The Lerner years

[Meanwood Villa]

I've heard the comments about O'Neill being given too much power before. Genuine question, does Emery have too much power now? I accept the relative merits of their ability will no doubt come up but I'm more interested in whether Emery were to jump ship for any reason, just how damaging would it be?

[Chris Harte]

I think when you compare what the current owners are doing against the Lerner years and the knowledge of how they turned out, it makes Lerner seem like an amateur.

His legacy is the Holte Pub.

[eamonn]

I've heard the comments about O'Neill being given too much power before. Genuine question, does Emery have too much power now? I accept the relative merits of their ability will no doubt come up but I'm more interested in whether Emery were to jump ship for any reason, just how damaging would it be?

Very. We're fucked (again) when he goes. But hopefully we'll have finished top two and have a full summer to recover.

[nigel]

I thinly liken the Lerner years as an owner to the Bruce years as a manager.
We were in deep sh!t when they came in and, basically, saved us.
In both cases we were probably in a better position when they left, but we were glad to see the back of them.

[Ger Regan]

I've heard the comments about O'Neill being given too much power before. Genuine question, does Emery have too much power now? I accept the relative merits of their ability will no doubt come up but I'm more interested in whether Emery were to jump ship for any reason, just how damaging would it be?

Very. We're fucked (again) when he goes. But hopefully we'll have finished top two and have a full summer to recover.

I think they're very different situations, though. O'Neill railed against any sort of oversight from anyone, and got rid of more than a few CEO's (both here and at sunderland, if memory serves). Unai has been given the tools to maximise the chance of him being a success at villa. Yes, if and when he leaves, it'll be a massive job to replace him (but even then i don't think Monchi will necessarily go immediately, given they've never been tied at the hip). Giving that sort of power on the footballing side is a calculated gamble, but one that we probably should be making.

[Ger Regan]

I remember how excited i was about the O'Neill appointment. Particularly given the rubbish that came before. What could have been.

[cdward]

I think when you compare what the current owners are doing against the Lerner years and the knowledge of how they turned out, it makes Lerner seem like an amateur.

His legacy is the Holte Pub.

I think the investment Lerner bankrolled for Bodymoor Heath has set us up very well as a top club.
Ellis would never have spent the kind of money required to bring the facilities to the world class standard they are now.
I often wonder if it has an influence on players signing when they see the professional set up we have, especially when we were in the championship.

[pablo_picasso]

I've heard the comments about O'Neill being given too much power before. Genuine question, does Emery have too much power now? I accept the relative merits of their ability will no doubt come up but I'm more interested in whether Emery were to jump ship for any reason, just how damaging would it be?

Very. We're fucked (again) when he goes. But hopefully we'll have finished top two and have a full summer to recover.

It is a little concerning how much we are placing all of our eggs into the Emery basket.

Granted, he is a fucking god like being for what he has done for us, but if we start to struggle, maybe for PSR reasons, etc, or he decides to leave for whatever reason, the we will be in a similar position to when that rat O'Neill scurried off after intentionally causing as much damage to Villa in order to protect the reputation he had carefully sculpted out for himself.

I like the way Brighton do things. They have a set way of playing for the club through to academy & any new manager has to have the skillset to be able to slot in & continue the work they have been doing for years. And then when youngsters cone through, they are already used to playing the same way as the first team so the transition isn't so difficult. 

If we did that with our owners, our first team, our academy, etc, but with higher calibre managers than Brighton, then our growth could be a lot more sustainable...

Thats not a criticism of Emery in any way shape or form btw.

The man is the best manager we have had in my lifetime & I love him dearly. Best that I can properly remember anyways. I was three or four when we won the league, so no actual memory of that...

[PeterWithe]

I like the way Brighton do things. They have a set way of playing for the club through to academy & any new manager has to have the skillset to be able to slot in & continue the work they have been doing for years. And then when youngsters cone through, they are already used to playing the same way as the first team so the transition isn't so difficult. 

If we did that with our owners, our first team, our academy, etc, but with higher calibre managers than Brighton, then our growth could be a lot more sustainable...

As an aside, that model was perfected by Ajax over many years, when they came here this year it was difficult to tell if they had now abandoned it or just got really really terrible at implementing it

[VillaTim]

I've heard the comments about O'Neill being given too much power before. Genuine question, does Emery have too much power now? I accept the relative merits of their ability will no doubt come up but I'm more interested in whether Emery were to jump ship for any reason, just how damaging would it be?

Chicken and egg though. These elite managers need control to work properly , it's having as good a contingency plan as possible that is important.
It will be interesting to see how Liverpool do now and how C115y do when PG retires next year.

[SoccerHQ]

Phil Mepham? Who he?

Any tenuous excuse to post this gem of a YT I randomly stumbled across after watching a John Gregory podcast a few months ago:

Phil Mepham the ITV central sports reporter talking to Bob Warman about John Gregory playing Guitar in a local band called the Swains (I think this was the Martin Swain who was a reporter for Express and Star).

Even more odd was they then went on some Ian Wright talk show and performed and pretty sure that's Paula Yates with them....

This all happened sometime in 2000 just before the infamous cup final!

[SoccerHQ]

I read and agreed with something here about Lerner, for years we needed a very rich owner but the moment we got one it wasn’t enough anymore. Other clubs got the wealth of whole countries.

One club did.

We still should've  had enough to finish above Spurs and Everton in that period but they generally signed more smartly.

Lerner ultimately was just another Xia. O'Neill sort of papered over the cracks for two years before his own limitations came to the fore.

Then after his tantrum departure no other strategy but dramatically cut costs and the dismal decade that followed.

Even Everton with hardly a penny last few years haven't just sold all their good internationals and replaced them with random league 1 and 2 players like we pretty much did.

[PeterWithesShin]

Xia was a conman that did time. Lerner was a billionaire, well intentioned but not a smart football club owner.

[Legion]

Done.

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

I thinly liken the Lerner years as an owner to the Bruce years as a manager.
We were in deep sh!t when they came in and, basically, saved us.
In both cases we were probably in a better position when they left, but we were glad to see the back of them.

We were definitely not in a better place when Lerner left compared to where we were when he bought us.  He left us in the Championship and sold us to an absolute chancer.  Some "custodian".

We had some decent years when Lerner was spending, and we were once again relevant, with some decent players; but his failing was that he knew nothing about football or the business, and didn't get anyone of sufficient quality of knowhow to administer the club, and he himself failed to provide any long-term vision or strategy - or even the basic idea of how to run a professional football club.

MON was basically just Steve Bruce with a bigger budget.  There was no long-term planning or strategy; and he generally pissed Randy's cash up the wall with too many middle of the road signings (and admittedly a few excellent ones).  No youth development, no squad rotation - same selection every week, and then left us in the lurch.