Aston Villa FC: A Club That Lost it’s Identity Under Randy Lerner

Chris Wilson of The Sweeper Keeper Blog looks at Aston Villa’s current identity.

Identity

‘What is Aston Villa now?’ said former Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert in an interview with BBC Sport earlier this month. Find a Villa fan, and they will struggle to give you a comprehensive answer.

So, what is Aston Villa now? The sort of terminology once banded about to describe the state of limbo that has characterised the B6 club over last four years or so are no longer suitable. To say they lack direction would be an understatement. More than a mess, from the pitch to the board room Aston Villa is a disaster verging on the shambolic.

With Tim Sherwood shown the door after just 28 games in charge, new boss Rémi Garde was given a task of humongous proportions from the minute he entered Bodymoor Heath, where his most pressing task was to turn around a team utterly dejected of confidence and self-belief. Only a managerial magician will be able to haul the mismatched side – which has claimed just five points from a possible 36 so far – away from the foot of the table and certain relegation to the Championship. It’s a far cry from the Aston Villa that Holte Enders once knew and loved.

Lerner Promise

Just seven years ago Villa were enjoying some of their best seasons in the Premier League era. The Midlands giants were where every well-established top division club should have been, knocking on the door of the top four each season and finishing sixth three seasons in a row, improving year-on-year with growing attendances running alongside lofty board-room ambitions and increasingly impressive on-pitch performances.

In 2008, the Villa went into Christmas third in the table on the back of an outstanding start to the season which saw the likes of Gareth Barry, James Milner and Ashley Young surge to prominence whilst the more solid Martin Laursen, Stilian Petrov and Gabby Agbonlahor (yes, he used to be good) put in the hard work that allowed their teammates to shine.

Villa’s success was typified by one fantastic European night in mid-October when they overcame an Ajax side consisting of the emerging talents of  Luis Suarez and Klaas Jan Huntelaar in the UEFA Cup. Running out 2-1 winners in a closely-fought encounter Villa Park was electric, and the victory encapsulated everything that the club should have stood for – progress, determination and fast-flowing counter-attacking football based on a solid defensive foundation.

 

A year later, after again qualifying for Europe’s second-tier competition, the club ran a promotional campaign which was intended to drive Villa forward into a new era of success. Martin O’Neill, lauded at the time but since heavily lambasted as the cause of the club’s subsequent downfall, was the face of an inspiring PR project that embraced everyone associated with the club.

‘It’s 25 years since Villa won the European Cup; a timely reminder of where this football club should try and get to’ he says in a marketing video over a backdrop of a triumphant musical crescendo and Martin Laursen leaping six foot into the air to win another commanding header.

 

At its worst, it’s corny promotional material. At its best, it symbolises everything Villa fans loved about the club – pride, passion and hunger for success. None of those can be said of the same club today.

False Dawn

Sadly for fans ‘Proud History, Bright Future’ all too suddenly became ‘Proud History, Sh**e Future’. Villa’s demise would begin with the reluctant sale of Gareth Barry, followed by O’Neill walking and then, the slow, painful losses of the last remaining standout performers – James Milner (whose head was turned before O’Neill leaving), Stewart Downing and Ashley Young. Aston Villa’s on-pitch identity was painstakingly being stripped away root by root, and the bigwigs in the executive boxes weren’t doing much to help matters either. No effort was made to adequately replace either the players or the management, and Villa was about to begin its irreversible nosedive towards mediocrity.

There was an attempt at a change of direction with the appointment of Gerard Houllier to replace the disappearing O’Neill. It was billed as a transitional season and the first season of a five-year plan with Villa fighting relegation until an end of the season rally, by which time Houllier was taken ill. His contribution to Villa is questionable, while he had to leave the club due to health problems, his leadership of the team had been relatively non-existent anyway.

Then came a move that EVERY football fan could foresee was destined for failure, Alex McLeish was hired as manager even after a supporter protest (and it takes a lot for Villans to voice their concerns in such a way). One year into his three-year deal his contract was terminated and Villa were caught up in perpetual ‘transition’ seasons with no progress in sight, as millions of pounds were lavished haphazardly on the likes of Darren Bent, Stephen Ireland, Jean II Makoun and Charles N’Zogbia. In hindsight, it was more like destruction.

And it was these pivotal two years that caused Aston Villa’s rapid descent into the team that everybody loves to hate. On the back of the Houllier and McLeish days, Villa have begun a slow and steady descent into footballing nothingness. As the Premier League’s whipping boys, the days when Aston Villa were feared as a threatening, dangerous opponent could not be further buried into the past.

Where Villa Park was once a fortress, it is now an away team’s favourite stomping ground; arguably the easiest place to go in the division and probably the opposite set of fans’ best day out. And that’s no surprise given the club’s well-documented woeful league form over the past three campaigns – who could forget that last season we failed to score in over 10 hours of football? On the back of the summer exits of Fabian Delph and Christian Benteke, Villa’s most creative influences of recent times, it’s hard to bet against such a stat being thrown up again this time around.

 

Last Hope

Tim Sherwood’s optimistic soundbites combined with Villa’s trip to the FA Cup final last May and the flurry of incoming transfer activity which followed, all did a sound job of temporarily papering over the cracks of what has become a broken, ruined football club bereft of any sort of identity and without promise of imminent change. Once perhaps a ‘sleeping giant’, it’s now not just dormant, it’s pulse is fading – so stuck in the depths of the ‘hole’ that a dejected, drained Sherwood referred to so bluntly in his last interview as manager, that not even the most optimistic of fans can see a way out.

And that’s what the new manager will have to deal with as he settles into his role at B6 in the coming week. The pressure for immediate results will be immense, before he can even think about trying to provide the club with a fresh identity.

Fans of the Claret and Blues will be hoping that Villa will be able to prove Paul Lambert wrong and show that beneath the turmoil and commotion, the backbone of a side remains one that wants to win football matches. In the meantime, to answer his question, nobody really knows what Aston Villa is any more.

Follow Chris on Twitter @1sweeperkeeper

Follow MOMS on Twitter @oldmansaid

9 COMMENTS

  1. Not sure we had an identity under MON too. It was just a case of MON buying the type of players he likes and filling square pegs in round holes. Sure, there was counter-attacking football, but MON never cared about balance, never cared about playing players in their natural positions (remember reo-coker and petrov playing right mid?), never mind luke young playing LB when we had a fit nicky shorey.

    A more comprehensive long-term identity would be like so’ton and swansea where even a new manager comes in, the side would still be playing the same type of football as it did during the previous manager and not change accordingly to whatever manager that comes in. Also, buying players that already fit your system and not buying and trying to make them fit. Having said that, the transfer committee is a step in the right direction to a more long-term identity but it would not work without determining a long-term playing style first, and getting your youth teams to play the same way as the seniors, both of which we have not seen.

  2. Under Lerner the club has not only lost its identity but more importantly it has lost its soul. This article makes very sad reading but very factual. Lerner and company have to go and soon.

  3. If we get out of this it will be epic. So sing up, droogies.

    Afaik Palace did not have this whole “Sheriff of Nottingham” type backstory going on when they defied gravity two seasons ago. Sherwood and his comedy Addams-family sidekick have a big role to answer for in this, deliberately being super-s*** in order to ensure their payoffs – which, not-ironically, should be grounds not to pay them off. However, that ignores the fact that the contracts are drawn up by a very old monkey with a typewriter – the quality of merci is not stren. In hindsight, it seems as though the real catalyst for our survival last season was simply no-more-Lambert.

  4. Great article in which every word is true, only you don’t say who is to blame for our destruction. The answer is RANDY LERNER ! The big bucks TV money is just around the corner and Lerner had the chance in the summer to ensure we would not struggle this season by adding 15-20m to the 43m we received from sales to bring in quality players but once again HE decided to take the cheap way and buy players he thought could be sold on later for profit. These players were signed not to improve the team but in the hope of future profit. There is no plan or ambition at the club and won’t be until the American clown is removed as it is his incompetence and negligence which has wrecked Aston Villa.

  5. Good article but sorry to be a bit pedantic. The article states that O Neill left shortly after the sale of Barry with Milner leaving in the years that followed. In fact, Barry left a year before O Neill. It was the sale of Milner, which was the catalyst causing O Neill to leave

    • Milner did leave the club after O’Neill left, although, yes, the deal was as good as done (I’ve update the article to make the Barry timing a bit clearer).

  6. Villa need gag orders on their severance gifts to these ex coaches,players and mgrs. Lambert hasn’t shut up in the press and both Jenas and Wilkins tip us to go down. Mmm.
    Anyway, soon Les Clarets will have their identity. The setup is less pantomime and more professional now even if it is Arsenal Mafia, Lerner and Fox have earned a stay if execution, should have fired the clown after the FA cup fiasco but if in Jan they do the needed in the market to improve the team I will be happy including losing dross. Though long term success depends on not being a selling club…..

  7. Why when Villa is handing out the big severance package they don’t include a gag order on these ex managers.And coaches, Wilkins been flappin his jaw on talksport. Both of em need to SDASTFU as they are partly to blame for this mess. Lerner and Fox have earned a stay of execution till Jan for me, want to see if they’ll do another DB9 style purchase if needed. Like the new mgr and the people he is bringing with him. Feel they have more ideas than the past lot, but bring and odd continuity because of Houllier’s time at AVFC. Which was the period of best football I can remember Villa playing during the Lerner era. Finish higher than 14th and good financials will be enough this season, hope for higher though. There’s enough time, at least they sacked the clown almost in time, June was preferable. Even the spuds saw that.

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