The Randy Lerner thread

[TRO]

 

They all made things worse.....but he started the rot, with the huge sums he spent unwisely.

And that's the point. The rot was started but not set in or spiralling out of control. It wasn't difficult to fix IMO but we ended up making things much much worse. MON is responsible for the mistakes he made but he's not responsible for the mistakes made after him.

 

 

I think it was difficult to fix.....and when you are on a roll its hard to stop....cast your eye to Sunderland.

When you spend unwisely to the degree we had.... its hard to stop.

 

for what its worth, I think we now have a Manager, where it will stop.

[TRO]

 

They all made things worse.....but he started the rot, with the huge sums he spent unwisely.

And that's the point. The rot was started but not set in or spiralling out of control. It wasn't difficult to fix IMO but we ended up making things much much worse. MON is responsible for the mistakes he made but he's not responsible for the mistakes made after him.

 

 

Much the same as the country....ones spends it and leaves it up to the other to sort the mess out.....it was 5 years ago Labour was in power but parties leave a legacy, much the same way as managers do.

 

when a manager leaves some think thats the end of that then.....Ooh no.

[TRO]

Have to agree with Jonah on this. Randy's poor financial management and being overly trusting are what put us in this mess. He didn't need to give MON a blank cheque and he should have had a contingency plan if we didn't make the Champions League. He gambled with both our Premier League status and the overall existence of the club and for that alone he won't be missed by me.

 

Hindsight is an exact science.

 

are you honestly telling me with all the hype that came in with the signing of Martin O'Neill the new owner was going to start arguing with him about who he is going to sign and for how much.

 

That is exactly what HDE would have done and he got castigated for it.....so don't give me that.

 

There maybe another argument to say that it took too long....I will grant that point.

Edited April 15, 2015 by TRO

[sexbelowsound]

 

Have to agree with Jonah on this. Randy's poor financial management and being overly trusting are what put us in this mess. He didn't need to give MON a blank cheque and he should have had a contingency plan if we didn't make the Champions League. He gambled with both our Premier League status and the overall existence of the club and for that alone he won't be missed by me.

 

Hindsight is an exact science.

 

are you honestly telling me with all the hype that came in with the signing of Martin O'Neill the new owner was going to start arguing with him about who he is going to sign and for how much.

 

That is exactly what HDE would have done and he got castigated for it.....so don't give me that.

 

There maybe another argument to say that it took too long....I will grant that point.

 

 

See, I think its absolutely what he should have been doing or at least employ someone to do that on his behalf. Its absolutely hindsight and like others I was definitely not complaining about it at the time, it was fantastic. However if I had been told that following MONs reign that cost cutting would put us in a position where we have been fighting relegation ever since then I would be pointing the finger firmly at Randy for not taking that into account when he let him go on a spending spree.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not absolving MON, I just find it difficult to blame the employee to the same standard when the employer told him it was OK to do it.

Edited April 15, 2015 by sexbelowsound

[Neil]

I'm not even sure why mon, or those years at all, are of such focus. I think as a manager, he just wasn't good enough to do any better than he did...he was given all the money you could want and he spent it how he could for reasons only known to him...but I don't see anything sinister, he simply tried his best and it wasn't good enough.

It's more about what Lerner has done since, his plan a failed...the gamble didn't come off and what happened after? A full 180, a remit of reducing spending to championship level and any manager he could find willing to work with that..very nearly putting us down into the championship. Selling off all our good players, and not replacing like for like.

It's everything he did after his pet project failed.

[daz316]

TRO that sounds ridiculous. An owner NOT being Skye to advise the manager on finances and how much he can spend? Of Lerner really was that naieve then good c riddance. An owner should be and to tell his manager where the limits are at any point and not have to write blank cheques just because there was hype. How silly to suggest otherwise

[villa4europe]

But what if after 3 years of writing blank cheques someone called Platini came along and told you you're not allowed to anymore?

To easy to look at MON, look at the spending and say Lerner was useless

Look at football when he bought us and look at football now, it's not the same thing, goal posts have been moved, his hearts not in it and at times I really don't blame him

Edited April 15, 2015 by villa4europe

[terrytini]

I see all the sides of the argument but would say that whichever view is held there is no evidence anywhere that Lerner deliberately did anything to harm the club and certainly did improve some off field aspects,and had a few decent league finishes.

As such I would repeat that yes, for some, he may deserve silence, for others perhaps some good wishes, but I find it extremely unpleasant and unwarranted that some offer abuse and hatred.

[kurtsimonw]

TRO that sounds ridiculous. An owner NOT being Skye to advise the manager on finances and how much he can spend? Of Lerner really was that naieve then good c riddance. An owner should be and to tell his manager where the limits are at any point and not have to write blank cheques just because there was hype. How silly to suggest otherwise

The amount spent isn't the problem. I'm sure Lerner told MON, in a less simplistic way, "You have £40m this summer for transfers". So, not being a footballing man himself, he would write cheques for MON, for the players of MONs choosing (Whom I assume Lerner trusted the judgement of, being in the game so long) until the budget limit was reached. Now is this Lerner's fault if the players didn't turn out well? Do we expect our owner to have the gift of hindsight? Every club buys duds, doesn't mean every chairman is shit.

 

I am fairly certain that we have a budget. Lerner trusted MON. MON pissed away most of the money. 

Edited April 15, 2015 by kurtsimonw

[OutByEaster?]

I think we underestimate the way in which money has changed in football, even in the time that Randy has been here. I think he came in looking to put a great club back on its feet, get it into the big time and once it was established sell it for a handsome profit. A scenario in which we all win. To that end he was prepared to put in £20m a year for as long as it took. 

 

£20m a year.

 

It sounds ridiculous now, but it's what almost got us there under O'Neill - in the nine years since he arrived, I reckon that figure has gone up tenfold, and that's money Randy Lerner hasn't got - by the time O'Neill left it was clear that £20m a season wasn't going to help, and it was nowhere near what you'd need now. Spurs brought on two subs that cost £60m against us at the weekend and they're a mile from 4th.

 

if you take that timeline and those increases and then put in our absolutely perfectly bad timing in every bad decision we made then you have a disaster, regardless of the intentions of those involved.

 

O'Neill thought we were close and needed more, I think Lerner saw it getting away and realised how much more it would need and the two of them clashed. O'Neill like a dog chasing a car that was picking up speed, Lerner running after him with the lead and eventually realising he had to drag him back.

 

Then we made a series of bad decisions whilst we tried to stand still and football ran past us - each one perfectly timed to happen right at the worst time in terms of how the footballing world was going - bad appointments, money wasted firing managers, buying badly, paying players we no longer had, a squad with little sell on value or developmental capacity, the quick fix older players that O'Neill liked all coming to the end of their serviceable footballing lives at the same time and us selling his best buys, those that did have potential in order to keep those that didn't, the domino effect on squad departures and the realisation that replacements had become too expensive - it's a series of calamities against a backdrop of an increasingly expensive league.

 

Randy made some errors and then got swamped. It's easy to look for a single villain, but we've not just been a victim of bad decisions at all sorts of levels, including Lerner's, we've been a victim of our footballing environment, of timing and of circumstance. 

[VillaChris]

20m a year?

 

MON had two summers in a row spending 20m + just on new back 4s!

 

2008- Curtis Davies (10m), Nicky Shorey (5m), Luke Young (5m), Carlos Cuellar (7m)

 

2009- Richard Dunne (6m), Stephen Warnock (7m), James Collins (5m), Habib Beye (3m)

 

I can't think of too many managers who'd have been back by the board to spend money on a completely new back 4 a year after spending a decent amount on the same defence.

[OutByEaster?]

The problem was that 2009's back four was bought with 2010's money - and we know what happened when he went back for more.

[Neil]

I think we underestimate the way in which money has changed in football, even in the time that Randy has been here. I think he came in looking to put a great club back on its feet, get it into the big time and once it was established sell it for a handsome profit. 

 

I have no doubt that this was the driving factor that all went wrong.  I can accept someone making mistakes....and it's really what you do to put right the mistakes you make, but in the end the club has paid dearly because this venture capital didn't come to fruition.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Neil

[OutByEaster?]

 

I think we underestimate the way in which money has changed in football, even in the time that Randy has been here. I think he came in looking to put a great club back on its feet, get it into the big time and once it was established sell it for a handsome profit. 

 

I have no doubt that this was the driving factor that all went wrong.  I can accept someone making mistakes....and it's really what you do to put right the mistakes you make, but in the end the club has paid dearly because this venture capital didn't come to fruition.

 

The mistake was probably thinking that it was possible with the budget that he had. I'm sure if he'd known how the success of the league would affect his ability to influence our fortunes he wouldn't have bought the club in the first place. The first in a series of errors of judgement I guess. The thing is at the time, I think most of us thought it was possible, and in truth, we nearly pulled it off.

[maqroll]

10m on Curtis Davies, holy cow

[briny_ear]

are you honestly telling me with all the hype that came in with the signing of Martin O'Neill the new owner was going to start arguing with him about who he is going to sign and for how much.

 

That's the wrong way to set up the issue, TRO. It's not really about who is signed and for how much, if you mean by that transfer fees. In any case, MON did OK overall with returns on players he bought and/or improved in terms of their marketability. Think how much the club made out of the sales of Barry, Young, Milner and Downing alone. 

 

The problem with our club since Lerner came has been the wages bill, which has been at an unsutainably high rate. Any owner with even a tiny bit of judgment should be able to work out if he is spending more than he can afford and Lerner seems to have failed to do this well beyond the MON era - think of Bent, Hutton, Given, N'Zogbia, etc.

 

If you are arguing it is unreasonable that the owner of a club should lay down a firm financial framework within which the manager works, I just think you are completely wrong.

Edited April 15, 2015 by briny_ear

[Zatman]

20m a year?

 

MON had two summers in a row spending 20m + just on new back 4s!

 

2008- Curtis Davies (10m), Nicky Shorey (5m), Luke Young (5m), Carlos Cuellar (7m)

 

2009- Richard Dunne (6m), Stephen Warnock (7m), James Collins (5m), Habib Beye (3m)

 

I can't think of too many managers who'd have been back by the board to spend money on a completely new back 4 a year after spending a decent amount on the same defence.

 

Dunne and arguably Collins were good but the rest is really criminal

[lexicon]

I'd no issues with Young or Warnock either - the former was pretty decent and the latter was seen as a good signing at the time. We'd no idea that Warnock would turn out so badly.

[Ooh-Ah]

 

20m a year?

 

MON had two summers in a row spending 20m + just on new back 4s!

 

2008- Curtis Davies (10m), Nicky Shorey (5m), Luke Young (5m), Carlos Cuellar (7m)

 

2009- Richard Dunne (6m), Stephen Warnock (7m), James Collins (5m), Habib Beye (3m)

 

I can't think of too many managers who'd have been back by the board to spend money on a completely new back 4 a year after spending a decent amount on the same defence.

 

Dunne and arguably Collins were good but the rest is really criminal

 

 

Luke Young did a great job one season. IIRC he was many people's player of the year. Warnock did well his first six months but the poor lad couldn't function by the end of his time here. It was like his brain stopped working every time the ball came near him.

 

To be honest I had forgotten Nicky Shorey had even played for us.

[Jimzk5]

Luke young was shocking business, wouldn't pay Charlton £4million for him so he went to boro, 12 months later we buy him for £6.

Lerner has been the perfect fool for Aston Villa managers, each one coming in with promise of doing this and that and leaving with a big payoff cheque when they've failed.

I really cant wait to see the back of randy tbh.