6th in 04 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 5 hours ago, lexicon said: He may well have been but he was mentally ill tbf - not really fair to lump him in with others who are just dickheads. Depends when it was. Remember reading John Toshack's book and he said when he was at Real Sociedad he watched him driving out of training, some of the fans gave him a Basque gift to welcome him to the club and then he drove on a bit and dumped it down the road. Obviously dosen't mean he deserved what happened to him though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 3 minutes ago, Zatman said: He is still the closest a Villa manager has got to the the Champions League place since it went to the top 4. 4 points off 6th in 04 That's true, that was a very exciting second half of the season, so many good games. Next two seasons were very hard watches though. That's the thing though, Gerrard could go on and on about Liverpool in interviews but no one would care if we won 7 of our next 10 (and got point at Anfield) so it's being PR savvy sometimes rather than say Houllier who had tendency for foot in mouth comments during his spell here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 1 hour ago, villa4europe said: Yeah there was some stuff at the time that his wife had taken a big chunk of his cash, I'm not sure if he was only a billionaire thanks to the exchange rate too, he's worth around $1.2bn so not a £ billionaire I look at the acorns stuff and the charity stuff he was trying to do and then the league voted on getting greedier and greedier Yeah that matches up with timeline. I think he pretty much gave up attempting to compete when O'Neill walked out (given their relationship he felt massively let down you'd imagine) and then Milner going to Man. City summed up where both clubs were going. Then the strategy to turn totally to young players (commendable but always a big risk given so many of our senior players were losing motivation) and then the bizarre policy of bargain basement signings under Lambert. If he'd sold up in summer 2014 as he was very close to doing then he'd still left us just about as prem club and lots of what ifs. Staying on extra two years and we had to experience one of most dismal seasons by top flight club in recent times. Still Dr Xia was worse with the long term damage he could've inflicted on us. Only have to see Sunderland and Derby currently and we could've easily been the same now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Steve Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 (edited) I totally forgot Gabby's antics on the day relegation got confirmed. Edited November 13, 2021 by The_Steve 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ_Villain Posted November 13, 2021 Share Posted November 13, 2021 4 hours ago, villa4europe said: I don't mind Lerner if I'm honest, would even go as far as to say I have a degree of sympathy for him I believe he bought us for genuine reasons and wanted to compete, then Man City happened, then FFP happened, I think he saw the writing on the wall as to what we are seeing right now in the PL and other leagues and wanted nothing to do with it The problem was his insistence of radio silence, he should have screamed from the rooftop about what a shit idea it was but instead he just let it happen, then walked away years before he sold us I still think we were the club hit hardest by FFP and whereas I said Doug has killed us before I'm of the opinion it was the rule change that has killed us (for a really long time too, I'm not sure we'll ever do another thing in my lifetime if these rules stay) rather than Lerner As someone who only looks out for the best interests of the club and has zero empathy, Lerner is a massive prick. When his marriage broke down and he lost half of everything he owned, he had the temerity to hang on to Villa until he got as much money back as he could… all the while he was cost cutting, implementing the bomb squad and saw us circle the drain into our inevitable relegation… Claims to be an “adopted Villa fan” yet cemented our relegation in order to try to get as much money as possible… Selfish prick… Max Griggs (Dr Martin’s owner) sold the mighty Rushden and Diamonds to the clubs supporters for £1 after bankrolling them into the football league… Lerner should have done the same as soon as he threw his toys out of the pram and he knew he couldn’t compete financially with the people trafficking oil barons at Man City 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts