Richard Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 After three years of me criticising Lerner for lack of investment and saying he should go, this summer I reinvested some belief on the back of some stuff I was told , I'm not prepared to completely go back to saying lerner out just yet, I'd rather still have a little hope left for another week at least. I still believe that lessons have been learned. However, the trouble is some damage may be too great given the poor start we have had Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ironsid Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 I've been going down the Villa since 1972 and I've seen some threadbare squads in my time. This one ranks among the weakest and the ones in the past have usually resulted in the drop or some squeaky bum last minute reprieves. Without some new blood in the next week we're in for the third brush with relegation in a row. It's a sad reflection on the state Villa's been reduced to that fans are even considering the possibility after two games. If Lambert's the man for the job, and most fans seem to have agreed that he is, then the powers that be need to divy up the spondulix and give him the tools to do the job properly. We haven't got limitless funds but surely it's worth investing to avoid the losses that would come with the unthinkable. Sorry to state the bleeding obvious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackbauer24 Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 I said before the season, whilst the benefits of getting rid of AMC were obvious they were only part of the problem - the squad has been butchered by cost-cutting and sales. We are now left with kids, most of which would never play at this level if it weren't for desperation. Lerner has made a huge mistake hiring Lambert - AMC was the only thing keeping the crowd off his back, now we will all be looking at what he has done to our club. He planned to be out of it by now. He bought Villa cheap (look how much we sold for compared to other teams) and then invested in the business and infrastructure like most new buyers would. He made us look all pretty and sellable frankly - but then the world markets crashed and football becomes a luxury. Suddenly there is no-one he can sell to. So sell all the fancy furniture, cut costs to a minimum, stick tenants in (AMC) and hope they don't wreck it (relegation) until either the market picks up again and he can sell or he cuts his losses after the floor has fallen through. Unfortunately relegation looks a hell of a lot more likely than finding a new buyer at the moment. I will enjoy my season ticket in our last year as a Premiership club for the foreseeable future. We will buy a few cheapass players next week to paper over the cracks but the damages to the foundations was done a long time ago and we now don't have the money (or will?) to make the necessary repairs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacketspuds Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 Lerner has a choice. Spend 40m getting 5 or 6 players in to fix our squad or lose 40m plus a lot of continuous revenue streams by not investing and seeing us relegated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacbuddies Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 To be honest, Sir Alex Ferguson with Jose Morinho as his trusted and loyal assistant would not get this current Villa squad to perform well enough and consistently enough to avoid a relegation battle again. This team needs major investment and very quickly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raymond Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 Upset that this thread now seems reasonable. I hope Championship stream are easy to find..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnGoodman Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 Have to say, the transition from McLeish to Lambert has been seamless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smetrov Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 Jut back from VP. I have probably been to every opening home game of the season in the last 25 years and that has to be one of the worst home season openers and starting elevens I have seen. I don't put any of the blame for that at Lamberts door it is squarely at Lerners. Quite simply a lack of investment has seen us having to field a team full of players who have come through the ranks but who just aren't good enough especially when you consider the senior players around them aren't top quality either. That is not their fault but it is a sad fact. Herd, Bannan, Delfouneso, Clark, Baker, Weimann, Lichaj should not be making up 50% of our side. Two years of selling of our best players, flogging off some decent solid squad players, and not replacing them with anything like the same quality has inevitably led us to where we now are. Relegation fodder. Without major investment and 4 or 5 quality signing by the end of the week then we are facing relegation. The reckless way Randy has gone about trying to balance the books over the last two years and the incompetence he and Faulkner have shown is a disgrace. I remember tottenhan beating us 0-3 in a similar manner - and we bombed out without a whimper. The glimmer is that the 3 players lambert has purchased looked ok - KEA in particular. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villaajax Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 We've never won a competitive game in a Macron kit. Time to get rid of it I think... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 I'm one of the most positive people normally, being able to see the reasons for doing certain things, understand why certain decisions have been made etc. but after going to today's game I'm feeling pretty much the same as most of the other people in this thread. I don't know if we'll be in danger of being relegated or not as we could buy some decent players next week, we could have some top players waiting to come in, we could be sorting the paperwork on some middle-eastern consortium to come in and buy Messi. Or most likely, Randy and Paul F have told Paul L that we have some cracking youngsters so he should be OK with just a few tweaks for this season so we can re-evaluate at the end of it. Problem is, after allowing Ashley Young, Gareth Barry, Stewart Downing and James Milner leave from a limited team that was heavily reliant on wing-play without replacing to anywhere near the same quality, we're pretty much ****. I met Lichaj and Baker at a family fun day a few years ago, they were fringe players then and weren't seriously expected to be anywhere near the first team. I never thought they'd make up the left side of our defence. It's the same story with the rest of the team. Delfouneso never has and never will be good enough for our first team, we've bought a championship right-back who looks championship-level, Brett Holman doesn't look good enough for the Premier League, and the rest are kids. Darren Bent does nothing but be a parabolic dish. He's a stick in the penalty area to cross the ball to and deflect it into the net, that's all he does. He's brilliant at it, but isn't there to do anything else. Which makes our complete regression from wing-play to gully balls all the more confusing. I seriously expected a respectable investment this summer. Enough frugality, enough timidity, enough cautiousness, time to speculate a bit. If Randy doesn't want to lend us the money, do it through a bank. I got the impression that a good £20-30m + proceeds would go towards getting some real quality in. The opposite has happened. If today was Lambert's ploy to get Randy concerned enough to release some funds, it was a great job. I just wonder if he even cares. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 It's been none stop without rest-bite pretty much since the start of 2012. LOL. Sorry, just tickled me. respite Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacbuddies Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 If today was Lambert's ploy to get Randy concerned enough to release some funds, it was a great job. I just wonder if he even cares. Do you suppose that, being a Yank, he even noticed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supernova26 Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 All these people saying lack of investment etc how much do you think that Norwich team full of Championship players who finished 12th last season cost? Was/is there squad really better than ours? Everyone blaming Randy is OTT. It's easy to spend money when it's not yours. Lambert and the players have to take responsibility for the poor start to the season, especially the more experienced pro's. P.S. If we are going to splash the cash a raid on Swansea for Nathan Dyer please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 I wouldn't splash any cash on Nathan Dyer. Very good at Swansea in large part down to the way they are set up to play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMcKenna Posted August 25, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted August 25, 2012 After three years of me criticising Lerner for lack of investment and saying he should go, this summer I reinvested some belief on the back of some stuff I was told , I'm not prepared to completely go back to saying lerner out just yet, I'd rather still have a little hope left for another week at least. I still believe that lessons have been learned. However, the trouble is some damage may be too great given the poor start we have had Richard I reckon you were fed bullshit. Today spoke volumes about the state of AVFC. While I am loathe to say yet that we will be relegated, I will say that IMHO we have worst squad of players that we have had for decades. This is a direct result of the owner's incompetence. I am just confused as to why Lambert took the job. We are a club in serious decline with an owner who doesnt seem to know what he is doing. If we don't bring in at least 3/4 good players within the next week Lambert will eventually catch the flak. May seem daft but when I saw the team sheet before the game I wondered if Lambert was trying to make a point to Lerner about how woeful our squad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delphinho123 Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 Jut back from VP. I have probably been to every opening home game of the season in the last 25 years and that has to be one of the worst home season openers and starting elevens I have seen. I don't put any of the blame for that at Lamberts door it is squarely at Lerners. Quite simply a lack of investment has seen us having to field a team full of players who have come through the ranks but who just aren't good enough especially when you consider the senior players around them aren't top quality either. That is not their fault but it is a sad fact. Herd, Bannan, Delfouneso, Clark, Baker, Weimann, Lichaj should not be making up 50% of our side. Two years of selling of our best players, flogging off some decent solid squad players, and not replacing them with anything like the same quality has inevitably led us to where we now are. Relegation fodder. Without major investment and 4 or 5 quality signing by the end of the week then we are facing relegation. The reckless way Randy has gone about trying to balance the books over the last two years and the incompetence he and Faulkner have shown is a disgrace. Excellent analysis. Unfortunately the fans are going to suffer for the way Lerner has run the club in the last 5 years. I look at the teams in the league now and cant see where our points are coming from this season. We have to concentrate on beating the sides like Norwich, Wigan and West Ham and just hope we scrape the odd point elsewhere. The current squad will be relegated. I have no doubts about that. We need 3/4 players before this window closes and then another 2 in January in order to remain a premiership club. I like Lambert and the signings he has made so far have been reasonable, but he has taken on a club in turmoil with a squad full of poor players/youngsters. We are in a relegation battle this year, make no mistake about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonno_2004 Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 Far too much credit was given to Lerner/Faulkner for the acquisition of Lambert (who still doesn't seem to have an idea of which player plays best where/or not at all). Nothing less than £20m will do in reinvestment in quality. As said before somewhere, chequebook or Championship. These players might eventually gel into a team with spirit like the one found at Norwich last season (which is what is needed given the lack of quality) but I doubt the Premiership will afford us the time to let that happen. Ah well, fat boy Faulkner's on the FA board after all...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMcKenna Posted August 25, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted August 25, 2012 Jut back from VP. I have probably been to every opening home game of the season in the last 25 years and that has to be one of the worst home season openers and starting elevens I have seen. I don't put any of the blame for that at Lamberts door it is squarely at Lerners. Quite simply a lack of investment has seen us having to field a team full of players who have come through the ranks but who just aren't good enough especially when you consider the senior players around them aren't top quality either. That is not their fault but it is a sad fact. Herd, Bannan, Delfouneso, Clark, Baker, Weimann, Lichaj should not be making up 50% of our side. Two years of selling of our best players, flogging off some decent solid squad players, and not replacing them with anything like the same quality has inevitably led us to where we now are. Relegation fodder. Without major investment and 4 or 5 quality signing by the end of the week then we are facing relegation. The reckless way Randy has gone about trying to balance the books over the last two years and the incompetence he and Faulkner have shown is a disgrace. Excellent analysis. Unfortunately the fans are going to suffer for the way Lerner has run the club in the last 5 years. I look at the teams in the league now and cant see where our points are coming from this season. We have to concentrate on beating the sides like Norwich, Wigan and West Ham and just hope we scrape the odd point elsewhere. The current squad will be relegated. I have no doubts about that. We need 3/4 players before this window closes and then another 2 in January in order to remain a premiership club. I like Lambert and the signings he has made so far have been reasonable, but he has taken on a club in turmoil with a squad full of poor players/youngsters. We are in a relegation battle this year, make no mistake about it. I agree that Marks analysis is good. However when you say the signings Lambert has made are "reasonable" I wonder if you are being somewhat charitable? None of the three Imo are exceptional or better than what we have had in the last five years. Lambert obviously deserves time, but he will not be immune to criticism if continues to field starting 11's like today! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pilchard Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 Just like O'Leary and the final season of Doug. The football was even worse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_John_10 Posted August 25, 2012 Share Posted August 25, 2012 Just like O'Leary and the final season of Doug. The football was even worse But we should all be happy because we have Randy!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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