This weekend, I received an email asking if I wanted to buy more tickets to the Manchester United match. Although I can’t say I am surprised the game hasn’t sold out due to the poor quality tactics used so far, it did make me feel a little down.
After all, being a football supporter means wanting to see Villa play the best in the game. Manchester United are, by any measure, definitely one of the best sides in the country.
I think I know the rationality of why some fans won’t want a ticket to United, and that is because of the concern that Villa might capitulate and get thrashed as a result. Nobody likes to see something you love get beaten badly. I offered an alternative solution in my article earlier today. We’ll see if Alex McLeish takes it.
A Different Message To The Board
In my earlier piece, I covered the message I wanted to convey to Alex McLeish – that losing isn’t the end of the world, but giving up is. My message in this article is more specifically targeted at the board, in particular Randy Lerner and Paul Faulkner. I expect some realism, and last week I saw something that bore no resemblance to reality.
Last week, Paul Faulkner came out, somewhat unpredictably, to suggest that Villa’s target was Europe. Fans responded with a mix of disbelief, disgust, and laughter. How in the mind of anyone who is sane could Villa be aiming for Europe? What does making such outlandish suggestions mean?
I mentioned back in another article that perhaps Faulkner was trying to play mind games with McLeish, forcing him indirectly to show more ambition. If that is the case, then it smack of complete unprofessionalism. Why, after all, would a chief executive say this in the press? If he wants to say it in a private meeting, so be it, but doing it in the papers, especially after McLeish played down said expectations, made it look like a very bad board call. For a club that lacked communications, this wasn’t the sort of communiqué that Villa fans expect in the place of silence.
The other option of what the board were trying to do revolved more around trying to show some belief to fans that things aren’t as bad as they might seem. Sadly, there is a lot of evidence to point to the contrary. Even if Villa have a good season this year, the criteria can’t be judged under standard terms.
They can’t because McLeish hasn’t been given a fair hand to compete with. I’m not suggesting we should have broken the bank just to improve the team, but we do need to realign expectations. We don’t need to just say “Have less resources, deliver more”. That smacks of either delusion or cowardice. Neither option is particularly fair.
Perhaps in saying this, I’m not giving the board a fair representation because this explanation was made by Paul Faulkner rather than Randy Lerner. However, if it was indeed a rogue statement by Faulkner off his own initiative, Lerner should have done something about it. Having that kind of PR for your club, and that kind of leadership is incredibly damaging, not just to the Villa community, but to the reputation of the club in the bigger picture.
It makes other gestures look more like PR exercises than genuine concerns. Supporting good causes is always good, and PR people know this. Supporting a children’s hospice is a prime example of that kind of compassion. This is only a positive thing.
However, if this is then backed up by a management structure that stabs people in the back at every turn, and I know a whole host of people who will attest to this kind of “management” at Villa, then this is really not very conducive to a positive environment.
One need only look at the public cases to see how people have been mistreated.
Former club historian John Lerwill, a man who is, in my experience a very fair, placid, and educated man, got treated pretty badly by the club. It took a tribunal to make things better.
Martin O’Neill, for all of his foibles, also had to have tribunal against Villa. O’Neill’s terms were different, stating that he was made the fall guy for a situation that was, at least partly, the fault of the board. O’Neill, perhaps quite rightly, argued that final sign off on deals isn’t really his remit. I have to agree.
Whilst I can attest to Martin’s strong minded nature, desire for control, and sometimes prickly personality, he wasn’t signing cheques himself. If Randy wanted to let the business run this way, it was his choice. The subsequent business issues that followed are, therefore, on Randy’s head. O’Neill may be a strong character, but he is no despot. He did things wrong, and he left the club in an unsatisfactory manner, but he did it because he felt like he was about the become the focus of blame that only partly was his fault.
Getting back to the United match we, as fans, want something that looks like football or, in the absence of that, they want some kind of explanation of why we aren’t getting it. Cost saving is one thing, but don’t see why the board’s mistakes should be paid for out of our pockets. Robin Hood robbed from the rich to give to the poor.
Right now, fans feel like anti-Robin Hood is robbing our money to be given to the board. Not the right way to communicate, is it Randy? The future needs to involve better ways of getting things done.
If Randy does want to communicate honestly and fairly, we’d welcome that as fans However, if we are to see more statements like last week’s from an increasingly “Teflon” Paul Faulkner, then Randy would be best putting a sock in his chief executive’s mouth before he upset the fans, manager, and players further with his “ambitions” that are, under present circumstances, delusional.
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