The overall failure of Randy Lerner and his board is the root to the recent compromising of Aston Villa Football Club. There’s been mismanagement on the financial side from the start (initial speculative spend with no long-term strategy in place), a disrespect of Villa supporters and tradition with poorly considered decisions (McLeish appointment), poor communication (the last we heard, the ‘Shunammite’ was off to dwell among his own) and a real lack of an overall footballing infrastructure and leadership at the club.
Randy Lerner and his recent Villa CEO’s (Tom Fox and Paul Faulkner before him) are not ‘football men’ with genuine English football industry knowledge, so why haven’t they employed someone or created a set up at the club to tackle more specifically the football side, while they get on with the commercial side of things?
Well, it looks like the time is coming soon…
Fox Restructure – Aston Villa Director of Football?
To follow appointments at Academy management level, there is talk coming out from the corridors of B6, that MOMS has heard from a couple of sources, that there is a ‘Director of Football’ type figure incoming at Villa soon. Someone you’d think would assist the Villa boss in issues such as player recruitment and planning, thus allowing the Villa manager to concentrate on coaching and running his first team.
We’ll find out soon enough if it is to happens (remember MOMS doesn’t do rumours), but it’s just what Villa needs considering the aforementioned make-up of the current Villa board and the fact that there isn’t even an assistant manager currently employed at the club.
Such a role would hopefully also help Villa avoid missing out on transfer targets, like they have done in the past couple of seasons, improve scouting and also not let key player contracts like Vlaar and Delph’s slip to the point where the club face losing key assets for nothing.
Totalitarian Football Rule
Presently, the current Villa boss Paul Lambert has a complete monopoly on the football side of things at the club. It’s not a healthy position for any club to have its footballing direction governed by one man, especially if it’s not working out or showing little sign of progress. Compare Villa to Swansea, where the Swans maintain its underlining footballing ethos despite changes in management.
Forgetting Lambert’s ill-advised new four-year contract for one moment, the club would also be currently hesitant in sacking Lambert, as there isn’t even a number two employed to take over the reigns to ensure minimal interruption in the short-term while a replacement was sought.
Lambert’s Future
Lambert currently has full backing from Lerner and Fox, as they feel their restructuring of the football side of things at Villa Park would help Lambert reach the potential only they seem to see in him.
Perhaps it’s too little too late.
Villa supporters increasingly feel that the current Villa boss is more likely to lead the team to relegation than Europe. Add to that further poor performances and results, and increased supporter pressure may create difficulties for the board’s latest phase of their Lambert plan.
Whether Fox can clean-up the infrastructure at the club in time to help Villa avoid the drop remains to be seen. A relegation battle certainly looms and teams with little goal threat are never the favourites to escape it.
Premier League survival, while it shouldn’t even be a question posed for a club like Villa, remains even more essential this season for Lerner, as failure would create a nightmare for him.
Lambert’s Many Lives
Most supporters mainly care what happens on match days and the buck for that lies with Lambert. If this supposed new role happens at Villa soon, then it will be presented to supporters in a way to give Lambert yet another life (he’s got more than a cat, it would seem). Whether supporters buy into it, the face of further poor performances and results and the slow burn anger of what has gone on the previous five seasons, remains to be seen.
Certainly, with the next three tough league games (Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea) and a very tricky FA Cup tie, supporter fervour against Lambert may increase further.
Yes, Lambert needs help to manage (and a couple of players in the January window to improve the first XI), but at the same time, many supporters feel now that it’s Lambert that needs to leave to ultimately help the club.
Moving forward, the next month could be very pivotal indeed to the immediate fortunes of the club.
UTV
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Lambert was a good coach on the up and up until Lerner got his clumsy hands on him. Everything our dopey owner touches turns to dung. He’s wiped billions off the value of his dad’s credit card company, run the Cleveland Browns into the ground and now he’s busily killing the Villa.
Keane left in November and the club still has no no.2. This would be unacceptable at a League 2 club, let alone one playing in probably the biggest league in the world!!! What the hell is going on? How on earth is this any way to run a football club? Penny pinching on things that are absolutely ESSENTIAL to get a team playing well. Lerner, you dope, it’s a false economy to scrimp on things that stop you from getting relegated!
Lerner’s “strategy” seems to be to cut off funds and simply bury his head in the sand and hope that somehow we don’t get relegated. He’s so incompetent he doesn’t realise he is making the club look so boring and depressing that no-one will ever want to buy it.
I won’t be joining protests against the manager because I don’t believe the state of the club is his fault and I think the only way we will get to the end of the season without being relegated is to get behind the manager and the players. But I would very happily join any protest that attacks the owner but shows support for the manager and the players. Clearly loads of fans feel like this – why else has Lambert been able to avoid severe barracking from the majority of fans for so long??
Enough is enough. We need to take a stand. Let’s protest and bring out the banners at Villa Park this weekend. We need to take our club back before it’s to late. Aston Villa is the greatest football club in the world and I for one can’t stand how it is being run. Lambert is clueless, inept and not fit and proper to manage our beloved Villa. We need to make this loud and clear. I urge all Villa fans to back the protest, even if you disagree with it, as you can’t disagree with the level and standard of football we have to tolerate with Lambert in charge. We will always be Villa through and through but protesting does not show a lack of support. It shows that we care, because this is our club. Not Lerner’s and especially not that deluded Lambert who thinks we are playing excellent every single game. Lets all get vocal and let Lambert know that he is not fit to be manager of Villa. As we say, “The Villa Is Ours, The Villa is Ours, f*** off Lambert, The Villa is Ours”. Come on the Holte End, make these words loud and clear on Saturday.
Villa Till We Die!!!!
Lambert needs to look in the mirror and ask himself “how can l convince villa fans that l am the best man to take this club forward”. Quite clearly he is deluding himself and should make way for someone with more balls and fight a true villian to bring back the glory days of this once big club!
Lambert has had an absolute nightmare, if he’s allowed until the end of the season it would be a good bet that Villa will end up relegated or at least in a relegation dogfight.
He needs to go and he needs to go now to give the new guy a chance to turn it around.
I had a debate with C Gale over 12 months back when he was spouting the same load of crap as he is now . Now 12 months on we are far worse than then -Definitely related !!
I seem to remember Villa fans doing this under McCleish too. All too familiar. Whre is his spending in relation to the other teams ?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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x x 0 F**KING BIG HINT
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x x 000000000000 LAMBERT
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What about walking out at half time to signify his P45 or 82mins in memory of when we were great ?
there are lessons to be learn all round the club,,, but,,, they would have less significance if we stuck the ball in the net
players are just not creating chances, and its worse against the worst teams, this is not a new phenomenon
it has been ongoing for 3 seasons,,
this proves lambert is not the man for the job, for all the bad luck, lack of money, injuries etc
lambert despite doing great work in the defence and possession,, has utterly failed up front to such a degree that all his good work counts for nothing,,,
and who can tell if we will bring in the players to do this
no one has any confidence anymore,,, because its just the same match after match, except now we go from side to side more
the stupid thing is this team is good,, with some good attacking players who now look like shadows of what they once were
that is why he has to go, the system will not change, just maby a couple of new rejects or kids out wide
to give us width
a lot can change in a week in football,, sadly we know it wont be lambert
The longerLambo remains , the greater the Failure.
P 45 now,
Christ what a mess. Support on the wane, best players wanting out and still after nearly 4 seasons of Lambert we are not one bit better off. Come on Doug you bought this no hoper from across the pond into our club surely you can think of a way of getting shut of him. No wonder he made all the shareholders sell up when he arrived, can you think of the mayhem now at a club AGM, now that really would be a sell out.
If we are getting a D of F for Gods sake let it be Ron Atkinson or Graham Taylor at least they have been there and done it and successfully.
Restructuring by the people in charge at Villa at the moment, would be a nightmare.
As you say, there are no football men there, so who would appoint the director of football type figure, we could end up with someone just as useless as our present manager.
Letting Lambert stay and carry on with his anti football ideology is a crime, but he has the backing of an owner who is running us like Tesco, but from across the Atlantic, it’s a full scale disaster waiting to happen.
I despair at the football being spewed at us, and the demented logic of the manager, what can we do?Nothing, except vote with our feet, I’ve had enough of being treated like a fool. Sod Lerner and his dictatorship. I want my Aston Villa back! UTV
The recruitment man has already been brought in. His name is Paddy Reilly.
Yep.
C GALE
sounds like you are making excuses for our crap manager.are you related!
I think Mr Gale is related to Lambert or Lerner (or both), it’s the only explanation for some of his logic.
Re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Lambert is the iceberg!
Whilst it is difficult to hear the phrase “Director of Foorball” without immediately thinking “Dennis Wise”….. does Lambert look like the kind of guy to accept that arrangement ? He’s only just appointed a six-foot-rabbit-shaped imaginary assistant, ffs. Much better to bring in a DOF with a new manager who is happy with that setup on day1.
The only crumb of comfort I can take from this shambles is, if we do go down, Learner knows he can knock a ‘0’ of the asking price he is expecting, without premier league status, we are worth jack shit to anyone thinking of buying us, and not even learner can afford to waste that much money.
If Villa go down, Lerner will have a revolt on his hands.
Immediate action is needed to resolve the issues on the pitch and a management restructure to introduce a director of football will not fix the very real problems any time soon. The board at Villa learn way too slowly and do not act fast enough to sort problems. Before getting to strategic issues, a tactical change is needed to remove Lambert from his management position and put a short term structure in place to get Aston Villa to the end of the season while maintaining Premier League status. Continuing with Paul Lambert compounds the risk of relegation and continues to damage the Villa brand.
The one thing Lambert is totally responsible for is tactics and the stats do not lie. Goals / shots are woeful. These are what entertain people not possession.
If there is to be the big shake then I feel lambert leaving has to be the first step.
Tactics are dictated by the players available to perform at 100% fitness !MON made the mistake of getting unfit players to perform in his last season in charge when he failed to get us into the top 4 !And we all saw what happened when they all went sick after he left !
Lambert should never have been asked to start the season with Benteke & Kozak unfit , and he was misled by those who said they would be back within weeks of the season starting .After all the squad had been set up around having them fit & anything else is a compramise
Also, good and effective tactics, are, mainly, the result of an adept manager and his coaching ability. Unfortunately, Lambert is lacking there, that is evident in the results, and the lack of any idea on the pitch, substitutions are woeful, I could go on, and on.
It’s no good continuing to make excuses for a manager not up to it, because one day we might just be making excuses, as to why we aren’t in the promotion, or play off places in the Championship.
The stats don’t lie. He could probably commit murder and get away with it. There’s sticking by your man, but this man hasn’t shown any progress. You have to draw the line in the sand somewhere. He would have been gone at almost all the other Prem League clubs by now.