Well the season has only just kicked off and, already for many, the knives are out for our chairman Randy Lerner. It seems like our beleaguered chairman can no longer win with most of our fans, and I for one am tired of it. I know this post will see me slaughtered in some quarters, while others may agree. Either way, I can no longer sit on my hands on the subject.
Some say that he hasn’t helped himself in matters with the appointments of Eck & Houllier as managers.
Some say that he has not reinvested all the cash from recent star player sales.
Others say that he is clueless in his running of the club, that we are a PR nightmare, that we even bungle kit releases, and don’t communicate effectively.
Finally they question his loyalty and love for the club, that he has grown disillusioned and say he is ready to sell up and take what he can.
Below I will look at all the above accusations and ponder if Randy really is the right man to lead us forward. I make no apology for coming across in favour of Lerner – I personally wouldn’t swap him for another Chairman in the country, not even for City’s millions. That’s just my opinion, though.
What I do ask is that you read with an open mind and if you feel the same at the articles end then certainly let me know. Oh, and please stick with the post, as I know it’s length may be off-putting, but I didn’t want to leave anything out that i felt pertinent to the subject.
Managerial Appointments
So what is it with Randy & managers? I wouldn’t blame Lerner in the slightest if he decided he has had enough, and yet his reign started so bright. He came in and took control of the club with Martin O’Neill already having been installed as manager. The pair were seen as a dream duo. A charismatic and highly rated manager, and a chairman who backed him completely.
An odd couple of sorts, one opinionated and brash, the other in the main withdrawn, but they were like a breath of fresh air to our club and it truly felt like a renaissance. We even dared dream again, something we’d long given up on during the Ellis years.
After an initial period of settling in and consolidation we began to push on and, in a short space of time, we were starting to look the real deal. There were few complaints when we were pushing hard for fourth. However the first cracks appeared, for me anyway, when O’Neill was vilified for sending a largely under-strength squad to Moscow for a Europa League tie.
As we all know we lost that cold night in the Russian capital on an artificial surface. But this was not the end of the world we could still get fourth, although all eggs were now very much in a single basket. A win against Stoke 3 days later, and we were right back on track however the team from the Potteries hadn’t read the script.
Despite marching into a 2-0 lead we collapsed under the weight of expectation and as history shows we never managed to secure the fourth place we craved. Sixth as it turned out was as good as it would get.
What followed the next season was another 6th place finish, an FA Cup semi and a League Cup final in which a stronger referee probably would have seen us take the trophy. As it was we were robbed of a memorable victory, but surely we would live to fight another day. Even fans of other other clubs were remarking on how we seemed to be doing things the right way. Even the press liked us back then but, underneath it all, there was something simmering.
As it turned out Lerner was soon to be betrayed by O’Neill to such an extent that the club is still in recovery mode. We still do not fully know what truly transpired leading to O’Neill’s sudden departure. What we do know is that O’Neill blinked first, pulled the trigger and committed professional suicide. We, on the other hand, were left with a huge void to fill and with little time to do it.
Lerner took a period of deliberation, reeling no doubt from the Ulsterman’s walkout. He first turned to Kevin MacDonald on a temporary basis.
This was sensible, at least it allowed continuity. and the players knew K-Mac however a Premier League he is not. Results were patchy until a 6-0 demolition by Newcastle. It became obvious that we needed someone with experience and, while it took some time to get him, Lerner plumped for one of the most respected names in world football – Gerard Houllier.
Houllier had a great pedigree but was something of a surprise appointment. Houllier alas also had health concerns which brought his tenure to an end. His time was also littered with in-fighting among the senior squad, and so the club struggled until Randy got the chequebook out and signed Darren Bent. A player who inspired a late rally and secured us 9th spot.
With Houllier no longer able to continue the club was forced to again hire a new man and if Houllier was a surprise, no-one could have expected what happened next. Again after much deliberation Lerner, against most fan’s wishes, turned to Alex McLeish. Despite protests and complete non-support for this move, Lerner stuck to his guns and in the face of an absolute torrent of abuse Eck arrived.
It seems as though fans have voted with their feet and attendances have been low for the first two home games. Whether he stays long-term remains to be seen but i certainly hope he’s here for the duration. If he’s not, it simply means that we as a club are failing and none of us want that, do we?
Transfer Policy – The Big Ones Get Away
In his time at the helm Lerner has poured vast sums of his fortune into Aston Villa. The net spend on transfers alone comes in at nearly £80M. Factor in wages, and the figure sits well over £280M. So after spending over £300M in 5 years, Lerner can hardly be accused of being tight-fisted.
Many of the players left over from the O’Neill regime were expensively purchased, given bumper wage packets, long-term contracts, and subsequently have been nearly impossible to sell on. I can’t blame Lerner for this. He trusted his then manager, as many of us did at the time.
So now the chairman has decided to reduce these mammoth expenses, and the quickest way is to cut the wage bill and to reduce our spending. It means that most of the money that has come in from the sale of our better players is being used to service club debts.
It does not mean that we are not active in transfer windows, just that we have had to show prudence. Last January, Randy spent £18M on Darren Bent alone and a further £6M on Jean Makoun, so we are hardly shy with our cash.
This summer we have brought in N’Zogbia at £9.5M, Given (£3.5M), Hutton (£4M) with a bargain deal of around £250K for Enda Stephens and a loan deal for Jermaine Jenas. 4 out of this 5 will be first team regulars straight away, and this for me represents money well spent. Stephens who joins in January is an absolute steal, and will be pushing very hard for a regular starting berth next season if not sooner.
Yes, we haven’t spent what we brought in, but we were never going to, nor did we bring in as many as we sold. Again it would not make sense to given our need to cut expenditure. What we have instead is a more organic feel, as we are looking to our youth and reserve squads to supplement the senior team. Given the vast investment (by Lerner) in this department, and the under-age squad’s achievements to date, it is the sensible approach especially when considering Financial Fair Play. It costs money to develop players, to dedicate staff to them, to give them the best training facilities, and this is the way forward for now at least.
Our young Lions deserve their chance and will get it.
Indeed with many high-earning senior players running toward the end of contracts this season, and next, we may yet see a greater spend in next summers window and beyond.
The Whole PR Thing
This is where the club I feel should be looking to make a real difference this season. For the best part of the last year the club has been badly lacking in how it communicates with its fans. With a more settled feel around the cub we can make great headway here and should be striving to.
During our managerial appointments of Houllier and McLeish, most fans would admit that the club has appeared listless and uncertain of how to move forward. With little news forthcoming, the press have been having a field-day and, in some ways, Randy, by not addressing this, has made a rod for his own back. Charles Krulak and Paul Faulkner are good men but they need someone to come in, work with them one the club’s image, and to help them. Ideally this will be someone with a knowledge of football, who understands the club, it’s fans, and someone who also understands how the press in this country works.
Many fans feel we do not have a voice and while I do not suggest that we should be engaged on every little decision, we should have more open and transparent dialogue with the club. This could be done through club forums where the board would meet with a select group of fans, who can then, through mediums such as blogs etc, relay the information to the masses. Press conferences are also useful resources. Silence may be golden but it is also deadly and can cause more harm than good.
All Out Of Love?
The final thing is this, has Randy Lerner fallen out of love with Aston Villa?. For me the answer is an unequivocal “No”. In his time at Villa, Randy Lerner has invested in much more than just the team.
He has also spent many millions on infrastructure such as our state-of-the-art training facility and academy. Further to this Randy spent over £4M on the Holte Pub, in which I dare say many of us enjoy(ed) a pre/post match pint.
He will of course never turn a penny of profit such was the size of the investment, but he did it for us, for the fans of Aston Villa. There have been other gestures of course, such as free flags/T-shirts on game days, and paying for the European Cup winning squad to visit Birmingham.
Randy’s philanthropy doesn’t stop there. He has invested countless more millions on goodwill gestures and helping those in the local community, again all at a loss. We even carried and supported Acorns on our jersey’s for two years as opposed to raking in money through shirt sponsorship. Although we have since sold shirt space, we still have ties with the charity, and they have the club’s continued support and financial backing. How many other Chairmen do this? Other clubs may since have taken notice and done similar good-will gestures but it was Randy who set the trend in this country.
So bearing all this in mind, does this have the feel of a man who wants out, who doesn’t love us and who is in it for himself?
Not for me it doesn’t. In fact quite the reverse. It displays a man who appreciates what the club means to us fans and the local community. It demonstrates his goodwill and kindness and his understanding that, without fans, a football club cannot exist. Hardly the hallmarks of a greedy man as I’ve heard some call him.
Every single other fan of other clubs I have ever talked to about our Chairman has only had positive things to say. Many would take Randy in a heartbeat, and would welcome his money. Last season when Young came in for some stick, it showed that you don’t know what you’ve lost til it’s gonem and I hope that we can start to appreciate our Chairman as we did not so long ago.
He deserves every credit for everything he has done for Aston Villa. Yes, there have been mistakes along the way but who hasn’t made mistakes? Our club is well run, or at least is learning from past mistakes, and we do not have the huge debts to banks of many other clubs. We instead have a man who came to these shores five years ago, and invested his money, heart, and soul into our beloved club.
If there’s a better Chairman in English football, I haven’t seen him yet.
The Author
