Steveo has sent in this post and these are Steveo’s thoughts NOT mine, lets make that clear eh ?
I read this blog quite a bit and we do appear to be (as a fan base), quite split on what’s going on, what to do next and more importantly…should Mcleish go. Well this is my 2 penneth
I am firmly in the ECK OUT camp, I’ll be clear about this from the off. Now, before we break into a furore of VTID, support the team, blah blah, this is my problem. ECK was brought in at great expense (it cost what, £2-£3m to get him from the inbreds?) and he was clearly brought in to do a job (cut the wage bill, tighten up the team…defensively and basically preserve our premier league status), there is no way in this world, despite the PR garbage that rolls out of VP nowadays, would RL believe that A: he was capable of delivering and B: he realistically would deliver. So knowing that, RL (against the fans wishes) has spent something like circa £5m this year for that to happen.
So let’s look at his record, clearly we are playing an absolutely terrible brand of football (we and RL knew this would be the case), but have we tightened up defensively, are we this super steady back 5 that RL thought he was bringing in…..and the answer is nope. Now it’s easy to say “this is mostly MON’s” defence and my answers to that are A: don’t care and B: why hasn’t he done anything about it.
ECK, clearly a defender by trade and a defensive manager has so far failed to do absolutely anything about the terrible defending we have seen this year. Now if you were coming in to manage a club, where the fans were going to be against you before day 1, would you take the job without some commitment from the boss that you could do your best to make the changes you needed to at least appease the fans and therefore get a head start…..but nope, failed there too.
So knowing what we know, he failed to secure the support to get the tools to do the job he likes best to do, he failed to sort out the current defensive issues with the tools to hand and as such he has failed to win any fans over…..what happens to failures, they have to be removed from their position…, non negotiable, every other line of work in the world would demand that, surely.
Nope what we have is an arrogant greedy get who has delusions of grandeur, has seen the money /prestige on offer and took it and has systematically failed to do anything right (as I see it)…. All whilst trousering more money than god.
Yup, up the Villa, VTID but for crying out loud and for being an abject failure, MCLEISH OUT!!!!
Aston Villa News 24/7
Let us simplify everything shall we? The fact is that whilst our current squad is by no means great, it is still more than adequate and there is plenty of decent talent there. I will accept that MacLeish needed time to get the likes of Ireland and n’zogbia going and will accept a certain number of dropped points for any new manager. However, I’ve said it before that any decent manager with a decent tactical knowledge base and management ability would have been able to get better performances out of this team and clocked up more points. We’re not talking about being a few positions off where would be realistic, we really are quite close to the zone now. He makes farcical substitutions at inappropriate times, bringing wrong players on in wrong positions. In an organisation if you put your accounts manager on the selling table, they’re not going to sell SIMPLE! He’s inept, out of his depths, doesn’t learn from his own mistakes which is an utter crime, and to be honest has no modern flair to handle up and coming current footballers. He is way off the mark. Having said all this, I have nothing against him personally and if he does make better decisions and turns things around (which I can’t see happening from the nonsense already witnessed) I will be more than happy to go fwd and accept the crap transitional period we have witnessed. He’s had enough time now to at least be playing at a certain level. We should at least be feeling some sort of stability and know what to expect from the team, but let’s face it we don’t know what to expect. We’re all confident that we’ll concede. Until Keane came we were not sure of where consistent goals would come from. As for the midfield- disjointed, misguided, just trying to muddle through 90 mins depending on how the game is going. It is simply terrible and unless a miracle happens and he does turn it around I really think we might flirt with relegation.
Is anyone sick of seeing our ‘senior players’ coming out back McLeish when it’s then that are too blame pretty much for the situation were in… I’m looking at you Richard Dunne. Maybe if you could show the same commitment on the pitch to what you claim to the rags then maybe we wouldn’t have to boo and organise protests…
Anyone see the news article on sky sports news “McLeish has ‘money to spend’
I’m not a fan of McLeish but if he is to stay and he has money to spend in the summer, I’m hoping he can sort out the defence
Wot you mean the Article where Mcleish says ‘I will have to wheel and deal’ – It would be a surprise of whopping proportions if Mcleish was given any new money. Read the quotes not the headline
Just watch the match and the post match deluded AMC interview all I can say is I totally agree with Yorkie’s summing up “I’m a Villa fan and I disagree with alex, that was unacceptable. I played here for 10 years and looked at the Holte, no passion just looks of disbelief”
Can you top that???
hi i thought ide give mcleish time to see if he could do something with his style of play at villa.now im worrying about relegation,lack lustre performances,boring play with no end product.ok goals here and there but no consistency.why is our defence so crap hutton absolute plonka cant pass only passes to our opponents can run but thats it,dunnys had his day we look like a team sinking fast not gelling our defence,midfeild and attack should be 1 unit trying to play together but all three look like 3 different parts not as 1 im worried could we be relegated!!we are 7 points off bottom 3 i hope i hope
You will find RLs has split with hes wife she will stake him for as much as she can. No mony for footy.To get ride of Mchagis would cost to much.And Deadly Dug owns 25% of the Villa
So all start praying so McHagis will keep Villa up and in time become somebody like Arry Renape ???
Eh?
Bang on said that 2 months ago, Learner lives by me, has a lady friend he met about 3 years ago , as you know them Yanks will have to give 1/2 or more of the assets to the ex. So cannot spend locked till settlement in the states… and we have to suffer … yes Doug does have a stake in the club still, also owns Aston
manor Brewery in Aston…
A midtable team made into a relegation battle team all by an arrogant scot. Dropping players to prove his own point that hes manager and to look no further than small heaths lego land were fans cries for 442 were ignored and would play 451 to show he called the shots. Well what happened to them is only what lays ahead for us so what should be done. Doesnt need a rocket scientist
I agree with everything that Steveo says about McLeish, and like many others, have said pretty much the same thing on this blog on more than one occasion. Problem is, as I’ve also said before, I think we’re stuck with McUseless because I really don’t think that there’s any chance that Lerner will pull the trigger on him. We all know the score; Lerner and his sycophant Faulkner paid real money to bring this third rate manager across the city to drive us to distraction with the most sterile, technically inept football seen at VP for donkey’s years. They did it in spite of the unrest they knew it would cause, and the predictions of what the outcome would be, and in so doing, they stuck up two fingers to the fans.
So with each week that passes, the predicted scenario pans out a little more, and the club is going down like the proverbial stone at the moment. Notwithstanding, the club has said that it intends to stick by the manager. They aren’t going to shell out another load of cash to get rid of him and bring in yet another manager now. Ironically, of course, it can be argued from Lerner’s point of view that McClueless is actually doing a good job. He’s working with virtually no money (in spite of the fact that Downing and Young were sold for big money, and others have been shifted off the wage bill as well during and since the summer), and taking a lot of the flak that might well have headed Lerner’s way in the meantime. If he keeps us up this year (an increasingly questionable outcome, in my opinion) Lerner will be happy. If we go down, Lerner has a scapegoat to point the finger at if he so chooses, but in that eventuality, I think it more likely that he’ll seek to present McLeish to us as the man “relishing the opportunity to bring Villa back up at the first opportunity”. Imho, therefore, I think we’re stuck with McClueless for the foreseeable. I think the only way he’ll go is if the Villa hotseat becomes too hot for him to stand, and he walks.
Although I’ve thought from day one that a man with two PL relegations in three years should never have got the job in the first place, I’ve never actually blamed McLeish for taking it. He only did what any of us would have done in the circumstances. McLeish is a symptom, not the disease. The real problem at VP lies at the very top, in the ineptitude and mediocrity of Lerner, Faulkner and the other c-listers on the board. In five short years, they’ve taken us from the prospect of such a bright future to the point where we bear a striking resemblance to the Titanic heading full steam for the iceberg. It’s all looking like a real mess, and goodness only knows how we get out of it.
get the scott out,bring in someone who knows english football not defensive,play attacking football ,also get players with years to play not months before they get there pensions