Rovers13 Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 http://www.cleveland.com/sports/index.ssf/2013/05/aston_villa_players_high_on_ra.html Interesting little article I guess Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ciggiesnbeer Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 Good article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozvillafan Posted May 31, 2013 VT Supporter Share Posted May 31, 2013 http://www.cleveland.com/sports/index.ssf/2013/05/aston_villa_players_high_on_ra.html Interesting little article I guess I get the distinct feeling that Randy gets more flak than he should on here because he tends to keeps to himself. Most of us don't know how often he is in and around - but from what Guzan says, he's readily available to the players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentVilla Posted May 31, 2013 Moderator Share Posted May 31, 2013 And everyone who keeps telling me how much football has changed. Can one of you explain what's changed so much that has made it difficult for a club like ours to be doing better? Because I'm struggling to see how this big change has made it so hard for us. I think we were a bit unlucky in that when we finally made our big push for the top 4 in Randy's first 3 years, City came along as well and made it even more difficult. Our problem is that unlike Tottenham who bought players, increased their value, sold them, then reinvested and could stay competitive, we bought players, let their value crash down, had them warm the bench because they were shit and released them for nothing. Nigel Reo-Coker was the deal that summed it up - bought for £8m and released for nothing, all in his twenties. If we'd reinvested wisely then we could still be up in the top 6. We weren't unlucky with the emergence of Man City, they didn't stop us reaching the top 4 we never even made the top 5. As for the comparison to Spurs we signed Young, Milner, Downing all of whom were sold at big profits so I'm not sure your comparison is accurate. Unfortunately we wasted the profit, some was wasted by O'Neill and some by the crap managers Lerner appointed and some by Lerner himself paying for them and signing Ireland. Regardless of how we reinvested though we wouldn't still be in the top 6 because Lerner allowed us to build an unsustainable wage bill and the pull the rug from under it so staying in the top 6 was never going to happen when he did that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DelboyVilla Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 Usual expected article with a player praising his employer in the media. Means nothing I would rather a horrible owner who actually knew what he was doing? It was interesting to be reminded that the US sports fan has absolutley no idea on the concept of relegation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caddy Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 ^Lol. The average U.S. sports fan is fairweather, bandwagon, and will bail at the first sight of trouble. Bar a few exceptional communities that love their team through thick and thin (Chicago Cubs, Cleveland Browns, and Golden State Warriors to name some good examples), the attendance chart almost always correlates with the table. I shudder to think how the average American fan would react to their team being demoted to a lower league! I think most teams would struggle for 50% of capacity. Unfortunately, this is also why MLS and the USSF have been so reluctant to introduce promotion and relegation to the American football pyramid, because the #1 goal throughout MLS' existence has been the financial stability and viability of its clubs, and fickle American fans could throw a wrench into that if pro/rel was thrown into the mix. But I digress. As for the topic at hand, speaking as someone who's only been a Villa supporter for the better part of 2 years, I don't think his failures have been due to a lack of effort or willingness to invest, to a certain extent. However, being a successful Prem owner (success in this context meaning competing for European qualification) in 2013 is contingent on one of two things: A. being privy to the Premiership transfer market, its culture, and the way it operates, thus being able to exploit market deficiencies (see: Levy, Dan and more recently Ashley, Mike) or B. having enough sugar daddy money to overcome this lack of knowledge (Big Daddy Roman or Sheikh Mansour). As we all know, Lerner is neither of these things. I can't see us rising above lower mid-table mediocrity until he sells on, sorry to say, 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharkyvilla Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 And everyone who keeps telling me how much football has changed. Can one of you explain what's changed so much that has made it difficult for a club like ours to be doing better? Because I'm struggling to see how this big change has made it so hard for us. I think we were a bit unlucky in that when we finally made our big push for the top 4 in Randy's first 3 years, City came along as well and made it even more difficult. Our problem is that unlike Tottenham who bought players, increased their value, sold them, then reinvested and could stay competitive, we bought players, let their value crash down, had them warm the bench because they were shit and released them for nothing. Nigel Reo-Coker was the deal that summed it up - bought for £8m and released for nothing, all in his twenties. If we'd reinvested wisely then we could still be up in the top 6. We weren't unlucky with the emergence of Man City, they didn't stop us reaching the top 4 we never even made the top 5. As for the comparison to Spurs we signed Young, Milner, Downing all of whom were sold at big profits so I'm not sure your comparison is accurate. Unfortunately we wasted the profit, some was wasted by O'Neill and some by the crap managers Lerner appointed and some by Lerner himself paying for them and signing Ireland. Regardless of how we reinvested though we wouldn't still be in the top 6 because Lerner allowed us to build an unsustainable wage bill and the pull the rug from under it so staying in the top 6 was never going to happen when he did that. I'm not so convinced that it was an unsustainable wage bill. I think it was a fair enough budget, the problem was that so much of it got pissed up the wall through poor, short-term signings. If we'd invested properly then we could have stayed 6th. The turning point I think was the Heskey signing, and Lerner finally realised in the summer that something was going horribly wrong with O'Neill. Either way what's past is past and Lerner has done the right thing this season and Lambert seems to enjoy the task of building the club back up again. He's almost got a clean canvass to work with thanks to not gambling on more short-term signings in January. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_John_10 Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 I'm not so convinced that it was an unsustainable wage bill It really was.not gambling on more short-term signings in January. And gambling with the future of this club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharkyvilla Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 I'm not so convinced that it was an unsustainable wage bill It really was. not gambling on more short-term signings in January. And gambling with the future of this club. IMO the bigger gamble would have been to spend money on more players who would come in and then be very difficult to shift so we'd be back to square one again. Lerner and Lambert made a tough decision and it's worked out perfectly and they should be given every credit for it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoony Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 Lerner cocked up with McLeish (I wouldn't say Houllier because, given time, I think he would have made a good team out of us). He also made some poor calls with how he bankrolled MON, HOWEVER he DID let MON sign the players HE wanted and we'd have all kicked off if he didn't. Like him or loathe him, Lerner has poured a lot of money into the club and he certainly doesn't deserve the stick he gets. I prefer supporting Villa now than I did under the Doug Ellis/Taylor/O'Leary era (which was when I started supporting Villa). He gets criticism for his bad decisions and he deserves praise for his good ones: he made a good call in hiring Lambert, who is just the man we needed to strip back the team to its basics and create a team with a more sustainable, long-term plan. He has given Lambert a fair old chunk of cash to spend already which he has spent very well. We're on the up again; I'm utterly convinced of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_John_10 Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 I'm not so convinced that it was an unsustainable wage bill It really was. not gambling on more short-term signings in January. And gambling with the future of this club. IMO the bigger gamble would have been to spend money on more players who would come in and then be very difficult to shift so we'd be back to square one again. Lerner and Lambert made a tough decision and it's worked out perfectly and they should be given every credit for it. Why was the only option to buy over priced players that we'd struggle to shift? I don't get why you think that's all we could do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurtsimonw Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 We weren't unlucky with the emergence of Man City, they didn't stop us reaching the top 4 we never even made the top 5. That's not how football works though. If Man City didn't exist, that's 38 different results over the season. If Man City didn't exist, we may have gone into the final game with a big chance at getting the top 4, rather than playing in a meaningless games which we lost. One thing is for certain, Man City finished above us and there is the possibility we'd have finished above them had they not had that money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentVilla Posted May 31, 2013 Moderator Share Posted May 31, 2013 We weren't unlucky with the emergence of Man City, they didn't stop us reaching the top 4 we never even made the top 5. That's not how football works though. If Man City didn't exist, that's 38 different results over the season. If Man City didn't exist, we may have gone into the final game with a big chance at getting the top 4, rather than playing in a meaningless games which we lost. One thing is for certain, Man City finished above us and there is the possibility we'd have finished above them had they not had that money. Man City didn't stop us reaching the top 4. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 We weren't unlucky with the emergence of Man City, they didn't stop us reaching the top 4 we never even made the top 5. That's not how football works though. If Man City didn't exist, that's 38 different results over the season. If Man City didn't exist, we may have gone into the final game with a big chance at getting the top 4, rather than playing in a meaningless games which we lost. One thing is for certain, Man City finished above us and there is the possibility we'd have finished above them had they not had that money. Man City didn't stop us reaching the top 4. Quite right and it gets right up my snotbox when people continuously use this as the excuse for us not finishing in the top four Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SikhInTrinity Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 Agree, it was the type of signings i.e. signing Heskey from Wigan to get us into the top 4 and losing Laursen at a crucial time cost us top 4. MON's inability to win a game in March. Man City finished 7th that year so hardly stopped us from finishing top 4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 We weren't unlucky with the emergence of Man City, they didn't stop us reaching the top 4 we never even made the top 5. That's not how football works though. If Man City didn't exist, that's 38 different results over the season. If Man City didn't exist, we may have gone into the final game with a big chance at getting the top 4, rather than playing in a meaningless games which we lost. One thing is for certain, Man City finished above us and there is the possibility we'd have finished above them had they not had that money. Man City didn't stop us reaching the top 4. thats true. the inept manager did 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 But I digress. As for the topic at hand, speaking as someone who's only been a Villa supporter for the better part of 2 years... Just out of curiosity, can I ask why you decided to start supporting Villa? If you started following the club a couple of years ago, I'm guessing that would've been around the time of Houllier? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_John_10 Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 We weren't unlucky with the emergence of Man City, they didn't stop us reaching the top 4 we never even made the top 5. That's not how football works though. If Man City didn't exist, that's 38 different results over the season. If Man City didn't exist, we may have gone into the final game with a big chance at getting the top 4, rather than playing in a meaningless games which we lost. One thing is for certain, Man City finished above us and there is the possibility we'd have finished above them had they not had that money. Man City didn't stop us reaching the top 4. thats true. the inept manager did Haha Inept for not taking a team that fought relegation to top 4 in 4 years. Not asking much. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted May 31, 2013 Share Posted May 31, 2013 No, inept for taking a team who rewarded it's players with the 6th best wages in the league to erm , 6th 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PieFacE Posted May 31, 2013 VT Supporter Share Posted May 31, 2013 (edited) Can we please not get into the MON debate again? He finished 6th with 6th highest wages, a better manager would have done more (there are lots of them), a worse manager would have done less (there are lots of them)..... He's gone, it's over..... Edited May 31, 2013 by PieFacE 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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