Villa Need to Cut the Purse Strings, Not the Budget


VILLA NEED TO CUT THE PURSE STRINGS NOT THE BUDGET

I’m no good at shopping. When I do go force myself to do it, I buy budget options which are serviceable, but if I tried to dress to impress or cook a four-course meal, I’d get found out pretty quick. So every now and again I have a splurge, feel a bit guilty but generally feel satisfied that I’ve done the right thing.

My approach has been mirrored in the past three years by one Randolph Lerner, Aston Villa’s owner and keeper of the purse strings. Following the profligacy of the O’Neill era the wage bill, running at something criminal like 80% of annual turnover, needed to be slashed. That meant players sold, let go, and young players relied on.

Following the insulting rollover against Everton at the weekend, where Villa fans left before the end of the first home game of the season, Lerner needs to change his business model, or Villa are surely doomed. It would be wrong to say the knives are out for Lerner now, as many fans were toting them quite openly on Twitter and on fan forums like junior Mafiosi outside a don’s wedding.

Because Lerner is a businessman, he’s entitled to put his cash in and out when the whim takes him, but if that’s the case, then he needs to sell up to the highest bidder, and I believe he’ll do just that. But until the Unfake Sheik or South American petro-dollars come into the equation, he’s our benefactor. Eleven PM this Friday and the shutting of the transfer window will show just how much he cares.

Even before Everton, the cupboard was bare. As Rennes welcomed Jean Makoun, Gary Gardner was saying hi to nine months out thanks to a cruciate ligament injury. Two midfielders down and it wasn’t even time for elevenses. Dunne, Albrighton and Agbonlahor were injured before Lambert told Warnock and Hutton to find alternative employment.

As undesired as it may be, Lerner is going to have to make like Viv Nicholson and spend, spend, spend, on premium players. Our signings have been shocked by the tempo of the English game, while Lowton is limited to influencing the game from right-back. Other players look uninterested and our much-vaunted youth are perhaps just not up to it.

So before next Saturday, I expect Lerner to have sanctioned spending on three midfielders and a striker at least. Defensive cover will be required but Clark and Dunne, once available, may be enough. But the game is being lost in midfield and so will our top-flight status if nothing’s done.

Minimum of four players, then, Mr Lerner, and all of them top of the line. If they don’t arrive, the fans will turn up – only this time, in the North Stand car park, with placards and industrial language demanding your immediate return to Cleveland and the removal of your celebrated Villa tattoo.

Chris Stanley

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"We Don't Want to Give Anybody Sleepless Nights": Revisiting 'Ghostwatch'

Image
Lights explode and the studio is plunged into demonic darkness. The souls manning the telephone lines have long since vanished, leaving only  Mike Smith ’s panicked requests after his wife's welfare. Papers whip across the screen, caught in a maelstrom of malevolence. Watches attached to wrists hundreds of miles away have come to a dead stop, and there have been multiple reports of inanimate objects tearing themselves from surfaces and throwing themselves across rooms all across the land. The people of Great Britain watch entranced as Michael Parkinson , controlled by some force that earlier in the evening he’d foolishly dismissed, sleepwalks beyond the camera’s lens, muttering a nursery rhyme. Yes, the BBC has paid heavily for messing with the supernatural alright, and on Hallowe’en , of all nights. Samhain ; the night the divide between the living and the dead is gossamer thin. Sarah Greene has passed through a doorway of her own, until this night just a cupboard beneath the sta
Read more

World Cup Mascots - Which is Best?

Image
There are a lot of things that the modern World Cup has killed off: embarrassing team songs ; clearly carved-up group games between sides ; any sense of sodding perspective about England's progress . But oddly, the existence of a tournament mascot goes from strength to strength. This is for two reasons. Firstly, it's so the organisers can sell a load of old tat to kids, and secondly, it's because it's a representative shorthand for the host nation, like that dull overlong bit they put on while you're voting in Eurovision . But there's no denying that the marketing of the mascot has become both slicker and in some ways, slightly sadder for it. I decided to run the rule over every football World Cup mascot since the concept began, having a ponder on the who, why and what the hell. At the end I'll have a bash at the one I think I like the most, so if you've got any thoughts, drop me a line in the comments below: 1966 - World Cup Willie The trailblazer by wh
Read more

Mad As Hell

Image
So, welcome back to my world. It’s debatable whether or not it’s better than the real world, but trust me, I wouldn’t have voted for him, so there’s that. People use the phrase “in a perfect world”, but it seems like 2016 was fuckin’ Nirvana compared to the shitshow this year is looking to be. Naturally, I’m back online to spread a little sunshine on proceedings, because my Smiths blog went really well (sample review: ‘you’re talking shit’). There are people better qualified and give a toss more than me about international politics. The Falklands Conflict was memorably described by Jorge Luis Borges as being “like two bald men fighting over a comb”, and the world has become a more spiteful and petulant place since the chilliest days of the Cold War. All I can say is that historically you don’t know you’ve lived through a crisis until you see it on a documentary. I watched some Channel 5 thing about 1990 the other day; turns out it was full of barricades, resignations and civil d
Read more