Charles Sale is a jounro I respect a lot.
Even though he works for the Daily Mail his column is often first with breaking news in the sports/business world. Remember he was the first person to break the news about the cancellation of the FXPRO deal – LINK
So this piece from the Daily Mail is bound to go around the forums quick enough. Yes it is a Randy Lerner story and Charles has linked his non appearances at recent games (Norwich excepted) with the possibility of Randy losing interest, something we have speculated about.
However when he says this
Friends say he would sell if he received the right offer
I would not simply write it off as a lazy journo, Sale is far from this at all. We actually have a quote from the club in the peice saying Randy has been helping his son to move schools. However please note the lack of denial on Sale’s substance of the story which is that he is willing to listen to offers. It is often a tactic to leak these things out in a small way as it starts to prepare people for what could or might happen.
I still think it is unlikely Lerner would sell at that, however is it more than a mere coincidence that this comes out on the night we learnt Randy has flown over ?
Aston Villa News 24/7
The rumours have been going around for a while Ian, even as recent as last August some “ITK” people were claiming that he may have held talks with Padfield, i really hope it’s true and he puts the club up for sale, he just can’t compete in the current climate mate and the club is just drifting into mediocrity right now, with the Qater group apparently looking for a club in the premiership i think now would be the perfect time to signal his intentions, i have no doubts that they would jump at the chance to snap up this great club, all Randy is doing now is losing money and the more this club stagnates the less he’d get for it.
Ian will shot me down in flames for this.The prospect of buying a Premier League club has become attractive to them after Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup and surely we have to be a more attractive prospect than Blackburn and potentially that means investment for the next 11 years.
Even shoot*
eventually FIFA HAVE to take the 2022 world cup from them, it is unworkable, it is corrupt and plain wrong.
You may be right that they want respectability but they can get that from somewhere else, thank you.
I never want to be in a position where the owner leaves we are fucked and no amount of trophies is worth that
Well unless you want Ellis back ANY owner who replaces Lerner is gonna have that risk Ian!!..and to be honest before City came into money we were one of the biggest spenders in the league!!..but i didn’t see you and others worrying and claiming that “if Lerner leaves we’re f/cked”,
It’s just fear mongaring imo, the bottom line is if we want a chance at some glory we’re gonna have to get someone mega rich in, your “organic” approach is just pie in and sky imo, we won’t get anywhere with that philosophy because the playing field is just too smart and strong for that.
As I mnetioned on here back in September [I think it was], the story that RL was open to offers was already doing the rounds in B74 at the start of this season.
At that time the people who were quietly spreading the gossip were a few ex-players and [ex-mostly] club officials who enjoyed a natter after few rounds in the local golf clubs…
Either this journo’s only just picked up on the same gossip, or the search for a buyer has become more urgent?
indeed and I posted one of them here to much anger from some.
I just think the source of this is more than a rumour monger, he rarely prints without real substance.
Good, fuck off Lerner you Doug Ellis clone, you will not be missed by me. Welcome Quatar group.
You lot really do not want the bloody Qataris taking over! I worked there, for Qatar Petroleum and they couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery, which is hardly surprising as they aren’t supposed to booze! Emiratis like the guy who bought city are much more urbane and are far savvier than the Qataris. Trust me. Qatari investment is not the answer to safeguarding our future.
Rawlie the fact is they’ve turned a sleeping giant like PSG around and now they are leading the French league, so if they can do that with them why can’t they do a job with us? beggers can’t be choosers.
It is the French league, with any kind of money investment you would expect dividends, that is the easy bit. It is bloody difficult if you want top 4 with the spending that has gone on there. For example if they were money rich, surely Spurs is a far better ‘investment’ given the location ?
As I keep saying money is fucking up football big style and I would not want to be a part of it whatsoever, what would happen for example if a Qatar owned team here met PSG in a competition ?
It is no answer.
Ian Lyon had been ruling the roost for years in the French league while PSG remained also rans!!.. SOUND FAMILIER? they’ve totally turned the club around, just saying “it’s the french league” is a load of crap because Lyon, Marsellie and the current champions Lille are very good teams so it was always gonna take something special to dislodge them.
As for your last comment, the best team would win, simple as that.
I just don’t see it panning out like it has at City. Firstly, because City have eclipsed all the other teams by lavishing vast amounts of cash on some of the world’s finest talent. For us to go toe to toe with them would involve outspending them and, even with Qatari investment, that would be insane. With the so called fair play rules coming in, we may qualify for the Chumps League but UEFA wouldn’t let us compete unless we had to do ridiculous things like renaming VP and really selling our collective soul.
Yeah, Lyon dominated for years and they are old money compared with PSG, but PSG have an unparalleled catchment area and should really have been in with a shout over the past ten years with better management. Also, they spent 86 or 87 million Euros this summer (half of it on that Pastore geezer from Argentina). City spent 76 million pounds, which is around about the same amount in Euros… and the same the season before and the season before that they spent 120 million and in 2008-2009 they spent around 116m! See where I’m going with this? Firstly, 86 million will buy you the French league it seems. City have spent 350 odd million for 1 FA Cup and Chumps league qualification in 4 years. Secondly, anyone planning on taking on City pound for pound are 4 years and 350 million pounds behind them. I just don’t think it can be done and would take someone with incredible wealth and enormous balls to even try. The Qataris certainly have the wealth but definitely not the patience.
So what you are doing is basing success on how much you spend…By that logic Man Utd during the 90′s spent hundreds of millions too then…oh…wait…they didn’t did they? They did it all through quality youth players and a cracking manager (hurts to say it, but he is)
Its crazy to think we’d have to spend more than Man City just to catch up with them? you seem to forget all the crap players they spent wayyyy too much on…SWP for what 24m? lescott for almost the same, roque santa cruz for 18m, i could go on and on…Add the fact that they changedf manager a couple of times, and each time tyou change manager he will always always always want to get rid of certain players and bring his own in…that just adds to the amount spent.
If they’d have brought Mancini in from the go they would have spent probably half as much and got into the top 4 quicker.
Man Utd spent loads during the nineties and are as guilty of buying success as anyone else.
The core of their team was through their youth team…Beckham, Giggs, Scholes, 2x Nevilles, Butt…etc
And not to metion back in the day with the Busby babes (quite possibly the only reason man u are so successful and popular now)
Yes they have spent money but not to the extent that Man City have (and by that i mean so much moeny thrown at it within 4 years)
They spent money on individual players that bought flair and pure talent to a side that had a natural team bond
I hate man united as much as the next bloke but you have to look at the success theyve had and say that if you were to blueprint success and how to attain it, that side would have been it.
some myths need busting, Man U spent massive amounts, Roy Keane, Rio, Rooney, Ronaldo (at just 18), Nani, Veron, Berbatov, Pallister (record buy for a defender in Britain) etc. etc
yep they had a n era of 5/6 quality youngsters but that has not been repeated since and look how much they continue to spend, Yorke, De Gea, Jones etc etc.
Yes they spend now, but no other team in the prem have won it with so many home grown youngsters, and to compete spending the odd 12 million on players here and there (yorke, ronaldo etc) is a given, yeah theyve spent alot of money on individuals like i said but not to the extent man city have in very little time, for example city have spent what, over 400 million? maybe more in 4-5 seasons, whereas man utd have probably spent as much in double the amount of time…
My point being that a statement like “we’d have to spend just as much as man city to keep up” is ludicrous as they threw money at everything like a kid in a sweet shop whos just been given his weekly allowance, with careful planning and leadership you could achieve the same as they have with very little investment
“we’d have to spend just as much as man city to keep up” is ludicrous as they threw money at everything like a kid in a sweet shop whos just been given his weekly allowance, with careful planning and leadership you could achieve the same as they have with very little investment”
So, you think the Qataris with infinite cash would follow the so-called Man Utd blueprint (which I totally agree with Ian is a little misty eyed bullshity of ‘bringing the kids through) or the work of a fellow Arab gazillionaire who looks like he is about to be successful? It’d be a case of keeping up with Al-Maktoums if we got the Qataris in.
Back to the ‘United Blueprint’, that is totally gonna be the line of the arse licking Sky and BBC shits when they go about rewriting history… same as the Anfield Bootroom crap we always hear about!
Welcome Sheikh Moneybags
Let’s hope it’s true. We are going backwards whilst everyone else moves forward!
who else is moving forwards ?
Arsenal – nope
Chelsea – nope
Liverpool – crawling more like
Spurs, Everton, Sunderland – nope
Newcastle is a total fluke
most teams are actually in our position with little money to spend in a time of the world’s worse economic situation
I spy commonsense, am I on the right site?
And this is what I think too. We all felt that optimism when RL took over that his wealth would allow us to compete at the highest level. It was a false dawn and it’s not as simple as being RL’s fault. I don’t feel comfortable with a “let’s get the richest owners we can regardless of what type of person they might be” approach. I think RL is genuine in his interest in the club, and not just as an ego trip. Whilst it would be nice to know what he is thinking i have a great respect for the fact that he doesn’t parade himself all over the media.
Aston Villa will go on long past our lifetimes so let’s not get too excited by the prospect of new owners, or too downcast over our inability to compete at the highest level right now.
I’m just looking forward to the next few games to see if the team is progressing.
UTV
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If Bannan goes to Liverpool as was being reported yesterday (and I hope that it was simply paper talk), then I really will be struggling to believe RL has a genuine interest, or any interest that goes further than number crunching, balance sheets and bottom lines. And if he (Bannan) goes I can not see where any progression is going to come from, we are not in the big spenders league and now unable to hang on to the kids we bring through?
Typical Ellis, always went for the cheap option, sold to a poor Billionaire. If he had done a Blair and “cosied up” to Gadaphi, think of all those Libyan oil dollars – whoops his downtrodden people would have wrecked our chances of EPL Championship, typical of the oppressed, dont think of others.
Have none of you heard of the Arab Spring. If you were an indigenous member of the population, of one of these oil rich states, would you not be slightly miffed. seeing your rightful inheritance to a better life being wasted on Prima Donnas of English Football Clubs? Bahrain will be next to have troubles (it has started already), and many others will jump on the “bandwagon”. The “ruling” families may not be around long term!
So if every one of the 20 teams in the EPL had a “fairy financial Godmother” where would the limited number of stars gravitate to – I dont think Birmingham would be top of their list, I’m afraid London and Manchester would still hold sway. I dont like it, think they are wrong, but one has to be philosophical and accept that this is the case!
I however if I was such a “Godfather” my choice of City to put my money in, outside the “big” two would be Bristol. As a football desert look at the 60 miles radius, no competition, what a catchment area. Compare that with Villa, probably at least 8 competitors for our crowds! It is also a growing City, with people moving in with no particualr allegiance to a specific club, unlike the more static population of Brum and the surrounds.
Randy, if he is thinking of selling, which I doubt, may well have difficulties finding a multi multi billionaire. For those who think Qatar are out there, Blackburn owners have said there was no approach; if so, then the story was fiction by definition. Well that’s the thoughts of a 69 year old Mr Scott!! Hope the spelling, syntax and grammar are up to scratch!
I started reading the first paras being in complete agreement …
…but then I read about Bristol and the suggestion that Villa has a weak catchment area. That may be true currently as the status of Villa has slipped, but if it were to be properly managed it would be far and away the biggest thing in the whole of the Midlands.
Villa (in reality) do not have very serious competition in an 80-mile radius. It’s down to the club’s management to see that Villa is a sleeping giant and wake it up!!
John, I think you miss my point, I am talking as if I was someone coming into England as a football virgin owner.
For a start Bristol would be cheap to buy into. They have had little success down there but they do pull in respectable crowds nonetheless.
Villa’s competition are basically established names and supporters are hardly likely to move ie. Leicester, Coventry, Wolves, WBA, Derby, Stoke. Blues, Nottinham Forest etc.
Bristol have in their catchment area, places like Gloucester, Weston, M4 corridor to Swindon,Taunton ( really all the SW), Bridgewater, Cirencester, etc these are all barren places for upper echelon football. Hate to say it but as a place to live and attract players Bristol has a lot going for it; being close to the coast and London.
We have tried to reach for the top, and we almost got there under MON, and the crowds, did they come consistently, unfortunately they did not. Even in the glory years of the late 70′s/early 80′s our crowds were disappointing, and it was cheap to go then!
Yes, I agree with you that we will always be the top club in the 60 miles radius, but will this dramatically increase our crowds, history says it doesn’t or wont. I am just surmising that the greater Bristol area would be far easier/cheaper to test out my theory. Expectations would be so much more easier to manage in the formative years.
OK, fair do’s, but I’m still not that much in agreement. Villa have the biggest trophy haul by far in the Midlands (and covering the West country) and is very attractive to an outsider because of its remarkable heritage. The fact that it’s dead centre in the country also is an attractive issue.
I’m also pretty sure that a 50k crowd at VP could be expected (after ground extension of course) if Villa were to be consistently at or near the top.and, importantly, winning trophies.
But, as for Bristol being nearer to London. I think Bristol and Brum are roughly equidistant?
When we won the league our crowds were the third highest in the country. From Christmas 1980 – May 81 we averaged the highest crowds in the country (the attendances from September to November pulling down the overall average to third highest).
Just to add, our crowds were steadily on the up with the arrival of Lerner, breaking the 40,000 average for the first time in ages. It’s only since it has become clear that the Lerner dream has died that the crowds have started to slip once more. People need hope and a belief that Villa will challenge and compete for the biggest prizes…give us that and the crowds will come. A successful Villa can support a fifty-sixty thousand average in this day and age. If Arsenal (who struggled to half fill Highbury in the seventies and eighties) can build up their support then so can Villa.
Absolutely. Ther needs to be a ‘can do’ attitude from Villa’s management.
LOL!!!!
well said DSvilla, at long last someone who talks real sense!
Confirmed – Bannan charged with drink driving (and leaving the scene of a crime???) By Nottinghamshire Police today…
I believe before we all start jumping to the inevitable conclusions we ought to wait until the full facts become known.
Yes he is 21, yes he may well have panicked and driven or walked away. Yes he has been caught but he may well have mitigating circumstances where he thought he was OK. How many of us have had the sleep induced tunnel vision on motorways.
He may well have had his drinks 6/7 hours earlier and thought he had recovered to under the limit. None of us know, we will in 2 weeks, so lets wait before we cast the first stone!
I am not condoning his actions, but I have seen enough people leave pubs/clubs/restaurants heavily inebriated, who I am sure have driven to work next morning believing all the alchohol was out of their system. Kids make mistakes, thank God no one was injured, but lets wait and see what really occurred!
He was pissed for God’s sake!!!!! Just face it! He’s not hurt anyone, or himself but he’s been a very, very naughty boy! Who’d have left the scene if they’d just dozed off??? Wouldn’t you wait for the Police and an ambulance????? I know I would!
He should just face the facts he’s been lucky and deal with the consequences. As long as he learns by this he’ll be okay.
What do u think Villa Missionary Position??? is he to be forgiven?
I, nor do any of us, know the facts yet. As I said previously he may well have had the drinks several hours earlier, but was still over the limit, whilst he himself thought he had left enough time before driving.
Since the originalo story came out, I have heard that he was driving outside the validity of his licence, I really dont understand this. If he had a full licence, and whilst I remember that he had failed his test several times, I believed he had finally passed, I cannot understand this charge. If this is not the case then the book must be thrown at him, premeditated breaking the law, no excuse.
As regards being asleep but running away, I was trying to point out, that surely many of us drivers have been driving for several hours, especially on motorways, when it becomes very hard to keep our eyes open, windows are opened, radios turned up but normally we see the signs “tiredness kills” and we pull off at service stations for a coffee and rest.
Will I forgive him if he is found guilty, lets hear the facts first. But yes everyone deserves a second chance, he is a kid, he has made a mistake, luckily no one was hurt. Lets hope he has learned a strong lesson and he turns out to be a law breaker who learns and becomes a better citizen for it.
I just hope these reports are true. The whole club is so boring. We’ve got a dour chairman who never speaks & a dour manager who nobody wants to speak!
Lerner-Sell, sell, sell.
McLeish-Goodbye, bye, bye.
McLeish OUT.
well i am bored with randy now i think i said what i wanted to say yesterday
all i can say is im really really looking forward to seeing ianrobos new jet ? MAYBE HE CAN TAKE US TO tottenham monday nite HERE S hopeing .. but just in case randy is reading this post 2day ??? randy mate done listen to what 80 percent of the fans on this post say they are NUTcases MATE trust me i dont no how they got out of the mad HOUSE RANDY ? ……. oh ya take care of ianrobos jet mate LOL >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>utv
NUTCASES???? Pot calling the kettle there ain’t you.
LMAO dont start a fight u cant win ya BATMAN wannabe when i was talking about nutCASES i was nt talking about you NOWAY? lol because the nutcases are dumb but my word you are 10 times dumber BATMAN with a balaclava on ? LMFAO theres a difference between a nutcase an >>>>>> you a mental case now go to bed with your balaclava an your batman teddy DOWN the front of your nappy TALK ABOUT TAKEING THE POOR OLD TEDDY FOR A RIDE LOL>>>> your so DUMB you would pee your pants if you was locked in a TOILET NOW GO TO BED LITTLE KID AKA>>>>> batman in a balaclava PLEASE GIVE TEDDY A BREAK TONITE ? LMAO — oh by the way thanks for leting me rip the arse out of ya at least now you an that teddy got something in common LMAO utv
You just proved a point there I think. You’re a NUTCASE….. Just wondering, why Batman???????
The thought of the next ‘utv’ post keeps me going through these tough times!
Please let this be true
There are few on this site and other Villa blogs questioning the morals of Arab owners, em well just in case anybody hadn’t noticed we are owned by Americans! Need I expand further?
I dont care if they are arabs, yanks or brummies we need an owner with the funds to compete. Nationality is not important
I think Morals are important and the way you treat people, MBNA may not be the best advertisement but it is a million times better than how Qatari’s look after poeple.
Shall we say you guys would have welcomed a mass murderer at Villa in the form of thaskin ?
Morals??? As an atheist I disagree.
Morals are nowt to with religion and I am too am a atheist
You’re wrong there Ian. Morals come from religion as books like the bible, Koran etc tell you what to think and how to live life. Without religion we’d still be living in caves. Morals come from such teachings.
Arse. U want you ass kicking in a theological debate then let’s start up on another thread! Religion is nothing but a man made set of codes predominantly to keep us in our place. If religion was invented tomorrow it’d be banned just like fags and booze. Morals can be stripped down to treating others with the respect we’d like accorded to ourselves. Hiring McLeish was therefore morally wrong! LOL!
Spot on Scottie, I would add more, they were invented so a few power crazy people at the top could intimidate those who follow their teachings. It is amazing that in early days it was only people who could read were the top dogs – communication, starting with Caxton has eroded the power of religions, the internet will finally kill them off, even those that are still in the 13th Century!
It is sad that your reading of religious history is only European based and only from the Middle Ages, or perhaps from the time of Emporer Constantine.
You are right in one sense. What you describe is how religions become – but not how they originated and were in their pristine days.
Sprituality, however, is very much alive and wel!!
Fuck me Villa Missionary is there any subject your not an expert on? Football, demographics, economics, history and now fucking theology and the history of religion!
Er sorry dudes, just poking fun at Ian’s need for Morals statement. There are no morals in business as it’s more appropiate to religious mumbo jumbo. Being the son of a vicar, I got preached this bollox all through my childhood, so at least I understand what I don’t believe in.
BWS at my age you do tend to have an opinion on most things, I suppose its called experience.
As far as religion is concerned I was brought up in a very strict religious household. When you have been browbeaten with the Bible, for almost 20 years and then form an opinion that it is all hogwash, you need to have a thick skin to deflect relatives’ barbs.
I am not against religion, it gives a lot of people hope, good luck to them, but it is not for me, !
Morals are not important if it means we had a genuine chance of winning the title
I suppose Guantanamo is acceptable and what’s 92,003 dead Iraqi civilians between friends? And of course you can’t beat a bit of extraordinary rendition, moral American, now there’s an oxymoron.
Thaskin was in control of the murder, Randy was not, you can not equate those living in the country with what their leaders did
the gulf families are in control of all apsects of their countries (if that is what they are) and they are not what we see as free countries at all. But heck it is football and if they have billions shove all the rest aside so we can see a player on £200K a week score a goal or two.
And you can bet all propped up, armed and trained by the good old U S of A.
I am not willing to take any moral high ground if and it is a big IF the Qatar group was to come in and buy us and then throw copious amounts of money that propelled us to the League title and then onward and upwards into the Champions League then its all good in my book. And then say us, Man City, Liverpool and I don’t know, lets say for arguments sake Everton found a sugar Daddy and all this resulted in Man u being left out in the cold it would be a very very good day in Billies world.
except Man U would be brought before anyone if the glaziers wanted to sell
interesting to note spurs are delisting from the stock exchange to help with the ground redevelopment.
Ian
With your contacts, and if RL was to sell, what can we expect to be sold for? and is there big money out there realistically?
I have no contacts like that ask others !
However reading the books for Randy to sell with no personal profit would be around £120M or so
We may be in a World recession, but there is still an awful lot of money around. There always will be.
well they say the best time to buy is at the bottom, Randy did but we are not because the debt to the Trust HAS to be paid and in terms of Equity Randy would want at least £140M for Villa, total cost effective £200M, NOT A CHANCE of anyone sensible buying us at that
You need to ask stuff like that on vitalvilla, they have Lerners cock permenantly lodged in their throats.
I know what you mean JPA, I post on it, but it’s rejected for being too Anti-Lerner, that site should just be ignored as there is no real debate other than who suck Lerners nob this week.
And I thought it was just me who had his comments deleted for no reason. I never visit it any more. Cocksuckers.
no need to have a go at other sites !!
leave them be if you don;t like them and one in particular is pissing me off at the mo but best let it go
Ian
Do you feel there is the money out there?
Is this current climate ?
Nope, clubs are over priced, wages massive issues, in a years time villa could be far more attractive to buyers if we have a couple of seasons of 10th and wage bill shrinks.
Ian
The club have been working on the wage bill and trimmed it down big time. Possibly as we have all discussed, could he be priming us for a sell off?
Not sure with his finances the way they are being reported, he could keep us and the CB’s going for a couple years more?
yes it is totally feasible and Lerner gets some money back from the sales as well
and new owners are well placed within the FFP to spend but not mega millions.
JPA
No thanks matey, picky over which sites I read and theirs isnt one of them.
Not really news I’m afraid Ian, as quite frankly ANY vendor will sell if the price is right. Lerner is no exception. I’m no journo, but thats purely commonsense. However, from a gut feel and with my M&A head on, given we made a claculated push to get into the top4 with MON and spending lots of money (and given the structure of how that money was lent), it is my guess that lerner’s “5 year plan” was to get in, throw money around, get into the CL, and then sell up to someone else for far more dosh. Thats obviously not happened, and now with the loan notes running out in 2019, and the football fair play laws coming into effect next year (which will pretty much ensure the top 4/5/6 remains like that for the foreseeable future) I can’t see why Lerner WOULDN’T sell, especially if some middle eastern money is being thrown at him.
Spot on…
why would anyone buy us if the FFP rules are applied fairly across the board, no point.