Villa fans want our chairman.

[Raziel]

When ENIC took over we were firmly a mid-table club, hadn't finished in the top 6 for almost a decade and hadn't even finished higher than 10th in the last few years. Campbell aside, there was a major lack of quality in the squad, and with no European football and very little money available compared to a lot of our rivals, this was hardly a good position to be in. In that time, he has had to deal with:

Our captain and only world class player walking out on a free
His Sporting Director appointed to spearhead our revolution being pinched by Chelsea after only one season
A dodgy lasagne screwing us out of Champions League football, causing our star midfielder to want to leave
Our star striker demanding he wanted to leave out of the blue in the final week or so of the transfer window, causing a bad atmosphere in the dressing room and contributing to Jol's sacking
Liverpool and Man Utd tapping up our two star players in the summer of 2008, making them both leave
His highly rated continental managerial appointment not be able to learn English properly and therefore everything imploding
Chelsea outrageously tapping up our best player all summer
Chelsea winning the Champions League to screw us out of our place in the competition and causing our best player to leave
The premature retirement of our captain and star defender through injury
The emergence of the oil rich clubs City and Chelsea, not only making it harder to finish in the top positions of the league but also blowing us out of the water with regards to transfer targets, and inflating player prices and wages for players who aren't even involved with those clubs that are seeking something closer to "market rate" in the negotiations.
The likes of Portsmouth, Villa, West Ham, Saudi Sportswashing Machine and Leeds also throwing huge sums of money around at various points in his time as chairman

To have to deal with all of that, yet to still take a brick, mid-table club playing diabolical, boring football, to qualify for Europe 6 seasons out of 7, including playing in the Champions League, whilst playing some breathtaking football featuring world class players, putting the club back on the map as a well known footballing brand, all without spending any money that we hadn't generated ourselves, is nothing short of remarkable.

There are lots of things in his decade in charge that a lot of us haven't been happy with, be it the handling of the Jol or Redknapp sackings, or the way he drives such a hard bargain in transfer dealings that we always leave everything to the last minute, but I don't see a single chairman in the Premier League who could have overseen such a consistent upturn in fortunes in the time that Levy has been in charge at Spurs.

^^^ Yep

 

[jimmyb]

Actually no, IIRC there are a couple of clubs where tv rights is close to 50% of total income (and the major growth of that tv rights is from outside UK), Merchandise also significantly contributes (especially outside), although have no figures on what the Spurs split is there.

Wigan could, but won't because more Manu games will get televised (as will more Spurs games than anyone outside "Sky 4")

Your argument, if I understood it correctly, was that Spurs' financial advantage over Everton was primarily because we had developed a bigger foreign fan base than them.

But TV rights money - including money from foreign TV rights - is mostly distributed according to the league performance of each club. How many foreign fans they have plays only a subsidiary role. We could have 100 times more foreign fans than Everton. But if we finish any great distance below them in the Premier League, we will still receive a smaller piece of the foreign TV rights pie than they will - even if we appear on TV five times more than them per season.

As I said, only a handful of clubs (Man Utd and Liverpool and, to a lesser extent, Arsenal and Chelsea) specifically derive a substantial income from their own foreign fans.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

Not to lessen Levy's valuable contribution to our upward curve, but one of the main reasons i like him, is while he is in charge we avoid all the other mug c*nt f*ckers out there doing p*ss poor jobs of running football clubs.

 

[Park Lane James]

I've always said Martin O'Neill is one of the main reasons that Villa are in trouble financially now. He wasted a fair bit of money.

Levy is a very good chairman, certainly in the discussion for one of the best in England. But his nack of leaving deals to the last minute infuriates me and it often leads to us getting off to a slow start in the league, and when you're going for the top 4, you can't afford to give your rivals a head start.

I also think that he gets too much credit sometimes from Spurs fans for the success of the club in the last 6-7 years. Yes he deserves credit, but so do the players, previous managers and the current manager.

I'm sorry but it's not the job of the manager to look after finances. He asks the chairman 'can we afford xxxx' and the chairman says yes/no. Redknapp got a lot of stick for this at Portsmouth when it's the job of the owners to restrict spending and ensure that the club is run correctly and on a financial plain.

 

[jimmyb]

I'm sorry but it's not the job of the manager to look after finances. He asks the chairman 'can we afford xxxx' and the chairman says yes/no. Redknapp got a lot of stick for this at Portsmouth when it's the job of the owners to restrict spending and ensure that the club is run correctly and on a financial plain.

I think what Jurgen was getting at was that O'Neill spent far too much on far too many average players. Lerner and his deputies at Villa would have been responsible for the overall transfer budget and for setting the wage policy. But they would have taken O'Neill's advice as to the valuation of the various players he bought.

Over the same period, Spurs also had a big net spend. But, on the whole, we bought players of real quality, enjoyed much more success, sold a few players on for big profits and have therefore been able, year on year, to continue investing in the squad.

Villa, by contrast, have become a mid table (or worse) team because, although they too made a big profit on a few players (Barry, Milner, Young), the remainder are, at best, average. They can't give them away. It's almost exactly what we did wrong for years under Sugar. And it's why they have no more money to spend now.

 

[Jordinho]

Villa signed a lot of very average players on high wages that hardly ever played. MON only used a small group and they always struggled in the last two months of the season. Poor management on several levels. He saddled them with a squad that cost a fortune in wages and therefore impossible to shift. He signed players that he never used and still kept banging on about needing more money.

 

[parklane1]

Villa signed a lot of very average players on high wages that hardly ever played. MON only used a small group and they always struggled in the last two months of the season. Poor management on several levels. He saddled them with a squad that cost a fortune in wages and therefore impossible to shift. He signed players that he never used and still kept banging on about needing more money.

This for me as well, i remember some of the comments when Learner first came to the club about how he was going to turn them into a top club abd that spurs would slip behind them. MON is a poor manager who throws money at average players and offers them high wages, and look at what happened.