Aston Villa News: It's All About A Gaffer
by Kirsten Schlewitz on Sep 7, 2010 10:00 PM BST
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I'm of the opinion that I won't believe Gerard Houllier is the next AVFC manager until the club officially tells me so. I've seen it announced everywhere except in an official press release.
If It's In L'Equipe, Is It True?: I don't know, but it's on the BBC--the bastion of the British press are saying they 'understand' Houllier is being appointed tomorrow.Time to put my happiness in other leagues, because seeing my club screw itself over does not make me pleased.
Speaking Of Screwing: Ian Walsh believes Houllier is the wrong man. For these reasons and so many more, I agree.
More People I Don't Want Near Villa: Sky Sports tells us Steve Sidwell is healthy and he wants a place on the first team. That place should be sitting on the bench, praying no one gets hurt, and coming in with five minutes left.
Non-League Football And Bike Rides: A lovely tale about visiting Canvey Island and watching a Tooting and Mitcham victory.
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I'm really hoping against hope that the Houllier thing falls through
But I’m also girding myself for the inevitable letdown.
In support of Houllier
I must say, as a Liverpool fan for a long time (I started playing for another youth team with a certain Paul Ince as a model player), and as a player who played (and continues to play) at a pretty high level, I believe that you can do far worse than Houllier. He was and is a fantastic tactical mind who was cowed by the press and his ownership into playing an awful style in England. He has a fairly poor record with transfers, but his internal development was all in all ok- he gave Owen, Carragher, and Gerrard their chances, and totally revamped the club’s antiquated youth system (in which he was consistently undermined by his superiors- Liverpool has a strange dual academy system).
Tactically Lyon played an innovative system with up to 5 strikers (and three defenders most of the time). They played it very well, pressing far up the field, holding the possession for most of the match, and scoring a great deal of goals (mostly because they conceded a few as well). He helped form them into the team that was pretty frisky in Europe the past couple of years and won two straight titles in his time there. Problem is, he never managed to translate his attacking, flowing style over to the English game (or did it rather awkwardly), and got the reputation of being rather negative, if successful. Really, if given some flexibility and leeway, he might introduce an entertaining and flowing form of football. Or he’ll throw his players continually under the travel bus and get into fights with the skinflint owner. To a certain type of mind, both are entertaining. I wish you luck. He’s certainly better than Ranieri or Erikson..
"Voetbal is pas totaal als je wint"- Coach Adun
"The greatest sin is to spurn the gift"- Coach Alistair
My problem with this comes from the fact that the best praise you give is undermined:
“He was and is a fantastic tactical mind who was cowed by the press and his ownership into playing an awful style in England.”
Why would we want a manager who listens to what the press says? It just seems so stinking conservative. We’ve got some youth on the pitch, so why not have some youth on the touchline? I don’t want someone who cares what the Daily Mail, or the Telegraph says, I want someone who thinks for themselves.
And I hope this doesn’t come off as too harsh to you. You certainly make some good points, and I don’t think his is terrible, I just hate the feeling that Villa are settling.
by Robert Lintott on Sep 8, 2010 3:01 AM BST up reply actions
It's a fair point, and the following is shared by Liverpool (which explains why we 'settled' for Hodgson, who quite frankly looks lost)
but your team is owned by Randy Lerner. Managers care about the funds and freedom available to them above all else. If you are owned by a Hicks, GIllette, Lerner, or whoever owns West Ham, you get neither, so it’s an easy “no.” Moyes took one look at the situation, laughed, and ran as fast as he could. Lots of people said, no, so at this point, it’s a pain to get someone who’s got the resume (which Houllier has, btw, and a real talent with young players- his stint with Liverpool was made of young guys, most of whom succeeded, some of whom didn’t) to take the job. Would you prefer they give some untested buck a chance, because even championship managers would look at the Liverpool or Villa jobs with apprehension? Remember Leeds folks, or a less extreme case, Sunderland. It wasn’t that long ago. And believe me, the English alternatives aren’t pretty. How much do you trust a Phil Brown?
"Voetbal is pas totaal als je wint"- Coach Adun
"The greatest sin is to spurn the gift"- Coach Alistair
Your opinion of Randy Lerner doesn't really seem to be based on fact.
He’s invested a tremendous amount of money in the club since buying it.
by Aaron Campeau on Sep 8, 2010 5:20 AM BST up reply actions 1 recs
but he locked it down this year, with a team in a league that costs nowhere near as much as his folly in Cleveland
f’r instance- Jake Delhomme will make more money than Christiano Ronaldo this year. He will make four times as much money as Maicon. Lerner’s a financial analyst. He knows no one is turning a profit this year (hyperbole sure, but few if any in England are going to be able to fund their operating budgets), and he still wouldn’t fund a full squad. You make money in two ways in sports. 1. You are so successful that you make money. One or two teams will do this this year, in each professional sport, it takes years and years of losing money with the potential of no return, and the risk/reward is so out of kilter compared to two, that nobody does it. 2. You make money by being as cheap as possible, and glean what you can from revenue sharing and tv contracts (see exhibit A: the Browns, Cleveland). option 3. spend (wisely, mind you, which to their credit Villa have done), keep your young guns in house (which they haven’t), win, and damn the profits (Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U… I could keep going) with the assurance that eventually quality bears out. If he’s sunk money into the club, he might be giving number two a nice hard look, given how lucrative that’s been for him in the states.
"Voetbal is pas totaal als je wint"- Coach Adun
"The greatest sin is to spurn the gift"- Coach Alistair
Aston Villa are not the Cleveland Browns and the EPL is not the NFL.
The NFL enforces parity and has much more evenly distributed revenues, not to mention the lack of relegation. Lerner has never made a secret of his long-term vision for the club, and nothing that he has done has shown that he has chosen to divert from it. In terms of keeping the young guns in house, Villa have sold Gareth Barry and James Milner for sums of money far, far above their actual market value. You can criticize those decisions, but they are not in-and-of-themselves indicative of a willingness to settle for mediocrity and rake in the money.
by Aaron Campeau on Sep 8, 2010 7:33 AM BST up reply actions
premier league teams aren't gate or merchandise driven (though a few are trying to maximise the second)
TV revenue for domestic play (even across teams) European leagues (the kicker, or extra revenue that’s incredibly important to the top teams), and potential international rights and merchandise (the biggest effort recently by teams such as Man U and Chelsea has been to maximize that stream to lessen their dependence on European league revenues) are the three big revenue generators in the Premier league. Unless Villa plan on making themselves a market force in China (and here’s some free advice from someone who’s studying quantifiable relative market utility in Asia and spent fourteen years there- don’t even try) or the United States (which, through sites like this, could happen), Europe’s it, and Champion’s League football at that. How do you get to Europe? Getting in to the top four. How do you do that? Sign a credible right back, keep your young players, and have a manager that coaches the pants off the opposition. I don’t know if Lerner sees the pattern, but teams like Chelsea lost a great deal of money for a long time before they saw success on the field turn into profit (and we’re talking about winning the league five years ago and turning their first operational profit last year).
The three methods of profitability, by the way, are from an LSE paper on sports economics and the difficulty of “mid-major” professional teams in generating consistent profits.
"Voetbal is pas totaal als je wint"- Coach Adun
"The greatest sin is to spurn the gift"- Coach Alistair
As you mention below, UEFA are working towards regulating the amount that clubs can spend, their debt load, etc.
Pretty much everything Lerner has done since taking over has been geared towards ensuring that the club is financially stable with a strong core of young players and a quality youth system. That puts them in a pretty favorable position when UEFA’s new financial regulations take effect.
by Aaron Campeau on Sep 8, 2010 6:53 PM BST up reply actions
I've seen nothing of the Cleveland Browns version of Lerner to make me think he thinks this way
He’s sunk a lot of money into the club, and while he’s had to pull back a bit this year, he’s by no means being stingy. Part of me thinks it’s a realization that no one is going to be getting decent offers in thanks to Citeh pumping up prices. But regardless, as much as the American sports fan in me is shocked by this, Lerner seems to be an owner who really has the best interests of his club in mind, not his wallet.
by Robert Lintott on Sep 8, 2010 4:52 PM BST up reply actions
The whole Milner thing seemed shady from both sides
Like both sides were looking for an excuse to part ways (one- O’Neill couldn’t be assured by Lerner from his previous actions that this was in their best interest? 2. Lerner wasn’t able to back down on Milner (I’m of the opinion that wing/back hybrid is solid gold, and worth overpaying for)?).
As I’ve pointed out above, Lerner needs to know that even if you win the Premiership or consistently make the Champions league, profit is not assured
( I’m assuming that his goal is that club pays for itself, which according to UEFA it’s going to need to soon). The only teams to consistently generate operating profits are Arsenal and ManU. Of course, O’Neill can’t be completely innocent in this whole thing either.
"Voetbal is pas totaal als je wint"- Coach Adun
"The greatest sin is to spurn the gift"- Coach Alistair
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