Hev Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 What's the point anymore Randy? Spot on Richard. He has clearly lost interest for one reason or another Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briny_ear Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Petition to get Randy out.. i dont think he will be as stubborn as Douglas was. How do we start one of these? Try clicking this! http://bit.ly/WLuWnR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pricey_1984 Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 he must be up for the business man of the the year award who the fdjhgjfhg excuse my french decided to give hutton and given 5 year deals? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nabby Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Are we for sale ? 1)Money spent is owed to Lerner so anymore we spend will again be owed to him and put up price of club 2)Lambert not walked , seems the character who wouldn't stand for being messed about.Also left Livingstone ,Wycombe and Colchester as had gone as far as he could with them.Why stay under such tight conditions.Has he been told club for sale things have to be kept tight till buyer is found ? 3)I don't care what they say Randy is barely here anymore and couldn't make a semi final ,he has a private Jet FFS.Interest has waned Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Richard Posted January 24, 2013 Popular Post Share Posted January 24, 2013 Was going to wait until the end of the window, but feck it it may as well end for us now and I cant be arsed if he spends or not Three years ago I started a thread on here which was openly criticizing the owner. It was a thread that brought me much abuse and much criticism. Over the years between that point and last summer I maintained my criticism of Randy Lerner in the face of, what was, overwhelming support for the man. In my thread I said he had done much for the club, but that where it mattered most on the pitch we still had a long way to go. That it would require much more massive investment and should he not afford it then it was time for him to do one more service for the club and either sell up to someone with more wealth, or seek additional investment. Like I say that opinion did not find much support on this site! In the intervening years he reigned back on investing in the team, changed direction in terms of ambition (it seemed) and started down a path which exposed how badly he had run the club and highlighted his total ineptness in running a “sporting franchise”. My fears had been justified , my criticisms fair he had no clue, no plan b to get us to the promised land. Despite the proud history the future was not bright, a better strapline could have been Shit or Bust quite honestly and we were now in bust territory. Then last summer it seemed things had changed, or started to. We appointed what was at the time the overwhelming fans favourite for the job of manager. A manager many of us thought (and some still do) was destined for bigger things than Villa, that was potentially a better manager than we could have hoped to have gotten at the time. Why would he have come to us without significant backing? It was a perfectly valid question and one that was answered with he will be backed. Some belief was back again. Not totally in the owner, but totally in the manager that indeed he would be backed. The signs pointed to this and if not back to the levels of previous managers backing, certainly enough for this manager to work in the market he excels. And given the austerity measures we had seen at the club, surely the only feasible way open to us to progress as a club. So maybe we finally did have a plan for a better way forward. Not the immediate one so craved by football fans and so impossible for our club given the state we were in, but a more long term sustainable one to build a team from the foundations that has a teamwork ethic, all pulling for the club and all with loyalty for each other, the team, the club, the manager the fans, rather than the almighty £. Basically a team of players we had all been crying out for for two or three years having had to put up with money grabbing wasters who had spent more time polishing the subs bench with their arses and thinking about how to spend the next £40K paycheck the club would give them for the privilege. Doris the cleaner rapidly employing an agent to renegotiate her minimum wage contract. But all that promise of future togetherness and a team working together still needed backing. Still needed reinforcements to enable the deadwood overpaid wasters to be shown the exit whilst maintaining our premier league position. As I have said, it was a long term approach the manager was working on but it could not be implemented in a short term big bang way. It was the backing that would support that and mean that instead of big bang and all the associated risks involved it would be a more controlled transition. So the summer showed that in practice. Some players were moved on to pasture or pastures new, and the next generation was acquired. We needed players all over the park, not just in one or two places as some are now suggesting “why didn’t he just get that one or two DMs or CBs in the summer?”. Well because one or two wouldn’t have been enough. One or two now would be. So we saw the acquisition of many players some from lower leagues some from foreign leagues but all in the mould we were crying out for. Virtually all fans saying “. Most have been decent players willing to come here and build a future together, willing to show some loyalty and build on something, something that may even protect against future head turning. Something that will allow the club to have stable foundations, not constant transition of buy a player , sell a player. A long term project Sure some are investments, Benteke and Westwood are two that immediately spring to mind. Players that come here build success for the club and themselves and then who’s sale for shedloads more than we paid for them enable the club to grow again. Surely it is the right way to go rather than spending it all on one aged player that offers nothing save the promise of immediate gratification then leaves for nothing or little value at the end of his contract and forcing us to have to reinvest to build again. Enough of that model, it is totally unsustainable. That model is only the way to go if you are under pressure and demands to achieve instant short term success, that model requires money we have not got. That model was the one employed at the start of the owners tenure but, as my post of three years ago suggested, needed more money to achieve. So now we have the only option open to us and the right manager to employ it. However, it still needed investment. We still need to retain our top flight status this year even more than most. It is ok trying to build to out do the competition whilst you are still competing with the top clubs. But having to do it to catch them up again as the playing surface is about to change still further and meaning other clubs come into the mix and move ahead of us, well that is just not doable. Relegation now will mean we fall behind for a generation. It will not be the lance to finally set us right, it will be the thing that puts this club to a lower level and keeps us there. Much like the Forrest or Leeds way, we will be the modern day version of that failure. Investment was needed. However, it seems even though we have a long term plan the owner wanted it introduced in a big bang way. No investment was forthcoming when we needed it most, perhaps this is the greatest disservice he has done to us. Let down does not describe it for me. I may not have been totally on board but I was prepared to believe again, to have hope that maybe a better future was open to us. This is why for me he is worse than Ellis. Under Ellis we had little hope but we knew we could not achieve it. Under Lerner we had great hope and promise we could achieve it, promise he has failed to deliver on . Mugged off I believe is the current phrase to describe it. I don’t think it is a lack of interest in the club, more a lack of interest on his investment. I do not believe it is a lack of intellect either, but a lack of nous and understanding. So my plea has changed. No longer a plea to seek additional investment, no longer a plea to invest more himself, for I do not want the club even more indebted to this man such that it makes a sell out even less viable. No , the plea now is quite simple really so forgive me for not putting clearly the steps to get there, I am but a simple man of the terraces. The plea now is get out of my club, the sooner the better. I care not for who you sell to actually. Someone with loads, someone with just enough to buy you out. Either route is preferable. The former we may actually achieve something, the latter at least we will not have the unfulfilled promise that will mark your sad and dismal tenure at my club. Just go, find someone to sell to, put up the for sale signs do whatever it is humanly possible to extradite yourself from my club and it from you and in doing so break the habbit of a lifetime and deliver against one promise you made, I am not asking now for the promise of greatness just stick to your word if you can, although evidence proves even that is difficult for you- “There have been plenty of custodians of Aston Villa since 1874 and if I can’t make it work, I will do what the others did, move on and let someone else try” You’ve not made it work, you’ve made it worse. Move on. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodgyknees Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Well said Richard. If a movement is started I'd like to offer my services in pr/media. I'd think we need to see if Richard Franks might be involved.. Ian Robo and get together with other fanzines and forums. RANDY OUT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grunthos Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 I can't argue with that sentiment, Richard. I disagree with your characterization of the arguments in that thread three years ago*, but regardless of how things stood then, today's news that Lerner will not spend a bleeping dime this window is tantamount to an abdication, and is unworthy of stewardship of this club. *You got stick at that time because an owner who was injecting a large amount of money into the team's facilities, wage bill, and transfer kitty was adjudged by you to be inadequate because he wasn't an oil tycoon. It was, frankly, churlish on your part. C'est la guerre. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 I can't argue with that sentiment, Richard. I disagree with your characterization of the arguments in that thread three years ago*, but regardless of how things stood then, today's news that Lerner will not spend a bleeping dime this window is tantamount to an abdication, and is unworthy of stewardship of this club. *You got stick at that time because an owner who was injecting a large amount of money into the team's facilities, wage bill, and transfer kitty was adjudged by you to be inadequate because he wasn't an oil tycoon. It was, frankly, churlish on your part. C'est la guerre. Churlish but, given the modern game, true. He needed more money to sustain that approach, money he didnt have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briny_ear Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Yes, Richard had it spot on in that post (was it really 3 years ago?). I wholeheartedly withdraw the criticisms I made at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mykeyb Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Totally agree with Richard, the time has come for Lerner to stick to his word and leave the club. The one thing I do detest about Lerner and Co is that they keep releasing little snippets of info to the media about us being active in the transfer window, the General emailed the guy on facebook either knowing that the word would spread or worse it was all another pack of lies which was meant for one mans eyes only. During all this they allow their manager to have to take the flack, I really wouldnt put it past them to blame the manager when the window shuts for not being proactive and that they were prepared to back him. Its the sort of behaviour I would expect from the board of another local club not the board of AVFC. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shillzz Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Would be nice to hear from the man himself sometime this decade. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ender4 Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 (edited) Yes, Richard had it spot on in that post (was it really 3 years ago?). I wholeheartedly withdraw the criticisms I made at the time. The difference between his original post (which i disagreed with at the time and still disagree with) was that in that post he wanted Randy to sell up to someone richer. His reasoning behind asking Randy to go was that he wasn't rich enough. This current post is different, in that he just wants him to sell up and go. Which i understand and empathise with a lot more. Edited January 24, 2013 by ender4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KjParton Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Time to go Randolph. You have failed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 The difference between his original post (which i disagreed with at the time and still disagree with) was that in that post he wanted Randy to sell up to someone richer. His reasoning behind asking randy to go was that Randy wasn't rich enough. Lerner wasn't rich enough it's obvious, not sure how you can disagree with that. Sell up to someone richer was one option I gave in my original and why would you disagree with that? It was and still is a money game , have more of it and generally you'll be more successful, why would I have wanted him to sell to someone with less money? It would need more money to buy the club now anyway! Now, today, at this point I just cant be arsed who he sells to as long as he fecks off Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PieFacE Posted January 24, 2013 VT Supporter Share Posted January 24, 2013 Yep Randy out. Though, I have no intention of protesting etc... But the guy has royally **** this club up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Would be nice to hear from the man himself sometime this decade. only to say he is going Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shillzz Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 only to say he is going That would be even nicer. That said, I'd have had far more sympathy with Lerner over the past few years if he'd been a bit more transparent with his aims for the club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ender4 Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 (edited) Lerner wasn't rich enough it's obvious, not sure how you can disagree with that. Sell up to someone richer was one option I gave in my original and why would you disagree with that? It was and still is a money game , have more of it and generally you'll be more successful, why would I have wanted him to sell to someone with less money? It would need more money to buy the club now anyway! Now, today, at this point I just cant be arsed who he sells to as long as he fecks off Your sole reason for asking Randy to leave was he wasn't rich enough - can you not see the craziness in that statement, even after people have slaughtered you for 3 years about it. i like your current statement though, its fair. Your not crying about wanting a newer shinier better toy, you have actual reasons for wanting to get rid of Randy (which is why i empathise with it). Edited January 24, 2013 by ender4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Your sole reason for asking Randy to leave was he wasn't rich enough - can you not see the craziness in that statement, even after people have slaughtered you for 3 years about it. It is a football club in the modern era. That requires more money than lerner had or has. He wasn't rich enough I said at the time seek additional investment or sell to someone who could afford it, if we wanted champions league football. Perfectly reasonable to me and what is crazy is that after three years and him ruining the club people still cannot see it was a reasonable stance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LockStockVilla Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 (edited) I just cannot understand that how after the summer, when the club decided to bring in a manager who the vast majority of the club's supporters were behind, restoring quite a bit of goodwill and optimism, they are ready to just throw that all away again. Even with the club in a relegation battle and fresh off defeat from a Division 4 side, the manager still has quite a bit more support than one would expect. Yet the owner and board is willing to gamble and not add what is needed to the squad. Hmmm...when was the last time the club gambled and took a risk...oh yeah, McLeish. And how did that turn out? Oh yeah, with Paul Faulkner basically releasing a statement identifying that they had got it all wrong again. Well, I don't want another one of those statements come May apologizing to supporters about where it went wrong. Unless they are just bluffing at the moment, which there is about a .001% chance of, then they can just do one. Edited January 24, 2013 by LockStockVilla Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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