The Randy Lerner thread

[terrytini]

Just now, Mantis said:

Not at all. I completely accept they could get worse (and for me, anything less than bouncing straight back up would be getting a lot worse) I can just see that the chances of us going down to League 2 or even League 1 are very very unlikely. As I said though, I'm certainly not sure that we'll come straight back up - we could definitely end up in the same position as say, Middlesbrough were when they went down.

Yes, hysterical. Saying that we could end up going down to League 2 is hysterical. I'm sorry but it is.

And that's a flawed comparison. Surely you can see the difference between a top 6 club getting relegated in the space of 6 years and a PL club dropping all the way down to League 1. I'm baffled as to how you can think going from 6th to 19th/20th is somehow a bigger drop than dropping through an entire division.

I never said League 2 was impossible, just very unlikely. Your tactic of selecting occurrences which were once deemed unlikely isn't a very good one because for even that came true there were dozens of just as unlikely outcomes that didn't.

Ok, we'll have to agree to disagree on hysterical. Not sure you can be a better judge of my emotional state than me but there we go.

And your clarification helps  - you do think things could get worse.  Worse than relegation from the Premier League  - but not so much worse that we drop another one.  So not much worse then ? I think they could get massively worse.  In fact I am convinced they will get a lot worse. But hopefully you are right.

The flawed comparison.  No, I don't think so. In fact, I know so. 

Because I know if someone had said that to me back then I'd have laughed at them.  A billionaire owner, Cup Final, Semi Final, challenging for Champions League ?  The only way was up.  Championship ? No Chance at all. 

But if someone said to me now we could end up in League 1, or 2, or out of business, I wouldn't laugh at all.  A disinterested (to say the least) distant, want out owner, year after year of decline with very very obvious warning signs being wilfully ignored, the selling of any player that anyone will buy, the appointment of Hollis. The overbearing atmosphere of decay and disinterest around the Club. Championship ? Yup. Freefall, yup, why on earth not. 

So I think the drop we did, from what we had, to here, IS harder to imagine than simply losing half our games next year, which I don't find hard to imagine at all. Again though, I hope you are right.

And finally my 'tactic'...there you go again, like its a battle !!  Its not a tactic, its just saying that very unexpected things happen.  And really, do you really really find it so hard to imagine Lerner damaging this Club, after what has already happened ?

[GENTLEMAN]

14 minutes ago, OLDVILLAIN said:

People arguing about what level of trouble the club is in.

The club is clearly in freefall,even the least clued in non supporter can see that.

The owner,board and the management have not said a word which is a slap in the face to the season ticket holders in my opinion.

The empty seats yesterday spoke volumes...but will it be enough to stir the board into action and to outlay their plans for the club going forward?

Times are going to be interesting as we go forward...for good or for bad.

They have no plan on the playing side, it seems to me like they are chancing it and more focused on cuts and selling valuable assets (which we have done consistently over the last five years). The way Hollis was talking about the academy, I assume a lot of the youngsters will supplement the squad next season - and it is likely they will sell our highly rated prospects to Premier League clubs. 

My fear is we will have another overhaul with 13 championship-level players coming in and struggling to gel, we will then hear the same sorry excuses about transition periods and finances. This is what happens when you neglect the playing side (the most important part of your business) and now you have Hollis cock blocking transfer moves that could improve the squad. The fans deserve better than this. 

I really wish Lerner will sell before it gets worse, but it appears Randy wants his money's worth whatever happens on the pitch.

[Mantis]

1 minute ago, terrytini said:

Ok, we'll have to agree to disagree on hysterical. Not sure you can be a better judge of my emotional state than me but there we go.

And your clarification helps  - you do think things could get worse.  Worse than relegation from the Premier League  - but not so much worse that we drop another one.  So not much worse then ? I think they could get massively worse.  In fact I am convinced they will get a lot worse. But hopefully you are right.

The flawed comparison.  No, I don't think so. In fact, I know so. 

Because I know if someone had said that to me back then I'd have laughed at them.  A billionaire owner, Cup Final, Semi Final, challenging for Champions League ?  The only way was up.  Championship ? No Chance at all. 

But if someone said to me now we could end up in League 1, or 2, or out of business, I wouldn't laugh at all.  A disinterested (to say the least) distant, want out owner, year after year of decline with very very obvious warning signs being wilfully ignored, the selling of any player that anyone will buy, the appointment of Hollis. The overbearing atmosphere of decay and disinterest around the Club. Championship ? Yup. Freefall, yup, why on earth not. 

So I think the drop we did, from what we had, to here, IS harder to imagine than simply losing half our games next year, which I don't find hard to imagine at all. Again though, I hope you are right.

And finally my 'tactic'...there you go again, like its a battle !!  Its not a tactic, its just saying that very unexpected things happen.  And really, do you really really find it so hard to imagine Lerner damaging this Club, after what has already happened ?

I never said I thought you were hysterical.

Yes that's right - I never said things couldn't get worse. And I never said that we couldn't drop down to League 1, just that it's very unlikely.

That's because of the trajectory. When you're on the up even a minor setback feels unlikely and likewise when you're on your way down simply standing still feels like an impossibility. If you take a step back and look at things objectively and logically you'll see that regardless of how things feel right now it still is very unlikely at the moment.

Tactic, argument, whatever. Who gives a ****? That wasn't even my point. My point was that for every unlikely occurrence there are dozens of others that don't happen.

What? Where did I say or imply that I found it hard to imagine Lerner damaging the club? All I'm saying is that a drop down into League 1/2 is unlikely - because it is.

[terrytini]

Just now, Mantis said:

You're missing the point a bit - it's not like we're not going to spend or are only going to spend peanuts for the next few years. The reason why we're not spending now for example is because there's so little hope of staying up. It's in Lerner's interest that we bounce back up or at least give it a try.

Oh is it ?  You hope that's the reason, but now you are entering a very tricky guessing game.  We have often spent peanuts.  How on earth do you know it will be different in the Summer ?  I firmly believe it won't , but I don't know. The reason is we aren't staying up you say ? Is it ? You don't know that. And what if we are mid table or worse next season, does he 'not spend in case we don't stay in this one either' ? Possible ?

Now I see that at least some of your optimism is based on the hope we will spend in the summer.  Now, for a minute, imagine we don't. Just for a minute.

Now how do you see us doing ? I see us like the privileged pretty boy at school suddenly adrift without his minder.  Every Club will want to hammer us, and we don't have the personnel for a scrap. We'll have an unproven manager, an unproven Chairman, possibly lose Ayew, Amavi, and a couple of others.  Bring in the youth.  Who knows, we did it before ! Imagine our fans if we aren't top by Christmas ? 

Again, I find myself hoping you are right, but nothing points to it for me.

[terrytini]

3 minutes ago, Mantis said:

I never said I thought you were hysterical.

Yes that's right - I never said things couldn't get worse. And I never said that we couldn't drop down to League 1, just that it's very unlikely.

That's because of the trajectory. When you're on the up even a minor setback feels unlikely and likewise when you're on your way down simply standing still feels like an impossibility. If you take a step back and look at things objectively and logically you'll see that regardless of how things feel right now it still is very unlikely at the moment.

Tactic, argument, whatever. Who gives a ****? That wasn't even my point. My point was that for every unlikely occurrence there are dozens of others that don't happen.

What? Where did I say or imply that I found it hard to imagine Lerner damaging the club? All I'm saying is that a drop down into League 1/2 is unlikely - because it is.

If all you had said was "I think a drop to League 2 is unlikely" I doubt anyone would have disagreed with you, other than to see where 'unliklely' ranked for you.  Ive just re-read the whole exchange from about 6 pages ago and it certainly didn't start out like that.

But if you think you could see Lerner  damage the Club still further, and a drop to League 2 is possible, and that unlikely occurrences do indeed happen, all I can say is I agree, but am concerned it is even more likely than you think.

 

[Mantis]

11 minutes ago, terrytini said:

Oh is it ?  You hope that's the reason, but now you are entering a very tricky guessing game.  We have often spent peanuts.  How on earth do you know it will be different in the Summer ?  I firmly believe it won't , but I don't know. The reason is we aren't staying up you say ? Is it ? You don't know that. And what if we are mid table or worse next season, does he 'not spend in case we don't stay in this one either' ? Possible ?

Now I see that at least some of your optimism is based on the hope we will spend in the summer.  Now, for a minute, imagine we don't. Just for a minute.

Now how do you see us doing ? I see us like the privileged pretty boy at school suddenly adrift without his minder.  Every Club will want to hammer us, and we don't have the personnel for a scrap. We'll have an unproven manager, an unproven Chairman, possibly lose Ayew, Amavi, and a couple of others.  Bring in the youth.  Who knows, we did it before ! Imagine our fans if we aren't top by Christmas ? 

Again, I find myself hoping you are right, but nothing points to it for me.

As I said, because it's in Lerner's interests. Contrary to what some people seem to think (and I'm not referring to you before you jump on me) it's not in anyone's interests at the club for us to be going all the way down to League 1 or whatever.

Optimism? What optimism? Just because I'm not preaching doom and gloom about everything doesn't mean I'm optimistic. If I was optimistic I'd be saying that we're going to walk the Championship next season and I'm certainly not saying that. There is a middle ground.

I honestly don't know how we'll do. We could do really well - there is precedent for that. Equally however we could struggle and up stuck in mid-table. I don't actually think we'll be as big a scalp as we would've been a few years ago. We've been crap for a while now and loads of lower league teams have beaten us in the cups. We don't have the personnel right now for a scrap but then again few clubs that go down do - that's why the summer is so key. Garde is no less "proven" than basically anybody else we can realistically attract so I'm not overly concerned about that and I'm going to wait before making a judgement on Hollis.

6 minutes ago, terrytini said:

If all you had said was "I think a drop to League 2 is unlikely" I doubt anyone would have disagreed with you, other than to see where 'unliklely' ranked for you.  Ive just re-read the whole exchange from about 6 pages ago and it certainly didn't start out like that.

But if you think you could see Lerner  damage the Club still further, and a drop to League 2 is possible, and that unlikely occurrences do indeed happen, all I can say is I agree, but am concerned it is even more likely than you think.

I think a drop into League 1 is unlikely. I think a drop down to League 2 is extremely unlikely. As I said, the fact that some people seem to see it as anything other than a remote possibility is just madness.

Edited January 31, 2016 by Mantis

[VillaChris]

I actually agree with Mantis, eventually teams find a level, bottom out and then rise again. We've seen that with SHA and WBA who have yo yo between the top two divisions quite regularly until the last 5 years where both have stabilised in the two leagues.

I think the problem we're going to have is we've been so long in the top flight and so established next season will just come as a massive culture shock. It will be a struggle if we don't come back up. Look at teams like Bolton, Fulham and Blackburn. Long timers in the premier league but their first 11s gradually got worse over time due to cost cutting just like us, both went down, people tipped them to come straight back up, they didn't and their crowds started dwindling, parachute payments ran out (big trouble for Bolton) and now all 3 look more lilkely to go down to league one than come up looking at the league one table.

Others that have been relegated from the prem and gone down to league 1 before returning to this league include Norwich and Southampton, SHA nearly went there the other year, Wolves did. Pompey and Leeds are a little different as both were messed up financially.

My feeling is we would through luck or judgement build a squad good enough to compete at championship level next season but if we don't go up and don't have strong leadership then I'd worry as I doubt our crowds would hold up for a second season of championship football.

As I've said before next season is going to be something different at least in all respects and a trip into the unknown as far as I'm concerned even if we know many of the teams down there as half of them have been in the premier league last 5-6 years.

[TRO]

I don't know of what part we seemed to have got better during the last 5 years.....which some folk have mooted along the way.

we have gone from top half to regular bottom half.....how was any of those decisions during that period made us better?

Edited January 31, 2016 by TRO

[ferguson1]

The one thing I would say and it's probably not the right place but I am 40 years of age and have had some real highs and lows watching this club.  I was 7 years old when I went to my first game with my dad and it was 0-0 at home against Man City - bloody awful game but I was hooked!  Loved the buzz of match day ever since but this season has really tested me!! I will still be going for the remainder of the season and whatever league we are in, no doubt will be going again next season as well but we all have our limits surely? I'm not in this camp yet but fear I maybe if we struggle again!  Hope Randy understands that we are not mugs that will just keep accepting the decline and turning up week on week, year after year!

[jackbauer24]

2 hours ago, Mantis said:

You're missing the point a bit - it's not like we're not going to spend or are only going to spend peanuts for the next few years. The reason why we're not spending now for example is because there's so little hope of staying up. It's in Lerner's interest that we bounce back up or at least give it a try.

You are fielding a few arguments so I'll keep my response short

My simple response to the idea that it is in Lerner's interest to at least give it a try is to point you to the last few years - it was in his interest to keep us in the Premier League, but in all likelihood he hasn't done that either. He simply hasn't invested in transfers and, more importantly, wages when it has become clear we were struggling year on year.

I kind of agree that spending now is slightly pointless, as much as I as a fan would like it, but it's just wasting cash now. But he had an opportunity to invest in summer in 'his interest' and he didn't do it.

I hope you're right and I'm wrong but history points unfavourably to a return to even moderate investment.

 

[Dr_Pangloss]

I have genuine hatred for many of the people involved behind the scenes at the club, especially for Randy Lerner. He is a low life piece of shit and needs to go.

[DCJonah]

5 minutes ago, jackbauer24 said:

You are fielding a few arguments so I'll keep my response short

My simple response to the idea that it is in Lerner's interest to at least give it a try is to point you to the last few years - it was in his interest to keep us in the Premier League, but in all likelihood he hasn't done that either. He simply hasn't invested in transfers and, more importantly, wages when it has become clear we were struggling year on year.

I kind of agree that spending now is slightly pointless, as much as I as a fan would like it, but it's just wasting cash now. But he had an opportunity to invest in summer in 'his interest' and he didn't do it.

I hope you're right and I'm wrong but history points unfavourably to a return to even moderate investment.

 

Was just gonna post something similar. It's all well and good saying its in his best interest but it was in his best interest to not make us one of the worst premier league clubs. It doesn't matter what's in his best interest, he's proven that by being the owner he's detrimental to this club. That won't change just because its in his best interest. 

[TRO]

34 minutes ago, ferguson1 said:

The one thing I would say and it's probably not the right place but I am 40 years of age and have had some real highs and lows watching this club.  I was 7 years old when I went to my first game with my dad and it was 0-0 at home against Man City - bloody awful game but I was hooked!  Loved the buzz of match day ever since but this season has really tested me!! I will still be going for the remainder of the season and whatever league we are in, no doubt will be going again next season as well but we all have our limits surely? I'm not in this camp yet but fear I maybe if we struggle again!  Hope Randy understands that we are not mugs that will just keep accepting the decline and turning up week on week, year after year!

I am 65 next month and been following Villa since I was a toddler sitting my dads shoulders.

I have seen many management set ups since Joe Mercer until today.

There have been more downs than ups and during my time watching them we have never been a club for splashing out big fee's.....very rarely. The only real success we have ever had had been down to the ability of the management teams to find these players.....and of course that has inevitably varied, based on our ability to appoint good managers and their staff.

Today the big money had fast tracked some clubs to negating that method, others have tried to compete and wasted fortunes....only the few can do it.

The season quite a few clubs have managed to resurrect what we used to do, problem is we have lost the skill at doing it.

With a relatively rich owner (initially)and new state of the art trying ground we thought we could do it and fell short.

We need to go back to basics and do what we have always done best.

Ps It sounds like I am trying to bail Lerner out, but that is not my intention.....I'm simply looking at how we have made successes in the past.

Pps If you do something right, you learn from it, basic common sense.

Edited January 31, 2016 by TRO

[dont_do_it_doug.]

I have genuine hatred for many of the people involved behind the scenes at the club, especially for Randy Lerner. He is a low life piece of shit and needs to go.

The rest of them are purely working within the constraints Lerner has placed on the club. I think hating them is a bit odd.

Lerner on the other hand, every bit as bad as Ellis at this stage. We need this club sold ASAP.

[Richard]

2 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

The rest of them are purely working within the constraints Lerner has placed on the club. I think hating them is a bit odd.

Lerner on the other hand, every bit as bad as Ellis at this stage. We need this club sold ASAP.

Worse . He does not give one shit for the football club

[TRO]

22 minutes ago, jackbauer24 said:

You are fielding a few arguments so I'll keep my response short

My simple response to the idea that it is in Lerner's interest to at least give it a try is to point you to the last few years - it was in his interest to keep us in the Premier League, but in all likelihood he hasn't done that either. He simply hasn't invested in transfers and, more importantly, wages when it has become clear we were struggling year on year.

I kind of agree that spending now is slightly pointless, as much as I as a fan would like it, but it's just wasting cash now. But he had an opportunity to invest in summer in 'his interest' and he didn't do it.

I hope you're right and I'm wrong but history points unfavourably to a return to even moderate investment.

 

For me, this lack of Investment argument ( in isolation)is flawed.

There is never a time where enough money is being spent to satisfaction .....I'll bet Man City fans say it from time to time.....as soon as there is a blip.

Its a bit of a "fish in a fish bowl".....If you ask a fish, the bowl will never be big enough.

Arguably we had ( in General)better players during HDE's stewardship than Randy's and Randy has been ( particularly in his formative years with the club) fairly generous in comparison to Doug....its just that we have not managed to capitalise on getting the same value for money pro rata.

So for me there is an Iffy correlation between the spending ( in isolation of other important factors in my view) and success.

ps .....and by the way that is not me saying don't spend, because paradoxically I think we have to spend our way out of this mess.....but we must get the right players. The fact that we have royally ****** up does not mean you have to abandon spending.....It means you have abandon signing duff players.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

It's like arguing over which cancer you'd like to be riddled with.

[The Fun Factory]

It's ridiculous that at the start of his reign he was practically throwing money at the club. I mean we spent millions doing up a pub, and now when we are desperate for a striker we aren't in the market.  I know there is the idea of careful of what you wish for, but surely any competent takeover of the club is going to do better than Lerner post 2010. Just plain awful. The paucity of ambition from the top is staggering. 

[TRO]

9 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

It's like arguing over which cancer you'd like to be riddled with.

but its not, its arguments that are linked but one without the other gives a distorted picture.

(just like scoring goals, numbers alone are too simplistic).

Managers need to convince owners they are slick in the transfer market and that the money they are asking for will 1) enhance the team and 2) not lose money if we have to sell.

That is the ideal scenario....some managers have done it well, hence they have less resistance in getting more....good success in the transfer market is self perpetuating.

We have just had years of the opposite....so the shutters are eventually pulled down

not saying its right.....I'm just trying to put a feasible slant on our situation.

Edited January 31, 2016 by TRO

[dont_do_it_doug.]

I am talking about Ellis vs Lerner.