Randy: Why I stayed silent

Feb 9 2007 By Bill Howell, Birmingham Mail

NEW owner Randy Lerner has revealed that his silence - up until now - has been based not only on a desire to keep out of the media gaze but also because he wanted Martin O'Neill's team re-building to have started in the January window before he was forced to utter what may have been hollow promises.

"I haven't felt that the time was right (to go public)," he said. "I wanted to make sure that our principal initiatives had begun.

"I wanted to make sure that the transfer window had closed, so that I wouldn't be in a position to try to talk about things that I really wasn't really sure would happen.

"I would have been doing the very thing that I think you don't want to be doing, which is speculating."

Lerner will not become a high-profile, media-hyped chairman, insisting he is happy to let others do the talking.

"I don't want to create the impression that I am out there eager to deal with matters in the media.

"On the other hand I am not hard to find, and I am not trying to be reclusive.

"I am, however, trying to promote the appropriate people within the organisation to deal specifically with issues - because that is how it is going to be done around here."