In U.S. sports, you tend to be pretty strictly limited by the size of your team's market. When we heard that Villa was a club here that might be available, I had a strong feeling that a team in the West Midlands could be the chance to create something very special.

While being in the right seat at the right game might create short-term reassurance, I can't get over the idea that really what people feel is that their club is being run by a group of guys who know the history, study the heritage and view Villa as a proud Victorian club in its third century.

We have to invest in developing Villa Park, allowing us to generate our own revenue streams. At the same time, of course, there's a balance between growing long-term and getting the instant results we all crave as fans.

Randy Lerner Quotes