The Randy Lerner thread

[macandally]

So if I own a business that is going down the pan because of poor management are you seriously suggesting that I should let it carry on because it might cost me some money I didnt really want to spend...........

How do you know its going down the pan, have we been relegated or gone out of business or even close too?

You only think its going down the pan because you dont like the manager or chief exec.

Again, if Lerner listened to the fans, there would be a new set of players and a new manager every week!

You just cannot keep changing things so soon, because the fans have decided it so.

Season ticket sales are down

Attendances are down

No real pick up on cut price ticket deals

Fans disallusioned with management

Players playing like they dont care

Chairman absent

CEO with no footballing background running affairs

Merchandising down

Dont panic.................carry on regardless and listen to Makouns Grin.

[makouns_grin]

So if I own a business that is going down the pan because of poor management are you seriously suggesting that I should let it carry on because it might cost me some money I didnt really want to spend...........

How do you know its going down the pan, have we been relegated or gone out of business or even close too?

You only think its going down the pan because you dont like the manager or chief exec.

Again, if Lerner listened to the fans, there would be a new set of players and a new manager every week!

You just cannot keep changing things so soon, because the fans have decided it so.

Season ticket sales are down

Attendances are down

No real pick up on cut price ticket deals

Fans disallusioned with management

Players playing like they dont care

Chairman absent

CEO with no footballing background running affairs

Merchandising down

Dont panic.................carry on regardless and listen to Makouns Grin.

So get a new manager in willy nilly, someone anyone who aint McCleish and after 4 months when there is no improvement get another manager in because the fans are moaning then as well? Because the way some people go on the new manager would have to have us playing like Arsenal to bother watching us again.

So basically spend money, because when he was nobody was bothered with the chairman being absent or the ceo having no football experience.

Again my few posts back looks like we would have no attendance if we were anywhere other than the premier league as everyone is so obsessed with it!

Cracking 'support'.

[Robbie09]

If you're still singing his praises when he takes us down...I'll doth my cap at you.

Ok, but what has he done that the vast majority of other owners wouldn't have done.

None of us like McLeish but who was the alternative, McLaren?

Perhaps he should have continued spending but how much is enough? Should he just ignore the UEFA regs in the hope that they'll go away?

I honestly dont get the level of hatred shown towards him on here. I'm not saying there aren't better owners out there but there's also a lot worse.

Whilst I share your sentiments on Lerner, I dont agree with other areas of your post.

You make it sound like McLeish was our only option, whereas there were far more suitable candidates out there both at home and abroad. Even if you take Martinez and MacLaren out of the equation, there were plenty of much, much better options than the clown we eventually employed.

UEFA regs are pish, UEFA are the governing body but everyone knows that the clubs hold the power. Man City just stamped all over the bullshit regs with their ground naming deal. Everyone can see it for what it is, what can UEFA do?

Lerner has done a wealth of good things with the club, BH is state of the art but where he and the club lets itself down is where it matters most, on the football side. McLeish was never, ever going to work, even through the most claret and blue tinted spectacles and his appointment was an abomination which is why the fans have turned on RL. There is no vision, no philosophy and no long term future with him in charge.

Personally, I believe Lerner is the Captain so he takes some of the flak, but Paul Faulkners hand is on the tiller and I rate him personally responsible for what happened with ONeill, Houllier, McLeish and the general direction of the club as a business. If heads should roll, Faulkners should be first on the block.

Nail on head !

[macandally]

So if I own a business that is going down the pan because of poor management are you seriously suggesting that I should let it carry on because it might cost me some money I didnt really want to spend...........

How do you know its going down the pan, have we been relegated or gone out of business or even close too?

You only think its going down the pan because you dont like the manager or chief exec.

Again, if Lerner listened to the fans, there would be a new set of players and a new manager every week!

You just cannot keep changing things so soon, because the fans have decided it so.

Season ticket sales are down

Attendances are down

No real pick up on cut price ticket deals

Fans disallusioned with management

Players playing like they dont care

Chairman absent

CEO with no footballing background running affairs

Merchandising down

Dont panic.................carry on regardless and listen to Makouns Grin.

So get a new manager in willy nilly, someone anyone who aint McCleish and after 4 months when there is no improvement get another manager in because the fans are moaning then as well? Because the way some people go on the new manager would have to have us playing like Arsenal to bother watching us again.

So basically spend money, because when he was nobody was bothered with the chairman being absent or the ceo having no football experience.

Again my few posts back looks like we would have no attendance if we were anywhere other than the premier league as everyone is so obsessed with it!

Cracking 'support'.

Or instead of seeing change as a bad thing, the board sit down and decide what their short, medium and long term objectives are. They then decide on a manager with a philosophy that reflects those objectives and begin to put in place a structure that nurses those objectives.

Everyone knows that this process might be painful, that there will be some blips along the way, but as long as everyone adheres to the plan, eventually, albeit slowly, promising signs begin to show.

OR

Hire a recently relegated manager who managed our biggest rivals, is the antithesis of football with the personality of a drain pipe. Encourage him to placate the dressing room by adopting the previous (lack of) coaching methods and hope that mid table mediocrity is achievable to protect the investment whilst we play to a set of rules nobody else is paying the slightest bit of notice to.

You choose.

[makouns_grin]

Or instead of seeing change as a bad thing, the board sit down and decide what their short, medium and long term objectives are. They then decide on a manager with a philosophy that reflects those objectives and begin to put in place a structure that nurses those objectives.

Everyone knows that this process might be painful, that there will be some blips along the way, but as long as everyone adheres to the plan, eventually, albeit slowly, promising signs begin to show.

OR

Hire a recently relegated manager who managed our biggest rivals, is the antithesis of football with the personality of a drain pipe. Encourage him to placate the dressing room by adopting the previous (lack of) coaching methods and hope that mid table mediocrity is achievable to protect the investment whilst we play to a set of rules nobody else is paying the slightest bit of notice to.

You choose.

Unless they actually think they are doing the former part of your post, which folk refuse to do because of the current form past history of the manager?

Anyone could write the latter part of your post about any manager, especially if they were negatively biased against them.

Unless you think they are trying to **** over the club and make us worse along with relegating us, how does that help them?

You'll have a point come summer though, not after 4 months.

[macandally]

Or instead of seeing change as a bad thing, the board sit down and decide what their short, medium and long term objectives are. They then decide on a manager with a philosophy that reflects those objectives and begin to put in place a structure that nurses those objectives.

Everyone knows that this process might be painful, that there will be some blips along the way, but as long as everyone adheres to the plan, eventually, albeit slowly, promising signs begin to show.

OR

Hire a recently relegated manager who managed our biggest rivals, is the antithesis of football with the personality of a drain pipe. Encourage him to placate the dressing room by adopting the previous (lack of) coaching methods and hope that mid table mediocrity is achievable to protect the investment whilst we play to a set of rules nobody else is paying the slightest bit of notice to.

You choose.

Unless they actually think they are doing the former part of your post, which folk refuse to do because of the current form past history of the manager?

Anyone could write the latter part of your post about any manager, especially if they were negatively biased against them.

Unless you think they are trying to **** over the club and make us worse along with relegating us, how does that help them?

You'll have a point come summer though, not after 4 months.

You might be right, maybe they think they are, but that makes the appointment all the more baffling as McLeish has no track record or pedigree in doing that.

I refuse to believe that even Faulkner was stupid enough to make a managerial appointment on the basis of a letter of recommendation?

You are trying to make sense of what is fundamentally, nonsense!

[makouns_grin]

You might be right, maybe they think they are, but that makes the appointment all the more baffling as McLeish has no track record or pedigree in doing that.

I refuse to believe that even Faulkner was stupid enough to make a managerial appointment on the basis of a letter of recommendation?

You are trying to make sense of what is fundamentally, nonsense!

To you me and most other fans it doesn't make sense because Ek has a pretty shit track record. That along with the fact that he is ex small heath clouds a lot of peoples opinions.

He was appointed because the board felt he could do a job under the con straights of a limited budget that we are now running under, which seems to be the apocalypse to some people.

There is no other reason, unless there is some conspiracy that Lerner and co actually want us relegated and **** over, which makes no sense either.

[Hanky]

So get a new manager in willy nilly, someone anyone who aint McCleish and after 4 months when there is no improvement get another manager in because the fans are moaning then as well? Because the way some people go on the new manager would have to have us playing like Arsenal to bother watching us again.

So basically spend money, because when he was nobody was bothered with the chairman being absent or the ceo having no football experience.

Again my few posts back looks like we would have no attendance if we were anywhere other than the premier league as everyone is so obsessed with it!

Cracking 'support'.

This is what Lerner and Faulkner will have to continue to do if they keep appointing the wrong man. You can't think that performances at the moment are acceptable?

I know O'Neill had his fair share of poor games and Houllier had more than most. The difference between these two and McLeish was that we had plans in games (albeit poor ones in Houllier's case). McLeish is sucking the life out of us with his brand of nothing football.

Everybody saw this coming pretty much, us, small heath, sections of the media, other fans and yet Lerner went ahead and appointed anyway. I think you would have a very good point if we appointed Ancelotti (never going to happen) and results still went the wrong way. However, the man we appointed got a team (and doesn't matter who it was) relegated twice in four years.

Lerner and Faulkner have got us into this mess, and are having to pay the price now because they can't even seem to grasp basics on appointing a manager.

[jacketspuds]

I'm not pissed because we don't play like Arsenal. I'm pissed that we play like Birmingham. We are, as many (including journalists) have alluded to, even a shitter version of Birmingham because not only are we struggling to score but we can't defend. We have a squad with Bent, Agbonlahor, N'Zogbia, Bannan, Albrighton, (Heskey) & Ireland in yet our manager somehow manages to **** it all up. There is not a single team outside of Man City, Man Utd and probably Chelsea that would not happily take some of that attacking talent off our hands. It's a disgrace that we play the way we do.

Get me a manager who plays to our strengths as opposed to (supposedly) his own.

Lerner and Faulkner (who is just as useless as McLeish) must take flak for making the most ridiculous managerial appointment in Premier League history.

Not only did he manage Birmingham badly, he is also a terrible manager.

I'm more than happy for RL to tighten the purse strings as he owns the club, however, I cannot accept that as well as cutting back everywhere we pay £5m for a turd manager and pay him £3m/year for turning us into a joke team that plays awful football.

[makouns_grin]

This is what Lerner and Faulkner will have to continue to do if they keep appointing the wrong man. You can't think that performances at the moment are acceptable?

I know O'Neill had his fair share of poor games and Houllier had more than most. The difference between these two and McLeish was that we had plans in games (albeit poor ones in Houllier's case). McLeish is sucking the life out of us with his brand of nothing football.

Everybody saw this coming pretty much, us, small heath, sections of the media, other fans and yet Lerner went ahead and appointed anyway. I think you would have a very good point if we appointed Ancelotti (never going to happen) and results still went the wrong way. However, the man we appointed got a team (and doesn't matter who it was) relegated twice in four years.

Lerner and Faulkner have got us into this mess, and are having to pay the price now because they can't even seem to grasp basics on appointing a manager.

Any other manager would be given time though, thats how the board see it; they cannot be swayed by fan opinion otherwise there would be a new manage/players all the time!

Anyone other than Ek would be given longer than 4 months no doubt imo.

I think we're playing shit lots of the time, but Arsenal we're playing shit at the start of the season and some Arsenal fans wanted Wenger out and Owen **** Coyle in there!

Do you see what i mean, the board cannot just make these decisions willy nilly?

People moaning they want this manager or that manager, get the new manager in he is shit, brilliant what we do then?

He was appointed for a reason, god knows why i wouldn't have but then i dont know how to run a football club or how much things cost etc.

Fans are passionate but they rarely know what their on about.

[stanthemanisgod]

Ok McLeish is a poor manager, I'm not arguing against that.

The question is so what? What do we do next?

Sack McLeish, ok now who comes in? Do Hughes or Benitez want the job? Would Martinez be tempted to jump ship ahead of another relegation battle?

But what does that mean for the side? Martinez would not get vastly better results for Villa than he does at Wigam with the playing staff we have at our disposal. Jan is a notoriously diificult time to buy players, and even if we did have he money to spend you cant gut hlaf the first team in Jan and expect results to come instantly.

Are people really suggesting that Lerner's search for a new manager consisted of only McLeish, McLaren and Martinez? For whatever reason it appears they were the only 3 who showed any real, i.e not purely tabloid speculation, interest in taking the job. The board instead of taking the easy option (McLaren) seemingly grew a set of balls and made what was an unpoopular decision to take McLeish from SHA, why?

It seems to me that McLeish has come into the club with a clear mandate, to keep us around mid-table without having any significant resources. So far, regardless of what we think about the man, his tactics or the players, he's doing just that. We're 10th almost half way through the season.

If we were rooted to the bottom of the table, getting beat by fellow relegation candidtates then yeah I'd expect any responsible owner to take action. But we're not, the only issue there appears to be is the management of the fans expectations, and we seem to want top 6 on a mid-table budget.

So tell me where is this apocalyptic mess so many on here refer to?

[thegiddygambler]

The thing that amazes me about the Pro Lernerites is that they refuse to see Lerner should be criticised for ensuring we live under these "tight financial constraints"

He pissed his and Villa's cash up the wall recklessly. He wants it back ASAP so ASTON VILLA must fall to pieces.

Oh yes we must feel so priviledged to have he and his office junior Faulkner looking after us. :cry:

[Hanky]

Any other manager would be given time though, thats how the board see it; they cannot be swayed by fan opinion otherwise there would be a new manage/players all the time!

Anyone other than Ek would be given longer than 4 months no doubt imo.

I think we're playing shit lots of the time, but Arsenal we're playing shit at the start of the season and some Arsenal fans wanted Wenger out and Owen **** Coyle in there!

Do you see what i mean, the board cannot just make these decisions willy nilly?

People moaning they want this manager or that manager, get the new manager in he is shit, brilliant what we do then?

He was appointed for a reason, god knows why i wouldn't have but then i dont know how to run a football club or how much things cost etc.

Fans are passionate but they rarely know what their on about.

McLeish should never have been appointed and he has had his time IMO. I was willing to give him a chance, didn't care much about small heath once he came here, and I was looking forward to the season in a way to see how we'd cope and how McLeish would go about it as he made all the right noises in press conferences.

I agree with your point about change to be fair, but I think this is a different situation. McLeish was not wanted to start with, and certainly is not wanted now. I've never known a Villa manager in the last 20 years who united the fans in such a negative way.

I don't think another manager would have got the team playing in such a way to be honest. We are an embarrassment at the moment in the way we defend and certainly the way we (don't) attack. McLeish is making all the right noises about sorting issues out but we are making the same flipping mistakes week after week.

I'll also disagree about the fans to an extent, think a lot of fans are very perceptive about the football side of things and often read a lot of sense on here and well thought arguments whether I agree with them or not.

To bring it back to Lerner he is shooting himself in the foot. He is trying to reduce the wage bill however he is having to spend a load getting rid of managers and in Mcleish's case, getting managers. It is not sustainable and quite frankly, baffling as to what is going on down at B6 at the moment.

[Hanky]

So tell me where is this apocalyptic mess so many on here refer to?

We're in a completely false position in the table IMO due to the games we had at the start of the season. If we don't pull our finger out in the next couple of weeks we will be right down there.

[Tony_Tony_Daley]

So tell me where is this apocalyptic mess so many on here refer to?

We're in a completely false position in the table IMO due to the games we had at the start of the season. If we don't pull our finger out in the next couple of weeks we will be right down there.

I totally agree, theres a couple of games alone off the top of my head that Shay Given saved for us (Newcastle & Fulham) probably more if I could be bothered to go through the results, Gabby carried us against Norwich, if we had neither of those 2 we'd be in deep shit right now

[makouns_grin]

So tell me where is this apocalyptic mess so many on here refer to?

We're in a completely false position in the table IMO due to the games we had at the start of the season. If we don't pull our finger out in the next couple of weeks we will be right down there.

Thats partly true.

But dont forget all the teams below us have to play these harder teams as well as themselves.

[Hanky]

So tell me where is this apocalyptic mess so many on here refer to?

We're in a completely false position in the table IMO due to the games we had at the start of the season. If we don't pull our finger out in the next couple of weeks we will be right down there.

Thats partly true.

But dont forget all the teams below us have to play these harder teams as well as themselves.

Don't get me wrong I don't think (hope) we'll be relegated due to some of the standard of the teams down there at the moment. I just worry if those teams pick up slightly and start to pick up points where we will be come the end of January.

[stanthemanisgod]

But we have those 2 players and one of them was down to McLeish and the other was considering leaving under Houllier.

It's like saying Arsenal are in a false position becuse if they didn't have RVP they's have less points.

I agree we probably wont finish 10th, but there's enough points in this team even with McLeish in charge to stay well clear of the relegation zone, fortunately the likes of Wigan, Blackburn and Bolton are so crap it doesn;t really matter what we do we'll be ok.

What is hurting and understandably so is our pride as fans, we want more, we want better, we want the seasons where we gave the big clubs a run for their money, but the club for whatever reason isn't financing that so we have to make do, which stings.

[Hanky]

You can give a big club a run for their money in games without having big names. Look at Norwich at Old Trafford, or Swansea at home against Manure as well. These are teams who haven't got the best squads in terms of value, but still take the game to the opposition. Under McLeish we roll over.

[stanthemanisgod]

The thing that amazes me about the Pro Lernerites is that they refuse to see Lerner should be criticised for ensuring we live under these "tight financial constraints"

He pissed his and Villa's cash up the wall recklessly. He wants it back ASAP so ASTON VILLA must fall to pieces.

Oh yes we must feel so priviledged to have he and his office junior Faulkner looking after us.

What amazes me is where your information must come from. Erm how is Lerner trying to recover any of the money he spent, the only way he'll ever do that is by selling the club for a profit.

What he is doing is ensuring that our expenditure is in line with income, something all clubs will eventually have to do if these UEFA regs are ever enforced.

As far as I'm concerned he didn't piss anything away recklessly he had a plan which in hindsight (which really is a wonderful thing) was always likely to fail. Lookat what we were when he came in you dont go from that to buying world class players overnight, well not without the kind of money Citeh threw at the game and even then it took a few seasons of Robinhos, Barry's, Lescot's before you got the Agueros, Silvas, Toures of the game.

Villa is not falling to pieces, even when we were drunk on his spending we were having our better players poached and replacing with inferior or unproven players, we had a manager at least half of these forum boards wanted sacked and were still not regularly selling out Villa Park.

We've dropped down a few runs of the ladder, or stood still and let others overtake us but we're not even close to falling to pieces. And as shown in Jan last year when the money is need the money is there, it's just not going to be there as a matter of course because we cant sustain it and not many owners could.