Enough is enough. Where is the plan? Where’s the set of objectives we’re aiming at? How are things going to be done going forwards?
As most Aston Villa fans have known for far too long, the answers to these questions are elusive. Elusive to the point that we’d be more likely to find Lord Lucan before we find those answers, and we know he’s quite the master of disappearing.
It pains me to say it, but the club is headless. Whatever your thoughts on Alex McLeish the manager, the issues at the club run far deeper than just an unpopular Glaswegian. If they didn’t, then sacking him would be a no brainer, something that anyone with any sense could do with their eyes shut.
The issue at the club revolves more around “What next?” Even if McLeish was sacked tomorrow, do we trust the board to find a suitable replacement? Do the board really have a clue about what we are supposed to be doing, and how it is supposed to be executed?
The issue with the club is this – the club is being run as a business.
I should clarify before anyone jumps in that running a club like a business is very sensible in terms of finances. A club should be sustainable, and should operate within its means. These are all positives and, to the club’s credit, more specifically Paul Faulkner, finances are managed very well following the earlier financial gamble on Martin O’Neill.
The issue is that the club is run solely like a business, but one that ignores the main point of the actual existance of said operation. That is, the club focuses a little too much on just the finances, forgetting regularly that the product they are trying to sell is quickly diminishing in quality.
The team have regressed, as a result of poor managerial selections and savage cuts – both of which responsibilities lie directly at the feet of the club’s board. Should the club have cut the wage bill so savagely, and so quickly? Should the club have spent the money so readily in the first place?
Of course, it is easy for us to stand back and say “You really shouldn’t have spent that money Randy!” in retrospect. Few people, well none that I can remember, called for the spending to stop when O’Neill was in charge.
There were no fans sitting back saying “Stop that man buying players”. The closest I ever remember were fans who said Curtis Davies may not have been worth £10m. Those fans were certainly right.
The point being that, when things were going along in a positive way, nobody was piping up about the spending because, perhaps logically, fans figured whatever was being spent was sustainable. After all, you don’t live your life as a billionaire because you’re wasteful with cash and uninterested in how books balance. Well unless you just inherited your money and…. oh.
Anyway, the board made such choices, gambling as they may have been on the belief that O’Neill would control his own wage bill. O’Neill, presumably with the view of pretending to be “just the manager”, left things to go along, assuming that the board would say something if things became a mess.
The board did, eventually, say something about it and, as we all know, that was the end of that. So long Martin, thanks very much, and we’ll try and get by without you.
Which led us to the first of the two appointments that the board have made in terms of the manager – Gerard Houllier.
Without going into massive depth, largely because you’ve all heard it all before, the project didn’t work. Long term plans of the future generally don’t involve hiring men in their 60s, even less so men in their 60s with heart issues that are still ongoing. So, when Monsieur Houllier had to leave his post because of ill-health, it was hardly a shock.
In fact, back when I used to write for Damian’s site, I said Houllier’s health was in danger of failing before anything even happened. “Houllier has health issues that are going to crop up in the future” I said, only to be told by said site owner that “People who have heart complaints run marathons.” Indeed they do Damian, but when you’re close to the action and you know what is going on, you also know when people won’t go on and be running the London marathon any time soon.
Anyway, Houllier left, and we ended up, by some rationality, with McLeish. If ever the term “out of the frying pan and into the fire” was appropriate, this was it.
From old man with long term plan, to younger man with no real support, few could say it was the most well thought out of selections. Call me someone who is concerned with company PR, but appointing a Blues manager who has just been relegated, after a season where you were also close to relegation, well, it doesn’t smack of ambition, does it?
Which leads me back to these fabled plans. We have absolutely no idea of what is going on at the club. Perhaps I should rephrase that because I have a general idea of some aspects, but the overall picture is lacking.
Nobody knows if there is any kind of plan behind the scenes. We’ve established, more through idiocy than planning, that the wage bill had to be managed, but there is little else.
Charles Krulak, to his credit, did try to communicate with the fans and, speaking as someone who knows the man personally, I have to say he did come in for a rough ride. People sneered at his suggestion £20m was available for a player if the manager wanted it, and others laughed. The reality was the choice to spend less but, ironically, cost more in the long term was O’Neill’s. Houllier’s purchase of Darren Bent showed that.
However, when one shifts from a manager in the mould of Houllier to one of McLeish, you do have to ask question about plans on continuity because, on the face of it, the two appear totally dissimilar.
Which was much the same as when Roberto Martinez was approached. “Great.” thought many Villa fans “Here’s a man who is young and knows what he is doing. The board have clearly cleaned their act up.”
Until, of course, the announcements of McLeish’s interview and subsequent appointments were made. Then, quite frankly, we were left with no doubt that the reason Martinez was picked was due to money reasons, not footballing ones. The club’s “plan” was to save money at all costs.
Which, as it turns out, is nowhere near as exciting for us fans as any kind of normal plan, especially when said “plan” costs you nearly £600 a year to fund. No, £600 (well £580) isn’t a kings ransom, but it is pretty poor when it has bought me four home wins to date this season. Four. Bargain.
Yet again, next season I will be there to watch the games unfold, hoping desperately we can get wins in the double figures, and not by falling down the Premier League trapdoor.
The question is whether the club’s plans will ever be made known. I don’t expect in-depth information to be divulged to us mere mortals, but an idea that things have more grounding than “We’ll just see how this goes shall we?” would be a little reassuring.
Otherwise, it just makes me feel like even more of a fool for continuing to fund a project that is, in all honesty, akin to filling up a bucket with a gaping hole in it.
Plug the hole Randy, or you’re going to kill all of our collective loves for the club and the game and that, for the sake of our club, is hopefully a day that never comes.
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