Apparently Randy Lerner has placed villa for sale and has dropped his price by 1/4 to 150m. Do you think this is affecting Shorts view and curtailing his spending?
I don't think it will but can see your point. We are both historically massive clubs who have struggled in relegation battles the last few years. Both owners have put money in to the clubs and although they are getting the television money and sponsorship deals to cover large amounts of their costs aren't really seeing much progress. I honestly think poyet could be Ellis's last throw of the dice with us but I believe he will back gus to try and finally take us that step further that we haven't as yet been able to take.
Joking aside i think short and poyet are working on building gradually and not throwing big sums of money at the problem.
Lerner is a ****ing idiot valuing Villa at that. A poor playing staff, manager lacking in ideas and an ageing stadium, with poor crowds. No chance. Fat Mike was prepared to sell the Toon for £100 million and didn't get a bite, the Toon, rivals they may be, but they have a developed stadium, fiercely loyal fan base and the odd player who's worth a few quid, it would be insanity for anyone to buy Villa at that price.
I'm guessing they're pretty similar, however you measure it, gate(ish), income, salaries, etc, so I get your concern. But I think the problem with Villa is that Lerner just isn't wealthy enough. ES is a billionaire but as someone pointed out on another thread just recently, when you consider how much it takes to run a club, he ain't that wealthy either. But he's loaded compared to Lerner.
I can see the comparisons between them with both having spent a lot with very little return. Lerner has spent big money on the likes of Bent, Makoun, N'Zogbia and Ireland, none of which made much impact and all suffering heavy losses. When Martin O'Neil was in charge of Villa, he spent in excess of 120m in 4 years if memory serves me right, looks like we had a lucky escape with him as in his short time here he spent about 30m and that was mostly money wasted. I am also in agreement that this could be short's last throw of the dice with Poyet. I just hope he backs him sufficiently and doesn't hold back.
If and when he does sell up, the club will be in a much stronger financial position. Anyway, fingers crossed that won't happen for a while. I'm hoping the trip to Wembley has reignited some ambitions for the club.
I think Poyet is smart enough to realise that throwing money at the problem isnt the way forward which is why I think Short will back him. Its got to be quality over quantity and if we can get Alonso for the by premiership stands peanuts as has been quoted we should be able to sign 3 more quality players with an expenditure of around 30 million. I would see that as a successful window as we have hopefully got rid of a lot of crap also.
We are just two of the clubs that got left behind when big money took the game over. We will have to to do a Chelsea or Man C to catch up and we just do not have the attraction for that.
