What will make Randy move

He pumped the funds in under MON and deserves a lot of respect for sacrificing a lucrative shirt sponsor in place of a local childrens charity. In fact I donated to Acorns because of his gesture (I'm not an AV fan), but it set a positive precedent even if it didn't work out.

I must say recuting the manager of an arch relegated rival was strange.

He pumped the money in under MON yes, but he was stupid enough to allow him to squander most of it on average players. Once he realised this fact and that many of these average players were on high wages, he told MON to sort it out. He could have solved this whole problem by either: 1. appointing a director of football who oversaw MON's signings; or 2. given the manager's job to someone who had a proven track record of buying top quality 'star' players (i.e. Redknapp, or Houllier from the start). Either of these two options would mean we wouldn't be in the situation we're in now. Unfortunately, whilst O'Neill gave us Young, Downing, Milner and Friedel, he also gave us most of the rubbish we have in the team now who are well below top six quality, especially in defence.

All of Lerner's previous good work of spending on the club has all been undone now anyway, so praising him for him is stupid because he has now taken us back to where we were before the spending. In fact I would even go as far as to say we're even weaker than in 2006. Then we had Barry, Laursen, Mellberg, Sorensen, Bouma, Angel and a young Agbonlahor. Now we have Bent granted, a proven goalscorer, and some players like Gabby and N'Zog, but not enough. The likes of Ireland and Delph look to have lost what looked a promising career for them, and our stupid manager looks like he will kill off any future England career Albrighton looked like having.

So all in all, Lerner has undone all this good work. We had the potential if his money was spent right to have a squad not too dissimilar to Tottenham's, but there was absolutely no checks in place when it came to MON's signings. And now Lerner won't spend any money when, having sold the few good players we had, we've gone backwards. The best thing Lerner could possibly do for this club is sell to a rich owner who can afford to take this club forward (and also get rid of our clown of a manager). It's awful for the fans to have to think about relegation every season when this club should be fighting near the top. And if we do lose even more good players like Bent, Albrighton, N'Zog etc. we will really be in the ****. I hope he thinks about it for the sake of this club.

villa1987 - no I don't think all the good work has been undone. I think the club itself is probably better organised, Bodymoor is an investment which will reap dividends over years to come, the Academy's doing OK, the established back-room staff are good, and look how the U19's played last night. And we still have good players, even if some of the poorer ones need to go.

I agree RL is probably stubborn and not keen on admitting AM was a mistake. If we carried on playing like against Norwich he wouldn't worry too much. But if the Spurs match is typical of what's coming up, then it'll be hard for him to avoid the obvious conclusion. He'll have a choice of protecting his investment or sticking by Eck. If he's wise, he'll pencil in the January break to make a decision. And if he's wise, he'll have an alternative lined up. If he doesn't, and the rubbish continues, he'll lose the fans big time. And I don't think he'll want that. If the rubbish continues I don't think Eck will last to the end of the season, even though two of the relegation spots seem already filled. But I, we, could all be wrong.