The Randy Lerner thread

[MikeMcKenna]

We had clubs blowing us out of the water during Ron Saunders reign, but that didn't stop us from achieving.

Man utd went 25years with winning relatively nothing, prior to ferguson,whilst still being one of the biggest clubs in the world.

It's all about opinions, but in my view, it's all about managers.

Sure you need money, but it's how you spend it for me.

I would disagree - The Manu's Tottehams, could blow us out of the water. But not west ham, southampton, sunderland

So West Ham, Southampton and Sunderland have out flanked us in terms of the transfer market, despite us signing sunderlands prized asset Darren bent against their will and Southampton selling their prized assets in Walcott, bale and chamberlain, don' t remember lambert being a record breaking transfer fee despite his prolific scoring rate.

Would you really hold those teams up as the testimony to big Money signings being the holy grail ? Or am I misunderstanding you.

It's about prudence, not how deep your pockets are.

I think you are right, but rather than use the word "prudence" i prefer pragmatic. The likes of QPR, Southampton, Stoke etc splashed the cash this season. QPR are gone. Southampton and Stoke finished poorly and are candidates for the drop next year.

Lambert had to be (and still has to be) pragmatic as he is not going to get big bucks to spend. For better or worse if we are ever going to achieve anything it has to be his way as we are never going to do a QPR. If Lambert ever achieves a modicum of success for AVFC by finding and nurturing talented low cost players it will be a revolutionary achievement that will be the model others eventually follow. It may not be the strategy the "results now" fans want but for now that's it!

Edited May 21, 2013 by MikeMcKenna

[Big_John_10]

Why oh why do we have to bring Ellis into it time and time again.

I think it's natural to mention him.

Just like lambert will be spoke about in comparison to past managers and players will be spoke about in comparison to past players.

Why dont you compare it to the 1897 double winning side? Football in that era has nearly as much relevance to current football as football had in Dougs Time. Everything has changed now and its virtually impossible to compete for top 4. If Doug was chairman now i've no doubt we would be down there with wolves in the 1st division

How can you post this when you see a club like everton up there most years.

Its nonsense.

[Big_John_10]

I don't use the league table as the fixer of all ills and the case in question I did not buy Martin o'neills brand of football. I was never sold on his brand like some folk was.

Fair enough.

But your opinion of his football doesn't change the league position we finished in, the points total we had and how far off the top 4 we were.

I'm simply not as convinced as some, that Lerner is a bad egg.

He's not a bad egg, he's just **** useless at running a sports club. Edited May 21, 2013 by Big_John_10

[TRO]

I don't use the league table as the fixer of all ills and the case in question I did not buy Martin o'neills brand of football. I was never sold on his brand like some folk was.

Fair enough.

But your opinion of his football doesn't change the league position we finished in, the points total we had and how far off the top 4 we were.

I'm simply not as convinced as some, that Lerner is a bad egg.

He's not a bad egg, he's just **** useless at running a sports club.

Your opinion is clear. I just don't share it.

[TRO]

Why oh why do we have to bring Ellis into it time and time again.

I think it's natural to mention him.

Just like lambert will be spoke about in comparison to past managers and players will be spoke about in comparison to past players.

Why dont you compare it to the 1897 double winning side? Football in that era has nearly as much relevance to current football as football had in Dougs Time. Everything has changed now and its virtually impossible to compete for top 4. If Doug was chairman now i've no doubt we would be down there with wolves in the 1st division

How can you post this when you see a club like everton up there most years.

Its nonsense.

So judging by your response I deduce you that credit that to Bill Kenwright?

Why oh why do we have to bring Ellis into it time and time again.

I think it's natural to mention him.

Just like lambert will be spoke about in comparison to past managers and players will be spoke about in comparison to past players.

Why dont you compare it to the 1897 double winning side? Football in that era has nearly as much relevance to current football as football had in Dougs Time. Everything has changed now and its virtually impossible to compete for top 4. If Doug was chairman now i've no doubt we would be down there with wolves in the 1st division

How can you post this when you see a club like everton up there most years.

Its nonsense.

So judging by your response I deduce that you credit that to Bill Kenwright?

[Big_John_10]

So judging by your response I deduce you that credit that to Bill Kenwright?

It was to show that saying its impossible for a club like ours to challenge the top 4 is not true.

[TRO]

So judging by your response I deduce you that credit that to Bill Kenwright?

It was to show that saying its impossible for a club like ours to challenge the top 4 is not true.

And on that note I will most fervently agree with you.

Where we may differ, is who we credit with being the crucial factor, the manager or the owner/chairman

[John]

Colin Gibson said on Radio WM on Monday evening "I actually think that the chairman should look at what job the manager has done and reward him by enabling him to spend a little bit of money and to trust his judgement because what has gone on with other managers has gone now I think Paul has earned the right now for the job he has done this season to give it a go".

[daggy_333]

Colin Gibson said on Radio WM on Monday evening "I actually think that the chairman should look at what job the manager has done and reward him by enabling him to spend a little bit of money and to trust his judgement because what has gone on with other managers has gone now I think Paul has earned the right now for the job he has done this season to give it a go".

 

Not to be pedantic but i think it was Steve Froggatt who said that-i could be wrong though I agree with whoever it was anyway-Lambert should be rewarded for the players he's already found on a smallish budget.

[Condimentalist]

 

Colin Gibson said on Radio WM on Monday evening "I actually think that the chairman should look at what job the manager has done and reward him by enabling him to spend a little bit of money and to trust his judgement because what has gone on with other managers has gone now I think Paul has earned the right now for the job he has done this season to give it a go".

 

Not to be pedantic but i think it was Steve Froggatt who said that-i could be wrong though I agree with whoever it was anyway-Lambert should be rewarded for the players he's already found on a smallish budget.

 

 

I'm quite sure he'll be backed. As much as anything else, he's added about £40m in value to the squad this season. That's pretty remarkable going. I think he'll be backed to continue in the same vein, though, not to go after players like Lescott.

[John]

It was Colin daggy-333.

[daggy_333]

It was Colin daggy-333.

 

Froggatt must have repeated it then cause it was him i heard it off lol

[ozvillafan]

Our wage bill is currently 7th highest, despite dropping 13mill from last season. Over the last 3 seasons we have seen finishes of 9th, 17th and 15th. Clearly we are not getting the return we should be.

 

So what is good business practice? Throw more money at the problem in the hope that it solves itself? Or reign back expenses till it is more in line with results and then build from there?

 

Both options have their own risks - financial ruin in option 1 and reduced revenue in option 2 if we drop out of the league - but it is obvious we cannot compete with the likes of Citeh, Chelski and ManUre in wages and transfer amounts.

 

So how, then, do we compete? It is obvious that Randy has decided on a new course by building on youth from within our own academy and from the lower leagues both in England and abroad. He has picked a manager that can build a club this way and backed him with 20mill.

 

Despite spending the majority of the season in the drop zone and turning in some truly abysmal performances, we finished higher than last season. A watershed season in many posters eyes, with most agreeing that we are on the up after a torrid few years.

 

So where does Randy fit in this? Most see him as losing interest. Others see him setting up the club to sell. Both of these may be true, but they appear to be based on nothing more than gut feeling and rumour as Randy is not one to blab everything to the press.

 

What we do know is that he has backed his managers every season. Certainly not with the amounts we see from the top 4 clubs, but backed nevertheless. He has allowed the manager to do his job, which includes scouting the players he wants. He has provided the infrastructure needed both within the club and the training grounds.

 

As such, I'm not convinced that Randy deserves some of the hate shown in this thread. Certainly he is not above criticism and he has made mistakes - but what I see is someone who is learning from those mistakes and has a plan in place to grow the club (albeit a different plan from when he first arrived) which, after a difficult season, I think has laid the foundations for success.

[KentVillan]

Our wage bill is currently 7th highest, despite dropping 13mill from last season. Over the last 3 seasons we have seen finishes of 9th, 17th and 15th. Clearly we are not getting the return we should be.

I think those are the finances for last season, though? I also don't subscribe to the idea that wage bills alone indicate where you should be finishing each season. Wage bills obviously correlate with performance, but correlation is not causation. If you sign a manager like McLeish who is clearly only going to last one season, then you guarantee that another manager is going to have to spend a season fixing things. Changing manager two seasons running is very bad for your wage efficiency, because you'll have two sets of high wage earners (Houllier signings and McLeish signings) who don't fit the new manager's style. A lot of your wage bill is wasted in a transitional season, with something very similar happening at Liverpool this year.

The most important thing is that we get good value for the players we sell, and that Lambert is backed to continue his successful work in the transfer market. Bent's goal against Wigan has probably done us some favours, and I don't really mind either way what happens with Benteke - I assume the options are either 25m+ or having a potentially world class striker for another season. An experienced centre half and a replacement for Petrov, along with some more young talent, and we're looking like a pretty useful squad. Plus you'd assume that the vast majority of our current starters will keep getting better.

[P3te]

Our wage bill is currently 7th highest, despite dropping 13mill from last season. Over the last 3 seasons we have seen finishes of 9th, 17th and 15th. Clearly we are not getting the return we should be.

You're dead right, we're definitely not. For the 7th highest wage in the league last season, we were nowhere bloody close to the 7th best squad. When the books come out for this year though I think things will start looking a bit better. I'd expect us to be maybe 11-12th highest wage in the league, with a squad that's arguably about that in quality too. The interesting thing is that next year we'll probably have a lower wage again, but an increasingly high league position. It's not all about the black and white bottom line, as we've shown, but more about the value you're getting for your outlay. Vlaar, Benteke, Westwood and Lowton are probably on around the same combined as Ireland is, for example

[lexicon]

It was 7th highest according to last year's figures (as of May 2012) -  seeing as we've let a lot of people go and not brought in expensive replacements I'd imagine it's quite a bit less now and will continue to drop.

[OutByEaster?]

Lerner has failed not only as our chairman but as a business man and I've seen nothing from him to suggest either will change.

 

I agree with the first half of that sentence, he gambled early and failed and since then he's made some very poor decisions, but in terms of seeing nothing to suggest either will change, I'd point out that in the last 12 months he's cut the costs in his business significantly, maintained or increased revenues and attained at least the rudimentary basis of some sort of continuity in senior positions. I think you can make a case for that as suggesting he's changed as a businessman - it might be just luck, one swallow and all that, but he's made some good business decisions in the last twelve months.

 

As a Chairman, I'm less sure - if you take the businessman's aims as profit and the Chairmans aims as success then there is much to prove.

 

One thing I do notice about the way we talk about him, there's the idea that he's significantly changed in recent years - it seems to me that his investment of his own money has been pretty consistent since day one, our losses have made it a less effective investment every year, but it seems to me without a great deal of research that he's remained at pretty much the same level in terms of investment of his own money since he bought the club. It also seems to me that he's been coming over to the UK with pretty much the same frequency since day one, there's an idea that he doesn't come over much anymore, but he was over eight times this season and I don't think he was ever over much more than that. I think results and the things he's done when he's been here have changed how we perceive him rather than his behaviour having actually changed. I might be wrong on that but there you go.

[Denis_B]

He might have been over but it's strange he can't be arsed to actually come and watch his team play - he used t odo that regularly and be seen around the place on match days

[ozvillafan]

He might have been over but it's strange he can't be arsed to actually come and watch his team play - he used t odo that regularly and be seen around the place on match days

 

I work for a company whose owner lives in France and only makes the odd appearance here down-under (our head office). Yet he's still the owner and as committed as ever.

 

I know football is an unusual business, but business owners that aren't always "there" isn't strange.

[Big_John_10]

maintained or increased revenues

Someone posted some figure recently and while our revenue might have increased it wasn't as much as other clubs and I believe we dropped behind Norwich and Sunderland in terms of commercial revenue.

With our low finish and the increase in money we've also received quite a significant amount less than the majority of teams in the premier league this season.

So I'm not sure this is something he really deserves any credit for.