Aston Villa’s calamitous season has been thrown into fresh turmoil after the deep-rooted problems within the club were exposed by the resignations of Mervyn King and David Bernstein.
The news represents a crushing blow to the supporters’ hopes that a new board was in place to rebuild the club, raises fresh questions about the way Randy Lerner is running Villa and looks to leave the Premier League’s bottom team rudderless on and off the pitch.
Villa’s four-man football board has been halved in the blink of an eye and it would be no surprise if Adrian Bevington, who has been working for the club in an advisory role, followed Bernstein and King out of the door in the coming days. It is understood that Bevington views his position as uncertain at the moment.
Steve Hollis, the Villa chairman, remains at the club, although he could be forgiven for wondering what on earth he walked into when he agreed to take that position in January. His plans to restructure and revive the club are in tatters and it is difficult to see where Villa, whose relegation from the Premier League was confirmed on Saturday, go from here.
A statement on the Villa website on Monday afternoon confirmed that Hollis was “currently engaged in extensive negotiations in relation to the sale of the club”, which raises the obvious question as to how a new manager can be appointed in these circumstances.
Villa claimed that the search for a manager “remains a priority” and said that Brian Little would continue to advise Hollis on “football-related” matters. However, it is believed that the process behind appointing Rémi Garde’s successor was one of several issues that troubled King and Bernstein, who were also not helped by the fact that there is no knowledge of what the budget will be in the Championship.
Lerner is desperate to get the club off his hands – as has been the case for a number of years – and there are suggestions that Villa’s asking price has now fallen to around £75m.
The major concern for the club’s fans will be what happens if Lerner, once again, is unable to find a buyer this summer. It is certainly hard to see how either Nigel Pearson or David Moyes, two of the leading candidates for the Villa job, would be willing to commit themselves to the club at present.
Lord King, the former governor of the Bank of England and a lifelong Villa fan, joined the Midlands club only 74 days ago with Bernstein, the former Football Association chairman, following suit 36 days later. Yet only 48 hours after relegation the two men decided that their positions at the club had become untenable.
“The issues at the club are fundamental and the solutions are radical and do not lend themselves to compromise,” Bernstein said in a resignation letter. “Unfortunately it had proved impossible to implement the agreed structure and my position has quickly become untenable.”
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