We have an interesting post today from the Mail’s Mat Kendrick – LINK
Now whilst I like the sentiment behind what he says I have to say how can any fan group hope to represent the majority views of fans. On any forum, down the pub, at the ground there are several different views. These are
– Lerner’s fault has to go (my view and if this happens Lambert is gone)
– Lambert’s fault has to go but Lerner can stay
– MON’s fault
– Everyone’s fault
– Fan’s fault
– No-one’s fault
Unlike in the Anti-Eliis days when I truly felt we were in the majority (despite what Ellis ever said) I feel there is no majority at all now for a single position.
There are no fans group around, the Villa Trust has no shares and last I heard only about 100 members. Does anyone want to start one up again, thought not !!
So Mat knows this, he reads the forums, he is a Villa fan (used to write for H&V) and after months of being non critical towards the club I find this piece very interesting. It is like he is reaching out to find views, have the club asked him to do this ?
I would like him to ask one simple question and get a proper answer.
What is the project ?
Ian do you really think Kendricks voice or anyone’s would matter to the club, he would and anyone that said any thing detrimental to the club find them selves out in the cold. in the early 80 both papers was refused entrance into the press box for saying things about the club. Most of Kendricks reports are proof read before print , they are shit scared of saying the wrong thing. Ian you only have to see the corporate boxes to see things are dire, sponsors dropping the club like hot stone, interest at the minute from the media is because Villa are close to going down, the club know but fail to address our problem’s and that will continue till the board are saked and a new PA a the club.
Thats my point Bill, that is quite radical for Mat to put out so I ask if he is doing it on behalf of the club why ? If not then he is being rather out there.
As for the quotes about the boxes, thats interesting. I did the love in a box thing on Valentines and it was great in the Trinity Road. However I said to the wife just how many of them were ‘Aston Villa Football Club’ boxes. Now of course people move nowadays into the padded area more than the box but I only counted 5 that had firms names on.
Ian Mat Kendrick is a PR puppet for Lerner. His article has so many holes it cod be a sieve. Firstly as you rightly say fans are indifferent as long as attendances remain so will Lerner. So expect relegation. Secondly he asks for fans to unite create a voice yet he clearly says the man that matters Lerner will not engage, so what’s the point? He mentions muted boos again in my opinion an attempt to play down matters and fail to recognise the real feelings. If Kendrick is a reporter he should be asking the difficult questions and not simply accepting no comment. What happened to a democratic press looking to address issues of the day fighting injustice seeking truth and openness? Kendrick is no more than a Lerner PR man who I imagine has been tasked with increasing next year season ticket sales
It’s like the king sending out one of his guard to see if the townsfolk are sharpening their pitchforks (or removing their bedsheets). To roughly quote a favorite movie line:
“Sire, the peasants are revolting.”
“You said it. They stink on ice.”
ive got just one message to give Kendrick that he can pass onto learner.
it doesn’t matter if we stay up or go down the sales for AVFC next season will be dire unless there is a dramatic shift, season tickets, match day tickets, sponsorship, merchandise, you name it it will all go down hill massively next season unless something is done.
that something is either,
a) back lambert and give him some decent money and room to manouver in the transfer market to give him and our club a chance.
b) sack lambert and back the new manager by acknowledging we’ve made a big mistake thinking we can run this club on peanuts and again spend some money.
c) admit he(learner)has lost passion, interest and desire to be involved in Aston Villa, sell up and do one.
and we are not expecting miracles, we aren’t asking to be spending like man city and the like, we just expect a reasonable return for our(the fans)time, patience, money, blood, sweat, tears and passion.
Ballot Paper
Mark a cross (X) in the box next to choice you wish to vote for.
a) back lambert and give him some decent money and room to manouver in the transfer market to give him and our club a chance. { }
b) sack lambert and back the new manager by acknowledging we’ve made a big mistake thinking we can run this club on peanuts and again spend some money. { X }
c) admit he(learner)has lost passion, interest and desire to be involved in Aston Villa, sell up and do one. { }
Place completed ballot paper in the ballot box
Fair point NM.
can anyone on this site , really expect lerner to change his policies on wage , transfer budgets . if he sacks lambert which i doubt . he will replace him with a manager under same restraints as lambert has worked under.
I think we’re now at the point where the manager’s lack of tactics and ability to read the game are holding back the team, giving him a load more money isn’t going to change that. He’s made some good and bad signings, that’s fine, but team selection, substitutions, keeping the players motivated and coached properly and having more than one (possibly two) tactic is down to the manager, and he appears to be inept and out of his depth.
maybe ur rite foxy
i feel the team is lacking a cutting edge, some1 said we av gone backwards since last season. i beg 2 differ. benteke form has dropped which inturn affects lamberts main plan. look back 2 last season u had weimann gabby and benteke all scoring and all creating problems for opposition defenders. this season a complete opposite.
P.S this is how i see it . please don’t fill my mailbox with name calling and hate mail my birthday was yesterday 🙂
Ballot Paper
Mark a cross (X) in the box next to choice you wish to vote for.
a) back lambert and give him some decent money and room to manouver in the transfer market to give him and our club a chance. { X}
b) sack lambert and back the new manager by acknowledging we’ve made a big mistake thinking we can run this club on peanuts and again spend some money. { }
c) admit he(learner)has lost passion, interest and desire to be involved in Aston Villa, sell up and do one. {X }
Place completed ballot paper in the ballot box
People’s patience has finally ran out all the bollocks about a plan etc just won’t wash anymore it was all excuses and a huge smoke screen so Lerner could get away with spending fuck all ……. I’m speaking to more and more die hard villa fans that are saying we’re not renewing and neither am I , if we’re not gonna try and compete what’s the fucking point .
Sick to death of watching shit football and shit players . Sad but that’s how I feel sorry !
We all understand that the books need balancing, but do the board and management understand if you do not invest in quality players in the toughest league in the world then you will be found out and you will get relegated?
Do the board and management watch the same games as the fans?
Are you going to invest in some proven quality this summer or sell up Randy?
is the manager going to grow a pair and stick benteke (one season wonder) into the bomb squad?
Will the club stop pumping bullshit out about delph he is shit, he managed to make Shelvey, bannan and Cleverley world class, need is say more?
has Paul Lambert been possessed by the lost spirit of Alex McLeish?
The whole “project” terminology is a complete load of bollocks. Faulkner and Lerner think they can make mugs out of the fans, with complete BS about progression, etc.
Progressing by signing useless dross from the lower leagues. It’s obvious now that all the “high earners” have been frozen out or sold and it has left us with the quite frankly sub standard academy graduates and the cheap rubbish Lambert has signed.
That is Lerner’s fault no doubt.
But the negative tactics and football is Lambert’s fault no doubt. Just someone inherently dislikeable about Lambert, he looks completely gormless and clueless to what is happening on the pitch. Recipe for disaster, the whole structure needs ripping apart. Only new ownership can save us as surely any chairman with ambition would sack Lambert immediately anyway
I don”t quite get it. There are no “debates” or “discussions” left to be had. Regardless of ‘activity’ or ‘interest’ for a blog.
AVFC is, at this current moment in time, a complete joke to the rest of football in the UK.
We have the worst home form throughout all the professional leagues in the country.
We will be relegated. If not it will down to gods. I’m athiest so I have little hope. vtid
I’ve said it since the beginnning of the season, noone listened. Now everyone caught on.
It has come to the point where I’d gladly take relegation if it meant Lamberk was kicked out as far as possible from VP and the memory of these 18 woeful months in charge was erased.
However, Lerner is such a moron that I don’t even see relegation removing his precious Lamberk. We’re screwed either way, the board have until June to remove the useless dour twat or AVFC is dead to me.
Morning all I know this has nothing to do with Aston Villa , but with what’s going on in the game makes me wonder. Last night a team that’s won major trophies was made to look as bad as us, my question is ? has player power come into play with wages, Rooney on 300k and others not, do you think they have playing staff now, not making that extra effort because one gets more than the other, Could that be also at Villa? if so the games falling apart. Lads just me having silly moments. 🙂 and me nothing to do. Plus still pissed off with the Villa. and just a thought.
Something needs to be done about the elitism in football, not so much the premier league but the lower league teams stadiums are empty because the kids all support teams that are hundreds of miles away.
The clubs in the region should be working closer together to fill the stadiums up and get more fans watching live football rather than watching the big four at the pub. In the midlands we have Villa, Small heath, the baggies, Coventry, Forest, Derby and Wolves amongst many other clubs. None of these stadiums should really be empty or have empty seats.
Its not quite as bad as Scotland but it is going that way with the top four being the priority and where all the money goes, the FA should do something about it because at some point the fans will turn away from the game altogether, the stadiums in the lower leagues are getting emptier and emptier and this will continue until the game is turned into a more level playing field
Morgan had this conversation at work yesterday and the problem is how long before the penny drops with the faithful at all clubs apart from the top 4-5 realize that they are only there to create an atmosphere for the telly.
Apart from the ones with the financial clout you can’t compete, you ain’t going to win anything. Any competition that you have any sort of chance in (league / FA cup) the club’s treat with contempt so with no chance in the league and no chance of any silverware how long before people say what’s the point?
MLB in the states had that same problem. Still sort of does, but about 2 years after they implemented a profit-sharing clause, parity returned to an extent. Yankees couldn’t buy up every star player for 100s of millions without paying out a percentage of the overage to the rest of the clubs. Doesn’t put butts in the seats, but it could reign in excessive spending.
Minnie we had profit-sharing clause prior to 1992, it was called the Football League where the money was shared amongst all member clubs and better still until 1981 clubs were required also to share the home gate receipts.
The EPL formed in 1992 with the motto ‘We’ll take the Lions Share, The Rest To The Wall’ breaking with over a hundred years of tradition all in the name of avarice and greed.
Saying all of that Bill we should not be in our current predicament. We are where we are because of poor boardroom decisions and management. We are an established premier league team that cannot compete with the likes of Cardiff or Hull in the transfer market! How is that possible we get regular 35,000 plus crowds week in week out and so there is enough scope for advertising and marketing on a grand scale.
People argue that Lerner has put in £250m of his own cash, other will argue that he has had all of this back in loans, i believe that argument is seperate from the real issues at VP.
Other blame MON however he has not been at the club for four years and even though i am not his biggest fan in terms of where we finished in the table he is our last successful manager, but even so it is ridiculous to blame him for what is happening at VP now.
I also believe Lambert is a bit out of his depth but then at the same time looking at what he has bought in and from where, you have to say that maybe we are punching well above our weight.
The Lerners seem good at investing into the foundations of a club and rebuilding something from scratch but they really do not do success, the Lerners saved the browns but could not make the right decisions to bring success to the club, it mirrors villa in a lot of ways.
So back to the boardroom i go, its time the fans united against the boardroom and stop blaming the managers, we have gone through a lot of those in recent years and yet the only thing to remain is Lerner and Faulkner. The failures are clear for everyone to see and i honestly believe lerner has to go not because of all the conspiracy theories simply because he looks at Villa on a spreadsheet and we are not in a business where that will bring any success.
I am for now going to turn my attention from our current scapegoat and all of my focus is now on the boardroom i hope other fans wake up and smell the coffee and do the same, because when they sack Lambert they will bring in another nodding dog, who will really believe they can do it at Villa when in fact the boardroom will do everything to stop them.
If we dont start soon then we are going in one direction and that is down the project is another word for failure and as much as i loved the idea at first it is clear for all to see that the cracks were there all along.
Lerner and Faulkner OUT
300k a wk that’s what the combined wages of our starting 11 earn,it’s a fucking joke.plus their paying that to a player past his best now.that’s their problem i think we’ve got enough of our own.all these boxes you’ve got to tick i’d fucking tick the lot.im one well & truly worried fan.
Saddest thing is, his contracts going until he’s 34 years old making 300k a week.
Imo it’s bad buisness on their part.let them get on with it as far as im concerned.there not a force to be reckoned with anymore lol.
Quite true. Though it would be pretty expensive to replace him, and they need so many other players that I guess they tied down one spot behind the striker for a bit still. But until he’s 34, he relies so much on his aggressive play that he’ll be so downhill. But then again Fergie did it with Ferdinand who was on almost 200k I believe so… Why not?
I do believe if we lose sunday which is quite possible the fans will turn on lambo,& about time imo.you might even get abit of anti lerner aswell which is also justified.maybe im thinking aloud fuck knows.
But if we beat Norwich then everything is alright and what a fickle bunch we are. The board need to go because it will happen again and again if Randy remains
Morgan yes there is that scenario to consider lambo saves the moment,im thinking not this is one whole too much mate.as you know our home form is dire norwich will be well up for this game knowing it’s a good chance of 3pts.only short sighted fans will be behind him in the event of a loss.nah the tides turning now we are shite.
Nah, it won’t be alright. I don’t think Villa are quite as fickle as you think. If Villa win, yes a lot of fans would be satisfied, but they won’t be happy. They simply don’t want Villa to go down so will back Lambert until Villa are safe, especially if Villa win. No point taking the piss out of an incredibly weak man already when heads are so far down and he’s destroyed just about every player we have bar Vlaar and Guzan. And after Vlaar’s tweet after the game who knows how long his heads gonna be in the game for. It’s an “encouragement” type attitude that Villa fans seem to try to have, which can be mislabeled as fickle, but I don’t think any of them are actually happy with Lambert, but backing him is basically all they can do as he’s not leaving anytime soon. Unless there’s some mass protest-sit in.
Sorry Andrew i was being sarcastic when i said fickle our home attendances prove that we are very far from fickle.
*HOLE ffs
Lerner came, he saw, he improved the club on the pitch and off it.
We rebranded, supported the Acorns initiative, improved Bodymoor Heath almost beyond recognition, and tarted up a derelict pub so that we now have a ground to be proud of. If only he’d got here before the desecration of the Trinity Stand.
Huge amounts of cash were made available to the first manager that he worked with, and we enjoyed a buoyant period where we all thought that maybe, just maybe, we could crack what was the Sky four.
We didn’t.
A couple more billionaire owners came along, totally dwarfing Lerner’s existing and potential future expenditure.
A top six spot was pretty much slammed in our face. That was no good to the income levels required to sustain the level of spending, unless it was to become a personal vanity project.
The club made a record signing of a purported £18m – £24m, who now plays on loan at a relegation threatened club.
Many on here have stated that they *refuse/can’t be bothered/don’t see the point (delete as applicable) to go and watch the Villa, some call for a boycott of everything Villa, starve the club of income to force Lerner out.
But these same people who would prefer to watch other teams, or mow the lawn, or take the dog for a walk at 3pm on a Saturday implore Lerner to spend his own money in huge sums or go.
I get the feeling that if Mr Lerner was offered a break even out, he’d probably take it. Who on earth want a club that has a following that can’t be bothered ?
We don’t look a relegation side to me, we have had the odd patch of quality football at times, and I think that we’ll do just enough.
I think that we have a squad that can stay up in the Premiership now, but is devoid of the quality to perform at a level any higher than that consistently. That will only come if £40m – £60m is invested this Summer.
Time will tell.
Saying that, Spurs spent a large fortune and may scrape Europe. It makes no sense whatsoever for Randy Lerner to invest other than to secure Premiership football each season.
But hopefully he won’t see sense and will decide to throw a fair few more quid in MON style again.
Good post vaze but is just to survive in the premiership enough for you? Don’t you want just a little more ambition from the club?
Yes bws are we content with pl survival alone?ans no we want to be pushing higher not nail biteing seasons.possibly due to our history we’re setting the bench mark higher than other clubs languishing in lower table obscurity.unfortunately that requires pl standard players with a manager with pl nowse.we ain’t got either mate.
Giddy it’s the contempt the manager treats the cups with to.
I’ll take silverware, any silverware. Making the numbers up in the EPL alone is not enough.
Of course not, but to be able to even stay in the EPL, you have to be sustainable, and the mass-spending fans wanted on here wasn’t plausible for the next 4 seasons after O’Neill left. Only Manager we had capable was Houllier to get us back into the top 6. I mean hell, even after dropping the rock-base O’Neill relied on game after game in Dunne and Collins, he managed 9th, being sick, having over a dozen injuries at once, no pre-season, no summer signings, best player sold, a lackluster player bought. But since then… The problem was that while McLeish had to sell, he also got his own 20m to spend, and wasted that too. Was firmly backed by Lerner still, like Lambert has been reasonably at the moment (and has shown no improvement), but McLeish went the way O’Neill did, and that took Villa a step backwards as well. I do think we’ll get there, a competent manager and 30m net-spend or so could see us moving up above Southampton and possibly even Everton, as we have a solid base. Money spent in midfield is about what Villa need right now and that would make Villa a credible side. Plus we’d also have some depth (shocking we might have a team with depth that a Manager might play) for cups.
All true Andrew but the problem there is McClown, LR unemployed him given his record as a serial relegationist is/was and always will be shocking.
Given a little foresight would it not have been a little more enlightened to push GR upstairs and give McAllister the job for the sake of continuity if nothing else.
As for cup runs I don’t buy for one minute this stopping in the PL is only achieved at the expense of cup competitions, only 3 teams have won cups and been relegated in 30 odd years so basically it’s bullshit, more a case of they loathe to split the gate recipients imo.
I agree with a lot of what you but our fans are fantastic and the least fickle we have had 36,000 on average per home match, even after the crap football we have watched. My point is we are an established Premier league club and we are not even competing with the likes of Palace, Hull and cardiff in the transfer market. These are clubs fighting for survival if we cant compete against these then we are now a championship club because that is what we are spending.
I dont think the spending should be on MON scale again but it does need to be somewhere between where we are and the MON era for us to survive and stay in this league. If we dont bring in 4 qulaity players in the summer we are going down if we have not already.
The truth of the Premier league is if you dont spend you dont survive as Bolton, Wigan, Wolves, Wednesday have all found out and none of those look like coming back anytime soon
It’s also true that if you keep flirting with relegation you eventually get dragged down.
Agreed you pay peanuts what type of player will you attract.is it a case of throw to caution to the wind now?carn’t still see it happening im going to need alot more convincing before i get my hopes up.how fucking depressing it is being a fan atm? 🙁
Same players Swansea attracted. Same players Udinese attract (and they’re by far a worse selling club than we are), Same players Villarreal could attract, same players Sevilla could attract, same players Sociedad could attract, same players Hellas Verona can attract, Lazio, Borussia M’gladbach. I mean I can go on and on. These teams spent around or less than Villa on players. These teams who are better than us spend less/equal
to us. It’s about spending correctly, scouting correctly and not buying just for the sake of it, which Lambert seems to have done without actually having a tactic to scout a player for.
In principal what you are saying is true in reality it is different if we dont buy in decent players in the summer we are going down and we wont be coming back up for a very long time.
Bolton are really in the shit at the moment and maybe Lerner should take a long look at them and realise if he does not change that is what is going to happen to us. Fuck MON fuck McCleish fuck houllier the problem is now and the long term future of this club is at stake. Time to invest or accept away games to the likes of brentford for decades to come
You’re right, but these teams have spent on quality players, most of their players would walk into our starting 11. Of course we have to spend some money in the summer on decent players, but he’s had a chance in the past 4 different transfer windows, and we still have no AM, we have 1 DM who’s played as a CM and is expected to get forward by fans it seems yet to get his mind is defensive-minded, kind of like the DM we need, yet isn’t played as one.
We do have a decent backbone to the team (I’m assuming Okore and Vlaar are fit and playing together) and with three or four decent players bought in we’d be going places. Bertrand makes a good LB, we’re sorted for strikers, get Grealish and one or two more academy players moved up for next year and people like Tonev and Helenius out on loan to try to find out if they really are good enough. No, not top four but good enough to be with Saints and Newcastle at the tail end of the top ten. I just wish someone would come in and tell them what they’re supposed to be doing on the field.
Agree with you there Foxy, and BWS I don’t think any of us are happy with survival, but I’m realistic enough to know that we have no chance of competing with sides that spend £50m on a player or that pay £300k per week to average England players.
With the right investment, and management, I would imagine that we can be flirting with fifth or sixth in a good season.
Watching the crap we serve up at home week in week out is a real test at the moment.
First half on Sunday we could well have been two up. We have been like that several times this season.
I only watched it in the pub, but we all agreed that the chance we got let off with right on halftime summed this side up. We dominated, had great chances, and probably should have actually gone in one down in the 48th minute.
We didn’t get away with it second half.
As you say there is no way to compete with £50m on a single player or to pay £300k per week to average England players (ouch!).
This totally uneven playing field closed shop mentality by the top 4 – 5 (and that is imo all the fair play regs are, to preserve the status quo) is causing me to hold nothing but contempt for the modern game.
I donbt understand why Rooney is an example of why we have not invested. We cant even get the likes of Scott Dann, Tom Huddlestone and other players that belong somewhere between the championship and the middle of the Premier league.
We are not even competing with the likes of QPR, leicester and other teams fighting to make it into the Premier league, if we use Wayne Rooney as an example it becomes another smokescreen and escuse for a board who are piss poor at best
Not even an average eng player when was the last time Rooney scored for eng when it mattered Ffs if he wasn’t a red he’d NN dropped yard ago.