Says here he's left with immediate effect

http://www.avfc.co.uk/page/ClubNewsDetail/...2116445,00.html

Can't wait to hear DFs opinion on this

I'm hoping it's because Lerner sanctioned the Ashley Young transfer to Spurs without O'Neill's approval....

Shocker. And very bad news for DF and friends.

I'm hoping it's because Lerner sanctioned the Young, Albrighton, Agbonlahor, Carew, Downing, Dunne, Petrov, Friedel transfers to Millwall without O'Neill's approval...

I guess picking villa players for week 1 isn't such a hot idea anymore

What a shame. I bet Liverpool are kicking themselves wishing they had waited before appointing a new manager

I'm just hoping, for Martin's sake, that it isn't anything like the reason he left Celtic.

That's a bit presumptous Mr. Orange! I for one am perfectly happy with the mangaer we have got.

Well as you can probably imagine I am pretty shocked by today's events.

It's the timing that annoys me more than O'Neill's decision to go, with only 5 days to go until the start of the season and no new signings as yet, it leaves us in a very bad state for the start of the premiership.

Hopefully the protracted Milner transfer saga can be completed in the next 48 hours and if Ireland comes the other way as expected, then at least a good player will be on board for the weekend.

Both the club and MON have remained very tight lipped about the reasons for MON's departure, I'm sure it'll all come out in due course, but as usual there are plenty of conspiracy theories on the various forums. The one recurring theme seems to be Lerner's unwillingness to back MON in the transfer window this year and the fact that plenty of rumours seem to be around about certain players being sold, apparently the straw that broke the camel's back was Friedel being offered to Fulham as a replacement if Schwarzer left.

I respected MON as a manager for what he has achieved with us and with his previous clubs, however he is not without his flaws and some of those were most notably in the transfer market, which is probably one of the key reasons why Lerner has decided to rein in his spending this year. I can't really criticise Lerner for the amount of investment he has put into Aston Villa over the previous few years and like most businessmen he expects a return on his investment. Villa have the 5th highest net spend on transfers in the Premier league over the last 5 years, 4 of which MON has been charge and whilst he's made some shrewd purchases: A. Young, Carew, Milner, Friedel, Dunne, Collins, he's also made some questionable ones: Shorey, Harewood, Beye, Sidwell, Heskey amongst others, so MON must accept his part in Lerner's reluctance to give him more cash this year.

Players are not irreplacable and if the mooted rumours were true and that Spurs were willing to offer us Keane, Bentley and Jenas in exchange for Ashley Young and that Milner is going to Citeh for 18 Million plus Ireland, I'd say we were probably getting the better part of the deal in both cases. Whilst Friedel is a great keeper, he is getting on and we have an excellent replacement in Guzan and I'm sure another keeper could have been found to replace Friedel. It seems that MON has copied his mentor Cloughie and thrown his toys out the pram with Lerner and co, shame really as I'm sure if he'd seen the transfer window through then he would have more than an acceptable squad to work with.

Anyway onwards and upwards, thanks for your input Martin, you've left Villa in a much better state that when you arrived, time to kick on and get a new captain of the ship, it'll be interesting to see who that'll be, I'd like Jol or Curbishley, watch this space!

It would never be a straight swap though. I heard it was those three for Young and 9 million. But to be honest, I don't think we need Ashley Young and can't see where he'd fit in.

It would still have been a good deal for us, it might have more chance of going through now MON has gone though, if 'Arry wants Young that badly and he wants to go, then let him leave I say. No player is irreplacable and if we get Keane, Bentley, Jenas and Ireland and a net gain of 9 Million in exchange for Milner and Young then that's great business for us.

I agree on the Milner one, but Jenas is absolute pony these days, and Keane's best days are behind him. Bentley has promise, but to be honest I wouldn't be too sad to see him leave considering the options we'd have.

Rumours circulating that we've had a £19m bid accepted for Young. Over-priced in my opinion by 5-7m, but still better value than the Milner deal. Still can't work out how Young fits in at Spurs because I prefer Modric to him.

I see that US coach Bob Bradley is an early favourite to replace MON. Perhaps he is, given the American connection. I am not sure what kind of "clout" AV can expect if her were chosen, but I bet he could persuade a certain center midfielder to come over from Borussia Moenchengladbach if he wanted. Also some further rumours of bringing over Landon Donovan with him.

Wow, didn't see that coming

If that Young deal goes through it would be a weird one for Spurs IMO, he's not what they need atm...Villa could use some squad depth so I think they'll be getting the better deal...

I think you've hit the nail on the head with this one. For me it seems as if MON leaving was primarily due to not receiving any more funds to spend on players. It looked as if the 35 or so million the club would receive from Milner and Young would not be allowed to spent on others players, something MON was obviously not to happy about... i mean he would want to replace his two best players.

But you have to look at the reality, they had spent a fair amount on players like you mentioned... wasnt it like 30 million pounds last year or something? So many of those players just weren't up to standard. I didn't even see Beye get a game? How can you sign somebody and then not give them a chance? Now maybe he was third choice behind Cuellar and Young, but then why sign him?

Apparantly the Aston Villa wage bill was something along the lines of 71 million pounds, that's freaking insane. That equated to around 84% of their turn over... those kinds of numbers will take down clubs very quickly. You've got players like Reo Coker and Sidwell sitting on the sideline earning in excess of 60,000 pounds a week...

Lerner finally said enough is enough.