Objectives and objectivity

[NeilH]

Houllier got till this time last year so why anyone would think AM would get longer given the circumstances is beyond me.

Because Lerner has bet the house (in terms of his credibility) on this appointment.

You can forget any notion that AM is going to get sacked any time soon.

Exactly.

Aside from the fact that we would yet again have to pay compensation, Randy has taken an unpopular decision based on his belief in McLeish and the new club policy. The fact is that McLeish is capable more than many others of implementing a strategy of ‘steady as she goes’ with a possible cup flirtation and it is inconceivable that no matter what noise comes out of message boards or even from the Holte End that he’ll pull the trigger.

McLeish is here to stay, so like it or lump it.

[Risso]

Our starting line up on Monday actually cost more than Spurs.  They've just bought better players with the money they've spent, and have a much, much better manager, which of course is related to the first point. 

[N'ZMAV]

Just throwing a question (or two) out there:

How much of this current plight is to do with McLeish? It was pretty obvious to me that the start of all this was before MON resigned. He walked, in my opinion because of the new approach that Mr Lerner wanted to take the club forward with. Obviously a succession of managers since then is never going to steady a ship. But, if MON had stayed on and been a relatively popular manager, in comparison to McLeish, and taken on Mr Lerners approach, would we still be in a similar position where we are questioning the Chairman’s ambition and interest in the club? if MON had us in 8th place after an average-ish start to the season, with a similar crop of players and similar style of Football, after a crappy pre-season in terms of transfers, would we still be all up in arms?

Obviously it's all hindsight and hypotheticall but there's a root to the current mood at the club. I'm just interested in finding out where people lay the blame, because let's face it, we're AVFC, we need a scapegoat or two....

[Monty]

Just throwing a question (or two) out there:

How much of this current plight is to do with McLeish? It was pretty obvious to me that the start of all this was before MON resigned. He walked, in my opinion because of the new approach that Mr Lerner wanted to take the club forward with. Obviously a succession of managers since then is never going to steady a ship. But, if MON had stayed on and been a relatively popular manager, in comparison to McLeish, and taken on Mr Lerners approach, would we still be in a similar position where we are questioning the Chairman’s ambition and interest in the club? if MON had us in 8th place after an average-ish start to the season, with a similar crop of players and similar style of Football, after a crappy pre-season in terms of transfers, would we still be all up in arms?

Obviously it's all hindsight and hypotheticall but there's a root to the current mood at the club. I'm just interested in finding out where people lay the blame, because let's face it, we're AVFC, we need a scapegoat or two....

McLeish is a symptom of the deep-rooted problem at the club, in that I believe you're absolutely correct. Doesn't stop him being a pretty big symptom, mind, but he isn't the fundamental cause of the current malaise.

In Dave's article, he spoke of how Randy and the club used to seem telepathic with us. We truly were all in it together, the club seemed to know what we wanted and when it made a mistake, learned from it and, for our part, we took mistakes they made mostly with grace as we knew where their hearts were. We don't know anymore. The appointment of McLeish displayed a cavalier disregard for what the fans think beyond any reason. This isn't a Newcastle-esque trying to run the club through fan pressure, this is just a total disconnect.

Secondly, there is a genuine worry as to whether or not Randy, Faulkner et al really know what they're doing. They didn't appoint MON who, for all his faults, had some very good managerial qualities. However, they didn't 'manage' him well at all - instead, very unwisely, they gave him free reign, not least with the finances, which has lead ultimately to the financial issues we now face.

If that didn't show great footballing understanding, the two following searches for managers certainly didn't either. The emphasis placed on that 'Premier League experience' nonsense showed a buying into of myths about the primacy and special-ness of English football that was naive bordering on childish. Why else would they express an interest in two managers as massively divergent as McLeish and Martinez? And, indeed, McLaren, very different again. The only thing they have in common was that Premier League experience thing. Is that really what they're basing the future strategy of our club on?

These questions have to be answered. Very importantly, though, they have to realise how much they're shooting themselves in their collective foot. Fans will turn up to watch entertaining football, successful football and especially both. We might not manage the latter two, but if we're going nowhere we might as well do it with panache and with a smile on our faces. At the moment, it's just vaguely hopeless, uninspiring drudgery, which is not going to put bums on seats and increase our revenues that way.

[Chris Smith]

Our starting line up on Monday actually cost more than Spurs.  They've just bought better players with the money they've spent, and have a much, much better manager, which of course is related to the first point. 

But clearly everyone on here would not have wanted Redknapp as he's got clubs relegated in the past. He's become a better manager with experience and cash to spend but it wasn't always so.

If you tot up the total cost of their squad and compare it to ours they're miles in front. They've been doing it since way before Lerner arrived.

[N'ZMAV]

Maybe some managers are just better with better players. As Pardew seems to be proving at the moment? Maybe some managers just can't get their ideas and approach across to players with less ability.... just a thought....

[KevinGage]

Just throwing a question (or two) out there:

How much of this current plight is to do with McLeish? It was pretty obvious to me that the start of all this was before MON resigned. He walked, in my opinion because of the new approach that Mr Lerner wanted to take the club forward with. Obviously a succession of managers since then is never going to steady a ship. But, if MON had stayed on and been a relatively popular manager, in comparison to McLeish, and taken on Mr Lerners approach, would we still be in a similar position where we are questioning the Chairman’s ambition and interest in the club? if MON had us in 8th place after an average-ish start to the season, with a similar crop of players and similar style of Football, after a crappy pre-season in terms of transfers, would we still be all up in arms?

Obviously it's all hindsight and hypotheticall but there's a root to the current mood at the club. I'm just interested in finding out where people lay the blame, because let's face it, we're AVFC, we need a scapegoat or two....

McLeish is a symptom of the deep-rooted problem at the club, in that I believe you're absolutely correct. Doesn't stop him being a pretty big symptom, mind, but he isn't the fundamental cause of the current malaise.

In Dave's article, he spoke of how Randy and the club used to seem telepathic with us. We truly were all in it together, the club seemed to know what we wanted and when it made a mistake, learned from it and, for our part, we took mistakes they made mostly with grace as we knew where their hearts were. We don't know anymore. The appointment of McLeish displayed a cavalier disregard for what the fans think beyond any reason. This isn't a Newcastle-esque trying to run the club through fan pressure, this is just a total disconnect.

Secondly, there is a genuine worry as to whether or not Randy, Faulkner et al really know what they're doing. They didn't appoint MON who, for all his faults, had some very good managerial qualities. However, they didn't 'manage' him well at all - instead, very unwisely, they gave him free reign, not least with the finances, which has lead ultimately to the financial issues we now face.

If that didn't show great footballing understanding, the two following searches for managers certainly didn't either. The emphasis placed on that 'Premier League experience' nonsense showed a buying into of myths about the primacy and special-ness of English football that was naive bordering on childish. Why else would they express an interest in two managers as massively divergent as McLeish and Martinez? And, indeed, McLaren, very different again. The only thing they have in common was that Premier League experience thing. Is that really what they're basing the future strategy of our club on?

These questions have to be answered. Very importantly, though, they have to realise how much they're shooting themselves in their collective foot. Fans will turn up to watch entertaining football, successful football and especially both. We might not manage the latter two, but if we're going nowhere we might as well do it with panache and with a smile on our faces. At the moment, it's just vaguely hopeless, uninspiring drudgery, which is not going to put bums on seats and increase our revenues that way.

Spot on Monts.

[Hookeysmith]

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

On my thread "can we have our club back please" i said how we are morphing into the Dog shit

This is almost exactly the same thing he came out with after we gubbed the dog shit 5-1 a few years ago

Fuck me why dont we just make it easier for him and change the kit to royal blue / white

I really have tried to accept him (and it has nothing, not a single thing that he came from them - as other have said if he was victim of circustance over there and proved to be great with better players i would have loved it that they lost out ot us again) its all about migrating his inability to coach / tactic awareness and lack of bottle that he had over there to over here

This was my fear at first and it is only growing - the most alarming thing was that all my nose friends warned me what his tactics were like well before he ever came here. Instead of mising him they were actually glad he fooked off!!!!!

Whether Monday was his 12th game or 1200 to meekly put out a cowardly team like that from the start is enough in my mind for sacking - i could almost understand damage limitation if we had a lot of regulars out injured etc - he had a virtually fully fit squad to choose from

Totally embarrassing to be a Villa fan on Monday - and 3 days on i am still fuming where normally i would have let it go by now after a defeat.

But the total manner of the line up / the tactics / the lack of changes after 5 mins when everyone could see it was shit is beyond belief and i am sorry for my / our club that is not acceptable at any level

[pauliewalnuts]

AMcL must be given a chance, at least, but unfortunately some will not look beyond the end of their anti blue noses.

Isn't it a bit hypocritical to moan that people are too closed minded to give him a chance, then to suggest that it's largely because they don't like Blues? Isn't that just as narrow minded?

I can think of, at most, a handful of people on here that wanted him gone as soon as he got here because of his provenance, and none of those are even regular posters.

How much do you think Monday night was about him having been the Blues manager? It wasn't. What it was was (another) 90 minutes demonstrating that those who are concerned about his brand of football - and who would be so, wherever he'd come from - are right to be worried.

The "you're only moaning because he's a former Blues manager" is the season's new cop-out non-argument.

With respect that's bollocks, Paulie. No other appointment would have served up the embarrassing scenes outside Villa Park when it was first rumoured.

That attitude just hasn't shifted despite a reasonably good start to the season.

I said then and I'll say it again, he wasn't the man I wanted but I'm prepared to have an open mind. To at least see what he can over the course of a season.

It's not bollocks.

Forget the protests outside Villa Park, I'm talking about the people who discuss the issue on here, who - with the exception of a tiny number of people - i imagine had nothing at all to do with the protests.

There are a lot ofpeople here who made it quite clear they were prepared to give him a chance, who have now seen enough to get a good idea of the way things are going and don't like the look of it.

The whole blues argument falls apart when applied to anyone with half a brain cell.

Who, for example, would give a flying one if we'd appointed someone who had been amazingly successful at Blues rather than bagged two relegations?

[Chris Smith]

Whenever there is a poor performance some people decide that it sums up everything about the manager. The games where we play well are ignored or dismissed as irrelevant, it's the game where he tried something different and it failed that are put forward as irrefutable proof of his utter shitness.

We're turning into Geordies, dancing around like fannies on SSN about the appointment and then calling for a change after 12 games.

That's modern football for you.

[Concrete John]

Although obviously connected, I see this as two arguments; 1. Randy's longterm plan/vision and 2. McLeish's managerial ability.

1.  He invested heavily, but I always thought the plan was to see the club get self sufficient at some point.  That self sufficiencey was probably envisioned with a CL income, but as that didn't happen plans had to be redrawn, hence our current budget cutting.  I like Randy and trust that he has the best interests on the club at heart, so am prepared to wait and see what he does next.  Are we having a 'cooling off period' to clear the decks before taking another bash at it or has he given up the ghost?  In the former then fair enough and I'll be patient, but if the latter then he should be looking for a buyer.

2.  12 games isn't a long period, but it's enough to at least start looking for where our weaknesses are and try to improve them.  Spurs away was a joke, which nobody was laughing at, but he at least deserves the chance to learn from that mistake and improve.  His defensive reputation is now questionable, but at the start of the season we were quite solid, so not sure what's changed?  Plus points have been the signing of Given, Herd, the form of Gabby and results overall as 8th is higher than a lot predicted pre-season.  I think he's been average - decent results with relatively poor form overall - so not enough to call for him to go without being a ringing endorsement.

Where those two parts meet is is he the man if we start spending again?  For me, it's a no, as with a decent budget we could attract better, but if we're coasting he'll be about our level. 

So maybe it's a matter of a two year plan to shift what we don't want while seeing what kids cut the mustard, then saying 'Thanks, Alex' before paying up the last year of his contract and then looking to re-try our approach under MON?

[Concrete John]

Although obviously connected, I see this as two arguments; 1. Randy's longterm plan/vision and 2. McLeish's managerial ability.

1.  He invested heavily, but I always thought the plan was to see the club get self sufficient at some point.  That self sufficiencey was probably envisioned with a CL income, but as that didn't happen plans had to be redrawn, hence our current budget cutting.  I like Randy and trust that he has the best interests on the club at heart, so am prepared to wait and see what he does next.  Are we having a 'cooling off period' to clear the decks before taking another bash at it or has he given up the ghost?  In the former then fair enough and I'll be patient, but if the latter then he should be looking for a buyer.

2.  12 games isn't a long period, but it's enough to at least start looking for where our weaknesses are and try to improve them.  Spurs away was a joke, which nobody was laughing at, but he at least deserves the chance to learn from that mistake and improve.  His defensive reputation is now questionable, but at the start of the season we were quite solid, so not sure what's changed?  Plus points have been the signing of Given, Herd, the form of Gabby and results overall as 8th is higher than a lot predicted pre-season.  I think he's been average - decent results with relatively poor form overall - so not enough to call for him to go without being a ringing endorsement.

Where those two parts meet is is he the man if we start spending again?  For me, it's a no, as with a decent budget we could attract better, but if we're coasting he'll be about our level. 

So maybe it's a matter of a two year plan to shift what we don't want while seeing what kids cut the mustard, then saying 'Thanks, Alex' before paying up the last year of his contract and then looking to re-try our approach under MON?

[Risso]

Whenever there is a poor performance some people decide that it sums up everything about the manager. The games where we play well are ignored or dismissed as irrelevant, it's the game where he tried something different and it failed that are put forward as irrefutable proof of his utter shitness.

We're turning into Geordies, dancing around like fannies on SSN about the appointment and then calling for a change after 12 games.

That's modern football for you.

Commenting about games you haven't even seen.  There's modern football for you.

[Greg N'Ash]

Houllier got till this time last year so why anyone would think AM would get longer given the circumstances is beyond me.

Because Lerner has bet the house (in terms of his credibility) on this appointment.

You can forget any notion that AM is going to get sacked any time soon.

Exactly.

Aside from the fact that we would yet again have to pay compensation, Randy has taken an unpopular decision based on his belief in McLeish and the new club policy. The fact is that McLeish is capable more than many others of implementing a strategy of ‘steady as she goes’ with a possible cup flirtation and it is inconceivable that no matter what noise comes out of message boards or even from the Holte End that he’ll pull the trigger.

McLeish is here to stay, so like it or lump it.

Again i don't think thats true. while Lerner may ignore the fans opinion, the whole point of AM's appointment was to save money. If he's worried about the finances now he'll be on prozac if we go down. AM's minimum brief is to keep us up. If that looks like not happening then he'll be gone whether Lerner loses face or not.

[PeterWithesShin]

I'd say that after 14 games into the season, the fact we've only won 4 and those were against Wigan (20th) Blackburn (19th) Norwich (2 years ago a Division 3 side) and Hereford (19th in Div 4) could be the reason a few people are getting a tad worried.

I personally would be just as worried regardless of who the manager is.