The Randy Lerner thread

[blandy]

It was around 11 million quid overdraft, which the bank wouldn't extend. We had inadequate income to cover expenditure. This led to the training Ground redevelopment just being stopped. In other words. Not enough money for players or wages or ground and training ground work and no opportunity to borrow more.

While we also run at a loss now, Randy had been willing to both put in his own money and to lend money. We're in much greater debt, now, but to the owner in effect (via some RL companies in Delaware).

[thetrees]

he has not been a bad chairman in my eyes, however as a business man he has been poor for aston villa by letting a manager dictate who gets paid what.

the manager will get away with what they can and it was down to randy to stop the sillyness.

but the stupid decisions keep coming, employing faulkner was the start of the decline, within 2 months of him being promoted the whole club was in turmoil.

then letting faulkner decide who the manager should be, jesus christ.

You're contradicting yourself there. Mr.Lerner hired Faulkner to stop the silliness, which he did, and you have then labelled it as the start of the decline

[brummybloke]

he has not been a bad chairman in my eyes, however as a business man he has been poor for aston villa by letting a manager dictate who gets paid what.

the manager will get away with what they can and it was down to randy to stop the sillyness.

but the stupid decisions keep coming, employing faulkner was the start of the decline, within 2 months of him being promoted the whole club was in turmoil.

then letting faulkner decide who the manager should be, jesus christ.

You're contradicting yourself there. Mr.Lerner hired Faulkner to stop the silliness, which he did, and you have then labelled it as the start of the decline

the sillyness started BEFORE faulkner, the DECLINE came AFTER the appointment of faulkner and turmoil throughout the WHOLE club, i dont see i have contradicted myself in any way?

[dukes]

the sillyness started BEFORE faulkner, the DECLINE came AFTER the appointment of faulkner and turmoil throughout the WHOLE club, i dont see i have contradicted myself in any way?

What you describe as the decline of th club could just be steadying the ship to prevent the decline of the club.

I have said this before, but unless you are aware of the personal objectives / KPI's set for Faulkner by Randy then you have no idea how he's performing.

You don't know his remit, therefore I don't understand how you can say he's the problem.you're entitled to an opinion on what a CEO should do, but ultimately the CEO is charged only with satisfying the shareholders ....in this case Randy. I'm certain if Randy wasn't happy that progress was being made he'd ave moved Faulkner on.

[CI]

Didn't the sillyness start with the frittering away of the NTL money by Gregory, much of which went through SFX & lead to the Serious Fraud Office chasing JG around Europe, allegedly

[brummybloke]

the sillyness started BEFORE faulkner, the DECLINE came AFTER the appointment of faulkner and turmoil throughout the WHOLE club, i dont see i have contradicted myself in any way?

What you describe as the decline of th club could just be steadying the ship to prevent the decline of the club.

I have said this before, but unless you are aware of the personal objectives / KPI's set for Faulkner by Randy then you have no idea how he's performing.

You don't know his remit, therefore I don't understand how you can say he's the problem.you're entitled to an opinion on what a CEO should do, but ultimately the CEO is charged only with satisfying the shareholders ....in this case Randy. I'm certain if Randy wasn't happy that progress was being made he'd ave moved Faulkner on.

within a wee or 2? of his appointment, MON walked, infact i still remember the photo that was put on here, 1 hour after news broke it showed faulkner shaking hands with randy as randy was just about to board his private jet, faulkner was laughing.

GH was given the job after we chased him and got him out of his part time job for the french

we moved mcdonald from the great job he was doing and forced him the manage the club, something he clearly did not want to do

we purchased stephen ireland when we didnt actually even have a manager

we get through the season and things look like the huge uneducated gamble may pay off as we can see that despite GH being a PR nightmare and falling out with 50% of the first team playing staff, he DID play football in a manner which was both pleasing to the eye, for the majority of it and also once the injuries cleared up and bent was signed, we started getting half decent results to go with the performances.

but as we limped home but amazingly still finish in 9th place, only 3 off MON's best finish for us

but then we get the hiring and firing of doctors saga, 5 doctors was it? the 5th being the one who said GH should not carry on, the other 4 said he passed all medical tests and there was no reason as long as he took it slow to carry on.

GH was removed and paid off his contract, kerching.

so we then have the whole entire summer to look for a new manager

we wont be going for certain managers as Randy doesnt believe in contacting anyone who is currently employed without the owners permission as it is not the done thing.

he then taps down ( yep thats right taps DOWN) the GC which costs us a further £3 million immediately

then MON puts in his claim for wrongful dismisal or what ever it was, this is upheld and he also gets a large pay off

so how much since faulkner came in have we spent on managers? how much have we progressed? how much has our revenue improved? what about our global appeal? our brand?

from my untrained eye, i would suggest that EVERYTHING is downwards of where it was 1 day before faulkner became CEO

so it doesnt really matter what the remit was unless of course randy WANTS the club to go downhill, because since his appointment that is all that this club has been heading, downhill.

now randy has to take responsibility for that, his business decisions have been poor, well 1 was and that was to appoint faulkner in the position he holds.

unless of course someone thinks he has been succesful? if so, please could you show proof of his success?

anyone could get the wage bill down through natural waste, plays contracts ending and players moving on so that doesnt exactly take any kind of skill.

all the players whose contracts ended last season or at the end of this season are NOT down to faulkner cutting costs.

[Denis_B]

to BB

[thetrees]

Quoting you again.....

he has not been a bad chairman in my eyes, however as a business man he has been poor for aston villa by letting a manager dictate who gets paid what.

the manager will get away with what they can and it was down to randy to stop the sillyness.

but the stupid decisions keep coming, employing faulkner was the start of the decline, within 2 months of him being promoted the whole club was in turmoil.

then letting faulkner decide who the manager should be, jesus christ.

unless of course someone thinks he has been succesful? if so, please could you show proof of his success?

You describe the remit that Mr Lerner gave to the manager (O'Neill?) as 'silliness'

You claim that it was down to Mr Lerner to 'stop the silliness'

Mr Lerner hired Faulkner, who allegedly got rid of O'Neill, which stopped the 'silliness.'

Not inconclusive 'proof', but all the evidence points that Faulkner has been successful in stopping the 'silliness' that you describe.

Unless of course that you think the 'silliness' could have been stopped while retaining the services of O'Neill, in which case I think you would be making a huge misjudgement of our former manager.

[P3te]

All last January showed was that we had money left over from Milner and knew young and probably downing were off.

the Milner money was probably spent before we got it. how do people still not get that we were running to substantial annual losses due to wages? the way some go on you'd swear transfer fees were our only expense

[dukes]

within a wee or 2? of his appointment, MON walked, infact i still remember the photo that was put on here, 1 hour after news broke it showed faulkner shaking hands with randy as randy was just about to board his private jet, faulkner was laughing.

GH was given the job after we chased him and got him out of his part time job for the french

we moved mcdonald from the great job he was doing and forced him the manage the club, something he clearly did not want to do

we purchased stephen ireland when we didnt actually even have a manager

we get through the season and things look like the huge uneducated gamble may pay off as we can see that despite GH being a PR nightmare and falling out with 50% of the first team playing staff, he DID play football in a manner which was both pleasing to the eye, for the majority of it and also once the injuries cleared up and bent was signed, we started getting half decent results to go with the performances.

but as we limped home but amazingly still finish in 9th place, only 3 off MON's best finish for us

but then we get the hiring and firing of doctors saga, 5 doctors was it? the 5th being the one who said GH should not carry on, the other 4 said he passed all medical tests and there was no reason as long as he took it slow to carry on.

GH was removed and paid off his contract, kerching.

so we then have the whole entire summer to look for a new manager

we wont be going for certain managers as Randy doesnt believe in contacting anyone who is currently employed without the owners permission as it is not the done thing.

he then taps down ( yep thats right taps DOWN) the GC which costs us a further £3 million immediately

then MON puts in his claim for wrongful dismisal or what ever it was, this is upheld and he also gets a large pay off

so how much since faulkner came in have we spent on managers? how much have we progressed? how much has our revenue improved? what about our global appeal? our brand?

from my untrained eye, i would suggest that EVERYTHING is downwards of where it was 1 day before faulkner became CEO

so it doesnt really matter what the remit was unless of course randy WANTS the club to go downhill, because since his appointment that is all that this club has been heading, downhill.

now randy has to take responsibility for that, his business decisions have been poor, well 1 was and that was to appoint faulkner in the position he holds.

unless of course someone thinks he has been succesful? if so, please could you show proof of his success?

anyone could get the wage bill down through natural waste, plays contracts ending and players moving on so that doesnt exactly take any kind of skill.

all the players whose contracts ended last season or at the end of this season are NOT down to faulkner cutting costs.

1. So MON deciding he could either not work within the new financial constraints, or work with Faulkner as CEO is Faulkner's fault ?

2. KMAC was not forced to take the caretaker manager role, he chose to. At the time a lot of senior players were very vocal about wanting KMAC full time. He tried the job, neither liked it or turned out to be very good, and went back to his old role, bearing in mind the boards plan to bring through the youth players, it was a natural thing to give KMAC a few games. What exactly did Faulkner do wrong ?

3. When MON left, Milner was practically a City player, do we know that MON didn't want Ireland ? Even if not, at the time he seemed like a decent player for us, and similar to N'Zogbia this season most fans were happy with the deal....hindsight is a marvellous thing, but I don't see what Faulkner has done wrong here either.

4. When GH was appointed, it's acknowledged we had a bunch of senior players who were lazy trainers (Collins and Dunne to name two), at the same time Petrov was dead on his feet after 60 minutes of each game, John Terry famously stated in the media following the FA Cup Semi that they knew we'd get tired in the last third of the match. Under MON we'd become predictable and unfit. GH changed too much too quickly, but most players looked fitter at the end of the season.....I'd say we've gone the other way again now, and players like Dunne, and Petrov look knackered after 60 mins once again. The players Ego's are not Faulkner's responsibility, this was a reaction to too many changes form the relatively easy life under MON.

5. No matter how many doctors looked at GH, he has stated himself many times since that he will never again be fit enough to manage. Following the mess of 2010/2011, and GH's scare at Villa, the previous one at Liverpool, and since his wife didn't want him to return to management in the first place, Randy/Faulkner simply could not afford to have a repeat of the same mess this season. If the doctor said he was not medically fit enough to continue in the role of manager, then I'm sure Villa had Key Personnel Insurance in place, and that will have paid GH his contract money.

6. Money spent on Managers since 2006 is wages plus approx. £8M in compensation and legal fees, but as I said I'm sure retirement for ill health will have been covered by insurance, so lets say £6M over 6 years. I'd say Faulkner got one Manager decision wrong (unless there's a dramatic change of fortune), MON walked, or claimed he was forced out by the appointment of Faulkner, whatever it was that's not Faulkner's fault. GH I believe would have given us a good blend of French and English players, and I think he'd have re-established us as a top six team. So the one that i think is a mess up is AMC. I agree this appointment and the process looks like a massive screw up, but maybe because of the negative press during the last season, decent managers were not exactly falling over themselves to come to us.

7. Unfortunately selling Aston Villa to a load of viewers in USA/China/India etc is like serving Gordon Ramsay a shit sandwich instead of a steak. Outside of the UK we're hardly known, deals like the Genting might help us crack Asia....you have to give credit to Faulkner for that. Actually, i think a fair portion of the blame here should go to a succession of managers who have preferred to over pay for ageing British based players rather than look for young talent abroad, signing players from abroad makes fans in that country curious, you can't convert them all, but you would convert some. Entering tournaments like the Barclays thing in Hong Kong will also help, I agree we need to do more, but also accept that without competing at the very top we'll never become a global brand as you put it.

8. Yes, everything has gone down since MON left, or since Faulkner was appointed, but we're in a recession, and in the end we truly messed up between 2006 and 2010, those were the shit or bust years. Randy does not have the money to compete with City, Utd, Chelsea etc etc, and we don;t have the global appeal that Liverpool have, or the London bias of Tottenham, so if we're ever to be successful again, then maybe we have to make our own way. Newcastle are doing well this season, they too had a succession of poor managerial appointments, and wasted a lot of money, i'm not saying they'll keep it up, but so far one of their most unpopular appointments is turning things around, getting the fans back on side, and operating within the financial constraints of the chairman. In the long term it's often the unpopular decisions that turn out for the best.

9. I agree letting contracts run down does not require skill, but as players salaries are the biggest portion of our losses it's the most obvious way to reduce them. Apart from Reo Coker, i haven't been sad to lose any of the players whose contracts have run down, and his agent talked him out of a new contract by being greedy, so in the end not being held to ransom by a player was a good decision by Faulkner.

I'm not saying Faulkner is a great CEO, I'm certainly not saying he's got everything right, but I think we won't know how well he;s done, or what Randy's intentions are until the current raft of cost cutting through natural wastage of contracts is complete, and the Wage to Turnover ratio is improved. In a recession like we're having, and by playing a team made up of a lot of young British players, we have very little chance of attracting Wing Ya Mao and his friends, so increasing Turnover without massive success on the pitch becomes extremely difficult. Being honest Faulkner will do well to have only reduced turnover by 10%. These are very difficult times indeed.

[maqroll]

Yep, sadly this is tread water time for Villa. We ain't gonna challenge for any European competition, unless the players play out of their heads in the Cup and win the **** thing. But would you place a bet on that happening?

The only drama we're going to see this season and for the forseeable future is whether or not we stay up. Thing is, we're probably just good enough so that relegation will never really make us sweat.

So we'll be mired in the purgatory of 9th-15th place, playing negative football and watching empty seats multiply by the month.

[CI]

Thing is, we're probably just good enough so that relegation will never really make us sweat.

Wouldn't be quite so cocky, we're much worse than a lot of people think

Swansea was the worst performance I've seen since the Billy McNeill days & we know how that one ended

[Richard]

1. So MON deciding he could either not work within the new financial constraints, or work with Faulkner as CEO is Faulkner's fault ?

Apparently so, hence the payout MON received even though he "resigned", "walked out" or whatever people want to describe it as

[CI]

Are you suggesting PF dismissed him

[Richard]

I am suggesting that after a tribunal hearing the club were forced to pay out to a manager who had apparently resigned. So a tribunal must have felt the fault lay with the club of which Faulkner is CEO

[Woodytom]

Have to say, I agree with Dukes on this. Baring in mind, Faulkners appointment was met with a stop to the silly spending the club couldn't afford, he strikes me as the one person with half a brain in there.

[Denis_B]

I am suggesting that after a tribunal hearing the club were forced to pay out to a manager who had apparently resigned. So a tribunal must have felt the fault lay with the club of which Faulkner is CEO

He successfully argued 'constructive dismissal' therefore the agreed terms in which he operated were changed forcing him out - clearly that was an expensive change , but any more expensive than keeping him? Probably as we can see how far we have dropped since when he would have wanted to 'push on'

[Woodytom]

I am suggesting that after a tribunal hearing the club were forced to pay out to a manager who had apparently resigned. So a tribunal must have felt the fault lay with the club of which Faulkner is CEO

He successfully argued 'constructive dismissal' therefore the agreed terms in which he operated were changed forcing him out - clearly that was an expensive change , but any more expensive than keeping him? Probably as we can see how far we have dropped since when he would have wanted to 'push on'

I think even the biggest of MON fans (i.e me), if they were honest with themselves could see he didnt have the nouse, to push on.

I am 100% confident that we will be better off in a couple of years, maybe 3, becaause of all this. Just got to grip your teeth and survive I suppose.

[CI]

When he went after McGeady for +£10m and wages of 65k a week, I started to think "he's lost it"

[TheDrums]

And what concrete facts do you have that prove he went for McGeady and offered him 65k a week?

None as usual I suspect.