The Randy Lerner thread

[TRO]

6 hours ago, blandy said:

Bournemouth got taken over by a rich bloke and are well run. I'd strongly argue they aimed to win their league, which was my point. But in terms of how that relates to Randy Lerner, what they did was to have good judgement in appointing people. Randy's judgement has by and large been terrible.

And that Pete, is what I despise him for most.....and why I think he has made a "pigs ear" of it.

.....But unfortunately that masks some of the decent money he HAS put up for disposal, but in essence by appointing the wrong people it can be argued he is the architect of his own demise.

I still think He put all his faith in MON and when it was belatedly pointed out to him.....It finished him.

rightly or wrongly.....depends on anyones point of view.

[TRO]

9 hours ago, Zatman said:

same for me I despise MON but it was 6 years now

No one is stupid enough to blame him directly for now, lets make that quite clear. It was the start of the demise and has gradually got worse and worse

We acquired an new owner that was naive and new to the business, he put all his trust in the manager due to his reputation in the industry.....There was an opportunity to spend big all the boxes had been ticked and our once in a lifetime opportunity was here.

The majority of the money was spent unwisely over a given period of c 4 years

The crab went back in to his hole rarely to be seen again.

.......and the s**t goes on.

ps  every manager since has had fires to put out and one hand tied behind his back, not saying they were right appointments either.

Edited December 14, 2015 by TRO

[TRO]

13 hours ago, MrDuck said:

Absolutely. MON did a good job - not a great one, not a bad one. Had us punching our weight, made some bad decisions but also gave us some thrilling moments. The only thing I hold against him was buying Heskey instead of a goalscorer!

Buck stops with the man at the top.

If you think Heskey was the only poor signing, I will gracefully bow out of this debate.

[TRO]

10 hours ago, jasoncb said:

Pretty much agree, seems a very naive businessman and knows nothing about football or the players. He put blind trust into MON and backs him with millions then MON proceeds to put players like Harewood on his list of transfer targets.

If the vision was a top 4 place, then why would you want MON. He never was a top premier league manager and didn't have the contacts or knowledge to sign top foreign talents. Could you imagine Man City starting their spending sprees with a manager like MON in charge and sticking with him for years. No it was never viable and yes I understand it was an Ellis appointment but Lerner must of agreed to it prior to the sale.

 

Don't Disagree.

I wanted Martin O'Neill with a passion, even went on record as saying he is the only man for our club.

Brian Clough had chairmen with blind faith........but he delivered a sustainable product.....so it was justified.

[TRO]

21 hours ago, jackbauer24 said:

I never get this whole MON hatred thing, well not for his player purchases anyway. He was given money and spent some of it well and some of it exceedingly poorly. I don't think his performance in the transfer market was particularly good or bad. Petrov, Carew, Young, Milner, Delph, Downing all good purchases. But obviously recognise the Heskey, Sidwell and Davies disasters.

But can he be overly faulted for spending more money than we could afford? Even if you argue that every signing was a bad one, every wage was excessive and it was all one massive disaster, the fault lies with Lerner. But worse still, if that much of a mistake has been made, what you don't do is just cut all spending on transfers and wages and keep doing it year on year for FIVE years. How bad a business man do you have to be to still be paying for a five year 'splurge' another five years later? And according to an article I found on net MON spent £120m in four years and recovered £39m - so £20m a season isn't even that excessive, it feels it now but £20m is kind of par for the course in this division. But then that admittedly doesn't cover wages - I doubt even MON discussed wages with players, that's Lerner again.

Lerner took on a Premier League club for a bargain price, not in any debt. He is about to relegate us with our worst ever squad, and in huge debt, even if it is just to him. The fault for all this is his, and his alone.

Hatred is your word of misinterpretation of the point.

but what about these further ones you may have forgotten  :

Warnock

Reo-coker

Habib Beye

Shorey

Cuellar

Zat Knight

James Collins

Richard Dunne

Luke Young

..............Most of these were fully amortised with no sell on fee.... we just wanted them OFF the wage bill.

 

Edited December 14, 2015 by TRO

[TRO]

Randy Lerner in his 8 years here is ultimately responsible for our current demise.

He has made many poor appointments which has been instrumental in the contribution to that demise.

When he first came.....first 3-4 years he was popular....Since then despised.

Where did it all go wrong.

I think his divorce had an impact and above all Martin O'Neill leaving......That finished him IMO

[Cliffy Biro]

Has he actually made one good appointment? I think at the time Lambert was considered good by most but i cant think of another in any position at the club.

[mykeyb]

If he bought AVFC as an investment then he was a fool.

If he bought AVFC as a vanity project then he was a fool.

He has lost millions but I cannot say I feel any sadness for him, he appointed football men to the board both of which left after a few months, thats when I had my doubts about him. He had planned for us to be self sufficient after 4-5 years and whether it Man City that ballsed it up it was still a bit of a pipe dream. 

My 15 year old son has a pained expression on his face every time we lose and I blame Lerner for that, he can f~*K of any time he wants.................good riddance to bad rubbish.

[Richard]

Agree mykey but what I do not agree with,  and never have,  is the blame being put at the door of Man Citeh.  Not saying you're doing that just that I see it so often that people say he was scuppered by Man Citeh.  I think that is rubbish to be honest

[mykeyb]

Im with you Richard, I think we would be in exactly the same place now had Man City not been bought up.

[DCJonah]

Weeks after MON left we gave Ireland a £70,000 a week contract. 

6 months after he left we smashed our transfer record and signed Bent. 

12 months after he left we gave Given a 5 year £50,000 a week deal. Gave Hutton a 5 year 40,000 a week and signed nzogbia for £10 million and gave him a large contract. 

We were hardly a broke club down on its knees. Poor managerial appointments and poor signings (anyone unhappy with some of the duds MON signed must be pretty annoyed at what followed) continued the spiral down and then the money was cut off which left Lambert and Sherwood to turn us into a championship team.

[TRO]

2 hours ago, DCJonah said:

Weeks after MON left we gave Ireland a £70,000 a week contract. 

6 months after he left we smashed our transfer record and signed Bent. 

12 months after he left we gave Given a 5 year £50,000 a week deal. Gave Hutton a 5 year 40,000 a week and signed nzogbia for £10 million and gave him a large contract. 

We were hardly a broke club down on its knees. Poor managerial appointments and poor signings (anyone unhappy with some of the duds MON signed must be pretty annoyed at what followed) continued the spiral down and then the money was cut off which left Lambert and Sherwood to turn us into a championship team.

Randy Lerner in his 8 years here is ultimately responsible for our current demise.

He has made many poor appointments which has been instrumental in the contribution to that demise.

When he first came.....first 3-4 years he was popular....Since then despised.

Where did it all go wrong.

I think his divorce had an impact and above all Martin O'Neill leaving......That finished him IMO

[TRO]

2 hours ago, DCJonah said:

Weeks after MON left we gave Ireland a £70,000 a week contract. 

6 months after he left we smashed our transfer record and signed Bent. 

12 months after he left we gave Given a 5 year £50,000 a week deal. Gave Hutton a 5 year 40,000 a week and signed nzogbia for £10 million and gave him a large contract. 

We were hardly a broke club down on its knees. Poor managerial appointments and poor signings (anyone unhappy with some of the duds MON signed must be pretty annoyed at what followed) continued the spiral down and then the money was cut off which left Lambert and Sherwood to turn us into a championship team.

....but that is what is being said.

He relied on O'Neill and that failed.....and then he was on his own ,so to speak and that failed, even worse.

We had an £120 mill window.....£80 mill if you net it out.....It partially failed and we have never recovered.....in fact,it has got gradually worse.

Presumably, He hasn't got the money  to keep failing and neither did Doug, But HDE had a better success rate pro rata.

That is not saying its not RL's fault.

whoevers fault it is, we just can't seem to sign players that can make that necessary difference. It could be RL's for not providing enough or the recruiters for not spoting value/quality.

 

Edited December 14, 2015 by TRO

[villa4europe]

Weeks after MON left we gave Ireland a £70,000 a week contract. 

6 months after he left we smashed our transfer record and signed Bent. 

12 months after he left we gave Given a 5 year £50,000 a week deal. Gave Hutton a 5 year 40,000 a week and signed nzogbia for £10 million and gave him a large contract. 

We were hardly a broke club down on its knees. Poor managerial appointments and poor signings (anyone unhappy with some of the duds MON signed must be pretty annoyed at what followed) continued the spiral down and then the money was cut off which left Lambert and Sherwood to turn us into a championship team.

Randy Lerner in his 8 years here is ultimately responsible for our current demise.

He has made many poor appointments which has been instrumental in the contribution to that demise.

When he first came.....first 3-4 years he was popular....Since then despised.

Where did it all go wrong.

I think his divorce had an impact and above all Martin O'Neill leaving......That finished him IMO

There was also a certain rule change around that time...

[TRO]

2 hours ago, DCJonah said:

Weeks after MON left we gave Ireland a £70,000 a week contract. 

6 months after he left we smashed our transfer record and signed Bent. 

12 months after he left we gave Given a 5 year £50,000 a week deal. Gave Hutton a 5 year 40,000 a week and signed nzogbia for £10 million and gave him a large contract. 

We were hardly a broke club down on its knees. Poor managerial appointments and poor signings (anyone unhappy with some of the duds MON signed must be pretty annoyed at what followed) continued the spiral down and then the money was cut off which left Lambert and Sherwood to turn us into a championship team.

Thats fair comment.

but we were always playing catch up....If we got it right early on the rest maybe would not have happened.

Its been a complete catalogue of poor decisions.

If we hadn't have signed Heskey and Harewood and signed a much better quality striker, Bent would not have been so important and may never have happened.

Ever club makes mistakes....my point is we have just made too many to survive.

Edited December 14, 2015 by TRO

[TRO]

7 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

There was also a certain rule change around that time...

but thats a rule that everyone has to bear.....It hasn't stopped other clubs from going past us, who have modest transfer funds.

[villa4europe]

There was also a certain rule change around that time...

but thats a rule that everyone has to bear.....It hasn't stopped other clubs from going past us, who have modest transfer funds.

No it hasn't, but IMO it has made him lose interest, this isn't the premier league that he bought in to, he's taken his ball and gone home

If you're looking for something that made him flip the switch then it's hard to look past it

[mikeyp102]

So do we trust him to make a good appointment as chairman?

[PieFacE]

10 minutes ago, mikeyp102 said:

So do we trust him to make a good appointment as chairman?

Absolutely not!

[sexbelowsound]