A Review Of The Lerner Era

RevdPete … on the Lerner Era

I’ve been away a bit, combination of Witton’s sad death, selling our house, and just plain busy. And perhaps that gives me a bit of license to go over some old ground. I was as excited at the start of the new era under Randy as anyone. Felt like we’d won the lottery as a club family, a man with money and high morals, and a “winner” as a manager to boot.

That first season (06/07) it was reported we had a net spend of about £14,100,000 (source transferleague.co.uk) on transfers. We saw a winning mentality appear again. No I didn’t like a lot of the football, but I was happy we were winning again, and felt we needed time.

The second season saw us spend £6,250,000 net. And again we liked what we saw, even if we saw it very late in the window!

The third (08/09) season was the one to push on. That season its reported we had a net spend of £45,300,000. We were spending with the big boys. I got a bit confused by some of the players bought and the figures we paid for them, but in Martin we trusted. He was the manager. We did ok again, but part of me felt we were not quite going to make it, and despite a massive investment on the playing side, we still had a missing ingredient, and a predictable squad.

So maybe that would come, in Martins last season the net transfer figure was reported as £18,550,000. I loved going to Wembley, that semi final in the Carling cup will also live long in to the memory. I felt at the end Mr O’Neil may have taken us as far as he could. I certainly felt we had perhaps missed our chance to gate crash the top 4. To be honest I was worried too. We’d become a bit predctable, people I knew at the club had lost the spring in their step, and quite clearly some of the players had started to become disgruntled. Then the shock, Martin left.

So last season. We floundered. We flattered to deceive. Protractedly we ended up loosing Milner. What seemed a decent bit of business, money in and Ireland too. And we eventually appointed Gerard Houllier. In himself a very decent and knowledgeable football man. I forgave his initial faux pas of calling us a 7-12th place club. I even occasionally saw glimpses of what could be. The Loverpool debacle followed by the Man City capitulation followed by poor Gerard falling seriously ill was enough for a month of coronation street episodes! We bought Bent who rescued us, and had a net spend of £4,700,000.

So we come to now. 4 seasons, a net spend of £89 million. Plus the infra structure. Plus a new morality in the way we do things.

We lost Downing and Young, and whilst I understood Young, I was shocked, saddened, and a little bit hurt over the Downing debacle. I love the club, i will stay even if we are relegated, oh, but can I go to Liverpool please sir! He in one stroke shows us what the game is really about now, greed rather than passion and loyalty. Who is to blame for that? The club, Downing, Randy, Paul, no, if we are honest it’s the amount of money that is now available to players that has changed the game. We will never have a Taylor, Mortimer, Cowans or Shaw type player on our pitch again unless they are homegrown and Birmingham born and bred. And let’s be real, with the global game we are in now that probably means I may see one in the rest of my lifetime.

Back to the money. We sold Young for a reported £15-17million, Downing for a reported £20 million. It looks like we might spend £10 million on a winger. We have already spent £3 million on a Goalkeeper. Bringing our net spend down to a profit of £25 million before we start. Mmmm. Makes us look as if we are back to a net spend of about £65 million over 5 seasons. About £11 million a season. Which if you look at sites like the Transfer League is on a par with a lot of good top half clubs. We have actually spent a shed load of money over those season. Maybe with that investment we should actually be better placed than we are?

We also appointed McLeish. I didn’t want him. I “felt” there might be better out there. To be Frank I couldn’t care less about his Blue connections. I know he was a winner in Scotland, in fact won more than Martin. But he has hardly set the world alight. Ok ok, perhaps he didn’t have the support of the club, perhaps this, perhaps that. Bottom line though is I don’t pay the mans wages, I don’t get to make the choice, and now we have the man, I support the Villa, so I will go and give him a chance like I have every other manager, even Dr Jo, Billy McNeil and Witton’s favourite Gregory. I also genuinely believe that Randy thinks he is the best man for the job in hand. One of stabilisation and rebuild over a long period. Huge gamble, some would say brave, some would say foolhardy. Time will tell.

So what have I gleaned from all this? I look back and think the years of really buying ourselves into the top 4 have gone. After all Man City and Etihad have now changed the game. Those two/three seasons where we had a huge net spend were probably “our chance”. I can’t blame Randy for not shelling out like that again, he can’t, if he does he will probably bankrupt the club. I think as such my own expectations have probably dropped. I can’t help but wonder if Randy’s have too, if he was really really honest with himself. That doesn’t make him evil, he isnt a mass murderer, or even a money launderer. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t crave success. It just means we have to look at success using different criteria. Those criteria no longer seem to be “buy a team to get us there” but more “nurture a team to get us there” and occasionally buy someone really special who we want, like a Young, a Milner, or a Bent. Will it work? Who knows. I just know it’ll be a damn site harder than it was 5 years ago.

So, what do I do? Well, I have my season ticket (well I don’t but I’m assured I will), I will go and “enjoy” what is served up in the name of entertainment. I will do that with passion, occasionally embarrassing my daughter in the process. I will do that with hope, but probably less expectation. After all I am a Villa supporter.

How do I feel about Randy? I kinda feel like we missed our big chance together. But I like the man for doing things the right way in terms of the ethos of the club. I hope he improves the clubs PR disaster, er sorry I mean machine. I hope he continues to encourage the club to help some of the “little guys” I know it has, and to act with compassion and morals. Then, we will wait and see what will be. I can’t hate him the way some of my friends do. I can see why we are doing what we are doing, even if I’m not convinced we have the right man as manager. I can see we need to spend wthin our limits. I can see we are well placed if the Financial Fair Play rules are implemented fully. (Will they be is another story). I can see the need for Alex to have time to look at the squad. What I do know is that this is probably the pivotal season in terms of how Villa History will record Randy’s tenure as owner of one of the oldest football clubs in the world. I hope and pray it records it as a man who knew his own mind, made a brave decision, and we won some silverware because of it, going from strength to strength. Because that’s what I want as a villa fan. I want to see us do something that makes me smile, makes my dad smile, and makes my daughter smile. I want our Villa Family to smile again.

I hope I come back here time and time again this season and say “guys how wrong was I about McLeish!”. After all it’s a game about opinions isn’t it.

But I also know, that I will support the club through this as I have through every other up and down we’ve had. Life is too short not to!

Enough rambling, hope you’re still awake.

By RevdPete



Vital Villa on:

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