The statement to the London Stock Exchange confirmed that 60% of the club's shares, including the 39% stake of Doug Ellis had been sold to Lerner, beating competition from consortia led by Michael Neville, Nicholas Padfield QC, and Athole Still.

Eleven days after the announcement, the LSE confirmed that Lerner had secured 59.69% of Villa shares, making him the majority shareholder.

The BBC reported in September 2006 that Lerner had moved closer to taking full control of the club, after increasing his share to 85.5%.

[2] Villa started life under Martin O'Neill strongly and were the last team in the Premier League to be beaten, going nine matches without defeat and taking points against the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea away before a 3–1 loss at Liverpool.

There were debuts for Ashley Young (210), Stiliyan Petrov (185), John Carew (113), Shaun Maloney (30), Isaiah Osbourne (19), Phil Bardsley (13), Chris Sutton (8), Didier Agathe (5), and Gábor Király (5).