Dave Woodhall comments on matters in B6, without mentioning football.
Instead of going off on one over Villa’s capitulation against Spurs I’d rather talk about a few wider issues, and one in particular.
The last few days have seen Randy finally break his media silence to say he’s going nowhere and he’s at Villa for the long term. That’s fine by me – the good he’s done still outweighs the bad and what any football club needs is stability. There’s no point shouting “Sack the manager” after every defeat and demanding that the board resign every time something goes wrong. We ought to also look elsewhere and realise that for every Abramovitch there’s a Yeung and for every Shiekh Mansour there’s the chicken farmers of Blackburn.
But, and at the moment, it’s a big BUT, right this minute Villa seem to be directionless. When Randy took over there was a feeling of optimism that was down to more than just relief that the Ellis era was over. The club was being marketed properly – advertising all over the city, the Nike deal and the Acorns sponsorship were the most obvious examples of this. Other clubs were taking money-making seriously but the big difference was that Villa were also connecting with supporters.
It would fill most of the internet to give a full rundown of what they did at that time but the bottom line was that with Randy at the helm they were showing an almost telepathic ability to understand the hopes, aspirations and feelings of football supporters. Even when they got it wrong they learned from their mistakes and ensured that everyone at the club was on the same side. They were with us, they were part of us.
What’s happened over the past year and a bit is mystifying. Apart from the obvious, there have been no major personnel changes as far as I can see. Martin O’Neill leaving us in the lurch caused problems on the pitch, but even these could have been turned to our advantage – “He’s dropped us in it, but let’s work together and get through this.” But no, since that fateful day Villa have gone from one PR gaffe to another, and either they don’t know what they’re doing wrong, or they haven’t a clue how to put it right.
To take but one example, the departure of General Krulak from the supporter messageboards. His presence was a wonderful gesture which worked for some time, although in hindsight it had run its course some time earlier. Despite assuring us that he was here to take the rough with the smooth, the general slipped away quietly a few months ago and has shown no signs of returning. I don’t for one minute think this was a case of running away when the going got tough, but it could have been handled much better. If he had said, for instance, that he was leaving because of the media’s regular mis-use of his comments he would have gained a lot of popular sympathy.
In his interview with the club website at the weekend Randy spoke in glowing terms of Alex Ferguson’s approval of Alex McLeish, and mentioned how he keeps a letter from Fergie locked away in a safe deposit box. Again, there’s nothing wrong with having your manager highly regarded by the most successful manager English football has ever known, particularly when they are long-established colleagues. Referring to the letter, though, was a mistake. It made Randy seem desperate to win Ferguson’s approval and it wouldn’t have happened three years ago.
Just how much influence Martin O’Neill had off the field I don’t know, but although it was reckoned to be greater than any other manager in the Premier League, I can’t believe he was responsible for the club’s public relations. So why have a club who was doing so well in this field while he was here performed so poorly at it since he left? It can’t be just down to his friends in the press attacking us because we let him go.
Something has gone wrong at Villa Park over the past 18 months that has nothing to do with football, and it needs to be sorted out quickly. While he’s in the country Randy and the club’s senior employees need to get their heads together and remember what it was they were doing three years ago, then get back to doing it.
The game, and the world, has changed during that time. Anyone with sense can see that as a result of these changes challenging for the top four is out of Villa’s reach in the immediate future, but there are still things that the club can do to reassure supporters that the drive, the ambition and the ability that Randy brought with him back in 2006 are still present.
