Aston Villa chief Tom Fox says manager Paul Lambert will have January spending money.
US owner Randy Lerner will not be spending big bucks in the forthcoming transfer window but he will listen to any requests that the Aston Villa boss should make.
Fox told the Birmingham Mail: "Randy is very realistic.
"The club had some success early in Randy's time here but actually it was playing in a bit of a false position because the league was already changing back then.
"I don't think we were positioning ourselves as a club well for that.
"Randy was spending money then but what he didn't have then was a line of sight as to 'if I spend that money how is it going to pay back in the future?'
"We didn't really have the set-up to really help us capture our commercial value at the time.
"That's different now.
"So will Randy continue to invest in the squad? He will because I think what he sees is that we're on a trajectory to eventually put ourselves in a position where we can self-sustain ourselves and generate the revenue to compete on the back of our own business."