Randy Lerner’s millions fire up Martin O’Neill
RANDY Lerner is proving Villa are no longer a selling club by handing out lucrative new contracts to the players Martin O’Neill’s deems too precious to lose.
That’s the view of manager O’Neill who could conceivably have been trying to keep away more predators than Liverpool this summer had it not been for a pro-active approach from the chairman to safeguard his players’ futures.
Ashley Young is next in line for a lucrative new deal with Wilfred Bouma also having been promised fresh terms after Gabby Agbonlahor and John Carew recently put their names to new contracts as did Martin Laursen last season. O’Neill will also look again at Barry’s situation should private talks with the former skipper prove positive.
O’Neill said: “The players are really important. What the chairman has done is this: he has come in and had a look at it.
“He wants to show that we are capable of keeping our players, and if money is the reward at the end of the day – and that we can extend their contracts if they want to stay at the football club – then that’s great.”
O’Neill was one of the busiest managers in pre-season, signing seven players which was in direct contrast to the previous window last January when he admits Villa decided to take a chance.
“We decided in January that we couldn’t get the players that we wanted, so could we see it through to the end?
“That was a bit of a risk and that was a concern.
“Had we still been in the FA Cup, there might have been a different issue but it wasn’t through lack of trying during the course of January.
“We were close to a couple of things, but you are never close to anything until it happens.
“That is the bottom line of it all – until it is signed, either exiting or entering, you can never be sure.”
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