The Randy Lerner thread

[Dodgyknees]

For me though there weren't that many under Doug that bad, most of the time during my period as a fan under doug we were a top 7/8 side, won a trophy and played in europe.

While i enjoyed mon's last year more than others nothing under lerner has been that much better than what i experienced under doug whereas the mcleish year was easily the worst supporting year i've had and houllier and last year come very close to matching it.

To be fair, football has changed since the Ellis-era. There's a lot less parity nowadays.

You won't be hearing BJ10 acknowledge that though.

Less parity than Southampton, Swansea and West Brom who have all finished above us? And less now than Spurs and Everton who we were equal with? It is easy to blame managers but there is one consistent force in us falling so far backwards. Edited December 1, 2013 by dodgyknees

[John]

My worst 3 years on the bounce were 67/68, 68/9 & 69/70 and my best 80/81, 81/82 & 82/83. There is no doubt for me that Randy has done more for us than HDE ever did but it is sad that the bright future he once promised has now it seems faded into the distance and it is worth noting that a future King has seen more games at Villa Park than our owner has this season. Fred Rinder gets my vote as our best chairman by the way.    

[lexicon]

531 pages of 'I like Randy' or 'I don't like Randy' with nothing much else to talk about... amazing. 

[Big_John_10]

For me though there weren't that many under Doug that bad, most of the time during my period as a fan under doug we were a top 7/8 side, won a trophy and played in europe.

While i enjoyed mon's last year more than others nothing under lerner has been that much better than what i experienced under doug whereas the mcleish year was easily the worst supporting year i've had and houllier and last year come very close to matching it.

To be fair, football has changed since the Ellis-era. There's a lot less parity nowadays.

You won't be hearing BJ10 acknowledge that though.

Less parity than Southampton, Swansea and West Brom who have all finished above us? And less now than Spurs and Everton who we were equal with? It is easy to blame managers but there is one consistent force in us falling so far backwards.

You won't be hearing Londonlax acknowledge that though.

[P3te]

Those teams have more money to spend than us because they didn't go for it like we did for 3 years. These things are cyclical. If they have a similar lack of progress that we did in 2-3 years they'll find themselves doing what we've been doing the last few years.

In fact, the way most teams are going we'll be among a small few teams who ARENT cutting like crazy because we'll already have our house in order

[smetrov]

Those teams have more money to spend than us because they didn't go for it like we did for 3 years. These things are cyclical. If they have a similar lack of progress that we did in 2-3 years they'll find themselves doing what we've been doing the last few years.

In fact, the way most teams are going we'll be among a small few teams who ARENT cutting like crazy because we'll already have our house in order

 

Im seem to remember Mark Ansell (Finance director) trying to justify our non spending........."a few clubs will be looking on enviously at Aston Villa in few years" ............they didn't !

[P3te]

 

Those teams have more money to spend than us because they didn't go for it like we did for 3 years. These things are cyclical. If they have a similar lack of progress that we did in 2-3 years they'll find themselves doing what we've been doing the last few years.

In fact, the way most teams are going we'll be among a small few teams who ARENT cutting like crazy because we'll already have our house in order

 

Im seem to remember Mark Ansell (Finance director) trying to justify our non spending........."a few clubs will be looking on enviously at Aston Villa in few years" ............they didn't !

 

I think most clubs were looking enviously at us when Lerner had us the third biggest spending team in Europe for a few years on the  bounce behind Real and City

[TRO]

.....well Ron Bendall has the best record.

 

not sure where that stat takes us.

[TRO]

Mark Ansell, blimey we have had some spouting genius's haven't we.

[Richard]

Along with Everton and Spurs and to a lesser extent Plop,  we were trying to get into the top four and spent to achieve that.  That that spending was not sustainable is no one's fault than Randy Lerner's

 

Those clubs are now in advance of us having been run better.

 

The fact that clubs like Southampton,  Albion and Swansea were behind us at the time and dreaming of a sustainable premier league placing and are now ahead of us and dreaming of a top 6 - 8 placing while we are the ones wanting sustainable premier league placing is also a failing down to Lerner.

[Zatman]

yes them clubs were ran better except Liverpool but their wasnt people complaining at the time that Randy was giving the manager a blank chequebook to waste on crap.

 

If you were in Randy situation and somebody wasted your money you would be hesitant about investing

[DelboyVilla]

Along with Everton and Spurs and to a lesser extent Plop,  we were trying to get into the top four and spent to achieve that.  That that spending was not sustainable is no one's fault than Randy Lerner's

 

Those clubs are now in advance of us having been run better.

 

The fact that clubs like Southampton,  Albion and Swansea were behind us at the time and dreaming of a sustainable premier league placing and are now ahead of us and dreaming of a top 6 - 8 placing while we are the ones wanting sustainable premier league placing is also a failing down to Lerner.

 

 

When you look at those teams they have one thing in common, a great young manager who likes to play attacking football. That's been our biggest problem by far under Lerner. His ability to choose a decent manager is so staggeringly awful! Martinez, Laudrup, Clarke and Pochettino are all looking like good long term appointments and IMO have out performed Lambert during his tenure with us. When you take into account the damage done to us by MON, Houllier and McLeish and Lerner's reluctance to make the big decisions early and quickly wanting to act like Mr Nice Guy all the time, we really have been let down.

 

If we had replaced MON with a Rogers, Clarke, Martinez then I think we would be challenging for Europe now still. Lerner has to take all the blame for these mistakes.

 

I really hope he is looking to sell, I just hope he is better at choosing a new owner than he has been with managers!

[BOF]

531 pages of 'I like Randy' or 'I don't like Randy' with nothing much else to talk about... amazing. 

It could be like the Adventure novels being talked about in the Off Tropics.

 

"If you like Randy, turn to page 320 of this thread"

"If you don't like Randy, turn to page 322 of this thread".

 

That way we could end it right here because you'd always loop back

[Big_John_10]

If we had replaced MON with a Rogers, Clarke, Martinez then I think we would be challenging for Europe now still. Lerner has to take all the blame for these mistakes. [\quote]

100% agree

If he'd made the right appointment at that time I don't think there would currently be any ill feeling towards the owner.

But like most things he's done he **** it up.

[Zatman]

and their would have been as big an uproar at the time as McLeish as except Martinez who had 1 season in Premier League with Wigan the rest had nothing on their CV

[Big_John_10]

McLeish was blues manager and just got relegated. Yeah some might not have been impressed at first but no way there would have been thousands protesting. That's rubbish.

[BOF]

While I don't agree with the statement that we'd be challenging for Europe because I believe the bloodletting would have had to happen regardless, neither can I agree with the notion that any of the alternatives would have been even nearly as unpopular as McLeish was.

[smetrov]

Along with Everton and Spurs and to a lesser extent Plop,  we were trying to get into the top four and spent to achieve that.  That that spending was not sustainable is no one's fault than Randy Lerner's

 

Those clubs are now in advance of us having been run better.

 

The fact that clubs like Southampton,  Albion and Swansea were behind us at the time and dreaming of a sustainable premier league placing and are now ahead of us and dreaming of a top 6 - 8 placing while we are the ones wanting sustainable premier league placing is also a failing down to Lerner.

 

Why to a lesser extent Plop ? - Theres a team who blew £90m on Carroll, Downing & Allen - Briefly filled the team with reserves (failed) - then spent on Couthino,Mignolet & Stuuridge. Liverpool have spent millions in recent years - most of it pretty poorly...... but they keep doing it.

 

 

And lets not forget there is nothing stopping Randy investing millions in villa - He is a billionairre - a very, very, rich man. He sold the brows for hundreds of millions recently. We all seem to think there is some reason Randy can not possibly invest in Aston Villa. If he wanted to he could.........(in general thats why we like billionaire owners !!!!)  ......and don't give me FFP before anyone puts that forward as an obstacle...

[Zatman]

maybe not but Steve Clarke was West Ham assistant manager, Brendan Rodgers was just getting Swansea job after being sacked by Reading. wouldnt be a lot of positives for them from fans.

 

an example for me is look at transfer threads when we linked with players nobody has heard of

[BOF]

Well at least we agree on McLeish. Personally I don't think either Clarke or Rodgers would have got anything other than a nominal moan from a minority who'd be happy with nothing less than Mourinho. They're both protégées of Jose and we have previous in hiring unproven managers (Gregory) so that would've cut the new men some slack. But anyhoo, that's all hypothetical. What happened happened