When one of the worst kept secrets in football was revealed, Randy Lerner sounded like a man who had long stopped living the American dream at Aston Villa. “I have come to know well that fates are fickle in the business of English football. And I feel that I have pushed mine well past the limit,” Lerner said in a statement confirming his decision to put Villa up for sale. “The last several seasons have been week-in, week-out battles.”

It is a sad but inevitable end to an era that promised much but delivered little. Sad because Lerner had all the right intentions when he bought Villa in 2006 for £62.6 million from Doug Ellis with his own cash. Inevitable because there is only so long any businessman, even a billionaire, will keep throwing good money after bad, especially when he ends up back where he started.

The season before Lerner completed his takeover, Villa finished 16th in the Premier League, the fans wanted David O’Leary to be sacked as manager, Ellis, the chairman, had outstayed his welcome and the club had no direction.

Eight years on and Villa have just ended another dismal campaign in 15th place, Paul Lambert is rivalling O’Leary in the popularity stakes, the supporters have lost faith with Lerner’s stewardship, principally the owner’s decision to run a tighter ship, and the club once again is on the road to nowhere.

For Lerner it must be a sobering experience on which to reflect, in particular when he looks over the balance sheet. The former Cleveland Browns owner has pumped a small fortune into Villa –£206 million by 2010 alone, which put him behind only Roman Abramovich at Chelsea and Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City at that time, and close to another £100 million since – and yet he has seen the club haemorrhage money and flirt with relegation in each of the past four years.

Top-four ambitions
Lerner was still talking about breaking into the top four and qualifying for the Champions League after a third successive sixth-placed finish under Martin O'Neill in 2010 – "I'm not so sure the game's over yet in terms of us catching up or doing better," the Villa owner said in May of that year.

It is hard to think of another owner of a Premier League club who has spent so much of his own money and ended up with so little to show for it. Under Lerner Villa’s final Premier League position each year, starting with 2007, reads: 11th (£2.8m), sixth (£7.6m), sixth (£46.2m), sixth (£37.6m), ninth (£54m), 16th (£17.7m), 15th (£51.8m) and 15th.

The figures in brackets are the losses that Reform Acquisitions Limited, Lerner’s holding company which owns Villa and a number of related companies, recorded each year – £217.7m in total, with this season’s accounts still to come. It is little wonder that Lerner, who waived repayment of £90m in loans in December, decided enough was enough.

Lerner has made a point of respecting the club’s traditions, yet his eight-year reign has also been a tale of flawed decision-making and misplaced faith, with damaging consequences. Arguably Lerner’s biggest mistake was his failure to bring in a technical director to put in place a transfer strategy and oversee managerial appointments.

If Gerard Houllier was a left-field replacement for O’Neill, Alex McLeish was an unfathomable choice to succeed the Frenchman as manager in 2011. The following year McLeish was sacked, paid off and replaced by Lambert. All the while each manager has been able to make new signings – on long and lucrative contracts prior to Lambert taking over – to suit his own playing style, rather than a philosophy laid down by the club. Tearing up the script and starting again would be one way to describe it. Even Lambert has been given the best part of £40m to spend on 15 players over the past two years.

There was a feeling within the club that Lerner was never quite the same after he lost an employment tribunal to O'Neill in May 2011, resulting in the Irishman walking away with a significant sum, although performances served up on the pitch over the past few years cannot have made him feel much better. The big question now is how easy it will be to get back a sizeable chunk of his £300m.
Guardian Service