Objectives and objectivity

[Steve R]

This is not intended to be a 'Bash Mcleish', 'Suck Gary Gardner's Dick','Maybe Houllier Was Right'  or even a Jane Austen thread.

As I understand it, McLeish had three objectives when he was appointed :

1) reduce the wage bill (or more accurately, live with a reduced wage bill)
2) Make more if what we have (i.e. we had too many high earners taking money for doing nothing)
3) Give the much vaunted emerging ex-youth teamers opprtunity to state their case

Setting aside some miserable peformances we could all whinge about, what have we learned so far? Have we really gone about achieving the above in the right way?

It seems to me that we are guilty of trying to achieve the difficult to impossible feat of effecting major financial cutbacks whilst still making a half arsed attempt at being contenders (of sorts).

It is more than possible that the net result will not be the lean but stable platform to re-build upon that makes the interim pain worthwhile, but more a knackered donkey that doesn't know which way to turn.

Maybe a better approach would be to accept a mediocre season or (more likely) two  - like were not going to get them anyway - and be prepared to write off a lot of the cash spent on the existing squad and move them on reagrdless of how low the offer.

Whatever transfer kitty we have could should be used for more loan deals and/or the kind of effective performers on low fees and wages that seem to serve the 'smaller' Prem clubs so well.

This would provide better contingency  for a more concerted effort to give significant game time to the likes of Clark, Baker, Hogg (should have kept him), Delfouneso and Weimann let alone Gardner or Johnson.

I felt at the start of the season that with such a patchy squad and modest transfer kitty, blowing the majority of it on one player - any player - was maybe not such a good idea. I almost puked when I heard we were then going to lob out 4 mill on Hutton.

Similarly, even at the best of times, keeping 20/21/22 year olds on the outer fringes does little but ensure that their time passes before it even arrives.

Is there really no alternative to what is currently happening at the club?
 

[Greg N'Ash]

Trouble is, are the young players good enough? Last 10 years i've been hearing about how ace our young players are on here and it never turns out that way. Of the last batch, we've got gabby and erm sold cahill for peanuts. the rest were meh at best. And if the latest batch are this magical generation  are they ready or will we end up like Westham getting relegated with the likes of carrick, lampard, cole etc..?

[Vanilla]

My main issue is, when 'da blues' were twice sucked into a relegation battle, this manager wasn't able to drag them out of it. He seemingly refused to change approach or tactics, and they went down both times.

There have been a lot of noises about how players were unhappy under Houllier. Well our performances this season haven't exactly been top drawer, so what is the reason this season? Are the players just not good enough?

Also, could you really expect fans from other similar size teams of Villa's stature, to accept this 'well we have to be realistic' belief?

[Eigentor]

Is there really no alternative to what is currently happening at the club?

I'd rather we gambled on an up-and-coming foreign manager who tried to makes us play (what Villadelphia calls) 21st century football. People may utter the words "Jose Ramos" in the face of such a suggestion, but I've seen no evidence that McLeish is less likely to bring us into a relegation battle. In my opinion, the possible upside of a comfortable life in upper midtable and some football worth watching makes the risk worth taking.

Houllier was probably wrong man, but at least he had an idea what he was doing. He managed (sort of) to implement a defensive structure in the side, and you could see signs of how he wanted the team to play. Granted, he failed, partly because of the player's refusal to leave the comfy combination of MON's 1970s style football and John Robertson's lax training regime, but also because his own failure to bring with him coaches who could implement his ideas. But despite major setbacks like Sunderland/Wolves at home, Liverpool and Man City away, he did seem to have an idea of how he could drag us in the right direction.

McLeish, on the other hand, seems clueless. In my opinion he has not managed to get the basics right: the team look as disjointed as it did at the start of the season. Granted, we're seriously weakened because of the departure of NRC, Young and Downing, but it's not like the players who were supposedly suppressed by Houllier's stringent schoolteacher regime suddenly have blossomed. The few glimpses of decent football so far this season seems to have been been due to happy accidents and hopeless opposition, not systematic work on the training ground.

Unless the team improves significantly, it will be dragged into a relegation battle in January or so. Happily, there should be at least four or five teams significantly weaker than us. Sadly, McLeish's record in relegation battles is rather poor.

[Chris Smith]

He's had 12 games and one transfer window with limited funds after losing good players the creative fulcrum of the side.

He might turn out to be the wrong man but it's pretty scant evidence to use to condemn him unless you were never going to give him a chance in the first place.

[MarkM]

This is not intended to be a 'Bash Mcleish', 'Suck Gary Gardner's Dick','Maybe Houllier Was Right'  or even a Jane Austen thread.

As I understand it, McLeish had three objectives when he was appointed :

1) reduce the wage bill (or more accurately, live with a reduced wage bill)
2) Make more if what we have (i.e. we had too many high earners taking money for doing nothing)
3) Give the much vaunted emerging ex-youth teamers opprtunity to state their case

Is there really no alternative to what is currently happening at the club?
 

The objectives listed above are all short term measures designed to control cash flow and reduce outgoings, these  are the kind of short term objective that companies set [often under instruction from a bank] to regain an apparent control of a financial situation [often on paper]

Experts are often dropped into a company to put these measures into place, they are given big wages and bonus payouts if they achieve the objectives, the problem is with this kind of approach is that it doesn't take into consideration the long term position of the company / club. The expert / manager will get thier payout for doing what the company has asked and then more than likely move onto the next job, the risk is that the company / club will either fall over as the infrastructure has been pulled apart, or will be so weak due to lack of investment that it will not be able to compete and will suffer accordingly.

I think that the board need to put in place a longer term strategy that we can all get behind instead of burrying heads in the sand and hoping that things get better on thier own

Just my view

[nigel]

He's had 12 games and one transfer window with limited funds after losing good players the creative fulcrum of the side.

He might turn out to be the wrong man but it's pretty scant evidence to use to condemn him unless you were never going to give him a chance in the first place.

I agree Chris, but, you're banging your head up against a brick wall with some.
AMcL must be given a chance, at least, but unfortunately some will not look beyond the end of their anti blue noses.
I remember when Ron Saunders came to Villa Park to replace Vic Crowe. Many were saying back then:
"Ron who?" "What's he ever done?" .............................. Hmmm, yes, what did he ever do for Villa?!!!!

[Phil from the upper holte]

He's had 12 games and one transfer window with limited funds after losing good players the creative fulcrum of the side.

He might turn out to be the wrong man but it's pretty scant evidence to use to condemn him unless you were never going to give him a chance in the first place.

Is it as simple as that though Chris? I didn't want him but when he came he made the right noises I was prepared to give him a go but we played with one midfielder Monday and played blues style football, youth isn't gettin a chance, Clark, Albrighton where is Gardener? It's all too familiar

[Steve R]

12 games is indeed not very much, but still sufficient to for a valid first impression. We spent 17 mill in the summer, which may not be much by our own standards of previous years but is still a pretty hefty budget compared to clubs who seem to be coping with austerity far better than we are.

The objectives of cutting the wage bill, addressing the unused baggage and trying to make more use of the academy are not mutually exclusive yet it seems (to me at least) that so far we seem to be addessing them independently, and to a degree repeating the mistakes that got us in this position in the first place.

I wasn't trying to question the right and wrongs of the managerial appointment specifically, even though I agree with everything Eigentor says. It is certainly a fact of life that good youth teams still yield precious few good first teamers, it always has been.

I'd still raise the question that maybe it should not be as bad as it is.

I doubt Fulham will totally compromise their usual game plan when they visit WHL. They will probably lose, but I doubt they will look as abject and will certainly have a better chance of actually getting something out of the game compared to us.

I wouldn't want Fulham's turnover, transfer kitty, their manager, their owner or their youth system. So what are they doing that we cannot?

[Risso]

He's had 12 games and one transfer window with limited funds after losing good players the creative fulcrum of the side.

He might turn out to be the wrong man but it's pretty scant evidence to use to condemn him unless you were never going to give him a chance in the first place.

He's part of the overall malaise at the club now that Lerner has lost interest. The reason we have such a poor manager, and the reason that we've sold those players you mention and not replaced them is all down to Lerner's inability to run a successful sports team.

[Merv]

He's had 12 games and one transfer window with limited funds after losing good players the creative fulcrum of the side.

He might turn out to be the wrong man but it's pretty scant evidence to use to condemn him unless you were never going to give him a chance in the first place.

Absolutely - it's very early days and I feel it's pointless expecting a managerial change anyway; McLeish is here to stay, because he's doing exactly what his employers have asked of him.

Despite working with certain limitations - transfer budget, in the main - though, McLeish has had the benefit of a full squad to work with (injuries few and far between) and I think he's made/making some poor choices. Seeing a bench full of good 'footballers' against Spurs really worried me. I'm more than happy to give him a chance - God knows I want him to succeed - but he hasn't impressed me much so far.

[Greg N'Ash]

He's had 12 games and one transfer window with limited funds after losing good players the creative fulcrum of the side.

He might turn out to be the wrong man but it's pretty scant evidence to use to condemn him unless you were never going to give him a chance in the first place.

probably a good third of the support were never going to give him a chance anyway, while the rest of us have grave reservations about his style of football and lack of tactics

With that sort of rep starting a job, you'd hope the least the chairman would do is back him with money but instead he's been given a transfer budget that even Doug would think was a bit stingy.

Of course he's not gonna be given a chance.

[Merv]

I'll add that, if you want a new manager to be given a chance (which of course you do, as a club owner) then you shouldn't make one of the most controversial appointments in the history of the club. McLeish has been put in a tough spot by his bosses; he's got a much smaller margin of error than many other managers would have had.

[TonyD]

Where he came from isn't important.  It's the teams he picks and the tactics he uses.   Both of which have been unacceptable.  A park's manager would do much better.

[olaftab]

I am all for giving him a chance and a chance that is over a season rather than 12 games and that is what we should do.
However I am pissing myself over the direction  the club is taking. This was illustrated by a comment McLeish made yesterday when questioned about his negative tactics and not competing with Spurs on the pitch. The question was Do Aston Villa have any ambition to compete with clubs like Spurs? His answer alarmingly was We can not compete ...that's a fact of life...they have different ambitions to us
This points to a strategy agreed with Randy &Co that means our aim is to just survive in the league and that my friends is not good enough for Aston Villa FC. I do feel quite demoralised by the whole situation