Eck Speaks

[PeterWithe]

From the Daily Mail, he's not negative you know, oh no.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2209617/Alex-McLeish-discusses-difficult-years-Birmingham-Aston-Villa.html

[Nev]

What a combination, I've elected to leave the link unclicked. I'm sure it's the same sort of stuff we've heard before though.

[Jimbo]

This is like when Ellis speaks to the press. Deluded second-snatching. Not worth your time reading it.

[Lambert and Payne]

Same as before, nice man, shit manager, hope it works out for him elsewhere. Sure he'll end up back in Scotland sooner or later.

If you look at what Lamberts done with a similar squad then its easy to see he was just way out of his depth.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

McLeish quote.

''As for this suggestion I’m a negative manager, it’s utter tosh.''

So, a shit Manager and a fucking liar to boot.

[Archbishop Herbert Cockthrottle]

I suppose the media will rewrite history so many times we'll have to start believing it.

[Meanwood Villa]

It's great to hear that in his dream world he'd still be Blues manager "building a dynasty". And mentioning selling Barry? 2 years before he arrived?? Prick

[rob_bridge]

Well he didn't have the self awareness to understand the depth of anitpathy towards him based on his style of football because he doesn't think there is anything wrong with his football. How many Fucking goals did we score / look like scoring last season? What a deluded numb fuckwit he is.

[john e]

that season ticket holder doing the hugging,  DC5 ?


only joshing pal

[Mister E]

Deluded, and feeding the media machine with revisionist rubbish.

Everyone in this surreal world EPL football does it: feed the media with their 'spin' and it sticks because a publication will run with it and print it all as fact.

[Clampy]

It was'nt a bad read actually. With regards to the negativity, i just think he was too scared to lose whilst he was here. Like other's have said, a decent bloke who was in a job he should never have been offered although i don't blame him one bit for taking it.

[Risso]

McLeish quote.

''As for this suggestion I’m a negative manager, it’s utter tosh.''

So, a shit Manager and a fucking liar to boot.

Yes Alex, utter tosh.  The miserable, dour, safety first football you played at Blues and then Villa was a figment of our imagination, and the league table in which you nearly relegated both clubs in consectutive seasons is made up as well.  The reality is that your teams played the game with a swashbuckling, cavalier attitude, and were often likened to the Brazil team of the 70s, or the West Brom team under Tony Mowbray.

[Astral Weeks]

"I knew I needed to be out of the job."

Not as much as we needed it, mate!

[E I Adio]

Nothing here that wouldn't be expected from a very poor manager who would like another job in football.

But where do they find these ignorant journalists? "In terms of size, the two cities are comparable."

Population of Glasgow - 592,820
Population of Birmingham - 1,016,800

[paul_e]

The problem is, his complaints about us fit nicely with the reputation the press gave us for not giving their chum MoN free-reign to bankrupt us, so they're always going to publish it as fact.  It's also a lot easier to say he never stood a chance because if where he came from than it is to say how poorly he did, remember if he gets another club in the prem these guys will want to be on his good side.

The not negative thing is really odd though.  I'd have a lot more respect for him if he admitted to being safety first, the argument that he's attacking because he picks X amount of strikers/attacking midfielders and it's not his fault that they don't score just winds me up.  The statistics don't lie, the only club where he's averaged over 1.5 goals a game was Rangers, who he took from averaging near 3.5 the season before he joined, to just over 2 in his last season.  In the premier league he scrapes just over 1 a game, there is absolutely no way just over a goal a game for 3 1/2 seasons can be pinned completely on the players and bad luck.

The other one that gets me is that we, apparently, were involved in a relegation battle last year because of injuries and, as the article states, blues went down the year before because of injuries, can you really use the same excuse 2 seasons in a row at different clubs and not think maybe you (or your coaches) are responsible?

I get that people think he comes across as a decent guy if you meet him, and he might well be great as a mate, but he's totally deluded when it comes to his ability and record as a football manager.  Even in his most successful season as a manager (based on a cup in England being far more important than anything in Scotland) he got relegated.  There's a commonly known saying from Albert Einstein about doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results being the definition of insanity which seems to sum eck up pretty well.

Forget his time as our manager, ignore him in the press and let it drift from your memory forever, the likelihood is we won't have to put up with anything like that again any time soon.