Straight choice - Ellis or Lerner?

[John_Lerwill]

Yes, fair point, Richard, but £500k was about a quarter of the record UK fee at that time.

By that standard and in to-day's cash, Cowan's sale would be a minimum of £7.5m ... or even £12.5m.

[Pelle]

Yes, fair point, Richard, but £500k was about a quarter of the record UK fee at that time.

By that standard and in to-day's cash, Cowan's sale would be a minimum of £7.5m ... or even £12.5m.

As it's only speculation it doesn't add very much to the discussion but had we had Cowans in his prime today and sold him for £12.5m there would be an uproar and rightly so. If we could get £18m, or whatever it was, for Downing I'd say double that would be the market price for Cowans. But as said, that's only speculation.

But you're excusing Ellis with the bad economy we had those days but blaming Lerner for the same thing, right? I don't say Lerner is perfect, but he's done more good than bad for me, whilst it was quite the opposite with Ellis.

[John_Lerwill]

Yes, Pelle, it's just a speculative chat and has no bearing on the OP.

Nobody's excusing Ellis anything, but there were different economic conditions in the 80s as I've already oultined and which would have had a bearing on the matter.

[TRO]

Has to be Ellis he basically shaped not only Villa but the whole of the modern football world!!!! That's what he told me anyway!!!

...was that before or after he invented the bicycle kick?

[PauloBarnesi]

So with every game the case for Ellis becomes stronger... Would Ellis have wielded the sword by now?

[Dodgyknees]

Ellis would not have appointed him in the first place.

But, Ellis would not stand for results like this.

Randy is on the path to being hated and vilified in the way Doug was. Still a long way to go, relegation will see that happen sooner and we are definitely looking like a team that can go down.

[foreveryoung]

LERNER IN. BUT SORT THE **** MANAGER OUT. OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT

[Big_John_10]

From 6th to consecutive seasons of relegation worry.

Shocking decisions from a shocking owner.

[Dodgyknees]

All the good work from his first 2.5 years, has been destroyed in his second 2.5 years.

And one thing not helping is the fact we do not fall for his bullshit PR anymore.

[blandy]

So with every game the case for Ellis becomes stronger...

No it doesn't. It really doesn't. Then isn't now, as you pointed out previously. Whatever the issues with the situation now, time has moved on.

[Richard]

So with every game the case for Ellis becomes stronger... Would Ellis have wielded the sword by now?

Ellis would never have appointed in the first place IMO

[commander]

Reading stuff like this makes me ashamed to be a villa fan. Ellis was all self promotion and took far more than he gabe to teh club. lerner has ion the whole done well but is incredibly niaive - he allowed MON too much freedom and is paying for that now. The cold hard facts that are in4 years of MONs reign is that the wgae bill quadroupled from £22m to £89m on very average players - Randy Supported MON and let him do that - this in reality is Lerners crime is trusting that horrible quitter. The McLeish thing was stupid and wreckless but the positives he's given to the club outweighj the negatives/

[VillaAndLoyal]

All the good work from his first 2.5 years, has been destroyed in his second 2.5 years.

And one thing not helping is the fact we do not fall for his bullshit PR anymore.

I don't mean to pick on you personally, but it's this kind of attitude I really don't understand. Lots of people have been saying "he started off well, and only now has made a few bad decisions etc etc" - but in my opinion this is totally wrong. He's been making bad decisions from the get go.

Who was it who sanctioned, what were, quite frankly ludicrous wage and transfer deals for a Club who (even with Randy at the helm) never had the wealth of the Chelsea's and Man City's of this world. Randolph Lerner. Who was it who agreed to have a wage bill higher than that of Tottenham Hotspur when they (quite clearly) had a first team and squad far superior to ours? Randolph Lerner.

Part of the problems and drastic cutbacks we are now facing are a direct result of how Randy has run the Club since he first stepped foot inside Villa Park. I don't understand this mentality of thinking things are only now going wrong - we were living outside our means and only a foolish businessman and neglectful owner would allow this to happen. Risso's analogy of this country's financial fortunes is completely right - we spent foolishly and are now paying the price.

The parallels between us and the Cleveland Browns are uncanny and, as the seasons have progressed, we've seen less funds invested in the team, less interaction with the fans, higher ticket prices, and less of the man himself attending games. Far less.

He came into the Club and was a breath of fresh air, or so it seemed. He seemed to have bought into the whole ethos and history of the Club but when you delve beneath the surface - past the refurbished pub, Villa tattoo, free scarves and new mosaics - the way the Club has been run since he bought us (for a very cheap price I might add) has been nothing short of atrocious. With a man at the helm, in Paul Faulkner, who clearly knows nothing about the qualities needed to be a successful Premier League CEO. I don't blame Mr Faulkner for that - he just took a job - and after all his background is in American banking - I blame the man who appointed him, Randolph Lerner.

So in terms of running the Club financially he has chucked and largely wasted a load of money in something before deciding he/we can't sustainably live that way and therefore panicked and cut right back in the space of 12 to 18 months. Arguably a very dangerous thing to do when your Club is still competing in the PL. Does this strike me as a person who knows how best to invest money in football? Or a person who is up to running a top English PL club? No, it certainly doesn't.

The other major thing Randy has had to do is appoint managers. Two in six years. Whatever you think of Ellis and O'Neill - it was Sir Doug who secured the services of MoN on the proviso that Villa would soon have a new owner with more funds to invest. Doug stuck to his word and soon sold the Club. It was not, as some people have suggested, Randy who appointed O'Neill. Martin may have left the Club in a disgraceful way and certainly had some very major flaws, but he did still secure us three very respectable finishes and got us to Wembley twice. Was he mislead into thinking this glut of investment was going to carry on before being told - after three seasons of progress and other teams strengthening - that he was going to have to cut right back? No one knows but the events since suggest that may be the case.

The two managers Randy has personally hired have been nothing short of disasters. Gerard Houllier, a man who was all but retired until he got the call from Randy, was clearly never in a fit state to return to the Premier League. Despite the very obvious risks to GH's health, our wasteful owner ties him down in a long-term lucrative contract which, again, comes back to bite us sooner than we bargained for. Again, the actions of a responsible person when it comes to money? No, most definitely not. Houllier was such a bad choice for Aston Villa it was embarrassing - he insulted the fans, insulted the Club, fell out with players, had public spats with them, implemented bizarre rules, openly admitted to "throwing" games he didn't think he could win - and all that very nearly got us relegated. The thing that saved us? Darren Bent - a panic buy in January - as Randy full well knew that the £18million he spent on Bent would be more than paid back by keeping us in the league.

Alex McLeish. I say his name and I still can't quite fathom that this man is in charge at our football club. A man with successive PL relegations to his name, a man renowned for his boring negative anti-football, a man who was managing our greatest rivals, a man who managed to finish 3rd with Rangers in Scotland in a two-team league. The list goes on. When his name was first mentioned, I laughed it off. No owner of AVFC would be so foolish than to think AMC was in any way the right man to run our great Club. Especially after we had just been linked with Martinez, a man who plays attractive attacking football, the opposite ‘style’ to Alex. That in itself makes you question, what on earth was Lerner's thinking in appointing McLeish? What was his plan? Did he have one? I'm not one for taking the internet too seriously, but within days of his name being mentioned 15,000+ Villa fans had joined a Facebook group against the ludicrous idea. That should have given Lerner a good indication that McLeish was neither wanted nor needed. I stick to what I have always said - find me a more bizarre managerial appointment in the last decade - or since the PL was formed. It is THE most illogical, mystifying and outrageous appointment I can personally ever remember. It defies belief and still does, when I remember back to that awful day his name was first mentioned. Randloph Lerner made that choice. No-one else. Now look where we are. One point less than Birmingham City had at this stage last season. To add insult to injury, we paid Small Heath millions of pounds in compensation to secure his services. Isn't that something you do when attracting a top manager from a rival (in terms of league placing) club? Not Alex **** McLeish. I ask the question again - is this something a responsible (and arguably sane) owner would do? No way is it.

I think the question of who would you prefer "Ellis or Lerner?" is pretty silly. My answer is neither, to be blunt. The Ellis years were often blighted by one thing or another - and he put himself first rather than the Club. But the reason for my post is to show people: isn't that exactly what Lerner is doing as well? Both are woeful owners in my opinion. When people come on here and say, almost without thought, "Randy without doubt", I do wonder whether they are really examining all the facts or are still just taken in by the few clever stunts RL has pulled to gloss over the fact he is reckless with his money? Let's face it, Randy inherited his wealth, and in five/six years at Villa and far longer at Cleveland Browns he has nothing to show for it other than bizarre decisions, waning popularity and hollow gestures.

Ellis, not good. Lerner, every bit as bad.

[Big_John_10]

Fantastic post.

I do think lerner gets away with a lot from some fans because a) he's not Doug and the pr stunts are still buying him some time.

He is in charge of finances and hiring and firing managers and he has got it all horribly wrong. Then when you look at the browns you realise its unlikely he's ever going to get it right.

[Stevo985]

All the good work from his first 2.5 years, has been destroyed in his second 2.5 years.

And one thing not helping is the fact we do not fall for his bullshit PR anymore.

I don't mean to pick on you personally, but it's this kind of attitude I really don't understand. Lots of people have been saying "he started off well, and only now has made a few bad decisions etc etc" - but in my opinion this is totally wrong. He's been making bad decisions from the get go.

Who was it who sanctioned, what were, quite frankly ludicrous wage and transfer deals for a Club who (even with Randy at the helm) never had the wealth of the Chelsea's and Man City's of this world. Randolph Lerner. Who was it who agreed to have a wage bill higher than that of Tottenham Hotspur when they (quite clearly) had a first team and squad far superior to ours? Randolph Lerner.

I'd like to pick you up on this point.

I don't think, from Randy's point of view, they were ludicrous wage and transfer deals.

Randy was pushing for Champions League qualification. Yes he was spending a lot of money, but had we qualified for the champions League, our wage bill wouldn't have looked so "ludicrous"

Now, I agree that some of the wages paid (to Mr Beye, for example) can be described as ludicrous.

But that's not Randy's fault. It's not Randy's job to decide on the quality of player coming in and how much wages that player's worth.

if he was somehow vetting the players coming in we'd be outraged that he was interfering in that way.

He was significantly backing his manager in a push for the champions League, and you know what, we were a handful of games away from achieving exactly that. Again, it's not his fault that MON spent some (emphasis on some) of that money on average players.

The volume of money comitted is Randy's responsibility, but the players it's spent on isn't.

He didn't spend ludicrous amounts of money to put the club in jeopardy, financially. And he has taken what he feels the necessary action is to address the finances BEFORE they get ludicrously high.

I'm not saying Randy is faultless in our position, far from it (the choice of manager for example).

But he did not sanction ludicrous amounts of spending. He sanctioned significant spending, in a push for where we all want(ed?) to be.

He's now cut back before it gets drastic. he's put us back a bit closer to where we were before him.

But that push for the CL hasn't damaged us. It filled us with hope and now it feels like it was false hope, because we never made it and Randy has seemingly pulled the plug on any pushes in the near future.

It gave us a forward leap from which we're having to take a step back.

That hurts right now because we've gone backwards from where we were 2 or 3 years ago.

But we haven't gone backwards from where we were 5 or 6 years ago.

Maybe we peaked too early, maybe Randy whould have been more conservative at first and gradually increased spending rather than spend money so quickly.

But ludicrous spending it was not. It was money that he (and we) felt he needed to spend to get to the Champions League. He didn't spend more than the club could handle, or we'd be doing a Portsmouth right now.

He pulled the plug before it ever got that bad.

That is crap for us right now, because we're seeing all this cost cutting. But, again, that's bringing us down from where we were a couple of years ago, it's not taking the club backwards in the long term.

It's a lack of significant growth in the long term, which is disappointing, and a negative for Lerner.

But I don't think you can say that Randy sanctioned ludicrous wages or transfer fees. He gave the manager a budget, MON spent it as he saw fit.

[Cule4life]

Difference is - Ellis would never of appointed MCleish as he probably knows he's utter shite and because he knows the rift it would of caused amongst the fans as to where our soccer hero Lerner ignored the fact.

Lerner - Knows nothing about football and as appointed two of the worst managers that were not suited to AVFC and wont fire anyone as he doesn't have the balls and wont want to pay out for the rest of that clearing in the woods MCleish's contract.

Faulkner - Lerner's Penfold like sidekick who again is basically useless i mean wasn't his pervious job at a supermarket ?

No relevance to football thats for sure and if he hasn't mentioned anything to Lerner about MCleish needing the boot then he should be sacked himself.

[Voinjama]

All the good work from his first 2.5 years, has been destroyed in his second 2.5 years.

And one thing not helping is the fact we do not fall for his bullshit PR anymore.

I never falled for his PR crap in the first place. I remembered when I first came on these forums in 2008 saying it was all window dressing, and was ultimately a smoke screen to fool the fans. I want action not words.

[Bazdavies79]

The Ellis/Lerner comparisons are irrelevant IMO because they're different eras. Also you can't just cherry pick Ellis' best five years from a 20+ year stint, as some have done, and expect anybody with an ounce of intelligence to take you seriously.

It's better to judge Lerner's performance relative to that of his contemporaries.

[AVFCforever1991]

The way i see it, Lerner has taken 1 step forward and 2 steps back.. For the whole time he has owned the club.

[AVFCforever1991]

I didnt actaully realize.. When O'Leary took over villa we were just above the relegation zone..But he managed to guide us to 6th in the league..and he was the one who signed Martin Laursen.. And managed to get us to 10th in his Full season..But then nearly got us relegated in his Last season..but i think this is like our 2005–06 season under O'Leary.. instead it will be AM who will be gone in the summer.