...::[The Footy Desk]::... (Part 1)

[TommyMufc-Champs]

OMG Martin O'Neil has quit! I cant believe It, Villa are screwed.

[Hodgey.]

Wow shocked to see O'neil leave Villa as hes done a pretty good job and would must likely have another good season. I think Villa will be bottom half of the table this year now, wereas with Martin i had them in the top 8 - 10.

[Brown Sugar]

Wow shocked to see O'neil leave Villa as hes done a pretty good job and would must likely have another good season. I think Villa will be bottom half of the table this year now, wereas with Martin i had them in the top 8 - 10.

even with MON you thought we would only finish in the top 10, I was expecting more or less the same as last season, maybe 7th, but now i'm guessing either 9th or 10th.

I blame man city, those f*cking greedy bastards just don't know when to stop, i hope they are f*cking happy that they could have possibly ruined a club as great as the villa, they don't deserve champions league, aston villa, tottenham and everton have been working hard for years to get 4th place then these rich arabs come and take over man city and they think they can just buy their way into champions league football its simply not fair on other teams, I hope the owners leave foe a different club and man city go to sh*t

[arsenal_fan]

Funny cause I said to my friend I thought O'Neil would get the sack or resign but I defintley thought it would be way later on in the season, January being the earliest.

 

Very strange indeed.

 

 

 

[TommyMufc-Champs]

Man City buying Villa's best players. Barry now Millner, I'm glad they never got a top four spot and I would laugh my head off If they didn't get It this year. They spend WAY too much money, It would be good to have all that money to spend but In football you cant buy the league. It Is about how the players play together.

[Bates_GTA]

It's interesting because Martin O'neill could have gotten the sack and earnt himself a few million, but resigning left him with no pay-off & a sh*t load of questions he'll have to deal with, the man is brave & i respect him for that. Personally i think Lerner has been abit to quiet behind the scenes, I really don't see any other reason why we didn't chase Robbie Keane, Ireland & McGeady who all have the irish connection with O'neill, so at the moment i'm REALLY suspicious about what the hell Randy Lerner is doing.

 

We've always managed to stabilize ourselves when the odd's are against us, lets just hope someone can slap us back into gear.

 

Sell Milner & any other f*cker who wants to leave, No player is bigger than the club.

[Waddy]

Villa are in a terrible state with debt, if they don't sell Milner and maybe another couple of players then another pompey could be on the cards.

Lerner dosent have limitless funds, a club has to make money. I reckon MON agreed to sell Milner but only if he could have all the money for new players and Lerner said no so he walked. MON has just thrown his toys out and sulked.

[Hodgey.]

Villa are in a terrible state with debt, if they don't sell Milner and maybe another couple of players then another pompey could be on the cards.

Lerner dosent have limitless funds, a club has to make money. I reckon MON agreed to sell Milner but only if he could have all the money for new players and Lerner said no so he walked. MON has just thrown his toys out and sulked.

If your a manager of a club and the owner says to you "Hey you have to sell one of our better players but your hardly going to get any funds from it" id be pissed of too and sulk. How do you expect O'Neil to do his job if he isnt given what he needs to do it.

[Waddy]

MON has had funds ever since he went to Villa. He said he could get Villa into the CL and was given the funds to do it. He hasn't done it has he?

85% of Villa's turnover is spent on wages, think about that. No profit...again! So the owner is giving out money every season for how long?? Even a small run in the CL would help but euro cup is a waste of time for money. He just hasn't got the money to keep throwing away, if he dosent get some back then the banks move in and the club runs the risk of going bust...

 

MON should be standing by the club when its going through a rough patch, scout lesser known players and try to cut costs! Help the club instead of leaving them in the sh*t a week before kick off!

[Ari Gold]

I had a dream last night that England's gonna beat Portugal in the World Cup final in 2014. Don't make bets about it, but if it ends up happening... just remember where you heard it first.

[Hodgey.]

MON has had funds ever since he went to Villa. He said he could get Villa into the CL and was given the funds to do it. He hasn't done it has he?

85% of Villa's turnover is spent on wages, think about that. No profit...again! So the owner is giving out money every season for how long?? Even a small run in the CL would help but euro cup is a waste of time for money. He just hasn't got the money to keep throwing away, if he dosent get some back then the banks move in and the club runs the risk of going bust...

 

MON should be standing by the club when its going through a rough patch, scout lesser known players and try to cut costs! Help the club instead of leaving them in the sh*t a week before kick off!

But that isnt going to happen in the PL today, you need money thanks to other clubs having owners that can spend unlimited amounts on players. Its ok saying scout lesser players but when you have the likes of City, Chelsea etc being able to buy anyone at any time its pretty much impossible for the team like Villa to get in the top four these days when they aint even able to bring a single player in during the summer.

[TommyMufc-Champs]

Giovanni Trapatonni Is In hospital but In a stable condition.

@Stefche: I hope you are right! Being Portugal would be sweet (especially on Pens lol)

[Waddy]

When Lerner bought Villa I'm sure he sat down with MON as the manager and asked him what he needed each year for new players to break into the top 4. Its a business plan. MON told him what he needed and Lerner agreed and gave it him, there would have been a time scale too.

So Lerner got his experienced manager who was on a massive wage, he had agreed to all the managers demands, gave him money, left him alone, sat back.

 

MON didn't come up with the goods did he? Leaving Lerner in the sh*t because MON had told him they would be in the CL by now...even before City came along. So when Lerner says that now belts have to be tightened like every other club in the prem? Saving which will keep the club in business all of a sudden MON has been done wrong by and he has every right to walk away? Bollocks! Its him who has failed to deliver, not the chairman.

 

All I am saying is that Lerner runs a business and its shedding money all over the place! Do you know that in the UK it is illegal to run a business at a loss? Which Villa is doing...it can't continue without having to go bust. 85% of total turnover on wages!!! The rest for other bills! Its crazy, they can't be making a penny when the loans are paid off...

 

So now Lerner is going to have to sell the club because they won't be able to service the loans...but if Milner was sold for 25m it would be fine.

[Brown Sugar]

MON has had funds ever since he went to Villa. He said he could get Villa into the CL and was given the funds to do it. He hasn't done it has he?

85% of Villa's turnover is spent on wages, think about that. No profit...again! So the owner is giving out money every season for how long?? Even a small run in the CL would help but euro cup is a waste of time for money. He just hasn't got the money to keep throwing away, if he dosent get some back then the banks move in and the club runs the risk of going bust...

 

MON should be standing by the club when its going through a rough patch, scout lesser known players and try to cut costs! Help the club instead of leaving them in the sh*t a week before kick off!

But that isnt going to happen in the PL today, you need money thanks to other clubs having owners that can spend unlimited amounts on players. Its ok saying scout lesser players but when you have the likes of City, Chelsea etc being able to buy anyone at any time its pretty much impossible for the team like Villa to get in the top four these days when they aint even able to bring a single player in during the summer.

exactly why i don't like man city and chelsea, they buy heir way to victory while other teams lik aston villa, tottneham, everton and even arsenal and man utd have been EARNING their place then these clubs with so much money they don't know what to do with it, simply buy out other clubs, it's a disgrace if what people have been saying comes true and aston villa do turn into another portsmouth, expect a bomb to go off at the city of manchester stadium because i certainly won't be happy

[Bates_GTA]

I guess in a sense Man City being rich c*nts & wanting to buy Milner for 25 Mil was a god send, that we didn't take up. O'neill has always been stubborn, I'm pretty sure 4 years ago O'neill was given 120 Million as a budget for the next 5 years, where did that go? When you think about it, i can count on 5 fingers the great signings we've brought in, where as i can count on 2 hands the amount of flop signings we've brought in (harewood, heskey, routledge, shorey the list could go on). It's pretty frightening for a Villa Fan to suddenly be smacked in the mouth with the news. I don't care what happened behind the scenes but O'neill resigning has just created an even bigger hole. I am very worried.

[Brown Sugar]

I guess in a sense Man City being rich c*nts & wanting to buy Milner for 25 Mil was a god send, that we didn't take up. O'neill has always been stubborn, I'm pretty sure 4 years ago O'neill was given 120 Million as a budget for the next 5 years, where did that go? When you think about it, i can count on 5 fingers the great signings we've brought in, where as i can count on 2 hands the amount of flop signings we've brought in (harewood, heskey, routledge, shorey the list could go on). It's pretty frightening for a Villa Fan to suddenly be smacked in the mouth with the news. I don't care what happened behind the scenes but O'neill resigning has just created an even bigger hole. I am very worried.

yeah, i agree

 

and more useless signings: Sidwell, reo coker...

[Waddy]

In 2008 and 2009 alone he spent 80million plus.

 

I really really feel sorry for Lerner, all he has done is give the manager what he wanted. When the going gets tough, MON f*cks off.

You can't blame Man City! Look how much Arsenal have spent the last few years and they do ok. Nowhere near what Villa have spent.

[Bates_GTA]

I guess in a sense Man City being rich c*nts & wanting to buy Milner for 25 Mil was a god send, that we didn't take up. O'neill has always been stubborn, I'm pretty sure 4 years ago O'neill was given 120 Million as a budget for the next 5 years, where did that go? When you think about it, i can count on 5 fingers the great signings we've brought in, where as i can count on 2 hands the amount of flop signings we've brought in (harewood, heskey, routledge, shorey the list could go on). It's pretty frightening for a Villa Fan to suddenly be smacked in the mouth with the news. I don't care what happened behind the scenes but O'neill resigning has just created an even bigger hole. I am very worried.

yeah, i agree

 

and more useless signings: Sidwell, reo coker...

Funnily enough i think those 2 are fantastic players, One of the others problems i had with O'neill was his selection, he never gave anybody a rest, especially when he had perfectly fit good players rotting on the bench like Reo-Coker, Sidwell, Luke Young they are very good players.

[nerner]

 

exactly why i don't like man city and chelsea, they buy heir way to victory while other teams lik aston villa, tottneham, everton and even arsenal and man utd have been EARNING their place then these clubs with so much money they don't know what to do with it, simply buy out other clubs, it's a disgrace if what people have been saying comes true and aston villa do turn into another portsmouth, expect a bomb to go off at the city of manchester stadium because i certainly won't be happy 

Villa Transfers:

 

 

Player	Fee	Date
Downing	£12m	July 09
Young	£9.65m	Jan 07
Reo-Coker	£8.5m	July 07

Spurs Transfers:

 

 

Player	Fee	Date
Bentley	£17m	July 08
Bent	£16.5m	June 07
Modric	£16.5m	May 08

Everton Transfers:

 

 

Player	Fee	Date
Fellaini	£15m	Sept 08
Yakubu	£11.25m	Aug 07
Bilyaletdinov	£8.9m	Aug 09

Man Utd Transfers:

 

 

Player	Fee	Date
Berbatov	£30.75m	Sept 08
Anderson	£17.3m	July 07
Hargreaves	£17m	May 07

Just a few of the teams that you have mentioned plus their top three largest transfers in since January 2007. Two of the teams that you said have been "earning their place" as opposed to buying it actually spent huge amounts on just three transfers. Man City's three biggest signings add up to roughly £80million or so while Man Utd's added to £65million and Tottenhams came to £50million.

 

Like it or not that is why they are in the top 4/5 in the country, teams like Everton simply do not have the large fanbase or the sugardaddy backing to compete regularly when it comes to transfer fees. Their £35million spending on those players is just not enough to secure a place in the top 6 now. While Villa's £30million spending looks to have f*cked them up royally.

 

But at the end of the day Randy Lerner is just a mere billionaire divorcee competing with multi-multi-billionaires and in the case of Man City and possibly Liverpool, the wealth of an entire country.

 

He may mean well but his attempts to compete with the big lads to satisfy an overly ambitious manager in O'Neill could well have sold the club short a la Portsmouth. Lets hope they keep paying the taxman...

 

Just as a food for thought here are Chelsea's three highest of the last few years (according to Wikipedia):

 

 

Player	Fee
Zhirkov	£18m
Bosingwa	£16.2m
Deco	£8m

Looks like they got outspent by:

1. Man Utd
2. Man City
3. Spurs
4. Liverpool (actually spent £58million on Torres, Keane and Mascherano recently)

So who's doing well to hold their place now then? Looks like the big, bad moneyman portrayal of Roman Abramovich is outdated badly.

 

Also looks like Spurs are becoming a Newcastle/Blackburn clone, constantly buying "big" players for big money to keep proving to their fans that despite their lack of silverware they are still a "big" club. Redknapp will keep this in check somewhat by spending shrewdly like he did with Palacios and Modric, but I really do fear for them when the winds of change blow after his departure, we could really see them go deeply down, at least to the Championship.

Edited August 10, 2010 by nerner

[Brown Sugar]

In 2008 and 2009 alone he spent 80million plus.

 

I really really feel sorry for Lerner, all he has done is give the manager what he wanted. When the going gets tough, MON f*cks off.

You can't blame Man City! Look how much Arsenal have spent the last few years and they do ok. Nowhere near what Villa have spent.

but have man city been causing unrest and tension at arsenal? no, they have bought adebayor and toure but lets face it, adebayor is simply greedy and i'll admit arsenal are a better team than villa, they have other top quality players such as van persie and fabregas so they don't need to worry about adebayor leaving and arsenal are better than man city too, i never thought man city would finish above arsenal or come close and they didn't. But they took barry from us who was our best player at the time and now they are going to take milner who is definitely our best player at the moment but the difference between arsenal and aston villa is the number of good quality players, sure, aston villa have ashley young and gabriel agbonlahor but the rest of the squad isn't exactly what you would call quality players so when a team like man city try to take 2 of your best players it has a more negative effect than it did when they bought adebayor and toure

 

and i still blame man city

[Brown Sugar]

I guess in a sense Man City being rich c*nts & wanting to buy Milner for 25 Mil was a god send, that we didn't take up. O'neill has always been stubborn, I'm pretty sure 4 years ago O'neill was given 120 Million as a budget for the next 5 years, where did that go? When you think about it, i can count on 5 fingers the great signings we've brought in, where as i can count on 2 hands the amount of flop signings we've brought in (harewood, heskey, routledge, shorey the list could go on). It's pretty frightening for a Villa Fan to suddenly be smacked in the mouth with the news. I don't care what happened behind the scenes but O'neill resigning has just created an even bigger hole. I am very worried.

yeah, i agree

 

and more useless signings: Sidwell, reo coker...

Funnily enough i think those 2 are fantastic players, One of the others problems i had with O'neill was his selection, he never gave anybody a rest, especially when he had perfectly fit good players rotting on the bench like Reo-Coker, Sidwell, Luke Young they are very good players.

ok reo coker was a good player but he was a useless signing because o'neill hardly used him and seriously, you think sidwell is a good player?

[nerner]

In 2008 and 2009 alone he spent 80million plus.

 

I really really feel sorry for Lerner, all he has done is give the manager what he wanted. When the going gets tough, MON f*cks off.

You can't blame Man City! Look how much Arsenal have spent the last few years and they do ok. Nowhere near what Villa have spent.

but have man city been causing unrest and tension at arsenal? no, they have bought adebayor and toure but lets face it, adebayor is simply greedy and i'll admit arsenal are a better team than villa, they have other top quality players such as van persie and fabregas so they don't need to worry about adebayor leaving and arsenal are better than man city too, i never thought man city would finish above arsenal or come close and they didn't. But they took barry from us who was our best player at the time and now they are going to take milner who is definitely our best player at the moment but the difference between arsenal and aston villa is the number of good quality players, sure, aston villa have ashley young and gabriel agbonlahor but the rest of the squad isn't exactly what you would call quality players so when a team like man city try to take 2 of your best players it has a more negative effect than it did when they bought adebayor and toure

 

and i still blame man city

Moan, moan, moan, moan f*cking moan. If Man City think that those two players will benefit them and their team then they will obviously buy them. Villa bought Watford's best player in Ashley Young and of course it has an effect on the team that you are buying from, Watford have flirted with the relegation zone in recent years and the argument could be made that that is because they don't have a decent striker. For example Ashley Young.

 

It works both ways, you can't complain that Man City are taking all of your talent whilst at the same time mercilessly pillaging Newcastle and other lower Prem for their good players.

 

Plus it isn't like you didn't have enough money to be able to buy adequate replacements for them both. My heart bleeds for you...

[TommyMufc-Champs]

25 million for James Milner? IMO he Is only worth about 15 million. Anyway I think Villa might benefit off selling Milner, 25 million can get you some good players. I dont think Villa will finish In the bottom half. They still have good players but with Martin O'Neil gone, some players might be doing the same.

[Brown Sugar]

In 2008 and 2009 alone he spent 80million plus.

 

I really really feel sorry for Lerner, all he has done is give the manager what he wanted. When the going gets tough, MON f*cks off.

You can't blame Man City! Look how much Arsenal have spent the last few years and they do ok. Nowhere near what Villa have spent.

but have man city been causing unrest and tension at arsenal? no, they have bought adebayor and toure but lets face it, adebayor is simply greedy and i'll admit arsenal are a better team than villa, they have other top quality players such as van persie and fabregas so they don't need to worry about adebayor leaving and arsenal are better than man city too, i never thought man city would finish above arsenal or come close and they didn't. But they took barry from us who was our best player at the time and now they are going to take milner who is definitely our best player at the moment but the difference between arsenal and aston villa is the number of good quality players, sure, aston villa have ashley young and gabriel agbonlahor but the rest of the squad isn't exactly what you would call quality players so when a team like man city try to take 2 of your best players it has a more negative effect than it did when they bought adebayor and toure

 

and i still blame man city

Moan, moan, moan, moan f*cking moan. If Man City think that those two players will benefit them and their team then they will obviously buy them. Villa bought Watford's best player in Ashley Young and of course it has an effect on the team that you are buying from, Watford have flirted with the relegation zone in recent years and the argument could be made that that is because they don't have a decent striker. For example Ashley Young.

 

It works both ways, you can't complain that Man City are taking all of your talent whilst at the same time mercilessly pillaging Newcastle and other lower Prem for their good players.

 

Plus it isn't like you didn't have enough money to be able to buy adequate replacements for them both. My heart bleeds for you...

ok we took watfords best player and left them alone, no harm was done and milner was on loan to us for a year then he went back to newcastle for a year then we bought him, we weren't "mercilessly pillaging" players from them

[nerner]

ok we took watfords best player and left them alone, no harm was done and milner was on loan to us for a year then he went back to newcastle for a year then we bought him, we weren't "mercilessly pillaging" players from them

No harm was done? They were relegated and that was in no small part down to a lack of goals. Which Ashley Young could have scored and provided in quantity. And what about all of the other Newcastle players which you have bought recently? Habib Beye ring any bells?

[Bates_GTA]

I'm pretty sure some people post in here without any knowledge of whats going on.

 

Everyone wants Milner to leave, including himself. It's just Martin wanted to use the funds we got for him to buy a few other players, or possible one big player. The thing is Lerner obviously didn't allow this due to our debt's which is absolutely right, Did Fergy spit out his dummy when he wasn't given funds & resign? no. thankfully Martin left without force so he wasn't given a big pay off, which would have royally f*cked us over, which shows where Martin's morals lie.

 

Ron Atkinson & Andy Gray sum the whole situation up perfectly i'll have to try and find the interviews. We need to bring in someone who understands the English game, Mark Hughes will be gutted he took the fulham job now i bet. Bob Bradley would be a gamble, i'd hate to see us turn into a team that juggles around with new managers every week.

[nerner]

Did Fergy spit out his dummy when he wasn't given funds & resign? no. thankfully Martin left without force so he wasn't given a big pay off, which would have royally f*cked us over, which shows where Martin's morals lie.

I heard Andy Gray say that on SSN earlier today and it did royally f*ck me off. Fergie would never do that simply because him spitting out his dummy is generally more than enough to guarantee that the investment goes into players in the future. You can't compare a guy who has done a very good job for a few years but never quite made it to a guy who did his job to perfection and has over the last 25 or so years completely rewritten the record books. That, in my opinion, made Andy Gray look like a prick earlier on today.

 

However one thing that I can say about Gray is that he knows Villa, as does Ron Atkinson, they certainly do know where the club should turn next and I reckon that Lerner would be a very silly man to go for an overseas manager with no experience. Plus I doubt that the fans would want that. He is, in essence, gambling with the future of the club here.

 

Here are all of the English and Welsh managers in the Prem and Championship, with a Northern Irishman thrown in. The successor will probably be from this group of managers.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Engli...League_managers

 

Holloway would be a shrewd bet to take over now. Supposedly under pressure at Blackpool trying to get new players in he would have no such troubles at Villa. However I do wonder how he would deal with the egos of players in the top flight. Especially at a team which has been punching above it's weight for so long.

[Brown Sugar]

ok we took watfords best player and left them alone, no harm was done and milner was on loan to us for a year then he went back to newcastle for a year then we bought him, we weren't "mercilessly pillaging" players from them

No harm was done? They were relegated and that was in no small part down to a lack of goals. Which Ashley Young could have scored and provided in quantity. And what about all of the other Newcastle players which you have bought recently? Habib Beye ring any bells?

he wasn't exactly a star player for them though was he

[nerner]

ok we took watfords best player and left them alone, no harm was done and milner was on loan to us for a year then he went back to newcastle for a year then we bought him, we weren't "mercilessly pillaging" players from them

No harm was done? They were relegated and that was in no small part down to a lack of goals. Which Ashley Young could have scored and provided in quantity. And what about all of the other Newcastle players which you have bought recently? Habib Beye ring any bells?

he wasn't exactly a star player for them though was he

In answer to your point he most certainly was a star player for them, as their clubs young player of the season award winner in the 04/05 season. Plus his strike rate was in fact slightly better than his currnet strike rate for Aston Villa. A goal every 464 minutes as opposed to a goal every 481 minutes like he currently averages.

[Bates_GTA]

On a slightly brighter note, This made me chuckle.