Well no real need to tell you the main news of today. Yep we were waiting for the statement and we got it, Randy has said the club is up for sale. To this author this is no surprise and has not been since we found out the extra shares issued.
However lets take the statement at face value and I would be worried.
– Club up for sale
– Lambert gone (d0es anyone doubt that ?)
– Faulkner off in the summer to the FA
IF the club was still up for sale then, then there is no one left at the club. So I think and looking at Randy’s use of the past tense in his statement and the weird one from the General that Randy has already packed his bags and gone.
I firmly believe the the club is almost sold if not already sold and this statement is Randy’s goodbye. Within weeks if not days we will get a simple statement saying the club is sold to xxxxxx
We will not hear from Randy again ….
The news today was a long time coming and to be completely honest nothing we didn’t already suspect. The club is for sale. Ok, but until it has been sold everyone; Faulkner, Lambert, and the remaining staff are to care on and prepare for next season. With or without money we do not know.
Personally this raises more questions than answers, especially given the news from corners of the press that a potential sale of the club had been put on hold for whatever reason. If true, the club could find itself in a very awkward situation given the sale of clubs hasn’t exactly been a booming business of late. For example, Everton or Newcastle who have both supposedly been ‘for sale’ for quite a while now. You could argue Villa have more to offer than the other clubs and you are probably right, but the reality is promising, financially sound buyers are few and far between. At this moment we should all be careful for what we wish for and given by Lerner’s picks in managers – I’m worried.
a stock man on sky sports who says he knows Lerner say club is not sold….and Lerner will not rush any sale
the bank that lerner as gone to always deals with the Lerner family….sorry but i really do not think there is any deal done ….i hope i am wrong.
Personally I’d be extremely surprised if any firm deal has been done yet; in fact I read today’s announcement more as a desperate attempt to flush-out any prospective individual or consortium buyers – more of an admission that Lerner’s been unable to agree any private sale to his contacts in US sport/entertainment industries.
Yes, it’s been obvious [without needing 20/20 hindsight] that he lost interest a couple of seasons ago – simply look at how many games he’s attended since appointing McLeish – ; and as Ian keeps saying, yes also quite likely that the debt/equity swap was part of the preparation for sale. It’s unlikely that he took the decision to sell on the spur of the moment – and the rumours that he was ‘open to offers’ have been floating around for at least two years now, so it would make sense to have quietly done a bit of tidying-up as far as the balance sheet was concerned.
But I doubt very much that he’d have bothered appointing Merrill Lynch to find a buyer if he could have agreed a deal already – their fees alone will take another hefty slice out of whatever he can get for the company.
I think that Pat Murphy is quite correct – this process will likely drag on for a while.
As for Lambert, I’m guessing that while his ‘contract talks’ may well have been put on ice weeks or even months ago, he’s probably still got a year or more to run on his present deal, so why should he walk out of paid employment unless there’s some club offering him more money already? If he stays and the new owner fires him, OK he’ll get some compensation..
I hope I’m wrong, but we may actually now have a couple of months when nothing visible happens – and nobody’s investing in new players, nobody’s really ‘in charge’.
Ardent I will pick you up one crucial thing
“Merrill Lynch to find a buyer”
he has not, he has picked them to advise on a sale and that is totally different.
Compare to Ellis
“Aston Villa has retained Rothschild, the investment bank, to advise on “a number” of takeover bids lodged for the UK football club.” the day after DOL was sacked and Lerner was already in talks, familair ?
Ian, I don’t pretend that I ‘know’ what’s happened, so I’m not going to war over this ! – But at least in Ellis’ case the quote above mentioned that there had already been “a number” of takeover bids lodged at that time. I haven’t read anything in Pat Murphy’s report along those lines?
I can’t help thinking that having already told us a coupe of weeks ago that he’d answer questions about his ownership at the end of the season, he’d now simply have announced a sale today if it had been completed or was nearly a done deal – and the fact that he hasn’t done so suggests that he’s desperately seeking a buyer now out in the open.
I agree that it would be better if a suitable deal was done already or in a few days, since the prospect of the ship without an engine, rudder or captain, sailing through a close-season where there’s bound to be a lot of heavy spending by other clubs.
The end of the season awards tomorrow night have been cancelled.
They don’t deserve any.
You’re damn right.
About as fitting as a ‘lap of honour’ for staying up; yup, we’re the new Blues…
yet another big clue that Lambert is on his way
Starter- Laughing stock
Main – Offal
Dessert – Humble pie
Unless we get someone with deep pockets i can see us getting relegated and the ‘owner’ selling up. We need somebody onboard with a football background not just Mr Moneybags. Id like to see John Gregory in an advisary role to any potential new owner and i think lambert should be given another season but this time with a war chest i honestly think we could do well
No Lambert… He’d just waste money and we’d be a more solid version of this season. Incredibly defensive garbage.
Much as I hate automatically blaming ‘the manager’ for all the crap, I think you’re right:
Lambert seems to be one of those who can bring a team out of Division 2 and maybe just about keep them up.
It’s difficult to imagine what he’d spend really-big money on: probably follow MON and stock-up with a lot of expensive misfits who’d get one game in the 1st team and then 3 years in the reserves.
Plus I just don’t see the point, If and when he had failed (which Lambert most likely won’t be here thankfully), we have to again get a new manager, who may or may not want his players, and go on yet another spending spree to overturn the club once again from a poor spot. Lambert’s not worth taking a risk on.
An odd reference in Lerner’s quite moving valediction to the Shumannite. However the bible has it she called for the prophet Elijah to breathe life back into her dead son. Lerner is not underestimating his successor’s task then.
I agree with some of the other posters, Lerner came in with good intentions and gave it a go. He was unfortunate that serious oil money was about to make a simultaneous entrance, and he found after four years he no longer had a tenth of the money that was to be thrown at Man City. My criticism of him is two fold. 1/ He picked some real duffers to follow MON. Who interviewed Lambert? The man is practically incoherent. 2/ It is obvious Lerner gave up on the Villa at least two seasons back, so why not hoist the sale board then instead of running the club down to the relegation fight.
because two years ago we still had very high wages, large debt etc That had to be cleared for a sale to happen, it happened …
That is true it happened, but meanwhile Lerner has taken the losses himself with a debt for equity swap. He might have sold for less 2 years ago and come out no worse off. Perhaps he was also misled into thinking the “talented youngsters” we had would make the grade as EPL players, particularly in defence, so his clear-out of high earners would not weaken the team. The youngsters have been very disappointing.
Let’s not forget that Lerner’s money was heavily tied-up in the banking/financial sector when the Big Crash happened in 07/08: I’ve always felt that was the time when he realised that he didn’t have unlimited funds to throw at the EPL, hence having to try and ‘control’ MON’s free-spending, etc., and eventually leading to where we’re at now.
But you’re right – there was just one season before the oil sheiks starting pumping petro-dollars into ManCity, and by then the rules of the game had changed for keeps.
Also agree with you about the ‘Academy’ – been hearing the same rubbish about ‘talented prospects’ for years. Allowing for Cahill, if Agbonlahor is the prime example of what that lot can churn out, they might as well close it down.
Ardent, genuinely hope you are well sir, I don’t profess to have a clue about how this sale will or will not go, but I do know that our academy is not churning put talent for fun…Moore brothers, Gabby(pathetic to watch if we’re all honest) say it all, we nicked Barry from Brighton and Der Hammer was also poached, Cahill is the only one to have proven himself, and guess what…we flogged him for 5 mil……..genius.
Is it about that or him trying to tell us he was a good person that had the clubs best interests at heart possessing the three qualities of Contentment A kind heart ,compassion and Persistence?