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Stephen Ireland


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Does anyone actually "know" what the situation is with Ireland?

Ireland wants to leave?

Ireland wants to stay and fight but is injured atm?

Houllier interested in keeping/not wanting him?

When interviewed Ireland was quoted as saying " I like dancing dogs and cheese burgers" :lol:

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What would be interesting to know is who was responsible for these contracts?

AVFC.

The line that seems to have come from the club via official and unofficial sources appears to be O'Neill, solely.

He may well have controlled the discussions, been in charge of the details and come up with the amounts but Randy and others at the club will have known about them, surely?

Yup, one of Randy's biggest mistakes giving MON that amount of control imo.

Beye 40k

Got it easy.

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What would be interesting to know is who was responsible for these contracts?

AVFC.

The line that seems to have come from the club via official and unofficial sources appears to be O'Neill, solely.

He may well have controlled the discussions, been in charge of the details and come up with the amounts but Randy and others at the club will have known about them, surely?

Yup, one of Randy's biggest mistakes giving MON that amount of control imo.

Beye 40k

Got it easy.

There are some shocking examples. But I also think the root of the problem is that Lerner and the club overestimated the potential for revenues for the biggest club in England's no. 2 city.

Every company have budgets, where projected revenues and costs are planned. But when the revenue potential actually is less than what we would believe, AND there is no adjustment on the cost side, then the owner smell trouble. I think that happened in the last January window, when expensive players were being kept.

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I think it is pretty safe to assume that MON was telling Randy at the time of offering these wages that he NEEDED these guys, that they would push us to the top four, and this is what led Randy to agree to the contracts.

Fair play in certain circumstances (NRC and Luke Young played a lot in the beginning), but when we failed to break into the CL spots, and Beye, NRC, LY were all sitting on the bench, or not even making it, Randy called MON out. We know what happened after that.

I think the Randy wanted to run the club a bit more responsibly, but with equal ambition, and MON took a walk. Either he didn't agree with the vision, or felt he had dug himself too big a hole (and we can see how difficult it is to offload these contracts), so he left.

I like the way GH is going about the business side (mix of youth and experience) and how Randy is showing that he will spend for the right players (Bent), but will not pay ridiculous wages to those who either not good enough to play or aren't passionate enough about the club.

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Randy bought a load of flops, blamed it all on MON and forced him out of the club 4 days before the start of the season.

Going off available information this is just as likely as the guff others pour out. Until the auto biography comes out it's all guess work. No official rundown of events has ever been published so anything said about it is merely unfounded speculation and rumour.

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Randy hasn't blamed anyone and I think if you ask them they will all accept a portion of the blame. However Randy supported his man in purchasing the players 'HE' wanted and maybe this has been a learning curve that AVFC also needs to be run as a business model and not the MON model i.e. buy a load of players, put them on massive wages, never play them and then throw my toys out of the pram because i can't have any new ones.

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I think we have all grown up a lot since MON left. More than most journalists we understand the issues of wages vis-a-vis playing much more than the cost of transfer headlines. We understand that building teams needs a focus, and Bent is a focus. We understand that MON, genial polite and good on TV betrayed us and Randy. If only for his deliberate timing of his departure, when his apparent successor had signed for Fulham and when the PL was about to start and when Randy had just flown back to the US. His betrayal followed by an injury crisis like the winter weather of unprecedented proportions left us in a hole, we are now making the climb out of it, hopefully backed up with a result tonight. I for one have learnt something abput football and I think Randy has too. What's more with Bent I think we all have learnt a little more about Randy, and I believe, I hope and now I expect we are on the way back! :P

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Why are we still talking about him...onwards and upwards yah? :)

Sorry, was kind of the convoluted point I was trying to make. Were not going to find out any more actual facts for a while. The guy has been gone for ages and even knowing more facts isn't going to help us at present so I fail to see why MON is brought up in every thread.

/le sigh

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Why are we still talking about him...onwards and upwards yah? :)

Sorry, was kind of the convoluted point I was trying to make. Were not going to find out any more actual facts for a while. The guy has been gone for ages and even knowing more facts isn't going to help us at present so I fail to see why MON is brought up in every thread.

/le sigh

He's like that ex you just can't get out your head. At the moment, we still have some of his belongings left at our place, and they still make us think of him. Once we've got rid of all his stuff, we can move on properly.

Unfortunately, it's easy to throw a shirt or toothbrush away. Not so easy to get rid of average football players earning ridiculous amounts of money for doing nothing.

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We understand that MON, genial polite and good on TV betrayed us and Randy. If only for his deliberate timing of his departure, when his apparent successor had signed for Fulham and when the PL was about to start and when Randy had just flown back to the US.

Is all unsubstantiated. This is your personal opinion based on nothing.

I could counter your argument about the 'unexpected' exit of MON by showing you an article in the broadsheets from April of that year where MON basically states that he would walk if certain events transpired. This events transpired by the will of the owner thus you could say he had known MON would go since the April.

As I said though, what's the point. We could and have go on for months with argument and counter argument for something that will eventually, years down the line, come out in the wash. We have more important worries and concerns directly in front of us.

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Back on topic please.

Get rid. I don't want any player in a Villa shirt if he doesn't wanna be here. I know it's not entirely his fault as he was basically forced out of a club he seemed to love, but the same could be said for Dunne. I guess Ireland just lacks that professionalism.

As MM said earlier in the thread though, don't let NUFC make the rules regarding his loan. They'll pay what we demand for his services. Though I want him gone, I also have no problem letting him rot on the reserves bench 'til he bucks up his ideas.

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I have no objection to having a bit of a kooky guy in the dressing room in the mould of a Gazza type, lightening the mood and such, but he doesn't even seem to add that. He just comes over as a bit of a nut job. Thought he was fantastic in that good season he had for City. Has done absolutely nothing at the Villa though so I would be looking to get rid even if we lose out a little in the short term as then he is off the books and we can put him behind us and move on.

If we can't get shut then I would let him out on a loan even if we do have to contribute toward his wages but it wouldn't be to a premiership competitor. I would look abroad or the championship.

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he was basically forced out of a club he seemed to love, but the same could be said for Dunne. I guess Ireland just lacks that professionalism.

I think this too.. but I also think Dunne once he came here started to like the club and decided put in performances and imo is happy at the club now. I think the key point here is Dunne tried to make it work and it succeeded.

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