The Randy Lerner thread

[John]

2 hours ago, MakemineVanilla said:

According to Transfer League Villa spent £52.5m this summer

The conclusion is that Villa have spent more than enough money but spent it catastrophically badly this summer.

We lost Benteke, Snake, Vlaar, Weimann and Cleverley this summer. £52.5m would not have bought like for like replacements for these players. We ended last season 17th so something below that was always a risk given our net spend was in line with what it has been in recent years. 

[Chicken Field]

3 hours ago, John said:

We lost Benteke, Snake, Vlaar, Weimann and Cleverley this summer. £52.5m would not have bought like for like replacements for these players. We ended last season 17th so something below that was always a risk given our net spend was in line with what it has been in recent years. 

£52.5m should nearly be enough to build a whole squad that is capable of staying up. Leicester entire squad cost £52m. Stoke's cost £54m. Norwich, Bournemouth and Watford's squads cost less £52m. 

We did not need to buy like for like, we needed a better squad, which is where we failed miserably. We were horribly dependent on Benteke in previous seasons, we needed  to create a TEAM. we failed miserably. A club spending £52m in a summer should not be fighting relegation, regardless of who they sold.

. 

[DCJonah]

I think that's completely wrong thinking. 

[VillaCas]

5 hours ago, MakemineVanilla said:

Unfortunately you are totally wrong.

My pre-existing view was that Villa were victims of Lerner's refusal to spend enough.

I think the statistics suggest that I had a false impression.

 

So you think £6m a year is enough??? You were right first time

[VillaCas]

37 minutes ago, Chicken Field said:

£52.5m should nearly be enough to build a whole squad that is capable of staying up. Leicester entire squad cost £52m. Stoke's cost £54m. Norwich, Bournemouth and Watford's squads cost less £52m. 

We did not need to buy like for like, we needed a better squad, which is where we failed miserably. We were horribly dependent on Benteke in previous seasons, we needed  to create a TEAM. we failed miserably. A club spending £52m in a summer should not be fighting relegation, regardless of who they sold.

. 

We've badly underinvested in the squad for some time but I agree £50m invested should be enough to ensure a squad capable of avoiding relegation.  We may well have one, however due to the fact that they were mismanaged from the off we don't yet know their full potential. We will see if Garde can get a little more out of them

[MakemineVanilla]

1 hour ago, VillaCas said:

So you think £6m a year is enough??? You were right first time

My view would be that if we have the 9th biggest turnover then we should be 9th in the spending league.

The fact that we are 12th can be accounted for by us paying off our debts to comply with the regulations.

Spurs are 13th and have revenues £69m greater than Villa's.

 

[Ingram85]

7 hours ago, VillaCas said:

You've chosen a real mixed bag of statistics there and then used them to fit your pre-existing view. Cognative bias at it's best

I hate to get into the dreaded net spend debate again but there is a difference between spending £50m strengthening a squad and spending £50m replacing departing players. A more telling figure is the £6m a year net spend over the past five years which doesnt point to a club who should be pulling up trees.

The other debate is whether the £50m was badly spent or whether the players purchased were badly managed - Sherwood has a responsibility in both areas. particularly in how the new arrivials were integrated and managed. We will have a much better view of this once we see what Garde does with the same resources

The turnover figure is the most interesting - turnover normally correlates with wages and that in turn correlates with league position. By rights we should expect to be comfortably mid-table but i suspect that instead of spending our money on wages much of it over the past few years has been spent on propping up losses stretching back to the MON era

Earlier someone said that Lerner has killed this club through naivety, tightness, disinterest, stupidity and most of all being an absolutely awful businessman. I disgree that he has been tight - far from it, he has pumped £100s of millions in the club that he will probably never see again. Naive, yes. Disinterested, yes, Awful Business sense, yes. Tight, no not for me

I know what you mean but the money he has spent has been through an urgent necessity like £24m on bent to keep us up. He has spent nowhere near the amount he should have to have kept us from the trouble we are in currently. You have to spend big to stay still in this league. I know it sounds stupid to say he is tight considering the money he has spent but in comparison to the league and where should be in it its nowhere near enough imo. But yeah, maybe 'tight' was the wrong term to use I guess.

[avfc1982]

Well he's been right these last 5 and a bit years, so yeah he's tight. 

What is it, £6m net for the last 6 seasons? How I'd ****'s name are we supposed to run a Premier League club on that, and that's without mentioning the championship wages we pay. ! It's no wonder we've struggled. 

[Chicken Field]

43 minutes ago, avfc1982 said:

Well he's been right these last 5 and a bit years, so yeah he's tight. 

What is it, £6m net for the last 6 seasons? How I'd ****'s name are we supposed to run a Premier League club on that, and that's without mentioning the championship wages we pay. ! It's no wonder we've struggled. 

Closer £50m net spend for the last 6 seasons. With only one window giving us a positive net spend (£22m in 11/12) I just don't think we can blame our spending, we spent A LOT more than most clubs around us. The problem is that the money is being wasted on garbage.  

Including our £22 million profit 5 seasons ago we have the 14th highest net spend for the last 5 seasons. Above Southampton, Bournemouth, Watford Tottenham, Swamsea and Everton. 

Edited December 3, 2015 by Chicken Field

[Chicken Field]

If we look at only on what we have spent overall the last 5 seasons (which I feel is equally important, it shows how much the squad we have is "worth" and where abouts we should be) we are 9th in the league, above clubs like, Stoke, West Ham, Everton and so on. So the money spent is NOT the problem, the problem is it is being wasted. 

True, maybe a club like Villa should be higher up on both the net spend + spent overall, but after the loses we made with O'Neill, it is quite impressive that we are able to spend the way we are. The problem is 100% that the club has never had any proper overall game plan and the money has been wasted. 

[Zatman]

the spending excuse is no excuse for our position in table. Mahrez, Vardy, Ayew, Delaney, Barkley, Schmeichel are among the best players in the league this season and they have cost absolute peanuts in transfer fees

teams can be built on cheap with good scouting and good coaching not just throw money at things

[avfc1982]

Signing all that lower league crap in the Lambert era seriously f#cked us up, and I blame that totally on Lerner. He sets the wage budget and that budget dictates the quality of player we can attract more so than transfer fees. 

Thats why we have a squad packed out with rubbish, and why we're rooted firmly at the foot of the league. 

[thabucks]

11 hours ago, avfc1982 said:

Signing all that lower league crap in the Lambert era seriously f#cked us up, and I blame that totally on Lerner. He sets the wage budget and that budget dictates the quality of player we can attract more so than transfer fees. 

Thats why we have a squad packed out with rubbish, and why we're rooted firmly at the foot of the league. 

Lerner set the budgets based on what we can spend due to income vs losses. Yes he is culpable but I really don't understand how people can't grasp how it needed to be done, we couldn't sustain our losses.

WBA wages to income ratio is the worst in the league just like ours was.  Like him or hate Fox with his commercial background will have a proper grip on our finances so that should never happen again. And we will be in a healthier position moving forward. 

We have a fickle fan base who rightly or wrongly started to desert us when things got ropey. Due to poor signings by managers the product wasn't entertaining and good enough = reduced Tv money due to our league placings. Crowds dwindled. And If peeps decide to buy the top from sports direct rather than the club they lose out and Mike Ashley gains. Randy is to blame for appointing the wrong mananger(s) and rightly or wrongly leaving them to sign whom they saw fit. But we just had to cutback our spending due to the FFP and EFP (?) rules he voted against and correct past mistakes. 

Just for the record I would like him to sell us and am not defending all that he has done wrong which is plenty. But I see what needed to be done to stay solvent. 

[avfc1982]

"Fickle fan base"? Oh what cliched bollocks. Every football fan ever is fickle, it goes with the territory, and didn't we get 35k at our last home game? It seems to me that the vast majority of fans stick by the club through thick and thin even though the club has embarrassed and humiliated the fans like never before these last 5 or so years. 

Lerner is to blame for our humiliating decline 100%. He didn't make mistakes in managerial appointments because good managers wouldn't touch Villa with a barge pole because of the  pitiful transfer/wage budget Lerner supplies. That's why we have to scratch around in the bargain basement for managers. Wake up and smell the coffee for crying out loud!

[TRO]

On 3 December 2015 at 12:02:11, AvfcTheObsession said:

True, as he was the one who decided to place a load of people in positions higher than they'd ever been in before, forming this 'transfer committee' which has about as much football nous as Lerner and my left bollock. He tasked them with the responsibility of spending over 50 million, leaving us where we are.

These type of committee's have ended in tears before now elsewhere.

[TRO]

17 hours ago, Chicken Field said:

If we look at only on what we have spent overall the last 5 seasons (which I feel is equally important, it shows how much the squad we have is "worth" and where abouts we should be) we are 9th in the league, above clubs like, Stoke, West Ham, Everton and so on. So the money spent is NOT the problem, the problem is it is being wasted. 

True, maybe a club like Villa should be higher up on both the net spend + spent overall, but after the loses we made with O'Neill, it is quite impressive that we are able to spend the way we are. The problem is 100% that the club has never had any proper overall game plan and the money has been wasted. 

It's taken a long time for that penny to drop in some quarters.

i think randy's main faults have been appointing the wrong people, the amount of money he has allowed the club to spend I am less convinced in the criticism.

we have bought some good players and some where we have got no benefit from, I'm of the view the latter has been nothing short of a mitigating disaster.....to the point I now cringe when we sign a new player as opposed to get excited.

for me, it has little to do with the amount we spend per unit, it's our overall record is wank.

ps there will always be an argument to say we need to spend more money per unit, but there is also enough evidence around even in this modern day to suggest what Ron Saunders and Tony Barton did, can be repeated, if you have the right manager and support staff.

 

 

Edited December 4, 2015 by TRO

[TRO]

There is an interesting scenario that could develop, that would certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons in the debate about transfer funds and the ultimate effect on team performance.

We could find a bizarre situation where Aston Villa go down and Birmingham City go up....Oh yes, less likely for them to come up but possible.

can anyone look in the financial position of both clubs and make any sense of that and how the finances of each club has had an effect on the playing performance of both clubs

They have worked wonders with snippets of dosh, by getting value from their signings and training ground development.

you would forgive anyone for initially thinking it has no affect whatsoever.we all know it does have an effect it's just that WE have made such poor attempt at taking advantage of any money we have had......for us to have prospered on the field we would needed the American defence budget......There have been so many poor signings since Randy took over its quite sad.

in my view we made much better value for money under HDE's stewardship, but less money per unit.

 

 

Edited December 4, 2015 by TRO

[blandy]

29 minutes ago, TRO said:

in my view we made much better value for money under HDE's stewardship, but less money per unit.

It's an interesting idea. I think part of the current problem is the background. Initially RL let MO'N have free reign, with the aim/plan of getting into the top 4 and euro telly cup. once the money was spent, it was gone, and the gamble failed. At least he had a go. it was his money. Fair enough. But when MO'N threw his teddy, we were left with a high wage bill and no manger and an inexperienced owner left in a pickle.

Pretty much ever since there's been a cutting back on wages, selling the best players and repeated manager changes, meaning compensation for sackings, new manager coming in, wanting different players, causing additional expenses. Then there was the Lambert/Lerner joint "get cheaper younger hungrier players in" rather than the likes of Richard Dunne (admittedly he was hungry, but perhaps not in a good way). Shay Given and all those types who have no resale value, either.

Having sold off all the good players, we've been left with mostly lower wage, lower value, less able players, in part as a consequence of the need to cut the wage bill and partly because of all the instability.

Instability has high costs, and it's that as much as anything else that is the cause of the current state of affairs and the skewed net spend figures - many other clubs spend more, but get more back from sales, offsetting the costs of buys.

Ellis did many of the same things earlier in his time in charge. changing managers, selling off the higher paid and better players. It has the same effect too. It made the club worse and we got relegated.

 

[Richard]

Healthier position moving forward depends upon the income level remaining the same. Drop in income will result in further drop in spending , which may then result in further drop in income. It's what is known as a vicious circle.

[blandy]

2 hours ago, Richard said:

Healthier position moving forward depends upon the income level remaining the same. Drop in income will result in further drop in spending , which may then result in further drop in income. It's what is known as a vicious circle.

That's pretty accurate. Eventually a bigger club will hit a point, after falling and falling where their income can grow, or start to grow back again. How far down the divisions they drop is the worry. And even then it takes luck and being well run for that re-growth to happen. The reason it happens is because eventually they'll fall to a level, where even though their crowds will be smaller than at the top level, they will be bigger than everyone else's and that gate money will give them a financial advantage again, and they can then start to win more games, get promoted and you get a virtuous circle, [but it's usually a bumpy ride]. It's why Man City, Sunderland and so on got back up again a decade ago, or whenever it was. But the likes of Sheffield Wednesday, Leeds and co. they're still down below, somewhere. They were financial basket cases (as are Bolton and a few others).

So when you get to the point where the fans a club has actually genuinely start to matter, than when you can get a rebirth.

At the moment in the Premier league generally, throughout, the clubs all get most of their money one way or another through the telly and sponsors and fans are paid lip service to. The Prem is broken. It might be rich, and fans of the teams at the top might be happy, but it's still broken.