Time to say Goodbye

It’s very typically Aston Villa that after a report in a certain tabloid newspaper that Randy Lerner was looking for a buyer, it wasn’t long until Paul Faulkner had quashed them.

Why? Well it seems every time we’ve had an opportunity to get excited about something over the past four or five years – it’s been blown away by either the truth or a big turd sandwich is forced back into your face.

Some of it was unfortunate. Such as making a club record purchase who couldn’t stop scoring goals. And then having the manager who brought him then become seriously ill. And then some of it wasn’t. Like then deciding to keep said striker, but sell his supply line without replacement.

In fact, the only thing that that came as a surprise to me that the rumours of a sale were not true is that we actually got to hear from our Dear Leader, Mr Lerner at all.

It’s the first time I can remember Lerner has commenting on anything Aston Villa since the summer O’Neill left.

It’s a shame it’s got like this. But as each month goes on, the team continues to struggle and the club continues to act in a way which you do not expect a Premier League team to do it’s quite clear that the owner has lost interest in his rather expensive mid-life crisis purchase.

Shortly after the purchase of the club I was lucky enough to be contacted by Paul Faulkner who spoke with enthusiasm about Randy Lerner’s plans. Emphasis on fun, on becoming competitive and mending the relationship between fans and club which perhaps had become strained.

We sit here now with an under-funded team, often dull football with very little chance of any kind of success and the club banning people from the director’s lounge for talking about where the owner may or not be and appointing managers who have just relegated the local rivals. In short – no money, no excitement and no understanding of the fans.

And that’s why I’m disappointed the story was denied. Because we are now no different to the latter days of Ellis. Sure the sums of money floating around are larger – but that’s just football these days compared to back then.

Back in 2006, Lerner told us: ‘If I can’t make it work, I will do what the others did, move on and let someone else try.’

It’s that time, Randy.