Villa definitely up for sale, be careful what you wish for.

Further to Ooaah’s post about Randy Lerner’s latest statement, I thought I’d expand on it a bit.

First, let’s look at what Randy has actually said on the OS;

“Following the point yesterday at Villa Park, there have been stories about my selling the Club. On a personal level, I had hoped the emphasis would have been on the amazing effort on the part of our manager and our players to regroup throughout a very difficult week. Injuries to Libor and Christian, compounded with the early loss of Jores and the difficult rehab of Charles have no doubt left Paul with far less to work with than is fair. Still, Paul Lambert has done nothing but work within the parameters I’ve set, put the Club first and continue to trust his players. As regards my personal role at the Club and the steady rumours of a sale, I will address these after the season. Paul Lambert, Paul Faulkner and I speak daily and remain committed to the immediate job of limiting distraction and confusion in order that Villa have the best chance possible of finishing on a strong note.”

– Randy Lerner, Aston Villa Chairman

Note the words “I will address these after the season”.
That, to me sums things up in a nutshell.
If the club wasn’t up for sale, Lerner would have come straight out and said so, given that stabilty is seemingly a major requirement after suspending the coaches.
The fact that he hasn’t denied it, has to mean the club is definitely up for sale in my opinion.

I also take it to mean that things will be decided after the season, which to me also indicates that the rumoured “it’s all based on us surviving in the Premier League” is indeed true.

So to my mind, we’ll be sold as long as we survive.
And maybe even if we don’t survive, but no doubt at a much reduced price.

So if you accept my thinking that we’re being sold, we have to look at who might come in.
Which could be an absolute minefield.

Yes, I’ve seen rumours of Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, but I don’t believe it for one minute.
We’re talking about the Villa here and we’ve never been that lucky in my lifetime.

And then I’ve seen talk of some other owner who runs his current (baseball?) club on a shoestring.
What’s the point of a sale to an owner who would only emulate what Randy is doing?

And this is where we have to be careful.
Hopefully Randy will look after us in the same way as Ellis did, in that we are only sold to a buyer who won’t have to leverage him/themself up to the hilt, like say, the Glazers at Manchester United.

While I don’t rate him much as a Villa owner, I do believe he would want to try his best for us, as I do believe he’s a nice bloke.

The point is, while we all dream of a mega-money owner, we could easily end up with the chicken farmers at Blackburn who had nothing but delusions of grandeur and don’t spend anything.