The Randy Lerner thread

[VillaRoy]

Come out, come out, wherever you are. Randy do the right thing lad, your currently kicking Villa fans in the mouth with this shocking appointment. Make amends now!

[PieFacE]

Spent £5m on the hopeless Sidwell and gave him £50k p/w

- Heskey for £4m on £60k p/w

- Beye on 40k p/w

- Bought Marlon Harewood

- Bought Shorey on a recommendation of a player he hardly used.

- Sold Cahill and bought Davies at twice the price.

also add 8.5 million for Reo-Coker who he rarely played

:nod:

Could have also signed Scott Parker at the same time

[MMFy]

6th was the very best we could have hoped for despite being in the top 4 for large amounts of certain seasons?

What a load of bollocks. Randy is to blame for a lot of things but O'Neill is to blame for not spending the money well and not at the right time on the right people.

For a while only Man City spent more than we did and 6th was the best we could have hoped for? My arse.

If only we hadn't had to replace an entire defence for the third time in as many seasons or if we'd bought actual goalscorers to help us win a game after February (for a change). We would have been comfortably in the top 4 we were that far ahead of Arsenal (and Everton who also, tediously, predictably caught us twice).

Sorry, if you think O'Neill maximised our potential and did as well as we could possibly have done you are deluded.

He had backing most managers would kill for and when all is said and done, made a bollocks of it. But yes, lets forget that and demonise the man who backed him with all those resources and not the man who squandered them. That makes sense.

Randy should rightly get bollocked for hiring McLeish, for not appointing more footballing expertise to the board, for giving O'Neill too much dictatorial control over finances and many other things I'm sure. But from 2006 - 2009 he was lionised by media and fans as something like the perfect owner. A man who let his manager have the money and freedom to operate with a free hand.

I hope he sells up because I think his time has gone with Villa now. The best chance he and we had of success pissed away because he backed the wrong horse. He needed (and still needs) better advice. Alas, it's done.

That's all I've got to say. I've already wasted more time discussing Pubehead than he's worth.

It just really grates to see Villa fans defend him when he's pretty much shafted us.

If you believe there were lots of managers that could come in and do better than O'Neill then you are deluded. Name me one manager who you guarantee would have done better, that is a realistic appointment, and I will back down but personally I think when you take charge of a club that is lightyears away from the established top four and you get as close as he did you can be pretty happy with what you've done but regret never having the chance to complete the job. He signed bad players but he signed some bloody good ones too. And as I've mentioned before, the January transfer window is not an easy time to sign a striker. Look how much we had to pay for Bent? And that was a panic buy! O'Neill desperately wanted a striker but chose to bolster his defence and midfield first, sounds a sensible approach to me. It's not like our strikers have been getting much service this season is it! You can also bang on about the squad left by O'Neill, has it not occurred to you that he would have continued to make changes? He was in charge for less than five years, if you expected more success in that time, bearing in mind what a mess we'd been in under O'Leary then you are clueless.

You write that shit and call me clueless?

He could have bought Bent but allowed him to go to **** Sunderland cheaply because he wouldn't know a striker if he fell over one.

You say he sensibly built from the back? He replaced the entire defence he himself had just bought with money that could have been used elsewhere on, oh let's say, the striker we desperately needed?

January is only a bad time to buy if you're Martin O'Neill and only shop in the UK. Or if, for an example, you haven't bought properly in the summer because you've just bought an entire defence again (at the last minute of course), plus the odd shite midfielder and forgot to buy that striker we desperately needed, so wait until January and still get it massively wrong.

Not a **** clue.

I personally couldnt care less if you "back down" or not but it's pointless talking managers because you would only say "we wouldn't have got him" or whatever. But I do not agree, nor will I ever, that Martin O'Neill was the best man for the job or the most capable. If you'd gone to a lot of the best managers with a billionaire ready to plough tens of millions into a project you honestly think they wouldn't be interested? But Randy had to work with him as he'd just been appointed (no doubt with Randys blessing).

And please spare me from the great squad buiding work of O'Neill from the dark days of O'Leary (who was a clearing in the woods). As if splashing millions on players is a difficult task. He still inherited some of the best players from O'Leary and managed to do no better in the league (6th). Big **** deal.

The truth is that due to his lack of foresight in buying a defence (he bought Shorey on Sidwell's advice for **** sake!), his inability to buy a striker even though lavished with a huge transfer budget and his uk only myopia in the transfer meant that, unfortuantely for us, he was not the ideal person to be spending the money we had. Money that if better used, would have put us in a very strong position then and now.

Yes, he bought some good players. It's not really that hard. Good players tend to be quite obviously good.

But he also:

- Spent £5m on the hopeless Sidwell and gave him £50k p/w

- Heskey for £4m on £60k p/w :shock:

- Beye on 40k p/w

- Bought Marlon Harewood

- Bought Shorey on a recommendation of a player he hardly used.

- Sold Cahill and bought Davies at twice the price.

- Bought a winger with a broken leg when we needed a striker.

- Left everything to the last minute.

- Could rarely win a game after February.

This is really the best we could have hoped for at Aston Villa? I think my expectations are higher.

Difficult to argue with that! Well said.

[Mazrim]

He's good at motivating average players for a while whilst there's some momentum... and that's about it.

The football under him was unsophisticated but exciting in its own way and depended entirely on speedy counter attack, which is fine but when we needed to break teams down we couldn't do it because we only had one way of playing.

The same will happen at Sunderland. When the gloss wears off and the momentum stops they will be looking around for ideas and he wont have any apart from buying average players who hang around for years like a bad smell, costing an absolute fortune.

Such is the legacy of Martin O'Neill.

What else do we have? What did he build with all that money? Absolutely **** all. Heskey, for instance, when he hangs up his rollerblades, will have cost this great club the best part of TWENTY MILLION POUNDS!

[Big_John_10]

6th was the very best we could have hoped for despite being in the top 4 for large amounts of certain seasons?

What a load of bollocks. Randy is to blame for a lot of things but O'Neill is to blame for not spending the money well and not at the right time on the right people.

For a while only Man City spent more than we did and 6th was the best we could have hoped for? My arse.

If only we hadn't had to replace an entire defence for the third time in as many seasons or if we'd bought actual goalscorers to help us win a game after February (for a change). We would have been comfortably in the top 4 we were that far ahead of Arsenal (and Everton who also, tediously, predictably caught us twice).

Sorry, if you think O'Neill maximised our potential and did as well as we could possibly have done you are deluded.

He had backing most managers would kill for and when all is said and done, made a bollocks of it. But yes, lets forget that and demonise the man who backed him with all those resources and not the man who squandered them. That makes sense.

Randy should rightly get bollocked for hiring McLeish, for not appointing more footballing expertise to the board, for giving O'Neill too much dictatorial control over finances and many other things I'm sure. But from 2006 - 2009 he was lionised by media and fans as something like the perfect owner. A man who let his manager have the money and freedom to operate with a free hand.

I hope he sells up because I think his time has gone with Villa now. The best chance he and we had of success pissed away because he backed the wrong horse. He needed (and still needs) better advice. Alas, it's done.

That's all I've got to say. I've already wasted more time discussing Pubehead than he's worth.

It just really grates to see Villa fans defend him when he's pretty much shafted us.

I can just imagine the general smiling proudly whenever he reads your posts and knowing he did his job well.

[PieFacE]

6th was the very best we could have hoped for despite being in the top 4 for large amounts of certain seasons?

What a load of bollocks. Randy is to blame for a lot of things but O'Neill is to blame for not spending the money well and not at the right time on the right people.

For a while only Man City spent more than we did and 6th was the best we could have hoped for? My arse.

If only we hadn't had to replace an entire defence for the third time in as many seasons or if we'd bought actual goalscorers to help us win a game after February (for a change). We would have been comfortably in the top 4 we were that far ahead of Arsenal (and Everton who also, tediously, predictably caught us twice).

Sorry, if you think O'Neill maximised our potential and did as well as we could possibly have done you are deluded.

He had backing most managers would kill for and when all is said and done, made a bollocks of it. But yes, lets forget that and demonise the man who backed him with all those resources and not the man who squandered them. That makes sense.

Randy should rightly get bollocked for hiring McLeish, for not appointing more footballing expertise to the board, for giving O'Neill too much dictatorial control over finances and many other things I'm sure. But from 2006 - 2009 he was lionised by media and fans as something like the perfect owner. A man who let his manager have the money and freedom to operate with a free hand.

I hope he sells up because I think his time has gone with Villa now. The best chance he and we had of success pissed away because he backed the wrong horse. He needed (and still needs) better advice. Alas, it's done.

That's all I've got to say. I've already wasted more time discussing Pubehead than he's worth.

It just really grates to see Villa fans defend him when he's pretty much shafted us.

I can just imagine the general smiling proudly whenever he reads your posts and knowing he did his job well.

Well everything said there seems pretty much spot on to me, why does the general have anything to do with it? That's exactly how I remember MON, without reading anything that the general had said.

[Mazrim]

I'd ask what the hell the General has to do with any of my posts but to be honest Big John, I think your posts are best ignored.

[PauloBarnesi]

Spent £5m on the hopeless Sidwell and gave him £50k p/w

- Heskey for £4m on £60k p/w

- Beye on 40k p/w

- Bought Marlon Harewood

- Bought Shorey on a recommendation of a player he hardly used.

- Sold Cahill and bought Davies at twice the price.

also add 8.5 million for Reo-Coker who he rarely played

:nod:

Could have also signed Scott Parker at the same time

and then tried to sign, but Randy wouldn’t let him according to Patrick Murphy...

[mikeyp102]

6th was the very best we could have hoped for despite being in the top 4 for large amounts of certain seasons?

What a load of bollocks. Randy is to blame for a lot of things but O'Neill is to blame for not spending the money well and not at the right time on the right people.

For a while only Man City spent more than we did and 6th was the best we could have hoped for? My arse.

If only we hadn't had to replace an entire defence for the third time in as many seasons or if we'd bought actual goalscorers to help us win a game after February (for a change). We would have been comfortably in the top 4 we were that far ahead of Arsenal (and Everton who also, tediously, predictably caught us twice).

Sorry, if you think O'Neill maximised our potential and did as well as we could possibly have done you are deluded.

He had backing most managers would kill for and when all is said and done, made a bollocks of it. But yes, lets forget that and demonise the man who backed him with all those resources and not the man who squandered them. That makes sense.

Randy should rightly get bollocked for hiring McLeish, for not appointing more footballing expertise to the board, for giving O'Neill too much dictatorial control over finances and many other things I'm sure. But from 2006 - 2009 he was lionised by media and fans as something like the perfect owner. A man who let his manager have the money and freedom to operate with a free hand.

I hope he sells up because I think his time has gone with Villa now. The best chance he and we had of success pissed away because he backed the wrong horse. He needed (and still needs) better advice. Alas, it's done.

That's all I've got to say. I've already wasted more time discussing Pubehead than he's worth.

It just really grates to see Villa fans defend him when he's pretty much shafted us.

If you believe there were lots of managers that could come in and do better than O'Neill then you are deluded. Name me one manager who you guarantee would have done better, that is a realistic appointment, and I will back down but personally I think when you take charge of a club that is lightyears away from the established top four and you get as close as he did you can be pretty happy with what you've done but regret never having the chance to complete the job. He signed bad players but he signed some bloody good ones too. And as I've mentioned before, the January transfer window is not an easy time to sign a striker. Look how much we had to pay for Bent? And that was a panic buy! O'Neill desperately wanted a striker but chose to bolster his defence and midfield first, sounds a sensible approach to me. It's not like our strikers have been getting much service this season is it! You can also bang on about the squad left by O'Neill, has it not occurred to you that he would have continued to make changes? He was in charge for less than five years, if you expected more success in that time, bearing in mind what a mess we'd been in under O'Leary then you are clueless.

You write that shit and call me clueless?

He could have bought Bent but allowed him to go to **** Sunderland cheaply because he wouldn't know a striker if he fell over one.

You say he sensibly built from the back? He replaced the entire defence he himself had just bought with money that could have been used elsewhere on, oh let's say, the striker we desperately needed?

January is only a bad time to buy if you're Martin O'Neill and only shop in the UK. Or if, for an example, you haven't bought properly in the summer because you've just bought an entire defence again (at the last minute of course), plus the odd shite midfielder and forgot to buy that striker we desperately needed, so wait until January and still get it massively wrong.

Not a **** clue.

I personally couldnt care less if you "back down" or not but it's pointless talking managers because you would only say "we wouldn't have got him" or whatever. But I do not agree, nor will I ever, that Martin O'Neill was the best man for the job or the most capable. If you'd gone to a lot of the best managers with a billionaire ready to plough tens of millions into a project you honestly think they wouldn't be interested? But Randy had to work with him as he'd just been appointed (no doubt with Randys blessing).

And please spare me from the great squad buiding work of O'Neill from the dark days of O'Leary (who was a clearing in the woods). As if splashing millions on players is a difficult task. He still inherited some of the best players from O'Leary and managed to do no better in the league (6th). Big **** deal.

The truth is that due to his lack of foresight in buying a defence (he bought Shorey on Sidwell's advice for **** sake!), his inability to buy a striker even though lavished with a huge transfer budget and his uk only myopia in the transfer meant that, unfortuantely for us, he was not the ideal person to be spending the money we had. Money that if better used, would have put us in a very strong position then and now.

Yes, he bought some good players. It's not really that hard. Good players tend to be quite obviously good.

But he also:

- Spent £5m on the hopeless Sidwell and gave him £50k p/w

- Heskey for £4m on £60k p/w :shock:

- Beye on 40k p/w

- Bought Marlon Harewood

- Bought Shorey on a recommendation of a player he hardly used.

- Sold Cahill and bought Davies at twice the price.

- Bought a winger with a broken leg when we needed a striker.

- Left everything to the last minute.

- Could rarely win a game after February.

This is really the best we could have hoped for at Aston Villa? I think my expectations are higher.

2 Great Posts Mazrim

[Big_John_10]

The general posting on here was nothing but a pr gimmick to make the club and Lerner look good. Clearly some fell for it big time.

To keep claiming MON should have finished higher is just stupid. How can anyone look at how much money it took city to finish 4th and claim we did enough? How can anyone look at the money spurs have spent on a consistent basis and claim we did enough to beat them? Spurs did all that, can attract better players than us and even under Harry couldn't repeat a top 4 finish. Yet people claim we should have done it? Crazy.

People should also take a bit of time and go and see the signings city and spurs made during the first 12 months that MoN was here. We were playing catch up from the start and didn't come close to spending enough to say we should have over took those teams.

I guess its much easier to just spout crap than actually go and have a look for yourself. Or should i say easier to accept the pr shit that comes from the club.

Moaning about the mess he left us in is also stupid. Apart from Milner that was a squad that had just had its best season in years and the defence had the 4th best defensive record in the league.

Moaning about the wages also seems to buy into the pr spin that MON is the devil. Our issue is about the amount of our income spent on wages. If you think MON dealt with all the ways we make money or planned for future income then you really are a bitter bitter fan. There is no doubt he wasted money and gave some average players big deals but ultimately all he is doing is working under the reigns the owner gave him and without a clear picture of our income or future income.

The general claimed he left because he was unwilling to help address the wage issue but if I remember correctly he sold a couple of players and it was widely reported that he had accepted bids for young and sidwell. Also the fact we agreed to pay him some part of that £12 million shows the club were hardly an innocent party in this.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but hasn't our spending increased since MON left? Was it his fault we wasted money on houllier and will ultimately waste money on Mcleish?

The guy isn't perfect, he's not one of the worlds top managers but I'm still yet to see a valid argument as to why he SHOULD have got top 4.

We have an owner who lost financial control and has appointed two shocking managers. The fans of the other team he owns are depressed about the same shit he does here but they've had to suffer the clown longer than us.

We're back to where we were when he bought the club and we've got fans focusing their anger on a man who hasn't had anything to do with the club for nearly 2 years.

Like i said, the general must be incredibly proud of himself.

[Big_John_10]

This is really the best we could have hoped for at Aston Villa? I think my expectations are higher.

Your defence of Lerner would suggest otherwise.

[Voinjama]

I have to say I was one of the people who supports MON, and to some extent I still do. But Mazrim has put the best and most convincing argument against MON I have read on the forum so far. Points well made, but I want to know how do you know Shorey was bought on the advice of Sidwell, that seems a bit strange, and finally, other then Bent what strikers should MON have spent the money on. Were there any others of Bents calibre that we could have got?

[Mazrim]

Yes, I criticise Randy and yet I'm doing the General's PR work and I'm defending Randy.

Like I said, better ignored.

[Stu_The_Villan]

I goyta say i agree with everything Mazrim is saying. What manager in his right mind, who is chasing a potential top 4 finish, goes out and signs Marlon fookin Harewood?! Its just madness. MoN was clueless in the transfer market and the amount he wasted on useless players was just shocking.

I did particularly like this from Mazrims posts...

I've already wasted more time discussing Pubehead than he's worth

[Mazrim]

I have to say I was one of the people who supports MON, and to some extent I still do. But Mazrim has put the best and most convincing argument against MON I have read on the forum so far. Points well made, but I want to know how do you know Shorey was bought on the advice of Sidwell, that seems a bit strange, and finally, other then Bent what strikers should MON have spent the money on. Were there any others of Bents calibre that we could have got?

As of January 09 there were roughly 7 billion better strikers than Emile Heskey.

[Voinjama]

I have to say I was one of the people who supports MON, and to some extent I still do. But Mazrim has put the best and most convincing argument against MON I have read on the forum so far. Points well made, but I want to know how do you know Shorey was bought on the advice of Sidwell, that seems a bit strange, and finally, other then Bent what strikers should MON have spent the money on. Were there any others of Bents calibre that we could have got?

As of January 09 there were roughly 7 billion better strikers than Emile Heskey.

I agree, I dont rate Heskey and think he is the one of the worst players to ever pull on the famous claret and blue shirt. But who was available, would of come and wouldnt of cost more than 20 million at the time.

[Voinjama]

I havent read the whole thread, and so I may be repeating something, but the top 4 when MON was at the club was really really strong, better than now I think. You saw 2008 where there was an all english champions league final, and 3 english sides in the semi. And then the next season, when if it wasnt for that bent Norweigan ref it would have been chelsea v manchester united for a 2nd year in a row. And again 3 english sides in the semi. English sides were murdering the top sides on the continent. Liverpool beating Madrid 4-0 in 2009. So the top 4 was very strong 3 or 4 years ago, much stronger then now, and that could be seen by how they were performing in Europe. I think now it would be easier to get into the top 4, even with man city now on the scene. Arsenal been so poor for most of this season yet they are now third. :shock:

[Mazrim]

I have to say I was one of the people who supports MON, and to some extent I still do. But Mazrim has put the best and most convincing argument against MON I have read on the forum so far. Points well made, but I want to know how do you know Shorey was bought on the advice of Sidwell, that seems a bit strange, and finally, other then Bent what strikers should MON have spent the money on. Were there any others of Bents calibre that we could have got?

As of January 09 there were roughly 7 billion better strikers than Emile Heskey.

I agree, I dont rate Heskey and think he is the one of the worst players to ever pull on the famous claret and blue shirt. But who was available, would of come and wouldnt of cost more than 20 million at the time.

Well, there are loads of strikers out there. You have to go and make them available by bidding for them dont you? But as an example, he should have bought Bent in the summer.

[PussEKatt]

Irrespective of what people are saying about managers etc I think that Lerner does not have the ambition of Abramovich or the sheik (at Man C ) or the owners of Man U, no he is more the Al Feyad type who is happy as long as we don"t spend too much and stay in the premier league

[Voinjama]

I remember talk/gossip/rumours about MON bidding for Defoe. I dont know whether true, or the media/villa talk members chatting s**t but he would of been a good signing back in 2008.