OK, lets say this, for the first 4 years I loved Randy, I loved what he did at Villa Park.
However when Houllier mentioned 7th – 10th team the writing was on the wall for us and some do not see that. IMHO Randy put all his eggs into CL with MON and put the cash in, it failed narrowly to deliver. Now he does not have the funds anymore to deliver us to the hallowed CL places, he can not thanks to the corrupt UEFA rules break through.
The corrupt UEFA rules now mean the status quo is set, no team without the revenues can no longer break through using owner’s money (if Randy has it) and the rules keep the status quo. So once the rules were passed it meant that clubs like ourseleves with smaller revenues could never challenge again and Randy has seen that.
Therefore the comments by Houllier make PEREFECT sense, they mean we can never look forward to greater glory than a cup run or two. Hence for Randy the appointment of AM makes sense, he won a trophy (albeit so fluky) and I think the ambition at Villa Park no longer extends past 7th and a cup win.
Is that good enough for you ?
Is that the most we should aim for ?
Do we have any alternative ?
Expectation has always part of the game, it is a way of keeping the fans under control. I will not except 7th as the best we can do but it seems Randy has and the Mcleish and Houllier appointments prove that. It is a sad state of affairs that clubs can not aim higher but in effect the UEFA rules have forced that and you have to ask yourself whether it is worth it anymore ?
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Well said RT this site is awful too much negativity too much of the time
What, and this opinion was not negative?
moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan, moan – Bloody Hell – is there nothing good about Aston Villa we can discuss or debate over! UTV
ianrobo now that we have mcleish are you going to support him or are you going to slate him everytime we loose are don’t play very well as last season you were very anti houllier from the start. UP THE VILLA……
Too much bloody whinging on this site – all I hear is people hurting, those who are devastated by the appointment of AM, those who refuse to go to Villa Park until AM is gone, and now Randy has no money or ambition and we’re a selling club
I’ve only been posting and reading here for about 3 weeks and some of the utter shit that I have read has truly astounded me – thank god the negative lot are a minority and more importantly Randy doesn’t seem to care what they think
This will be my last post as I refuse to read so much shit about such an amazing football club
COME ON YOU VILLA!!!!!!!!!!!!L
here here
good, won;t miss you …
I don’t do this blog for any other reason than myself, if all you can do is to moan about moaning, what does that say ?
Actually read the article and it is not moaning but assesing the situation we are now in, are you expecting a £50m NET spend then this summer for Top 4 challenge, nah course not
Robo, maybe you should re-name this site ‘Villa – The Real Deal’…
It does maze me the many that moan about this blog and yet I am quite willing to put up any article and many I do not disagree with
so I will only reflect what I think in my own posts, if others want their own views then please send me something
Oh dear. Goodbye i doubt we will miss you .
Jesus Christ are you like this at work/home? What is it you would actually like yo happen to our club?
you actually going to wake up to the state of play ?
I guess the expectation managing over the past year has worked on some
Randy lerner is a waste of space and the less said about the fuckwit ceo the better
It amazes me how many of you will just sit back and accept this shit. We have just appointed an awful manager, no excuses for him please. The board have just shown they have no ambition by appointing that manager, we will lose 2 of our top players this summer.
Stop making excuses for the club. Lerner has shown his true colours and the sooner he sells the better.
The only was is down now for this club and it is what randy lerner deserves
I agree jpa. Everyone all of a sudden seems to be accepting what has happened instead of putting pressure on the board. IMHO Lerner and his knob scratching CEO prob think it will all die down and be forgotten. Mcclown has to hit the ground running for even the slightest possibility of that. Lerner should go now we are a nothing club now going nowhere fast hes made his money now sell to someone who will take is up to next level. Lerner and mcclown out!!!
FFs we even gave fergie picking our manager!!!
At the risk of believing everything on the net, I just read that AM is getting a 150% pay rise moving to us. Why?
I’m working through the grief curve a bit now.
No rational reason for it but woke up feeling like it might not be the end of the world after all and we might do ok this season. Al I really want is soem good coaching, reasonable football and our kids given a chance in a controlled way (ie surrounded by a bit of experience mot all chucked in at once). We will see
Randy out simples i am not renewing my season ticket
a good post in all fairness, UEFA’s so called fair play scheme is not going to make any difference to the status quo. Aston Villas problems since we won the european cup have been at boardroom level, we get ourselves to a position where it looks like were going to compete on a level playing field with the big boys, and then for some reason we nosedive everytime, imo complacency and lack of further investment and ambition for the club.
Ian, you are spot on. We have to accept 7th place is best to come and a good cup run would do. In the end we have to accept it and hopefully, something special will happen for our beloved club once again in the near future.
I don’t like it but that is the situation.
I don’t want AM but that is the situation
Does it mean I like it, NO WAY but football is going badly wrong but the people in charge are in total denial or racking in too much for themselves
The harsh reality is randy digs deep into his pockets or we find a new owner who will. I’m not happy settling for 7th at best and a good cup run! Why isn’t every teams aim in the prem to win? Because its just a business now!
Didn’t you read the blog!? We CANT do that. It is not allowed. We have to balance our books, so all we can do to succeed is increase our revenue or hope that youngsters cone good!
we are hardly going to increase revenues though we are at the peak of what we can do, only CL football can give the big boost to those
hence the whole problem
lets cut the negative threads now ian, the dust has settled and the red mist has risen and vanished (personally)
lets start with some positive threads on transfer speculation, charlie adam for instance, rumoured we are preparing a £9mil bid.
well you send one in then ….
Or we could talk about the laughable story of Seb Larsson snubbing us and Arse to join Sunderland. What player would refuse Arse nevermind us to play for that footballing elite of Sunderland. LOL
It’s on the NE coast and closer to Scandanavia… That’s the only reason I can see. Would be great to see Sunderland break the top 4!!!!! Suprise packages don’t exist anymore…
Time for everyone to move on.Sure, I would have loved Ancellotti but once he had made his decision then none of the other candidates stood out. It is embarrassing watching Villa fans protesting at the ground and seeing the graffiti on our training ground is a disgrace. Defacing our own place- pathetic. Everyone involved should be ashamed.
McLeish is here and must be given everyones backing. If anyone goes to the 1st game and gives him a hard time, they may as well get a season ticket for the away end and support the visitors.Noone who saw the anti Houllier banner at VP last year can say it didnt affect the players and the atmosphere that day!!! the visitors must have had a blast seeing it!!!!
Come on and lets get behind the boys and really become the 12th man
Totally agree.
this is the biggest load of bollocks ive ever read.
Randy isnt putting money in now, because he doesnt want to, if he wants to make us a CL team this is his final chance, as the eufa rules arnt coming in till after this close season, and even with this aston villa make 63million a year, have you ever seen aston villa spend 63million in a transfer window? i no i havnt.
So if you want my opinion thats a load of bollocks, 63 million is more than enough to strengthen our squad.
You are correct. The first monitoring period is for the year ending 2012 as explained here:
the first monitoring period assessed in the licence season 2013/14 covers only two reporting periods, i.e. reporting periods ending in 2013 (reporting period T) and 2012 (reporting period T-1).
so, having read the rules a number of times, it would appear that randy can spendy as much as he wants before the 2011/12 season starts ………. but ………….
If he spends 63 million on players they will immediately appear on the Villa books and then be amortized over a number of seasons – until the players are sold or their book value equals zero. What this means is that there will have to be income over the amortization period to offset aginst this revenue. Otherwise we are breaking the UEFA rules.
In summary, it’s not as simple as you think.
A number of things he can do which the majority of you will be upset about ….
- Sell the naming rights to Villa Park
- Sell Villa Park and then take out a 50 year lease-back
- Sell the shirt to a company with a recognized brand. This is different from sponsorship; take Guinness, we all recognize “white on black” – so we could change the shirt colours.
- Charge membership fees a la Barcelona (i.e. £10 per year gives the right to apply for a ticket or season-ticket).
To be honest, I’m OK with any of these things because it’s the ONLY way we can get on par with the top-6 who are now in a different league to the rest of us.
Someone asked earlier about how Nottingham Forest could do it in the 70s – very very simple; no Bosman rules and according to popular rumour a lot of money changed hands under the table for “signing-on” fees etc And Man Utd and Arsenal were no better than also rans to Liverpool at the time (neither were dominant or even a global brand). The world has changed and some clubs have moved forward at a different pace to the Villa.
on those ideas only the naming rigths one would be OK with me
However frankly we are not an attractive ‘brand’ and monies raised would be small
it all revolves around CL and the UEFA rules stop teams like us from taking a risk as no reward
Of course NO chance at all of Chelsea and Man city being omitted
Sensible post.
Where do you get the idea that Villa ‘make £63m’?
Read the accounts and see how they lost £40m in 2009/10 and some £80m since Lerner bought the club.
Basic facts are that in common with most EPL clubs we lose a fortune, most of it to players and their agents..
that was in response to andrewbendall, btw,
Give lerner a chance for gods sake we still got untill the 31st august to sign players and i do believe we will have a big turn around of players. UP THE VILLA……..
oops … should have said ….
What this means is that there will have to be income over the amortization period to offset against this EXPENSE
Hmmm. For all of those who are saying RL out, get someone in who has a lot more money to spend. Did you not read the post? It wouldn’t matter if Bill Gates came in, we wouldn’t be able to spend much money.
I did think however that you could still spend as much as you wanted on the player, but have to limit wages to about 70% of income. Also it won’t stop us winning the league if we did a City,we just wouldn’t be allowed in Europe, big deal, there will probably be a European Super League within ten years.
I did think however that you could still spend as much as you wanted on the player, but have to limit wages to about 70% of income.
Unfortunately not. Transfer fees are included in the expense column. And transfer fees, as Ian mentions, must be “fair value”. i.e. if we bought Messi for “£5m” and valued him as such in the books this would go to a EUFA committee who would then say … sorry his value is, say, £100m and that’s the value that has to appear in the books. This is to stop under the table transactions. Same applies if we sold Villa Park for £2bn and leased it back for £1 per annum.
I meant to add that the one thing that doesn’t have to appear “in the books” is any money that is spent on “Youth Development” and this includes the cost of all full-time development staff but not scouts or fees associated with acquiring “youths”. Again it’s to encourage local youth development.
I agree Ian that the so called “fair play” rules are a problem. Infact as soon as they were muted, I felt that we may as well give the league to Man U every season as they will have so much more cash than everyone else.
However I’m unsure as to how practically this will all pan out. Both Chelsea and Man City particularly have zero chance of complying on the face of it. So basically they have consulted with some pretty fancy dan lawyers and accountants and they’ve either come up with a complicated cooking the books solution, or they’ve advised that they have no chance of complying anyway so just carry on and see what happens.
If both Chelsea and Man City finish in the top four, one of them potentially as Champions what would UEFA do if they don’t comply with the new fiscal rules?? It’s not just over here that there’s a problem, Real Madrid get baled out by the Spanish government (though they’re not too flush right now!) every few years. I don’t know the finances of other European clubs but I assume there is plenty who are a little “overdrawn”.
I just get the feeling that money talks, or swears, and one way or another the rules will either be circumvented or bulldozed out of the way.
Most people dislike Chelsea and more recently Man City because of their sugar daddy statuses but as Ian has pointed out the EUFA way makes it a total closed shop. However the root of all these problems is the Champions League itself which has created this virtual closed shop and basically ruined genuine competitive league football both here and in most other European leagues. It’s a sad situation when we’re all lusting after 4th in the league and don’t ever dream of winning it anymore. When I was a kid there was always a debate as to whether you’d prefer to win the league or the FA Cup. Now people put 4th above the oldest and greatest cup competition in the World!
Those people who feel like protesting about managerial appointments and owners should really be concentrating their energy on the real enemies of football, the self serving autocrats that run UEFA and FIFA, who appear to be beyond reproach but are in reality beyond contempt.
Villa ’til I die