Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: Rip Van We Go Again on March 24, 2012, 05:10:31 PM
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For the position we find ourselves in.
Simple question.
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MON for spunking all the money away. Lerner has to take some of the blame as well for allowing so much money to be spunked.
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O'Neill.
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Lerner for me, he knew the appointment would be criticised but he went ahead anyway.
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A mixture of the Owner for hiring the manager and the manager for being shit. It used to irritate me when the media used to patronise us, but it doesn't really now. Everything about the club at the moment is 'small time'.
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O'Neill.
Can you add that to the poll please Lee?
There has to come a time though when we can't keep blaming things on a previous regime, also, it was Lerner who let O'Neill loose with a cheque book.
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A mixture of the Owner for hiring the manager and the manager for being shit. It used to irritate me when the media used to patronise us, but it doesn't really now. Everything about the club at the moment is 'small time'.
Correct.
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O'Neill.
Can you add that to the poll please Lee?
There has to come a time though when we can't keep blaming things on a previous regime, also, it was Lerner who let O'Neill loose with a cheque book.
The thing is, if we (or rather MON) hadn't spunked all that money, especially on wages, we wouldn't have had to resort to AM as manager.
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Both. Lerner should never have appointed him but we should not be this bad. A better manager would have us higher up the table.
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The whole fucking lot of them.
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The referee that played three hours of injury time, Man Ure vs Sheffield Wednesday, 1993.
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The chairman, unfortunately.
He managed the finances in such away that it really was shit or bust, and we are now seeing the bust bit.
Worse than that, on two occasions, he displayed a staggering ineptitude in identifying a manager, such that, last time, he targeted a man who has spent most of the season bottom (again), only to get turned down and then appoint a guy who actually failed to keep his last team in the top flight.
Randy stumped up a lot of money at first, but by his own sheer incompetence has pissed away everything achieved in four years.
Look at us now. Fifteenth, dreadful team, a manager the fans loathe, no money to spend, and dwindling crowds.
In other words, exactly where we were at the end of the 2005-6 season, except now we are hugely in debt, too.
The guy clearly had good intentions - at least till he got bored of it all - but has proven on both sides of the Atlantic that he knows nothing at all about running a sport business.
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Buck stops with Lerner i'm afraid to say.
McLeish is doing a dreadful job but that's all he's capable of, we knew that before he was appointed. The whole appointment process in the summer was comically inept.
Since then there has been no sign from the club that the people at the top know what state we're in let alone what needs to be done about it.
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Mixture of both Lerner & O'neill.
It can and will be debated until the end of our lives, or at least until we win our next trophy, whichever happens sooner.
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A mix of all of them.
MON for not getting quality AND value for money.
Randy for cutting the expenditure too savagely and too quickly, and for making such a controversial appointment.
The players for showing so little fight and desire.
McL for being too defeatist.
I'm still relatively confident.GG looks as if he has all the attributes to be a very good player, Weimann looks ok, as does Herd,Hutton has'nt been as bad as some on here would have you believe, and Carlos and Collins look ok to me.Ireland is as good a player as we are going to get atm, and then you have Bent.Good investment in good, hungry players in the summer and we won't be far off.Whether McL is the manager to do that is another question.
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I think I have the answer to the last question...
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McLeish, Lerner and Faulkner.
All about as much use as a one legged man in an arse kicking competition.
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For the position we find ourselves in.
Simple question.
you are :)
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Still has to be Lerner in the main for me, only a fuckwit would keep sanctioning big money and big wages on so-so players, or in the case of Heskey, fucking atrocious players.
Nobody at board level has the slightest clue on footballing matters, so he was quite happy to keep the till open for O'Neill, he slammed it shut much too late, now we've got to suffer.
The appointment of McLeish was the final steaming turd in the water pipe and defies all rational logic on every level.
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For the position we find ourselves in.
Simple question.
you are :)
Even I couldn't have fucked it up to this extent.
A whoop of baboons could have done a better job.
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For the position we find ourselves in.
Simple question.
you are :)
Even I couldn't have fucked it up to this extent.
A whoop of baboons could have done a better job.
Ah thanks Mark, the 'whoop of baboons' bit made me laugh.
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As I said to my mate a few weeks ago
'It's almost like they sat down and PLANNED to fuck everything up, you couldn't do better if you tried.'
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Lerner. I have never encountered such inept leadership before. Absolutely invisible whilst the club goes from crisis to crisis. He appointed all these managers, he takes the blame. Also he gave MON too much power, again, his fault.
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Lerner. I have never encountered such inept leadership before. Absolutely invisible whilst the club goes from crisis to crisis. He appointed all these managers, he takes the blame. Also he gave MON too much power, again, his fault.
This...
I think Randy is just out of his depth and Faulkner compounds it.
He is not doing it on purpose and he has put a lotta dosh in but he is the man at the top.
McLeish is the fall guy.
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Probably all of them played a part but I think it is getting too long to keep blaming O'Neill. We should have regrouped by now nearly two years later.
I don't blame Lerner for shutting off the money. That's his perogative. A well managed club could manage to deal with reduced input from the owner. We have been managed truly ineptly the last few years and have exhibited a complete lack of footballing knowledge at boardroom level. This culminated in appointing a manager who had failed in his previous job. The one manager who due to a combination of this failure, his past association with City and most importantly his dire brand at football was sure to make him horribly unpopular at Villa Park. Only a fuckwit couldn't have seen that. Actually, scratch that, most of us fuckwits did.
And don't get me started on McLeish and his awful football, terribly defeatest attitude and poor managerial ability. I've gone through it too many times to even bother to type it out in detail again.
It's just a mess. A horrible mess with no end in sight. Sorry lads. As Paulie has said elsewhere he's here to stay. I'm just so disheartened.
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Probably all of them played a part but I think it is getting too long to keep blaming O'Neill. We should have regrouped by now nearly two years later.
I don't blame Lerner for shutting off the money. That's his perogative. A well managed club could manage to deal with reduced input from the owner. We have been managed truly ineptly the last few years and have exhibited a complete lack of footballing knowledge at boardroom level. This culminated in appointing a manager who had failed in his previous job. The one manager who due to a combination of this failure, his past association with City and most importantly his dire brand at football was sure to make him horribly unpopular at Villa Park. Only a fuckwit couldn't have seen that. Actually, scratch that, most of us fuckwits did.
And don't get me started on McLeish and his awful football, terribly defeatest attitude and poor managerial ability. I've gone through it too many times to even bother to type it out in detail again.
It's just a mess. A horrible mess with no end in sight. Sorry lads. As Paulie has said elsewhere he's here to stay. I'm just so disheartened.
Summed up perfectly, there is no hope it is completely extinguished.
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Has to be the board I'm afraid. They employ the management and set the strategy (financial). Clueless.
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The chairman, unfortunately.
He managed the finances in such away that it really was shit or bust, and we are now seeing the bust bit.
Worse than that, on two occasions, he displayed a staggering ineptitude in identifying a manager, such that, last time, he targeted a man who has spent most of the season bottom (again), only to get turned down and then appoint a guy who actually failed to keep his last team in the top flight.
Randy stumped up a lot of money at first, but by his own sheer incompetence has pissed away everything achieved in four years.
Look at us now. Fifteenth, dreadful team, a manager the fans loathe, no money to spend, and dwindling crowds.
In other words, exactly where we were at the end of the 2005-6 season, except now we are hugely in debt, too.
The guy clearly had good intentions - at least till he got bored of it all - but has proven on both sides of the Atlantic that he knows nothing at all about running a sport business.
This is the Truth of it, what an absoloute shambles.
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I blame modern football.
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Lerner Lerner and Lerner. Appoints people he gets on with not the best people for the job. The level of incompetence is astounding, only supporter power will bring change.
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The chairman, unfortunately.
He managed the finances in such away that it really was shit or bust, and we are now seeing the bust bit.
Worse than that, on two occasions, he displayed a staggering ineptitude in identifying a manager, such that, last time, he targeted a man who has spent most of the season bottom (again), only to get turned down and then appoint a guy who actually failed to keep his last team in the top flight.
Randy stumped up a lot of money at first, but by his own sheer incompetence has pissed away everything achieved in four years.
Look at us now. Fifteenth, dreadful team, a manager the fans loathe, no money to spend, and dwindling crowds.
In other words, exactly where we were at the end of the 2005-6 season, except now we are hugely in debt, too.
The guy clearly had good intentions - at least till he got bored of it all - but has proven on both sides of the Atlantic that he knows nothing at all about running a sport business.
This is the Truth of it, what an absoloute shambles.
This,
you would hope that Lerner would have the courage to say - i gave it my best shot, enjoyed it while it lasted - but frankly i'm out of my depth, time to cut and run for the good of the club
Sadly I think Lerner et al will carry on regardless and we have to suck it up - all very depressing - McLeish is just the turd flavoured icing on the cake
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Havent we been here before on many occasions over the decades ? With Lerner, without Lerner, with Ellis, without Ellis, Pre Ellis.
But you always had the hope that if the right mix of ingredients came together you might only be a couple of years from being really really good. Now you need the added ingredient of a quite a few hundred million too.
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Lerner took a massive gamble, it failed. But McLeish could be doing more, could be trying, could be doing... anything. He isn't.
He's so far out of his depth the coastguard is on 24 hours notice.
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Lots of people. Lerner for being too trusting/naive and O'Neill for being a prick and walking out on the best job he'll ever have. That started the dominos falling and it has miserable ever since. Even as we thought GH might be getting it right, he falls ill. It's been a pretty dire 2 years.
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Havent we been here before on many occasions over the decades ? With Lerner, without Lerner, with Ellis, without Ellis, Pre Ellis.
But you always had the hope that if the right mix of ingredients came together you might only be a couple of years from being really really good. Now you need the added ingredient of a quite a few hundred million too.
86 nearly relegated. 87 relegated. 88 promoted. 89 nearly relegated. 90 nearly champions. 91 nearly relegated. 93 nearly champions.
It didn't take much to go from one end of the table to the other back in those days, although I doubt anyone did it quite as frequently or spectacularly as we did.
As you say though, nowadays, the only way to the top 4 nevermind a title challenge is to either be very very lucky, or much more likely, spend an insane amount of money.
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O'Neill dropped some major bollocks with some of his signings (and sales) and more importantly, the obscene wages they are on.
But Lerner obviously allowed him to make these decisions so for that he has to take he blame. I don't blame him for the cuts he has made recently, we don't want to end up like Portsmouth.
I think McLeish was on a hiding to nothing from day one. If you've come from the dark side and have to sell your best players, there's only one way it's going to go.
Under the circumstances, do you think we would be much higher up the table with another manager ?
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I have never been too negative about the club before this season. It was before my H&V lifetime, but it took me longer than most to want DOL out. I supported MON in spite of everything, and believed (and still believe) GH got a lot of unfair stick and had a good vision for the future of the club. However, I have nothing positive to say about Alex McLeish's management of the team, nor the perplexingly wrong-headed process which lead to his appointment.
Lerner's not a fool, just a very trusting man, to a fault. He probably sought advice from football people over the criteria for appointing a manager, as you'd do in any industry you accept others are more acquainted with. However, football is not any industry - it is an industry where evidence-based fact isn't a big thing, where people get away with spouting cliches which become accepted as fact, for no apparent reason, where ex-players are given chances at managerial jobs they have no qualifications for due to a nepotistic old boys network holding back a true meritocracy.
As a result, Lerner, in good faith, sought advice, and was told that Premier League experience was, apparently, a must-have for any manager. So he trusts this advice, despite the lack of any evidence as to why that criterion was so important. More than anything else, that requirement narrowed our list of potential candidates arbitrarily and damagingly, meaning we ended up with a candidate far less suitable for the post than many others we didn't even consider.
Who's to blame? Whoever told Randy that Premier League experience was necessary for any new manager. Randy's too trusting - that person is wrong and intellectually lazy. Fuck them.
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I think that does make Randy a naive fool unfortunately.
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O'Neill dropped some major bollocks with some of his signings (and sales) and more importantly, the obscene wages they are on.
But Lerner obviously allowed him to make these decisions so for that he has to take he blame. I don't blame him for the cuts he has made recently, we don't want to end up like Portsmouth.
I think McLeish was on a hiding to nothing from day one. If you've come from the dark side and have to sell your best players, there's only one way it's going to go.
Under the circumstances, do you think we would be much higher up the table with another manager ?
I agree with this post but I also believe we would have accepted being mid table if we had a least tried playing football we still have good players but McLeish hasn't a clue what to do with them
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I think that does make Randy a naive fool unfortunately.
Not necessarily. He could have sought loads of different peoples' views, but the problem remains that a lot of the people who run English football are, frankly, not that bright. So even if he does look for varied opinions, he may find a lot of the same pieces of received 'wisdom' being spouted at him.
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Blame the players, o neill, houllier, mcleish, faulkner and lerner but the buck stops with randy - he has made a pigs ear of things and our club is sliding downhill fast - time to find a new owner randy and hand over the reins please!
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I think that does make Randy a naive fool unfortunately.
Not necessarily. He could have sought loads of different peoples' views, but the problem remains that a lot of the people who run English football are, frankly, not that bright. So even if he does look for varied opinions, he may find a lot of the same pieces of received 'wisdom' being spouted at him.
Monty your statement about people in football not being that bright is spot on.
I made a similar comment about the spoutings forth of managers on another thread.
I am constantly amazed at the stupidity and ignorance of people "in the game", it is another world from the one I live and work in.
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I think that does make Randy a naive fool unfortunately.
Not necessarily. He could have sought loads of different peoples' views, but the problem remains that a lot of the people who run English football are, frankly, not that bright. So even if he does look for varied opinions, he may find a lot of the same pieces of received 'wisdom' being spouted at him.
Monty your statement about people in football not being that bright is spot on.
I made a similar comment about the spoutings forth of managers on another thread.
I am constantly amazed at the stupidity and ignorance of people "in the game", it is another world from the one I live and work in.
I think it was Jonathan Wilson on the Guardian Podcast who said that people would be surprised at quite how clueless people in football sometimes are. We think they have a plan, some ideas, some tactics, but often they don't - they just muddle along, somehow getting jobs. Given he's a Sunderland fan, this may well have been prompted by Bruce, who was managing them at the time.
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Lerner has the control of the club and the big decisions are down to him, so he is responsible for this mess. The problem is that no one believes that Lerner has the ability to start making decisions to turn the situation around.
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I think McLeish was on a hiding to nothing from day one. If you've come from the dark side and have to sell your best players, there's only one way it's going to go.
I think that's rubbish. There was nothing to do with his previous club and all to do with his footballing philosophy and capability. He just ain't good enough. Even with Ashley and Downing gone, there was enough talent to do well in a relatively poor league.
Under the circumstances, do you think we would be much higher up the table with another manager ?
Yes, given the right choice of manager - and there's the rub: Lerner isn't close enough to it all to know what "right" looks like. And he boxed himself into a corner with the 'Premiershp experience' criterion for selection.
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Lerner. he owns the club, he has the last word on all decisions.
Wow, what a shambles Aston Villa as become. :(
We are witnessing sheer incompetence.
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All of them and I wish they would all fuck off. Hate what's going on at my club. It's destroying the one thing that makes me remotely bothered about football.
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It is so much Randy Lerner's fault that it is hard to know where to begin to catalogue the air kicks he has made.
He should have appointed a board with football savvy.
He should have appointed a club mentor respected by the sport and respected by the fans. Sir GT would have been ideal but Brian Little, Andy Townsend, Ian Taylor, Peter Withe could have made it clear to the board and the owner and the manager that the club is nothing without its fans and the fans cannot be bought with free flags and scarves. We needed a Villa man to fight our corner when madness like the signing of Heskey or McLeish was proposed. Or the madness of playing Heskey regardless of his actual playing ability. I am not talking about a director of football or a second string manager, just somebody we the fans can trust and look up to.
Randy Lerner should also have had the balls to tell O'Neill long before he bounced out that the waste of money had to stop. Doug Ellis's spies would have tipped him off well in advance of any manager planning to turn the club over. Never in a million years would Doug have wasted twelve million pounds on a mardy manager a sick manager and a manager under a binding contract to our bitterest local rivals.
Randy Lerner should have put his and the club's case publicly to a tribunal not let O'Neill flounce away on a fragrant cloud of blamelessness. Perhaps he was blameless but he should have been made to prove it.
Lerner should not have interfered when the men he chose made such a pig's ear of finding a replacement for Houllier. When Whelan started to make monkeys out of us he should have told the board to give the job to Sid and K Mac just like the RFU have given Stuart Lancaster a spell to manage a battered and discredited England rugby team. The dust would have settled and a couple of good candidates head hunted. Instead the owner went into one and effectively told them he would sort it out personally.
I am sure I am not alone when I say that when I was told that McLeish was our new manager the future flashed past my eyes and it was exactly, down to the very last detail what we are now going through. This is not me being anti Villa or negative or a cantankerous old Bovrilman it was there in the form book staring anybody in the face with eyes to see it. I also saw a bit more of the future and it says that Sid and K Mac will be put in temporary charge at Christmas.
How can the owner seriously expect to understand us, the fans, when he thinks we will be impressed by a letter from the manager of Manchester United?
Randy Lerner cannot expect us to have any faith in him when Villa Park is shrouded in silence and secrecy and the only communication with the fans is to get them to buy stuff.
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Havent we been here before on many occasions over the decades ? With Lerner, without Lerner, with Ellis, without Ellis, Pre Ellis.
But you always had the hope that if the right mix of ingredients came together you might only be a couple of years from being really really good. Now you need the added ingredient of a quite a few hundred million too.
This is the nub IMHO. I think the speed of progress made initially with MON and Lerner in tandem had us all thinking the magic mix of igredients HAD come together. What has hapened since and how quickly the fall-out has resulted in our deterioration has been equally shocking and depressing. But ultimately, Lerner seems to be too hands off and disinterested now, when we need him most to grasp the nettle and sort things out, so for me it's him I'm afraid (with his two shambolic henchmen following closely!)
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Sadly Lerner, had such high hopes too.
It's staggering how someone who has been in business all their lives ,and in the business of sport in particular, can still be so utterly clueless.
The Managerial selections post MON have been breathtaking in their incompetence, a Manager with a serious heart condition that had retired due to poor health 6 years previously that had been more recently working for that bastion of harmony and professionalism the French Football Association (you know, where player power was so great they practically walked out of a World Cup) to a man who relegated Blose twice in three years (and numerous other reasons not least having to pay 3million for his services that has probably kept Blose in business) and now makes DOL look like Bill Shankly.
Also the appointment of Faulkner, allowing MON unchecked access to the Club credit card and his continual silence.
No one is blameless here but he has alot on the charge sheet.
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The chairman, unfortunately.
He managed the finances in such away that it really was shit or bust, and we are now seeing the bust bit.
Worse than that, on two occasions, he displayed a staggering ineptitude in identifying a manager, such that, last time, he targeted a man who has spent most of the season bottom (again), only to get turned down and then appoint a guy who actually failed to keep his last team in the top flight.
Randy stumped up a lot of money at first, but by his own sheer incompetence has pissed away everything achieved in four years.
Look at us now. Fifteenth, dreadful team, a manager the fans loathe, no money to spend, and dwindling crowds.
In other words, exactly where we were at the end of the 2005-6 season, except now we are hugely in debt, too.
The guy clearly had good intentions - at least till he got bored of it all - but has proven on both sides of the Atlantic that he knows nothing at all about running a sport business.
In a nutshell, it's painful to read though.
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The chairman, unfortunately.
He managed the finances in such away that it really was shit or bust, and we are now seeing the bust bit.
Worse than that, on two occasions, he displayed a staggering ineptitude in identifying a manager, such that, last time, he targeted a man who has spent most of the season bottom (again), only to get turned down and then appoint a guy who actually failed to keep his last team in the top flight.
Randy stumped up a lot of money at first, but by his own sheer incompetence has pissed away everything achieved in four years.
Look at us now. Fifteenth, dreadful team, a manager the fans loathe, no money to spend, and dwindling crowds.
In other words, exactly where we were at the end of the 2005-6 season, except now we are hugely in debt, too.
The guy clearly had good intentions - at least till he got bored of it all - but has proven on both sides of the Atlantic that he knows nothing at all about running a sport business.
Well put Paulie - it is the last sentence that worries me. Randy is not a businessman, he manages inherited wealth.
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Sadly Lerner, had such high hopes too.
It's staggering how someone who has been in business all their lives ,and in the business of sport in particular, can still be so utterly clueless.
The Managerial selections post MON have been breathtaking in their incompetence, a Manager with a serious heart condition that had retired due to poor health 6 years previously that had been more recently working for that bastion of harmony and professionalism the French Football Association (you know, where player power was so great they practically walked out of a World Cup) to a man who relegated Blose twice in three years (and numerous other reasons not least having to pay 3million for his services that has probably kept Blose in business) and now makes DOL look like Bill Shankly.
Also the appointment of Faulkner, allowing MON unchecked access to the Club credit card and his continual silence.
No one is blameless here but he has alot on the charge sheet.
He's not a businessman though. He's a playboy pissing away Daddy's hard earned money. His family have seen the error of his ways and cut off the leaky pipe that was his supply to Villa. in short, he's been a very naughty boy.
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Fletch, in your OP you say "simple question", where it is anything but. In reality this situation is a combination of a whole host of things which none of your poll options could hope to cover.
For instance, where is the option for clubs like Man City changing the goalposts with regards to who could hope to compete at the top end of the Premier League?
Where is the "Doug Ellis should never have sold to a Yank" option, surely if Lerner is such a shit owner then we fans have a responsibility, after all we spent enough time trying to force Ellis to sell, given a bit more time maybe he would have found a better billionaire?
Polls such as this are far too simplistic, we are where we are, better to try to support the club through it than look for scapegoats?
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As I said to my mate a few weeks ago
'It's almost like they sat down and PLANNED to fuck everything up, you couldn't do better if you tried.'
They could have put Mr.G.Glitter in charge of the kids.
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MON for not being good enough. Lerner for not realising he wasn't good enough. The fans for going along with everything in a loved-up daze and not questioning where the money was coming from. then MON for shitting on us at the worse time, then Lerner for not getting someone in straight away and allowing things to slide. then Houllier for trying to get cloggers to pass, then the cloggers for a virtual mutiny, then Lerner for backing the cloggers because it was cheaper. then Lerner for bringing in the cloggers main man, and expecting to run a multi-million pound football club on a Walsall like budget. special shout out to Platini for the Fairplay rules which nailed the lid on the coffin on any chance we had. Heskey must be blamed as well and i'm sure chris smith was involved somewhere along the line.
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MON for not being good enough. Lerner for not realising he wasn't good enough. The fans for going along with everything in a loved-up daze and not questioning where the money was coming from. then MON for shitting on us at the worse time, then Lerner for not getting someone in straight away and allowing things to slide. then Houllier for trying to get cloggers to pass, then the cloggers for a virtual mutiny, then Lerner for backing the cloggers because it was cheaper. then Lerner for bringing in the cloggers main man, and expecting to run a multi-million pound football club on a Walsall like budget. special shout out to Platini for the Fairplay rules which nailed the lid on the coffin on any chance we had. Heskey must be blamed as well and i'm sure chris smith was involved somewhere along the line.
I have to say Greg I thought you were a twat at the time, but you were right all along.
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Well its not the first time i've been called a right twat.
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(http://i44.tinypic.com/mc6ibq.gif)
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Am I the only one who thinks Gary Oldman is a ham actor?
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Still has to be Lerner in the main for me, only a fuckwit would keep sanctioning big money and big wages on so-so players, or in the case of Heskey, fucking atrocious players.
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I'm with you to a point there, but is it that clear cut?
Lerner was panned when he finally said to O'Neill enough is enough and the twat went crying off into the blue yonder.
Specifically in the case of Heskey, we were points ahead of Arsenal and seemingly on the cusp of displacing them from the top 4. Would anyone really expect Lerner or whoever to say no?
As we have found to our cost, O'Neill is a snidey little git. He was very adept at putting the club up against the wall with his late transfer dealings.
Lerner could have drawn the line earlier, he certainly exacerbated matters in appointed McLeish but we were fucked long before that appointment.
There was always going to be a lean period after O'Neill left us in the crap with so many long and useless to indifferent contracts to honour.
O'Neill was here for five years, it will probably take as long just to stabilise the club, let alone improve on those wonderful 6th place finishes and Wembley defeats we overpaid for.
It seems strange simply to blame Lerner for backing the manager at the time.
Maybe O'Neill's appointment was a bigger mistake than McLeish's.
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It's Lerner's fault we've got such a shit manager, and it will continue to be his fault while he refuses to sack him. I can't criticise the money he's put into the club, nor his desire to curb the spending after the O'Neill years, however the McLeish reign is killing us and if he refuses to change it at the end of the season I will assume he's either a fool or simply doesn't care anymore.
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Am I the only one who thinks Gary Oldman is a ham actor?
Probably.
He's brilliant, and was superb in Leon (above).
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Lerner . I cant forgive him for employing McClueless
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I think O'Neill stitched us up but the buck has to stop with the owner, for unfortunately being too trusting in O'Neills player judgement and paying ridiculous wages for average players.
For then realising we couldn't continue like this (he should have recognised this way before he did) and then O'Neill leaving.
Finally for taking the 'easy' solution and appointing McLeish.
Only the owner can fix this, so it has to be his fault.
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I think O'Neill stitched us up but the buck has to stop with the owner, for unfortunately being too trusting in O'Neills player judgement and paying ridiculous wages for average players.
For then realising we couldn't continue like this (he should have recognised this way before he did) and then O'Neill leaving.
Finally for taking the 'easy' solution and appointing McLeish.
Only the owner can fix this, so it has to be his fault.
This is it in a nutshell, but don't expect the sound of a million pennies dropping at once in the vicinity of B6 in the near future.
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It's got past the point of being able to blame O Neill. I for one would rather he'd have got Parker in, been able to spend the amount of Milner money he could and then had us finish top 8 comfortably. That said I think he wanted out and wanted any excuse. He knew it could only go downhill and didn't want to damage his fine record.
But our appointments have been woeful. Houllier, though did some good things, was out of touch, past it and just wrong for the club, especially at that time.
McLeish is a whole new level of fuckwitery though. What an awful decision.
Randy must leave. We need fresh impetace and new management throughout. We're in danger of relegation otherwise. Be it next year, or the year after, or hell, if we're not careful, this year.
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Who is to blame? Well not McLeish. Some idiot , who may look like Paul Faulkner, phoned him to say "Alex I know you are disappointed about City being relegated and I know there is a danger that they may sack you or ask you to take a pay cut from £500,000 to £250,00. How about coming over to us. You can apply the same master formula that you had at City and as we have a slightly better squad there is no way you will not succeed your ambition of achieving a top 16 position. You will have to do as I and Randy tell you and all you have to do is appear to be a very nice man when talking to fans/press etc and for all this pain we will pay you £2,500,000."
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Still has to be Lerner in the main for me, only a fuckwit would keep sanctioning big money and big wages on so-so players, or in the case of Heskey, fucking atrocious players.
Nobody at board level has the slightest clue on footballing matters, so he was quite happy to keep the till open for O'Neill, he slammed it shut much too late, now we've got to suffer.
The appointment of McLeish was the final steaming turd in the water pipe and defies all rational logic on every level.
This....
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Who's to blame? Whoever's idea it was to even dream up Mcleish's name never mind appoint him.
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Am I the only one who thinks Gary Oldman is a ham actor?
Probably.
He's brilliant, and was superb in Leon (above).
Nah way over the top in Leon, and especially State of Grace. Excellent in Prick up your Ears and TTSS though. I blame Lerner for the former two.
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Ship hits the rocks - it's the Captains fault.
Sorry Randy , no doubt good intentions and you played a risky hand of poker to hopefully win our way into the top four. But.... you lost, you bust so we all have. So close but the decisons since MoN have been simply appaling.
I don't blame Faulkner and he has done some good stuff on the commercial side.
The disasterous selection of McLeish need not be judged in arrogant hindsight, as it made no sense when he was appointed. As most on here or anyone with any footballing knowledge would have told you. And most did.
No-one needed Tarot cards to tell us where he would/will take us . So fire him and bloody end it now so if we have to gamble we do it with the odds in our favour. That is the correct, managerial decision for Aston Villa.
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It's the owner. McLeish isn't a good manager, but if he was, he wouldn't have accepted the job.
As pointed out earlier, last summer Lerner had the option of sticking with Gary MacAllister and maybe keeping Houllier in an upstairs role. That didn't sound like an enticing alternative when we thought we could get someone like Benitez, Moyes or even Ancelotti. But I don't think keeping MacAllister as de facto manager would have caused less friction with the fans than appointing McLeish, especially on the back of victories against Arsenal and Liverpool.
Maybe Randy wasn't so keen on funding Houllier's ideas, and that was the reason for his actions this summer, but if we didn't have to pay off Houllier AND McLeish, we would have more to spend on players. Besides, one of the main reasons for our predicament is that the tightening of the belt is happening too fast. If you're overweight, the remedy is to go on a sensible diet and realise that it takes time to get into shape, not stop eating altogether.
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Great question and one that really requires an essay to answer properly. In Order I'll go with:
ONeil/Randy/McLeish/Houllier
1. ONeil - He has left us with pretty much zero legacy from his period in charge and also acted vindictively towards the club.
2. Randy - Ultimately responsible for the bad decisions made and not controlling MON better (he had previous at Celtic too). However on the plus side he has invested in the infrastructure of the club (training ground, stadium etc) which is a pretty decent legacy. Furthermore I think his intentions have always been in he right place.
3. AMc is the proverbial "tip of the ice berg" for me but his negative tactics makes the club a soul less, funless place. There is limited hope despite having some of the country's best youngsters coming through, a ground and training complex that are the envy of most clubs. On the flip side, I think he has handled the youngsters well and ultimately when he is gone we might be grateful to him for blooding the players.
4. Hard to fault Houllier in hindsight. He was probably more right that the fans gave him credit for.
#sigh#
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Great question and one that really requires an essay to answer properly. In Order I'll go with:
ONeil/Randy/McLeish/Houllier
1. ONeil - He has left us with pretty much zero legacy from his period in charge and also acted vindictively towards the club.
2. Randy - Ultimately responsible for the bad decisions made and not controlling MON better (he had previous at Celtic too). However on the plus side he has invested in the infrastructure of the club (training ground, stadium etc) which is a pretty decent legacy. Furthermore I think his intentions have always been in he right place.
3. AMc is the proverbial "tip of the ice berg" for me but his negative tactics makes the club a soul less, funless place. There is limited hope despite having some of the country's best youngsters coming through, a ground and training complex that are the envy of most clubs. On the flip side, I think he has handled the youngsters well and ultimately when he is gone we might be grateful to him for blooding the players.
4. Hard to fault Houllier in hindsight. He was probably more right that the fans gave him credit for.
#sigh#
So the answer from the Lavelli panel is ....
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Like I said in at the beginning. In order, 1. MON 2. Randy 3. Amc 4. Houllier
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Mcleish terrible manager took a team down then gets a job with us, whoever gave that helmet the job!!!!!
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When the vacancy was being discussed, which fuckwit actually said the words, "what about Alex Mcleish ?"
THAT is who to blame.
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Do people think that if we had AN Other in charge that everything would be okay?
The problems are deeper than merely AMc in my opinion.
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Do people think that if we had AN Other in charge that everything would be okay?
The problems are deeper than merely AMc in my opinion.
I don't think you'd find many who think the problems are about McLeish alone.
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Ship hits the rocks - it's the Captains fault.
Let me extend the thinking on that - the Captain is to blame, it's not always his fault. Unless he has appointed, assessed and approved all the people and equipment he relies on to prevent the ship hitting the rocks.
Unfortunately despite all best intentions, the numbnuts underneath you can be the cause of your demise - after seeing what has happened with every set of managers since MON - I blame the senior players, (deadwood left by MON, identified as surplus to requirement by Houllier and forced to use, cause we can't get rid, by McLeish), as it's been proved often enough that they couldn't give a toss.
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Has to be Randy Lerner, the buck stops here, and for various reasons.
The MON thing will always be a mystery, but judging by the kind of events that have taken place since MON's departure its becoming apparent to me that it wasn't necessarily a case of MON walking out days before the start of the season as so much he was given no alternative.
Lerner then recruited a manger with known dodgy health problems that in football terms was taking a kind of football sabbatical in the kind of work he was doing in France, to then jump back in the firing line in the Premiership and take all that pressure, horrendous decision.
Lerner for some unbelievably painfully delectably exquisite reason goes and pays for the services of a repeat offender in relegation terms knowing there is no way this manager will ever cut the mustard short of us winning silverware and or at least equelling MON's tenure, then nobody ever see's him again like hes' divorced himself from the club or any interest in it.
Randy Lerner.
You can't blame McLiesh for his limitations, he is what he is, at heart he's a sportsman so he's by nature a battler, he just isn't good enough.
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I'm amazed Faulkener hasn't got a mention considering the general favour towards blaming him on here.
Sadly, like has been said, the buck has to stop with Lerner. He's clearly got good intentions but his decision-making, especially when appointing managers, has been disastrous.
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Has to be Lerner and Ginge. They employed McLeish knowing it would infuriate the fans and in the knowledge he has taken FC D.ogshit of Birmingham down twice. It was never going to work then and sadly for us it's becoming very apparent now. I really believe he'll take us down this season as well. Genuinely.
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Has to be Lerner and Ginge. They employed McLeish knowing it would infuriate the fans and in the knowledge he has taken FC D.ogshit of Birmingham down twice. It was never going to work then and sadly for us it's becoming very apparent now. I really believe he'll take us down this season as well. Genuinely.
I still don't think that will happen because I don't think we'll be overtaken by Bolton, Blackburn AND Wigan (QPR and Wolves are down, in my opinion). I think Bolton may well, especially if they beat us, but one of Blackburn and Wigan are doomed, I think. Still, might finish 16th or 17th, which would be absolutely shocking.
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I don't think any one individual is totally to blame, more a case of varying degrees of responsibility. Though I'd say the buck stops with Randy.
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I'm amazed Faulkener hasn't got a mention .....
I am amazed you have not read my post on page 5! ;)
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When the vacancy was being discussed, which fuckwit actually said the words, "what about Alex Mcleish ?"
THAT is who to blame.
nothing wrong with a suggestion however stupid. The person to blame in the tosser who actually agreed and said that is a good idea.
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Aston Villa: No Pride, No Plan, No Promise.
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Do people think that if we had AN Other in charge that everything would be okay?
The problems are deeper than merely AMc in my opinion.
I don't think you'd find many who think the problems are about McLeish alone.
Based on Saturday's performance I say they are. Even a 9 year old kid knows that Heskey is no longer a premiership footballer but there he is in the starting 11. That's nothing to do with Lerner or Faulkner. Everybody knows we had better options but AMc.
Overall the source of the mess goes back to MON. The mess not been addressed is down to RL.
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Good thread.
Unfortunately I think Lerner is the culpable man. Whilst there are a myriad of thigns that have gone wrong over the last 2/3 seasons (MON walk out, Houllier, Player power, Heskey, McLeish etc) Lerner is the common factor. If you don't know anything about the business, even the best intentions will go awry. I don't think there is any way out of this mess (which I think will get worse next season) until Lerner recognises this and gets a 'football' man in on the board to help him make better decisions. In the status quo, I fully expect relegation next year.
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It has all been managed poorly for a long time. Since MON was let loose with the chequebook and wages budget, that's the start of it, and it hasn't recovered in any way, shape or form since...
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It’s Lerner for me. He let O’Neill waste millions on some very average players and then made things worse by appointing McLeish to over see the restructuring.
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As I see it, MON bought players to play in an MON side, which be it by man management or tactics, means he got more out of them than the next two managers. That's not uncommon, where a new man comes in and needs to change things, but the financial position has meant that we've had to stick with them, despite poor performances and attitudes.
So despite thinking AM hasn't done well enough, that's why I give him some benefit of the doubt as we have yet to see what I would call HIS Villa side, but rather a patchwork of players left by two previous, and very different, managers.
So, who is to blame? I voted a bit of both in the poll, but if I had to stick blame somewhere specifically it weould have to be Randy. When MON walked he needed to start with a clean slate and decide where he wanted to club to go and how we could get there, which would be a longterm approach. That's not gonne happen with a manager like Houllier, given age and health issues. A couple of years and then moving upstairs for someone like Martinez does make sense, but then he wasn't given this option and made a hash of going after Martinez.
Which left us with AM, who is going in a different direction again.
So that's where I think it went wrong. A combination of Houllier's health and not being able to get the manager he wanted made him abandon the post-MON strategy and concentrate on staying afloat.
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I was thinking a little bit about this, this morning. My gut reaction is to finger a substantial amount of the blame onto MON and the manner of his departure does leave a very unpleasant taste in my mouth still. However, I got to thinking about how I would feel were I MON in the same situation. He effectively joined the club on the basis of an expected investment from a billionaire owner. As soon as Randy showed up, the club was elevated to a higher plain and Randy’s decision to allow MON virtual free reign on transfer and playing matters was every potential employees dream. Things were going along swimmingly with us nearly making it each season.
Then suddenly Randy wakes up and realises that millions are being wasted and the club is going down the gurgler. He contacts MON and says ‘You know I said you could get anyone you wanted and pay anything you wanted, well it stops right now and you’ll also need to offload quickly all the sh** you bought and buy no-one else in between.’
Put yourself in MON’s position. You’ve had the perfect employment situation for years and then suddenly the chairman wants to change the strategy overnight. What would you do (bearing in mind that you’re an egotistical football manager who the media love)?
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Apparenly us being shit is all down to Jenas getting injured.This snippet should make Ireland and Bannan feel great
Alex McLeish feels Jermaine Jenas' absence has been a major reason for Aston Villa's troubles this season.
The midfielder was ruled out for the rest of the campaign after undergoing surgery on his left Achilles tendon in December.
Jenas is now back at parent club Tottenham and McLeish feels Villa just don't have the players in their squad to cover for his departure.
"We have probably lacked a guy who can take the ball in midfield and pass it this season," the Villa boss said following the 3-0 defeat at Arsenal.
"We've got more dynamic players and a young player in Chris Herd who's learning his trade.
"The loss of Jermaine Jenas at the start of the season was a big one.
"I recognised at the start of the season that we needed a player who could create from the centre so that has been a bit of a loss for us.
"We've still got a few more points then some teams below and we've got to try to get further up the table."
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Apparenly us being shit is all down to Jenas getting injured.This snippet should make Ireland and Bannan feel great
Alex McLeish feels Jermaine Jenas' absence has been a major reason for Aston Villa's troubles this season.
The midfielder was ruled out for the rest of the campaign after undergoing surgery on his left Achilles tendon in December.
Jenas is now back at parent club Tottenham and McLeish feels Villa just don't have the players in their squad to cover for his departure.
"We have probably lacked a guy who can take the ball in midfield and pass it this season," the Villa boss said following the 3-0 defeat at Arsenal.
"We've got more dynamic players and a young player in Chris Herd who's learning his trade.
"The loss of Jermaine Jenas at the start of the season was a big one.
"I recognised at the start of the season that we needed a player who could create from the centre so that has been a bit of a loss for us.
"We've still got a few more points then some teams below and we've got to try to get further up the table."
Fuck a duck.
First of all, we're lacking a passing player, so he goes and gets rid of Makoun?
Second of all, his idea of a creative player is Jermaine Jenas, whom he lauded as "dynamic" when he signed him?
Thirdly, what are Bannan, Ireland and Gardner if not creative? If Jenas is creative, then Gardner's bloody Riquelme.
He's got to go. He just has to leave. I cannot believe how much money we paid for the privelige of being managed by this man.
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You bastard Jenas!
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The man is so desperately out of his depth it is embarrassing. I repeat sending Makoun out was absolutely insane.
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The man is so desperately out of his depth it is embarrassing. I repeat sending Makoun out was absolutely insane.
Agree.
As i've said before, if we're so fucking hard up, why is he giving up on a £6m player so quickly?
Whatever happened to coaching?
Just having him on the bench would have been a better alternative to the likes of Heskey.
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The man is so desperately out of his depth it is embarrassing. I repeat sending Makoun out was absolutely insane.
Agree.
As i've said before, if we're so fucking hard up, why is he giving up on a £6m player so quickly?
Whatever happened to coaching?
Just having him on the bench would have been a better alternative to the likes of Heskey.
Yeah and oddly he's a player who can pass, which according to big fucking Eck is what we are missing. It was and still is an appalling decision.
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Apparenly us being shit is all down to Jenas getting injured.This snippet should make Ireland and Bannan feel great
Alex McLeish feels Jermaine Jenas' absence has been a major reason for Aston Villa's troubles this season.
The midfielder was ruled out for the rest of the campaign after undergoing surgery on his left Achilles tendon in December.
Jenas is now back at parent club Tottenham and McLeish feels Villa just don't have the players in their squad to cover for his departure.
"We have probably lacked a guy who can take the ball in midfield and pass it this season," the Villa boss said following the 3-0 defeat at Arsenal.
"We've got more dynamic players and a young player in Chris Herd who's learning his trade.
"The loss of Jermaine Jenas at the start of the season was a big one.
"I recognised at the start of the season that we needed a player who could create from the centre so that has been a bit of a loss for us.
"We've still got a few more points then some teams below and we've got to try to get further up the table."
Fuck a duck.
First of all, we're lacking a passing player, so he goes and gets rid of Makoun?
Second of all, his idea of a creative player is Jermaine Jenas, whom he lauded as "dynamic" when he signed him?
Thirdly, what are Bannan, Ireland and Gardner if not creative? If Jenas is creative, then Gardner's bloody Riquelme.
He's got to go. He just has to leave. I cannot believe how much money we paid for the privelige of being managed by this man.
Bang on brother
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Based on this comment, previous comments and his general demeanour, he is clearly a man that knows his job is safe as houses. He could frankly stroll out onto VP against Chelsea and plant a Bluenose flag on the centre circle and still he'd know that Faulkner and Lerner would continue to back him.
It is both depressing and worrying in equal measure.
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Apparenly us being shit is all down to Jenas getting injured.This snippet should make Ireland and Bannan feel great
Alex McLeish feels Jermaine Jenas' absence has been a major reason for Aston Villa's troubles this season.
The midfielder was ruled out for the rest of the campaign after undergoing surgery on his left Achilles tendon in December.
Jenas is now back at parent club Tottenham and McLeish feels Villa just don't have the players in their squad to cover for his departure.
"We have probably lacked a guy who can take the ball in midfield and pass it this season," the Villa boss said following the 3-0 defeat at Arsenal.
"We've got more dynamic players and a young player in Chris Herd who's learning his trade.
"The loss of Jermaine Jenas at the start of the season was a big one.
"I recognised at the start of the season that we needed a player who could create from the centre so that has been a bit of a loss for us.
"We've still got a few more points then some teams below and we've got to try to get further up the table."
Fuck a duck.
First of all, we're lacking a passing player, so he goes and gets rid of Makoun?
Second of all, his idea of a creative player is Jermaine Jenas, whom he lauded as "dynamic" when he signed him?
Thirdly, what are Bannan, Ireland and Gardner if not creative? If Jenas is creative, then Gardner's bloody Riquelme.
He's got to go. He just has to leave. I cannot believe how much money we paid for the privelige of being managed by this man.
Hmm. Jenas may have made a difference, but barring about 80 minutes, the guy hasn't been available all season. To have him, a loan player, as central to your strategy, is pretty flawed. As you say, Monty, we've got some nice ball-playing midfielders in the squad, and AM shifted another out quickly. And Jenas, whatever he is, is not really a passing midfielder, more a box-to-box athletic type.
McLeish is a man clutching at straws, and has sounded like that since the turn of the year. Our form has dropped off, and he can't stop the slide.
To answer the original question, for me it's undoubtedly Lerner and the management who are to blame. Ultimately, they made a very poor choice in the summer and we're paying for it now. Can't really feel anything other than mild annoyance about McLeish - he's only doing exactly as I imagined. He's a bad manager performing badly. The people who arrogantly put him there should take the lion's share of the criticism.
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Based on this comment, previous comments and his general demeanour, he is clearly a man that knows his job is safe as houses.
Bang on Neil.
With Lerner and Co., It's a bit like the O'Neill situation.
Do fuck all while Rome burns.
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He becomes more like O'Leary every day.
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He's not THAT bad. Yet.
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He's getting there on a personal level. On a performance level he's worse.
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What a fucking idiot McLeish is. Does he actually hear the bollocks that comes out of his mouth?
As for who I blame. Paul Faulkner. He agreed the inflated contracts. He is the man who went after McLeish. He is the poison in the club, and unfortunately is one of Randys closest mates, so wont go until Randy goes. He is taking the club for a ride.
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He knows things aren't working, yet he seems so reluctant to change things. I really don't get it.
He comes out with some absolute toss in the press, too. Sighting Jenas' Injury as a massive downer, and last week saying we need to lighten the goal scoring load on Gabby. FFS: Gabby? He's done fuck all for months. Time to get the likes of Clark, Gardner and Weimann in from the start and drop some of these old MON favourites off to the reserves, and yes, that includes Gabby who isn't pulling his weight (of which is increasing by the week) too.
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He becomes more like O'Leary every day.
Looks like we never learn our lessons. The mismanagement from top to bottom is alarming. We won't go down this season, but I am very, very worried about next year.
I wasn't sure about the apocryphal comments after he joined us last Summer, but he is living up to them.
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I was prepared to give McLeish a chance when he came in, I thoguht the reaction was a bit OTT. But, I'm starting to look the fool now. He's doing his best to turn us into a laughing stock.
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He becomes more like O'Leary every day.
He becomes more like Billy McNeill every day!
apocryphal
What a fantastic word Lee! Still don't know exactly what it means even after looking it up!
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He becomes more like O'Leary every day.
He becomes more like Billy McNeill every day!
apocryphal
What a fantastic word Lee! Still don't know exactly what it means even after looking it up!
Don't think that it's in the Country Bumpkin Dictionary mate ;¬)
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Based on this comment, previous comments and his general demeanour, he is clearly a man that knows his job is safe as houses. He could frankly stroll out onto VP against Chelsea and plant a Bluenose flag on the centre circle and still he'd know that Faulkner and Lerner would continue to back him.
It is both depressing and worrying in equal measure.
Agrred, and this is the most worrying aspect.
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I voted for a mixture but I believe the buck has to stop with Lerner. He gave O'Neill the money to spend, allowed him to give these stupid contracts, and then made poor managerial appointments following MON's departure. When you are paying milllions in compensation out in order to poach a manager like Mcleish then there's something a bit mental going on. All, or at least some of this may have been avoided if we had someone with a bit of footballing nous on the board, but we don't.
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What a fucking idiot McLeish is. Does he actually hear the bollocks that comes out of his mouth?
As for who I blame. Paul Faulkner. He agreed the inflated contracts. He is the man who went after McLeish. He is the poison in the club, and unfortunately is one of Randys closest mates, so wont go until Randy goes. He is taking the club for a ride.
Ni he didn't. Faulkner joining prompted the questioning of the stupid contracts and led to MoN throwing the toys out of the pram.
I actually think Faulkner is doing his main job very well, which is to manage the business side of things. The lack of football knowledge on the board is the problem but that doesn't mean that Faulkner is to blame, it means we need to add a director of football to oversee the footballing philosophy and instill a 'villa way' at the club (whatever that may be). Once that person is in place and a style of play is defined we then recruit to fit that model, be that coaching/management or players. You need that vision of how to become a successful football club at board level before we can get sustained success. Without it the only hope is to get in a manager who wants to be totally in control of everything and risk another MoN like situation where the wheels fall off when he leaves.
The blame for our current situation lies between Lerner and McLeish, Lerner for giving the guy a job and McLeish for completely failing to have any kind of plan in place to move us forward. I don't buy the 'give him time to build his squad' argument, we have a squad full of internationals and youth internationals, they've clearly been good enough at some point but many of them are far below their best currently. I can forgive him for Heskey and Petrov who are both clearly on the downward spiral of their careers and probably aren't any longer premiership quality (if heskey ever was) but people like Dunne and Warnock have just been really badly managed as much as anything. Houllier I can forgive because they're not his style of defenders but McLeish has no excuses.
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What a fucking idiot McLeish is. Does he actually hear the bollocks that comes out of his mouth?
As for who I blame. Paul Faulkner. He agreed the inflated contracts. He is the man who went after McLeish. He is the poison in the club, and unfortunately is one of Randys closest mates, so wont go until Randy goes. He is taking the club for a ride.
Ni he didn't. Faulkner joining prompted the questioning of the stupid contracts and led to MoN throwing the toys out of the pram.
I actually think Faulkner is doing his main job very well, which is to manage the business side of things. The lack of football knowledge on the board is the problem but that doesn't mean that Faulkner is to blame, it means we need to add a director of football to oversee the footballing philosophy and instill a 'villa way' at the club (whatever that may be). Once that person is in place and a style of play is defined we then recruit to fit that model, be that coaching/management or players. You need that vision of how to become a successful football club at board level before we can get sustained success. Without it the only hope is to get in a manager who wants to be totally in control of everything and risk another MoN like situation where the wheels fall off when he leaves.
The blame for our current situation lies between Lerner and McLeish, Lerner for giving the guy a job and McLeish for completely failing to have any kind of plan in place to move us forward. I don't buy the 'give him time to build his squad' argument, we have a squad full of internationals and youth internationals, they've clearly been good enough at some point but many of them are far below their best currently. I can forgive him for Heskey and Petrov who are both clearly on the downward spiral of their careers and probably aren't any longer premiership quality (if heskey ever was) but people like Dunne and Warnock have just been really badly managed as much as anything. Houllier I can forgive because they're not his style of defenders but McLeish has no excuses.
So Emile Heskey, Habib Beye and Nicky SHorey were all signed when Faulkner was questioning the contracts? What the fuck would we have paid them if he hadn't questioned them?
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Thw whole thing is a right fuck up. Needs a rebuild from the start.
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He becomes more like O'Leary every day.
He becomes more like Billy McNeill every day!
More like Glenn Roeder.
Wonder where he is now?
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He becomes more like O'Leary every day.
He becomes more like Billy McNeill every day!
More like Glenn Roeder.
Wonder where he is now?
Still chief scout with us I believe
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What a fucking idiot McLeish is. Does he actually hear the bollocks that comes out of his mouth?
As for who I blame. Paul Faulkner. He agreed the inflated contracts. He is the man who went after McLeish. He is the poison in the club, and unfortunately is one of Randys closest mates, so wont go until Randy goes. He is taking the club for a ride.
Paul Faulkner joined Villa at the same time as Randy but didn't become CEO until May 2010, long after the contracts you're talking about were signed.
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What was his position up until that point, Dave?
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If I remember correctly he had a couple, and was something like Operations Officer immediately before CEO.
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What was his actual job then? What did that job entail?
I was told by someone who met him, that PF told him that he handled transfer negotiations/dealings with agents on O'Neills behalf, so he could focus on footballing matters. This was during the Uefa cup qualifying campaign at the start of the 2008/09 season. (The meeting with the person I refer to)
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I have no idea what he did, but I find it hard to believe O'Neill didn't have a very influential say in transfers & contracts.
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Well as a manager, he should have an influential say in the players that he wants playing in his team. In the positions Paul Faulkner has held at the club during his time here, he should have accountability for where the money was spent, and have kept it in control.
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Which is what appears to have happened from his appointment as CEO in May 2010.
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Which is what appears to have happened from his appointment as CEO in May 2010.
And O'Neill won a tribunal for constructive dismissal against the club. That's not to say I think O'Neill was an innocent party, but I'd love to know what it was all about.
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Which is what appears to have happened from his appointment as CEO in May 2010.
And O'Neill won a tribunal for constructive dismissal against the club. That's not to say I think O'Neill was an innocent party, but I'd love to know what it was all about.
Now many times are we going to hear this?
He didn't win it.
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Which is what appears to have happened from his appointment as CEO in May 2010.
And O'Neill won a tribunal for constructive dismissal against the club. That's not to say I think O'Neill was an innocent party, but I'd love to know what it was all about.
Now many times are we going to hear this?
He didn't win it.
He took a lot of money from us though, right?
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Right. What about before then? Are his decisions in the positions he held prior to 2010 not important?
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Which is what appears to have happened from his appointment as CEO in May 2010.
And O'Neill won a tribunal for constructive dismissal against the club. That's not to say I think O'Neill was an innocent party, but I'd love to know what it was all about.
Now many times are we going to hear this?
He didn't win it.
He took a lot of money from us though, right?
We settled.
That's not the same as him winning.
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On the subject of O'Neill, it's now generally reckoned that Randy's biggest error was letting him spend too much money. Given it's almost certain that having no more or severely restricted funds for new players was the root cause of him walking out, let's imagine this scenario:
January 2009, Villa are pushing hard for a top four place and O'Neill wants Heskey. If Randy had refused, what would have happened?
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Which is what appears to have happened from his appointment as CEO in May 2010.
And O'Neill won a tribunal for constructive dismissal against the club. That's not to say I think O'Neill was an innocent party, but I'd love to know what it was all about.
Now many times are we going to hear this?
He didn't win it.
He took a lot of money from us though, right?
We settled.
That's not the same as him winning.
If Villa had to pay him any cash after he walked out, then the arbitration tribunal must have backed his version of events to a degree though, surely?
And we still don't know what the settlement was, other than a few ambiguous words about managerial costs in the recent release of the annual finances.
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Right. What about before then? Are his decisions in the positions he held prior to 2010 not important?
As I don't know what decisions he had ultimate responsibility for before 2010, or since then for that matter, how can I know if they were important or not?
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Which is what appears to have happened from his appointment as CEO in May 2010.
And O'Neill won a tribunal for constructive dismissal against the club. That's not to say I think O'Neill was an innocent party, but I'd love to know what it was all about.
Now many times are we going to hear this?
He didn't win it.
He took a lot of money from us though, right?
We settled.
That's not the same as him winning.
If Villa had to pay him any cash after he walked out, then the arbitration tribunal must have backed his version of events to a degree though, surely?
And we still don't know what the settlement was, other than a few ambiguous words about managerial costs in the recent release of the annual finances.
MON walks out, says he's entitled to x.
MON walks out, club say he's entitled to y.
It goes to tribunal, both agree on a point somewhere between x and y.
That's entirely not the same thing as MON winning.
Don't get me wrong, I think Faulkner is a total disaster and way, way out of his depth in the job, but I don't really see the need to start rewriting history as far as O'Neill was concerned in order to have more shit to chuck at Faulkner, and concluding that he "won" his tribunal and it was a case of constructive dismissal is both ignoring the facts, and putting a spin on it to suit your argument.
You could just as easily turn it around and say "well, MON clearly had fucked the club around enough for the tribunal to decide the club's case had some merit".
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On the subject of O'Neill, it's now generally reckoned that Randy's biggest error was letting him spend too much money. Given it's almost certain that having no more or severely restricted funds for new players was the root cause of him walking out, let's imagine this scenario:
January 2009, Villa are pushing hard for a top four place and O'Neill wants Heskey. If Randy had refused, what would have happened?
We'd have collectively breathed a sigh of relief?
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MON walks out, says he's entitled to x.
MON walks out, club say he's entitled to y.
It goes to tribunal, both agree on a point somewhere between x and y.
That's entirely not the same thing as MON winning.
Don't get me wrong, I think Faulkner is a total disaster and way, way out of his depth in the job, but I don't really see the need to start rewriting history as far as O'Neill was concerned in order to have more shit to chuck at Faulkner, and concluding that he "won" his tribunal and it was a case of constructive dismissal is both ignoring the facts, and putting a spin on it to suit your argument.
You could just as easily turn it around and say "well, MON clearly had fucked the club around enough for the tribunal to decide the club's case had some merit".
I wasn't ignoring the facts, I just wasn't possession of them :P For whatever reason I didn't pay much attention to this at the time.
Having said that, after looking at the newspaper reports at the time, no one knows what the facts are. The fact that it appears to only be O'Neill talking about 'very satisfactory' outcomes to the tribunal while the board said nothing doesn't help when trying to scotch the perception that O'Neill 'won'.
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Right. What about before then? Are his decisions in the positions he held prior to 2010 not important?
As I don't know what decisions he had ultimate responsibility for before 2010, or since then for that matter, how can I know if they were important or not?
Fair enough. If what I was told was true, which I have no reason to believe it isn't, he was in a position from at least August 2008 to have significant responsibility within the club where the finances are concerned, and still has. Therefore based on information I have been given, I rest a huge amount of blame on Faulkner being shit, and only in the job because of his close friendship with Lerner.
As for your hypothetical scenario regarding Heskey, I wish they had refused to sanction the deal, but another purely hypothetical argument could be that it wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference, and O'Neill wouldn't have walked then, like you seem to insinuate he would have.
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The fact that it appears to only be O'Neill talking about 'very satisfactory' outcomes to the tribunal while the board said nothing doesn't help when trying to scotch the perception that O'Neill 'won'.
Well if his post match comments are anything to go by, my guess he got next to nowt. Only he could describe the dullest of dull bore draw as us "playing some scintillating football".
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Right. What about before then? Are his decisions in the positions he held prior to 2010 not important?
As I don't know what decisions he had ultimate responsibility for before 2010, or since then for that matter, how can I know if they were important or not?
Fair enough. If what I was told was true, which I have no reason to believe it isn't, he was in a position from at least August 2008 to have significant responsibility within the club where the finances are concerned, and still has. Therefore based on information I have been given, I rest a huge amount of blame on Faulkner being shit, and only in the job because of his close friendship with Lerner.
As for your hypothetical scenario regarding Heskey, I wish they had refused to sanction the deal, but another purely hypothetical argument could be that it wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference, and O'Neill wouldn't have walked then, like you seem to insinuate he would have.
We can only judge him significantly on the things we know as fact, regardless of what you've heard there is nothing to prove or disprove what his exact role with transfers/wages was at that time.
Maybe MoN said I want x and think he's worth up to y fee and z wages, which may have been higher than we actually spent. In this situation even though PF was involved he did ok despite the signing being for too much and on unsuitable wages, guesswork works either way.
that said, since he became CEO we've started to act much more responsibly regarding wages and revenue has increased. That's a good performance in the primary role of improving the business side of things.
The problem is he's a business man not a football man, which means he can't bring anything to the table in purely footballing terms. This lack of knowledge should have been resolved by adding a taylor/stride/houllier to the board as the director of football. The primary failure by lerner and faulkner has been their inability to address this flaw. Even then I think the problem is that there initial impression of a football manager was formed around MoN who was so controlling that they've never considered that this flaw even exists.
Looking at it that way makes the decision to appoint Houllier much more sensible as it's something he would also bring. Maybe McLeish sold himself as the only person who knew anything about football at blues and that he was fighting a losing battle against the board, so Lerner saw someone who could take total control in the football side with no input from the board.
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Well, if you think he is doing a good job, fair enough.
I don't.
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I went for, 'Other - please specify'
Tempting to say the government.
Or just George Osborne: his budget and all his evil works.
I'm currently hovering between Sarah Palin, a toxic combination of Kim Jong-il (dec.) and Kim Jong-ul, an even more toxic combination of John Torode and Gregg Wallace, or Louie Spence from Dancing On Ice.
Or, you know, it could just be the Grinch.
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Well, if you think he is doing a good job, fair enough.
I don't.
What has he done wrong, as the CEO (responsible for the business and brand but not footballing matters) he's increased revenue. Surely that's his job and he's making a decent fist of it. His knowledge and experience in football isn't good enough but that should be countered by the board containing a member with that football background. That person not being there is the prime reason for the problems we're in. Lerner and Faulkner are at fault for not identifying that but that is the only major error (I say only, but it's a fecking huge one and I point the finger much more firmly at Lerner than Faulkner for it) on their part.
To clarify, I chose a mixture of both, Lerner needs to stabilise the board and get the right team at level in place to set measurable performance goals to match with the financial goals. McLeish needs to completely rethink his footballing philosophy and start making pass and move, 1 or 2 touch football integral to everything we do on the training field. He also needs to pressure the players to improve their fitness and start playing a much higher tempo in defence where we hunt in packs (1 close the ball, 2-3 others cut out the easy passes to force the 50-50 balls) and press much higher up the field.
Either change will go a long way towards sorting things out but the 2nd is something that McLeish will never be able to do as far as I can see, which makes him yesterdays man and not suitable to manage a club with any intentions on being genuinely successful on the pitch.
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ESPNSoccerNet states: "Claudio Raniero finally sacked by Inter Milan."
I wonder what our headline will be once McLeish gets the axe in December.
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"Boo-boys oust McLeish"?
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If we finish where we are now, or heaven forbid lower, it's Mcleish's fault, no one elses, as our squad should be better than this. He has been unlucky with injuries but so are lots of other teams. Then you could say the responsibility lies with whoever apppointed him.
We have to wait untill the season is over first though, we could yet go down or even finish as high as 7th, both of which are unlikely of course. I hesitate to say this but I think McLeish hasn't had a fair crack of the whip yet. He has to have a pre season of getting his own squad together, then judge him.
I accept that some people will just think he's not up to it and never will be and that is down to personal opinion. For what it's worth I'm not that convinced with him either, the way he sets the side up to play with Bent just isn't right and the purchases of Hutton and N'zogbia don't give me much confidence that we would spend wisely in the summer. To balance that, but only slightly, he has revitalised Ireland and introduced some of the younger players. It was always going to be difficult to repeat 9th though when you sell your 2 best players and don't really replace them.
Another big factor for me is the non emergence of the young players who we thought would be above average Premier League class, and this may have been a big misjudgment by Mr Lerner as well as the fans. Bannan, Gardner, Delph, Delfonso, Albrighton aren't quite as good as we thought, although in fairness Herd could be, and anyone of these stepping up to the plate would have compensated for the Young/Downing loss.
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Andrew
Don't you think it is too early to say that Gardner is not as good as we thought?
He has had hardly any game time yet.
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I'm not sure, down the years when I've seen players come through you could always tell very early if they were going to be an outstanding player or not. I can think of the early Little games, Sid ,Gary Shaw,Barry even Gabbys early games for example you knew they were going to be special (Gabby shouldn't be in the same sentence as the others but he is an above average PL player).
Gardner has had situations when he could have made an impact and hasn't. He could have scored at Newcastle, which had the potential to be a season changer, and didn't quite. I'm hoping,of course, I'm wrong but whisper it quietly... I think his brother is better.
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Which will make for a good head to head in a few weeks as well, if they're both selected
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I don't think Faulkner can be described as a total disaster. The Genting and Macron deals probably have something to do with him, and they are probably the best deals of their kind we've had, or were ever likely to get. That's not to absolve him completely - I don't know what his involvement was re MON's spend fest but there's no way we should still be paying Jenas' wages, and I'd guess he had a say in appointing McFeck.
But ultimately he was selected by nice guy Randy, because Randy knows him, not because of any proven ability to run a football club. Randy means well but has shown himself to be incompetent verging on idiotic. It was Randy who allowed MON to inflate wages to 80% of turnover, he allowed MON to sign and overpay for some very average players, he faffed about over managerial replacements because he hadn't got a clue, he allowed MON to force out some experienced CEOs who may have had a bit of football nous, and it was him who listened like an enthralled schoolboy as Alex Ferguson duped him into paying a fortune to appoint one of the worst managers in PL history. I suspect he has another tattoo somewhere that simply says "mug". As someone else said, he isn't a business man, his Dad made the money, he's dabbling with inherited wealth, and making a proper hash of it on both sides of the Atlantic. Either the apple fell a long way from the tree or he takes after his Mother.
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I don't think Faulkner can be described as a total disaster. The Genting and Macron deals probably have something to do with him, and they are probably the best deals of their kind we've had, or were ever likely to get. That's not to absolve him completely - I don't know what his involvement was re MON's spend fest but there's no way we should still be paying Jenas' wages, and I'd guess he had a say in appointing McFeck.
But ultimately he was selected by nice guy Randy, because Randy knows him, not because of any proven ability to run a football club. Randy means well but has shown himself to be incompetent verging on idiotic. It was Randy who allowed MON to inflate wages to 80% of turnover, he allowed MON to sign and overpay for some very average players, he faffed about over managerial replacements because he hadn't got a clue, he allowed MON to force out some experienced CEOs who may have had a bit of football nous, and it was him who listened like an enthralled schoolboy as Alex Ferguson duped him into paying a fortune to appoint one of the worst managers in PL history. I suspect he has another tattoo somewhere that simply says "mug". As someone else said, he isn't a business man, his Dad made the money, he's dabbling with inherited wealth, and making a proper hash of it on both sides of the Atlantic. Either the apple fell a long way from the tree or he takes after his Mother.
Quality insults, if it was MON he'd have your money for some of them ;-)
It's an interesting subject though wealthy kids. I would imagine that Randy had a vastly superior education to that of his old man. He's been to the top uni's both sides of the Atlantic and surely you don't just get to those by money alone ? He must have something about him.
Anyway one of my hopes (or straws I clutch at) is that he sells the Browns and chucks the money at Villa. What does a NFL franchise go for these days ?
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Which will make for a good head to head in a few weeks as well, if they're both selected
You haven't ruled out Gary coming good then? I must admit to being disappointed in Albrighton but haven't given up on him yet. I take your point about Gardner's miss at Newcastle but, if it had been other players, we would have said they were crap. We know Gardner will regret that miss and will get better and better. The fact is, he has to come good. There is nowhere else to turn.
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Writing off a young player on the basis of a handful of appearances is mental.
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Writing off a young player on the basis of a handful of appearances is mental.
Especially when he looks to have something about him.
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Well, if you think he is doing a good job, fair enough.
I don't.
What has he done wrong, as the CEO (responsible for the business and brand but not footballing matters) he's increased revenue. Surely that's his job and he's making a decent fist of it. His knowledge and experience in football isn't good enough but that should be countered by the board containing a member with that football background. That person not being there is the prime reason for the problems we're in. Lerner and Faulkner are at fault for not identifying that but that is the only major error (I say only, but it's a fecking huge one and I point the finger much more firmly at Lerner than Faulkner for it) on their part.
To clarify, I chose a mixture of both, Lerner needs to stabilise the board and get the right team at level in place to set measurable performance goals to match with the financial goals. McLeish needs to completely rethink his footballing philosophy and start making pass and move, 1 or 2 touch football integral to everything we do on the training field. He also needs to pressure the players to improve their fitness and start playing a much higher tempo in defence where we hunt in packs (1 close the ball, 2-3 others cut out the easy passes to force the 50-50 balls) and press much higher up the field.
Either change will go a long way towards sorting things out but the 2nd is something that McLeish will never be able to do as far as I can see, which makes him yesterdays man and not suitable to manage a club with any intentions on being genuinely successful on the pitch.
A fair point regarding Lerner hiring him despite not having a football background. As I have pointed out, and others, I think he was hired more for the fact that Randy knows him. He is his mate. There should be someone on the board with football knowledge. As CEO though, he has to be responsible for what goes on, ultimately.
We have made losses in the last two financial years. Revenue in the first year would have increased because TV money has increased year on year for god knows how long, coupled with us actually taking a sponsor instead of forfeiting sponsorship for Acorns. Any sponsorship deal would have increased revenue in that respect. I'm aware these are not the only revenue streams, but certainly two of the biggest. Hardly ground breaking stuff.
What has he done wrong? Hiring a man with known medical problems? Hiring the most unpopular manager in our history?
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Glasses
i think the known medical problems of Houllier should not have stopped him being a football manager if he was given the all clear to do so, there are many many people who have suffered heart problems who will deserve another shot at whatever they do,
it didnt work out because the heart thing came back, thats just unfortunate,
you coold say the same thing about Redknap and he's probably going to be the next England manager with all the stress related issues that entails
i would not blame Randy for taking a risk with Houllier, in fact i would even give him some credit, you are of course correct about Mcliesh though
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Which will make for a good head to head in a few weeks as well, if they're both selected
You haven't ruled out Gary coming good then? I must admit to being disappointed in Albrighton but haven't given up on him yet. I take your point about Gardner's miss at Newcastle but, if it had been other players, we would have said they were crap. We know Gardner will regret that miss and will get better and better. The fact is, he has to come good. There is nowhere else to turn.
I forgot about his Wolves miss as well and with the rest he was shite at Wigan when the whole team was set up for Bannon and him to run the game. I'm not saying he wont come good, or I'm writing him off (which would indeed be mental) I just don't think he will be a 'legend'
He would have had some momentum if he'd scored at Wolves and Newcastle.....both gettable chances as well. On such things do careers change. I'll be happy to be wrong though.
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Whose shot was it that Schwarzer parried to let Weimann score against Fulham?
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I'm not saying Faulkner is blameless, I just think he gets a lot of stick on here because of footballing issues when that isn't where his skillset is. The major failing is the failure by the Board in general to identify that this isn't his skillset and take on an additional member to provide those skills.
I think, with a good football man on the board, Faulkner could prove to be a very valuable CEO.
The problem is, MoN has left them with the impression that the 'goodfootball man on the board' should be the manager, which is a really dangerous position to put ourselves in.
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Whose shot was it that Schwarzer parried to let Weimann score against Fulham?
He got a shot in at Arsenal as well. Always dangerous from 25 yards, like Paul Scholes is, although not that style of player necessarily.
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Whose shot was it that Schwarzer parried to let Weimann score against Fulham?
Yes fair comment, although perhaps with the reputation he came with from the reserves he should have put it in the top corner. That would be being churlish in the extreme by me and in the same spirit of generosity I'll agree with 'parried' rather than 'dropped' !
Weimann scoring actually proves my point a little. He came on and scored which is what 'hot' prospects do.
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I'm not sure that Albrighton will ever be anything more than a mid-table to lower Premier league player in the manner of say Ridgewell or Luke Moore. Gardner though, looks class. He looks like he's being playing Premier League football for years.
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I think in terms of aportioning blame then its split into two areas.
The current way the team is performing and its style of play is down to the manager.
But, looking at the bigger picture
Who gave MoN the green light to spend, spend spend on average players and in the process to inflate the wage bill to about 80% of turnover?
Who was one of the two parties that led to MoN's walk out and subsequent huge pay off?
Who appointed GH with all the risks that that entailed?
Who was in control as some of our best players went off to play for 'bigger and better' clubs?
Who made one of the worse mangerial appointments in our history?
Who has pulled funding for the team leaving it weak and unbalanced?
Who appears to not be commited to turning the club around?
I'm not advocating that we sell up but I think that the owner really needs to get a grip.
After all if Ellis had made the above decisions we would want him to be hung from his testicals from a lamp post on Witton Lane
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Lerner.
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Whose shot was it that Schwarzer parried to let Weimann score against Fulham?
Yes fair comment, although perhaps with the reputation he came with from the reserves he should have put it in the top corner. That would be being churlish in the extreme by me and in the same spirit of generosity I'll agree with 'parried' rather than 'dropped' !
Weimann scoring actually proves my point a little. He came on and scored which is what 'hot' prospects do.
Was it easier to score from where Weimann was or from where Gardner shot from?
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Bringing Doug Ellis into the discussion makes it an interesting debate. It's conjecture, of course, but if Doug somehow had spent at Randy levels over the last five years I would be certain that we would be in a better place now.
He would never, without sacking the manager responsible first, have allowed players recently purchased on high wages to rot in the reserves. He wouldn't have allowed the purchase of old players with no resaleable value on long contracts. It just wouldn't have happened. Yes we wouldn't have had MON but for,what £180m I'm certain we would have had trophies.
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Whose shot was it that Schwarzer parried to let Weimann score against Fulham?
Yes fair comment, although perhaps with the reputation he came with from the reserves he should have put it in the top corner. That would be being churlish in the extreme by me and in the same spirit of generosity I'll agree with 'parried' rather than 'dropped' !
Weimann scoring actually proves my point a little. He came on and scored which is what 'hot' prospects do.
Was it easier to score from where Weimann was or from where Gardner shot from?
I could argue that Weimann played a one two off the keeper....it clearly was a great shot by Gardner.
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Bringing Doug Ellis into the discussion makes it an interesting debate. It's conjecture, of course, but if Doug somehow had spent at Randy levels over the last five years I would be certain that we would be in a better place now.
He would never, without sacking the manager responsible first, have allowed players recently purchased on high wages to rot in the reserves. He wouldn't have allowed the purchase of old players with no resaleable value on long contracts. It just wouldn't have happened. Yes we wouldn't have had MON but for,what £180m I'm certain we would have had trophies.
Paul Merson? Dion Dublin? David Ginola?
Certainly towards the end of his stint there is no way we'd have signed a relatively unknown and somewhat risky young player like Ash for the guts of 10 million either.
And had we got a big name player all set to sign, he'd have started playing silly beggers with the fee or the wages at the last minute. No, I don't pine for Herbert at all, even if RL has recently made a balls of things.
Crucially, the bulk of any financial losses sustained recently have hit RL directly in the pocket. Herbert did often talk as if the money spent on players and wages was his. But that's all it was, talk. Hot air and bluster from an attention seeker.
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When we've had Doug debates in the past, one of the things, if not the only thing, that Doug's defenders threw out in his defence is usually something like "at least when he sold he made sure the future of the club would be in good hands". I'm not sure that argument would be quite so readily touted or swallowed after the last two years. When I catch myself thinking that even old Deadly wouldn't have been daft enough to hire McLeish, I quickly rememeber he was the man who replaced the European Cup winning manager with Graham Turner, and then Billy McBodge.
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When we've had Doug debates in the past, one of the things, if not the only thing, that Doug's defenders threw out in his defence is usually something like "at least when he sold he made sure the future of the club would be in good hands". I'm not sure that argument would be quite so readily touted or swallowed after the last two years. When I catch myself thinking that even old Deadly wouldn't have been daft enough to hire McLeish, I quickly rememeber he was the man who replaced the European Cup winning manager with Graham Turner, and then Billy McBodge.
I suppose you could say that Doug was unlucky at times. Taylor mk 1 left us for the England job, and both Atkinson and Little just went off the boil. Certianly you couldn't say that Little wasn't backed, as the seeds of his demise were sown with the captures of Curcic and Collymore, who at the time were two of the hottest properties in English football.
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When we've had Doug debates in the past, one of the things, if not the only thing, that Doug's defenders threw out in his defence is usually something like "at least when he sold he made sure the future of the club would be in good hands". I'm not sure that argument would be quite so readily touted or swallowed after the last two years. When I catch myself thinking that even old Deadly wouldn't have been daft enough to hire McLeish, I quickly rememeber he was the man who replaced the European Cup winning manager with Graham Turner, and then Billy McBodge.
And argument could be made that Randy is demonstrating this by making the necessary cut backs to ensure the longterm solvency of the club.
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I agree M'Zog
So then would we want:
a) Doug with Randys money
b) The real Doug ie how it was in the DOL days
c) Randy with Randys money ie what we've got
d)Man Citys owners.
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I agree M'Zog
So then would we want:
a) Doug with Randys money
b) The real Doug ie how it was in the DOL days
c) Randy with Randys money ie what we've got
d)Man Citys owners.
I'd take d every time.
I know it is a bit tasteless, just brazenly buying success like that, and it'd be more satisfying to build it etc etc, but I didn't make football the entirely cash driven beast it is today, to ridiculous levels.
So if it's going to be like that, I'd take the opportunity for us to be buying it, thanks very much. We can joke about them being drowning in horrible plastic nu-fans, and how they've got no class yada yada yada, but your average Man City fan goes home revelling in the fact they've just watched players of the likes of Silva and Aguero do their stuff, whereas your average Villa fan stops at a shop on the way home to see if they can buy such a product as "mind bleach" to erase the memory of Heskey falling over whilst McLeish tries to keep the score down.
I reckon I've got (touch wood) 35 years or so until I kark it. I'd quite us to win some stuff by then. Given the money City's (they've even bought the right to be known as just "City") owners have invested, I reckon 99 percent of us would swallow what we consider our principles inside ten minutes.
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Man City get stick for buying it, but nearly all the champions do. Liverpool, Manure, Blackburn.
I'd love some Man City investment.
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Buying the title I can forgive. The tevez poster in manchster I can't./ That was unbelievably small time and pathetic.
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He would never, without sacking the manager responsible first, have allowed players recently purchased on high wages to rot in the reserves. He wouldn't have allowed the purchase of old players with no resaleable value on long contracts. It just wouldn't have happened.
Ginola, SchmeivhBringing Doug Ellis into the discussion makes it an interesting debate. It's conjecture, of course, but if Doug somehow had spent at Randy levels over the last five years I would be certain that we would be in a better place now.
He would never, without sacking the manager responsible first, have allowed players recently purchased on high wages to rot in the reserves. He wouldn't have allowed the purchase of old players with no resaleable value on long contracts. It just wouldn't have happened. Yes we wouldn't have had MON but for,what £180m I'm certain we would have had trophies.
Paul Merson? Dion Dublin? David Ginola?
Schmeichel, Alpay, Hadji, Kachloul, Balaban.
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I'd like a middle ground of sustainable investment to a level where we're not afraid of teams buying our young players. That's the crux of what Barca do - the reason they're able to field a team of youth team graduates is because they know nobody else is going to take them away from them.
I love Villa and football but, though they didn't create the situation, City represent one big flaw in the game. I feel proud of what we do at Villa sometimes - the Acorns deal for one - and I like the feeling that my club is on the morally good side. It might not bring trophies and superiority but frankly it makes me just as proud of my club. I don't want Villa to become part of the moral vacuum currently in place at the top of our league.
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I reckon I've got (touch wood) 35 years or so until I kark it. I'd quite us to win some stuff by then.
Bit of context to this: my father saw us win the cup in 1957 when he was 14 years old. He turns 70 this July.
Feel any better?
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I love Villa and football but, though they didn't create the situation, City represent one big flaw in the game. I feel proud of what we do at Villa sometimes - the Acorns deal for one - and I like the feeling that my club is on the morally good side. It might not bring trophies and superiority but frankly it makes me just as proud of my club. I don't want Villa to become part of the moral vacuum currently in place at the top of our league.
Very admirable Monty, but kids like to be associated with winners, I wonder how many next generation supporters we can attract with things are the way they are.
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I love Villa and football but, though they didn't create the situation, City represent one big flaw in the game. I feel proud of what we do at Villa sometimes - the Acorns deal for one - and I like the feeling that my club is on the morally good side. It might not bring trophies and superiority but frankly it makes me just as proud of my club. I don't want Villa to become part of the moral vacuum currently in place at the top of our league.
Very admirable Monty, but kids like to be associated with winners, I wonder how many next generation supporters we can attract with things are the way they are.
Well that's for the kids to decide. I can only speak for myself, but that's what I'm morally comfortable with.
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I love Villa and football but, though they didn't create the situation, City represent one big flaw in the game. I feel proud of what we do at Villa sometimes - the Acorns deal for one - and I like the feeling that my club is on the morally good side. It might not bring trophies and superiority but frankly it makes me just as proud of my club. I don't want Villa to become part of the moral vacuum currently in place at the top of our league.
Very admirable Monty, but kids like to be associated with winners, I wonder how many next generation supporters we can attract with things are the way they are.
Well that's for the kids to decide. I can only speak for myself, but that's what I'm morally comfortable with.
Not sure how morally sound we are if you scratch below the surface.
We're owned by a parent company set up in the tax avoiding state of Delaware, funded by money that's a result of credit card wealth. We're sponsored by a gambling company with a kit made by Nike. Our wage bill means we're not self sustaining, so not sure there's an awful lot to be morally that content with to be honest.
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What amazes me with the blame game is the blind loyalty to backroom staff.
Apart from Sid and Kevin Mac the rest of the team follow AM around like a bad smell, similar to MONs cronies. Doesnt Peter Grant have a record worse than his bosses with poor spells at Norwich , WBA and Celtic.
Just wondering if its about time thatmaybe AM took a look at what he has below him and kicked it up the arse for once.
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I love Villa and football but, though they didn't create the situation, City represent one big flaw in the game. I feel proud of what we do at Villa sometimes - the Acorns deal for one - and I like the feeling that my club is on the morally good side. It might not bring trophies and superiority but frankly it makes me just as proud of my club. I don't want Villa to become part of the moral vacuum currently in place at the top of our league.
Very admirable Monty, but kids like to be associated with winners, I wonder how many next generation supporters we can attract with things are the way they are.
Well that's for the kids to decide. I can only speak for myself, but that's what I'm morally comfortable with.
Not sure how morally sound we are if you scratch below the surface.
We're owned by a parent company set up in the tax avoiding state of Delaware, funded by money that's a result of credit card wealth. We're sponsored by a gambling company with a kit made by Nike. Our wage bill means we're not self sustaining, so not sure there's an awful lot to be morally that content with to be honest.
I said some of the things we do, Riss. Obviously I'd like to see us go further, but I don't want to see us get worse either.
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What amazes me with the blame game is the blind loyalty to backroom staff.
Apart from Sid and Kevin Mac the rest of the team follow AM around like a bad smell, similar to MONs cronies. Doesnt Peter Grant have a record worse than his bosses with poor spells at Norwich , WBA and Celtic.
Just wondering if its about time thatmaybe AM took a look at what he has below him and kicked it up the arse for once.
that does get on my nerves as well,
i think it boils down to security they surround themselves with cronies so they dont feel threatened themselves
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What amazes me with the blame game is the blind loyalty to backroom staff.
Apart from Sid and Kevin Mac the rest of the team follow AM around like a bad smell, similar to MONs cronies. Doesnt Peter Grant have a record worse than his bosses with poor spells at Norwich , WBA and Celtic.
Just wondering if its about time thatmaybe AM took a look at what he has below him and kicked it up the arse for once.
that does get on my nerves as well,
i think it boils down to security they surround themselves with cronies so they dont feel threatened themselves
Agreed, and I think it was O'Neill's biggest mistake.
The young lad who manages MK Dons, Carl Robinson, was on Talkshite last week, and they asked him why he chose John Gorman as assistant.
He said it was because he didn't want to appoint someone he knew, he wanted someone who would question him and push him.
I want someone with that mindset in charge.
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What amazes me with the blame game is the blind loyalty to backroom staff.
Apart from Sid and Kevin Mac the rest of the team follow AM around like a bad smell, similar to MONs cronies. Doesnt Peter Grant have a record worse than his bosses with poor spells at Norwich , WBA and Celtic.
Just wondering if its about time thatmaybe AM took a look at what he has below him and kicked it up the arse for once.
that does get on my nerves as well,
i think it boils down to security they surround themselves with cronies so they dont feel threatened themselves
Agreed, and I think it was O'Neill's biggest mistake.
The young lad who manages MK Dons, Carl Robinson, was on Talkshite last week, and they asked him why he chose John Gorman as assistant.
He said it was because he didn't want to appoint someone he knew, he wanted someone who would question him and push him.
I want someone with that mindset in charge.
Could you imagine Randy calling AM in and saying "I belive in you but you need a new coach, ditch Grant", although in a way maybe he has done this by insisting Sid and KM are in the setup
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I love Villa and football but, though they didn't create the situation, City represent one big flaw in the game. I feel proud of what we do at Villa sometimes - the Acorns deal for one - and I like the feeling that my club is on the morally good side. It might not bring trophies and superiority but frankly it makes me just as proud of my club. I don't want Villa to become part of the moral vacuum currently in place at the top of our league.
Very admirable Monty, but kids like to be associated with winners, I wonder how many next generation supporters we can attract with things are the way they are.
Well that's for the kids to decide. I can only speak for myself, but that's what I'm morally comfortable with.
Not sure how morally sound we are if you scratch below the surface.
We're owned by a parent company set up in the tax avoiding state of Delaware, funded by money that's a result of credit card wealth. We're sponsored by a gambling company with a kit made by Nike. Our wage bill means we're not self sustaining, so not sure there's an awful lot to be morally that content with to be honest.
Yes! If only we could find a dolphin-friendly non-capitalist multi-billionaire owner from Cuba who would persuade the players to play for minimum wage, then everything would be morally perfect.
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What amazes me with the blame game is the blind loyalty to backroom staff.
Apart from Sid and Kevin Mac the rest of the team follow AM around like a bad smell, similar to MONs cronies. Doesnt Peter Grant have a record worse than his bosses with poor spells at Norwich , WBA and Celtic.
Just wondering if its about time thatmaybe AM took a look at what he has below him and kicked it up the arse for once.
that does get on my nerves as well,
i think it boils down to security they surround themselves with cronies so they dont feel threatened themselves
Agreed, and I think it was O'Neill's biggest mistake.
The young lad who manages MK Dons, Carl Robinson, was on Talkshite last week, and they asked him why he chose John Gorman as assistant.
He said it was because he didn't want to appoint someone he knew, he wanted someone who would question him and push him.
I want someone with that mindset in charge.
that fella Robinson is doing a great job at MK Dons, i really rate him, i have touted him for the Villa job on here before now,
i have only heard from people round here in Milton Keynes who go but it sounds to me he has them playing good football to feet and is getting the results. he is also very young and you would hope gets better as he gains experience
i also heard the same interview that you did, the only thing that put me of him was his 'i love Liverpool' stuff, i hate Liverpool, so anyone that bigs them up there stock deminishes rapidly in my eyes very quickly, but this is just a personal thing built up over years of bigoted totaly irrational stupidity on my part
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What amazes me with the blame game is the blind loyalty to backroom staff.
Apart from Sid and Kevin Mac the rest of the team follow AM around like a bad smell, similar to MONs cronies. Doesnt Peter Grant have a record worse than his bosses with poor spells at Norwich , WBA and Celtic.
Just wondering if its about time thatmaybe AM took a look at what he has below him and kicked it up the arse for once.
that does get on my nerves as well,
i think it boils down to security they surround themselves with cronies so they dont feel threatened themselves
Agreed, and I think it was O'Neill's biggest mistake.
The young lad who manages MK Dons, Carl Robinson, was on Talkshite last week, and they asked him why he chose John Gorman as assistant.
He said it was because he didn't want to appoint someone he knew, he wanted someone who would question him and push him.
I want someone with that mindset in charge.
That's quite rare though. Fair play to Robinson for doing that - a young coach who has brought in one of the most experienced assistant managers in the game and not being intimidated by him. Sounds like he has a lot of confidence in himself - one to watch, perhaps.
Generally, most managers have their trusted coaches and backroom staff that they take with them from job to job... can't really use that as a stick to beat McLeish with. And at least we've made sure Sid and KM are involved.
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I believe one of the criteria for the job last summer was that they must integrate with our coaching staff.
Some managers were not O.K with that, McLeish was.
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I believe one of the criteria for the job last summer was that they must integrate with our coaching staff.
Some managers were not O.K with that, McLeish was.
The more one looks at it, the more it seems that McLeish was hired purely as the most compliant of a field the board had arbitrarily limited themselves to, and that McLeish took the job less out of footballing prestige and philosophy, but more for the financial win-win on offer.
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I believe one of the criteria for the job last summer was that they must integrate with our coaching staff.
Some managers were not O.K with that, McLeish was.
The more one looks at it, the more it seems that McLeish was hired purely as the most compliant of a field the board had arbitrarily limited themselves to, and that McLeish took the job less out of footballing prestige and philosophy, but more for the financial win-win on offer.
That's also one of the main reasons why he won't be getting sacked any time soon.
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Surely the right manager for the job would be one that isn't compliant but one thy looks at Sid and KMac with the youth set up and says "that's what I can work with" instead of a massive upheaval, bringin in his own set of cronies and messing the whole system up.
We should have someone that works to our way. The way that it's been set up from the youth academy. Not the other way around.
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For ripping the heart out of my club, making it a totally miserable experience supporting Aston Villa and the complete lack of hope we all have that award clearly has to go to Lerner, he appointed McTwat.
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Surely the right manager for the job would be one that isn't compliant but one thy looks at Sid and KMac with the youth set up and says "that's what I can work with" instead of a massive upheaval, bringin in his own set of cronies and messing the whole system up.
We should have someone that works to our way. The way that it's been set up from the youth academy. Not the other way around.
I don't complain about Sid and K-Mac being kept on - in fact I applaud it. The question is entirely one of the motives of McLeish in agreeing to do so (the financial rewards on offer may well have been too great to turn down, particularly as there was no guarantee of his keeping his job at Blues for much longer), and of the field of candidates the board ridiculously limited themselves to.
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I believe one of the criteria for the job last summer was that they must integrate with our coaching staff.
Some managers were not O.K with that, McLeish was.
That's always the case with appointments like that. People desperate for a new job will generally accept whatever limitations are placed on them in the new one, if they perceive it overall as a step up. McLeish wasn't in that strong a position as he had just relegated Blues and wasn't likely to be given any other Premier League job. People in a stronger position, ie more sought after managers, will always have greater demands as they have more of a chance of a better job.
In business though, picking a a supplicant candidate rather than the very best available to you rarely leads to a successful outcome. The results of this season were entirely predictable to everybody except Lerner and Faulkner, and they should hold their hands up and say they go it badly wrong.
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Absolutely Monty. I wasnt disagreeing with your post. I was just thinking that the board wanted the new manager to work with the current set up. Maybe even McLeish had the intention to work the villa way when he wanted to take the job on back in the summer. Just that now, it's plainly obvious to all that a leopard can not change its spots and McLeish very quickly, bring surrounded by the majority of his back room staff has reverted back to type. I can't blame the board for wanting to have a manager that will fit into our set up. Maybe that was also the problem with the likes of Benitez. He wanted to change too much.
You'd like to think that the right manager for us, who ever it is. Rogers for example would look at the set up, and know that it's the right fit for him. He doesn't need to change his managerial style and the club shouldn't change their philosophy either. Including keeping Cowens and McDonald in the set up.
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I wonder which 'candidates' would have agreed to work with our current setup and with Randy's new strict approach? It's was obvious Benitez didn't fancy that way of working.
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If we're appointing a manager, then we should be putting our absolute trust in him.
If the club say "You must work with Sid and KM" and the manager says "that's not the way I do it, I want my own people", then we really should be doing that the manager wants.
Anything else and it becomes a bit of a half-arsed mess.
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Absolutely Monty. I wasnt disagreeing with your post. I was just thinking that the board wanted the new manager to work with the current set up. Maybe even McLeish had the intention to work the villa way when he wanted to take the job on back in the summer. Just that now, it's plainly obvious to all that a leopard can not change its spots and McLeish very quickly, bring surrounded by the majority of his back room staff has reverted back to type. I can't blame the board for wanting to have a manager that will fit into our set up. Maybe that was also the problem with the likes of Benitez. He wanted to change too much.
You'd like to think that the right manager for us, who ever it is. Rogers for example would look at the set up, and know that it's the right fit for him. He doesn't need to change his managerial style and the club shouldn't change their philosophy either. Including keeping Cowens and McDonald in the set up.
Oh I agree, I didn't think you disagreed! And I completely agree that someone like Rodgers would come in and make the most of the set up already in place. I mean, look at what he's done with the Swansea set up! A perfect example.
Right now, the club doesn't have a philosophy. We have the makings of one, in style and youth development, at academy level, but senior management is divorced from this completely. At Arsenal, Barca, Swansea, Udinese, Ajax (especially Ajax!), they play the same way from the youngest youth age to the senior first team. Crucially, they train the same way as well. At the moment, the disconnect between our development levels and senior team in terms of style is a chasm.
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None that we interviewed hence we ended up scraping the barrel with McLeish. But as its been said before the board put their own silly restrictions in place with criteria like "must have premiership experience".
I'd like to think most that we interviewed stayed away because it's become a money saving exercise. Rather than staying away because of the restrictions like integrating the academy and the current coaching staff.
As Risso has said it is more difficult with the likes of the more successful managers as they can throw their weight around a bit more. Benitez can point to a champions league trophy and say that his way brings success.
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That's the thing Monty. We're so close to having the makings of something good and that part of the frustration with fans. Our set up is good. The academy seems to be producing good players. Bodymoore Heath is a fantastic facility. We just need a few missing pieces to complete the puzzle and turn this potential into something more.
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That's the thing Monty. We're so close to having the makings of something good and that part of the frustration with fans. Our set up is good. The academy seems to be producing good players. Bodymoore Heath is a fantastic facility. We just need a few missing pieces to complete the puzzle and turn this potential into something more.
The problem is that the missing pieces are quite significant ones.
The most baffling thing about the McLeish appointment wasn't where he came from or the fact he'd just been relegated, it was that there was absolutely no continuity from what we started to do last season (and by the sounds of it, what we do in the reserves already) - we went from starting to try to play football like a modern football side to appointing someone who is really all about blood and sweat and effort.
Even the Martinez knock back complicated this more - if you ignore the rights or wrongs about where he and AM finished last season, there just doesn't seem to be much sense in a list which goes from Martinez to McLeish in terms of style.
It's a bit like going out for a meal, ordering the fish, being told the fish is "off" and opting to have a bowl of ice cream instead.
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or, as it turned out, a bowl of warm vomit.
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Delightful image... But oh so true!
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Modernity is the point you've hit on there, Paulie. I remember Randy trying to assure us that we have 'a very special football man' in McLeish, but everything about the man screams that he is, in fact, bog standard taken to the nth degree. I'd love to sit in on a training session. He doesn't appear to have any actual tactics, but operates on the basis of accepted cliches, received wisdom and 'that's the way things have always been done'.
When he says he doesn't want to play negatively I believe him - I just think different cliches get mixed up in his head and get confused. So he says 'keep it tight', meaning put 11 behind the ball, which ends up taking precedence over 'let's go for it lads' because of the space, time and possession we're affording the opposition. Jonathan Wilson on the Guardian pod once said that we'd be surprised how many managers in football really don't have a plan, a clue, or training or tactical nous. Given Wilson's Sunderland allegiances it seems likely he was talking about their manager at the time, Steve 'I don't do tactics' Bruce (an actual quote). I'd be surprised if McLeish isn't in this category.
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They are significant pieces, absolutely. But it's not like we need an overhaul from the ground up. Looking at what the board wants to achieve in us becoming self sustainable it is possible. With the academy set up producing what it is. As John has pointed out. Spending £10-20 million on a or a couple of star players then works rather than making an entire squad up on the same money and not improving on what we already have.
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The thing is, McLeish can say "I want to play attractive football" and be telling the truth, but there's nothing in his PL history to suggest that he knows how to.
Which, of course, makes that "must have PL experience" requirement all the more fucking annoying.
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When he says he doesn't want to play negatively I believe him -
Ditto.
There are a number of things I am uncertain about vis a vis his decision to take the job. Maybe he actively wanted the challenge, to step up a level and work with the best squad of players he will have had to date in his career. Or maybe he knew he was damaged goods, unlikely to get any other top flight job and - as a pragmatic Scot (and qualified accountant to boot!) - took what was a ridiculously generous offer whilst he could. The alternative was very likely the tin tack at St Andrews around Oct/ Nov time, should the shower of shit down the road be out of the automatic promotion spots.
Can't make up my mind either way on that one. I don't subscribe to any notion that he had 'balls' to take the job though. Teams generally reflect their manager, and the amount of times we have surrendered meekly this season is not indicative of having a boss overly blessed in the stones department.
I am pretty certain he'd like to be able to send out teams to play a better style of football and cause the opposition headaches though. I'm pretty certain he'd like to be less shit. But he is what he is.
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The thing is, McLeish can say "I want to play attractive football" and be telling the truth
It was possibly why the cynics amongst us were prepared to give him a chance. 'He could'nt possibly play drab football with the players we have' we thought at the time? Somehow he's managed it.
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The results of this season were entirely predictable to everybody except Lerner and Faulkner, and they should hold their hands up and say they go it badly wrong.
Fat chance.
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The thing is, McLeish can say "I want to play attractive football" and be telling the truth
It was possibly why the cynics amongst us were prepared to give him a chance. 'He could'nt possibly play drab football with the players we have' we thought at the time? Somehow he's managed it.
He has frequently managed to make the team look like less than the sum of its parts.
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The thing is, McLeish can say "I want to play attractive football" and be telling the truth
It was possibly why the cynics amongst us were prepared to give him a chance. 'He could'nt possibly play drab football with the players we have' we thought at the time? Somehow he's managed it.
He has frequently managed to make the team look like less than the sum of its parts.
And the most we will ever be under him is the total sum of our parts for about 20 minutes in the odd game. Even that is largely down to the players on the pitch individually performing in spite of the tactical vacuum on the touchline. There is no way that justifies any sort of Premier League level salary for the manager.
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I'm not saying Faulkner is blameless, I just think he gets a lot of stick on here because of footballing issues when that isn't where his skillset is. The major failing is the failure by the Board in general to identify that this isn't his skillset and take on an additional member to provide those skills.
I think, with a good football man on the board, Faulkner could prove to be a very valuable CEO.
The problem is, MoN has left them with the impression that the 'goodfootball man on the board' should be the manager, which is a really dangerous position to put ourselves in.
This is on the money for me. I think it is also worth pointing out that when MON joined we were warned by various Celtic fans that he would leave a large unsustainable wage bill, so he has form for doing this. Admittedly the board were suckers for letting it happen again but - like us - there were probably enough positive signs to let it slide for a while. Arguably Sunderland are making the same mistake again. I'd guess it is no coincidence that Quinn stepped down from the board shortly after MON's arrival.
I'm not necessarily a fan of faulkner - it's hard to know exactly what he does - but based purely on the parts that it is fair to assume he has control, he has slowly improved over his time at the club. I do not think he can be blamed for the lack of football nous around the boardroom.
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The thing is, McLeish can say "I want to play attractive football" and be telling the truth, but there's nothing in his PL history to suggest that he knows how to.
Which, of course, makes that "must have PL experience" requirement all the more fucking annoying.
I'm not sure what strengths Lerner thinks he saw in McLeish to be honest. His record and style of play with Blues were woeful, and I don't believe for a second that Lerner watched detailed videos of his time at Rangers or Motherwell.
The way Blues surrendered their Premier League status was absolutely abysmal. With a few games to go they looked all but safe, but then chucked it away with some of the most lethargic, "can't be arsed" performances that I've ever seen. The worrying thing is that we've seen similar performances from Villa this season, and another couple of losses could see us getting sucked back right down into the scrap.
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I blame Alex Ferguson for sending a dodgy reference to Lerner.
We should sue him
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The thing is, McLeish can say "I want to play attractive football" and be telling the truth, but there's nothing in his PL history to suggest that he knows how to.
Which, of course, makes that "must have PL experience" requirement all the more fucking annoying.
I'm not sure what strengths Lerner thinks he saw in McLeish to be honest. His record and style of play with Blues were woeful, and I don't believe for a second that Lerner watched detailed videos of his time at Rangers or Motherwell.
The way Blues surrendered their Premier League status was absolutely abysmal. With a few games to go they looked all but safe, but then chucked it away with some of the most lethargic, "can't be arsed" performances that I've ever seen. The worrying thing is that we've seen similar performances from Villa this season, and another couple of losses could see us getting sucked back right down into the scrap.
The injuries are a major worry,but will give Mcleish the perfect excuse to fall back on.Just like when he set Blues down,he bemoaned their injuries constantly rather than galvanising the squad he had left.I'm worried
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The thing is, McLeish can say "I want to play attractive football" and be telling the truth, but there's nothing in his PL history to suggest that he knows how to.
Which, of course, makes that "must have PL experience" requirement all the more fucking annoying.
I'm not sure what strengths Lerner thinks he saw in McLeish to be honest. His record and style of play with Blues were woeful, and I don't believe for a second that Lerner watched detailed videos of his time at Rangers or Motherwell.
I do, to an extent.
A manager with international experience, who has managed one of the Old Firm in the hothouse environment of Glasgow (with all the pressure that brings) and who even snared a trophy for a two bob outfit like the B-lose looks good if you skim read wiki.
Throw in all the complimentary things Big Eck said about the Villa when he was managing That Lot, the nice letter from Sir Beetroot Features and it's not hard to see why someone with a limited knowledge of football might be swayed.
It was a abysmal decision though, right from the outset. Scratch the surface and you don't have to look far to see the template that runs through most McLeish sides, shite football, limited tactics and regression from the his starting point to the departure date. 3rd with Rangers in that league. That takes some doing.
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I've often been told to forget McLeish' relegations at the Dog Shit and look at his spell in Scotland and agreed 3rd with Rangers takes some doing. Even with a 10 point deduction this season they will come a comfortable 2nd.
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I blame Alex Ferguson for sending a dodgy reference to Lerner.
We should sue him
We can't.
It's now completely indecipherable, due to the amount of Gentleman's relish Lerner has deposited over it.
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The thing is, McLeish can say "I want to play attractive football" and be telling the truth, but there's nothing in his PL history to suggest that he knows how to.
Which, of course, makes that "must have PL experience" requirement all the more fucking annoying.
I'm not sure what strengths Lerner thinks he saw in McLeish to be honest. His record and style of play with Blues were woeful, and I don't believe for a second that Lerner watched detailed videos of his time at Rangers or Motherwell.
The way Blues surrendered their Premier League status was absolutely abysmal. With a few games to go they looked all but safe, but then chucked it away with some of the most lethargic, "can't be arsed" performances that I've ever seen. The worrying thing is that we've seen similar performances from Villa this season, and another couple of losses could see us getting sucked back right down into the scrap.
Where was that Management wages league table?
Isn't McLeish the 15th highest paid Manager in the world?
I can't remember what thread it was on.
EDIT - Joint 20th according to this
1 Jose Mourinho (Real Madrid, €10m)
2= Pep Guardiola (Barcelona, €7.5m)
2= Guus Hiddink (Anzhi Makhachkala, €7.5m)
4 Roberto Mancini (Manchester City, €6.0m)
5 Carlo Ancelotti (Paris St-Germain, €5.9m)
6 Jupp Heynckes (FC Bayern, €5.0m)
7= Sir Alex Ferguson (Manchester United, €4.8m)
7= Kenny Dalglish (Liverpool, €4.8m)
9= Arsene Wenger (Arsenal, €4.7m)
9= Harry Redknapp (Tottenham, €4.7m)
11= Luiz Felipe Scolari (Palmeiras, €3.6m)
11= David Moyes (Everton, €3.6m)
11= Mark Hughes (QPR, €3.6m)
11= Martin O’Neill (Sunderland, €3.6m)
15= Diego Maradona (Al-Wasl, €3.5m)
15= Manuel Pellegrini (Malaga, €3.5m)
17 Luciano Spalletti (Zenit St Petersburg, €3.0m)
18= Muricy Ramalho (Santos, €2.6m)
18= Ottmar Hitzfeld (Switzerland, €2.6m)
20= Alex McLeish (Aston Villa, €2.4m)
20= Joachim Low (Germany, €2.4m)
22= Vicente del Bosque (Spain, €2.1m)
22= Abel Braga (Fluminese, €2.1m)
22= Massimiliano Allegri (AC Milan, €2.1m)
22= Jurgen Klopp (Borussia Dortmund, €2.1m)
26= Dorival Junior (Internacional, €1.9m)
26= Tite (Corinthians, €1.9m)
28 Claudio Ranieri (Inter, €1.8m)
29 Mano Menezes (Brazil, €1.7m)
30 Antonio Conte (Juventus, €1.6m)
(Source: Futebol Finance)
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If only John Blackwell was around to give us the lowdown on that lot.
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What jumps out there is how ridiculously well paid the Premiership is. Hughes, MON and Moyes in the top ten!
One thing that might need to be factored in is that in Europe it is far more prevalent to have more layers of management on the football side whereas in the UK (as we have found out) it is more common to trust one man to run the whole shebang.
Certainly Munich has many layers and in spain the teams have B teams in the lower leagues so some of the UK manager's typical responsibilities must be completely delegated.
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What jumps out there is how ridiculously well paid the Premiership is. Hughes, MON and Moyes in the top ten!
One thing that might need to be factored in is that in Europe it is far more prevalent to have more layers of management on the football side whereas in the UK (as we have found out) it is more common to trust one man to run the whole shebang.
Certainly Munich has many layers and in spain the teams have B teams in the lower leagues so some of the UK manager's typical responsibilities must be completely delegated.
That is a very good point. The Bill Nicholson/Shankley/Clough/Revie/Ferguson syndrome: these chaps ran their clubs from top to bottom and did most of the deals and forged the ethos of their organizations.
As soon as anybody mentioned something as a outlandish as a DOF or similar, there would be a chorus of "it won't work over here".
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What jumps out there is how ridiculously well paid the Premiership is. Hughes, MON and Moyes in the top ten!
One thing that might need to be factored in is that in Europe it is far more prevalent to have more layers of management on the football side whereas in the UK (as we have found out) it is more common to trust one man to run the whole shebang.
Certainly Munich has many layers and in spain the teams have B teams in the lower leagues so some of the UK manager's typical responsibilities must be completely delegated.
That is a very good point. The Bill Nicholson/Shankley/Clough/Revie/Ferguson syndrome: these chaps ran their clubs from top to bottom and did most of the deals and forged the ethos of their organizations.
As soon as anybody mentioned something as a outlandish as a DOF or similar, there would be a chorus of "it won't work over here".
Ditto with Barcelona the La Masia "farmhouse" seems to be very separate entity compared to what Guardiola does with the first team.
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What jumps out there is how ridiculously well paid the Premiership is. Hughes, MON and Moyes in the top ten!
One thing that might need to be factored in is that in Europe it is far more prevalent to have more layers of management on the football side whereas in the UK (as we have found out) it is more common to trust one man to run the whole shebang.
Certainly Munich has many layers and in spain the teams have B teams in the lower leagues so some of the UK manager's typical responsibilities must be completely delegated.
That is a very good point. The Bill Nicholson/Shankley/Clough/Revie/Ferguson syndrome: these chaps ran their clubs from top to bottom and did most of the deals and forged the ethos of their organizations.
As soon as anybody mentioned something as a outlandish as a DOF or similar, there would be a chorus of "it won't work over here".
Ditto with Barcelona the La Masia "farmhouse" seems to be very separate entity compared to what Guardiola does with the first team.
Except that, from the lowest to the highest level at that club, they train and play the same way - they do fitness training with the ball, exercises are almost exclusively one touch, the press high up the pitch and have a great degree of organised fluidity with it, while allowing for individuals to express themselves. The steps taken, between La Masia, Barca B and the first team, are very clearly defined and within the same structure and philosophy. I'd say that Barca have one of the most integrated club structures in football.
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Sorry you're absolutely right Monty with regard to barca's joined up thinking. I was using it in reference to the amounts that managers were paid in the UK compared to abroad. For example I read that the Masia cost 5m a year to run, of which some costs would be for mangers etc which to a degree are currently roles performed by the traditional British manager.
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Sorry you're absolutely right Monty with regard to barca's joined up thinking. I was using it in reference to the amounts that managers were paid in the UK compared to abroad. For example I read that the Masia cost 5m a year to run, of which some costs would be for mangers etc which to a degree are currently roles performed by the traditional British manager.
Ah, well, that's very true. The thinking is joined up, but like I say, the structures are clearly defined - Guardiola's role as coach of Barca B was equivalent (though less senior) to his role as Barca head coach, as opposed to a manager who, in theory, manages all teams but delegates details to his coaches. Of course, at Villa there's this disconnect without there meaning to be, which is a kind of worst of both worlds.
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McLeish. For all the bad decisions, McLeish had relatively decent money in the summer from sales and time to assess the squad, and has then blamed much of the last 2 months poor performances on it not being his squad etc. Lerner still has a little good will in the tank for me, but if there was a Faulkner McCleish option it would get my vote straight away.
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McLeish. For all the bad decisions, McLeish had relatively decent money in the summer from sales and time to assess the squad, and has then blamed much of the last 2 months poor performances on it not being his squad etc. Lerner still has a little good will in the tank for me, but if there was a Faulkner McCleish option it would get my vote straight away.
Has he been able to assess the squad though, it looks like his remit from the start was to clear the club of the high rollers. This would be OK if he was allowed to replace them with younger hungrier players but all he did was purchase what appears to be a French prima donna and a promising player in Enda Stewart who carried on playing in Ireland.
He has been lucky in the fact that there was a pretty decent set of young players to step up to try to fill the senior team shortage.
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The thing is, McLeish can say "I want to play attractive football" and be telling the truth
It was possibly why the cynics amongst us were prepared to give him a chance. 'He could'nt possibly play drab football with the players we have' we thought at the time? Somehow he's managed it.
eh? While i agree i thought it was more than likely the football would be drab with Mcleish in charge, I certainly didn't look at the likes of Dunne, Heskey, Petrov Warnock etc.. and think "he's gonna have a hard time turning them into a dull side"
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One of the coaches at Barcelona pointed out that each year clubs from all over the world visit La Masia and will copy bits and pieces in an attempt to emulate them but don't look at the whole picture. They've also got a 30 year head start on everybody.
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Lerner still has a little good will in the tank for me
None at all for me.
He seems quite happy to piss the progress we've made over the last few seasons up the wall, add to that his complete lack of interest.
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Lerner still has a little good will in the tank for me
None at all for me.
He seems quite happy to piss the progress we've made over the last few seasons up the wall, add to that his complete lack of interest.
This for me.The transformation from a top 6 club to a bottom 6 club in 2 seasons ,can only be described as negligent Awful owner
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The scale of the mismanagement is pretty woeful. I don't think they know what to do next to be honest.
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The scale of the mismanagement is pretty woeful. I don't think they know what to do next to be honest.
They could phone Nicky Keye, she'll know.
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The scale of the mismanagement is pretty woeful. I don't think they know what to do next to be honest.
Seemingly Doh'Neill ran the footballing side in a big way, he was left alone to do whatever he wanted, no wonder they floundered when he left.
Their incompetence is quite stunning.
I can't think of Lerner now without thinking about the dazed and confused Yank that Harry Enfield used to play.
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The scale of the mismanagement is pretty woeful. I don't think they know what to do next to be honest.
They could phone Nicky Keye, she'll know.
I bet she's spaced out on Valium with all the shit she has to handle.
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The thing is, McLeish can say "I want to play attractive football" and be telling the truth
It was possibly why the cynics amongst us were prepared to give him a chance. 'He could'nt possibly play drab football with the players we have' we thought at the time? Somehow he's managed it.
eh? While i agree i thought it was more than likely the football would be drab with Mcleish in charge, I certainly didn't look at the likes of Dunne, Heskey, Petrov Warnock etc.. and think "he's gonna have a hard time turning them into a dull side"
Why would you expect a CB, a DCM and a shit striker to be the source of our entertainment as opposed to N'Zogbia, Gabby, Bent, Ireland and Albrighton?
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The thing is, McLeish can say "I want to play attractive football" and be telling the truth
It was possibly why the cynics amongst us were prepared to give him a chance. 'He could'nt possibly play drab football with the players we have' we thought at the time? Somehow he's managed it.
eh? While i agree i thought it was more than likely the football would be drab with Mcleish in charge, I certainly didn't look at the likes of Dunne, Heskey, Petrov Warnock etc.. and think "he's gonna have a hard time turning them into a dull side"
Why would you expect a CB, a DCM and a shit striker to be the source of our entertainment as opposed to N'Zogbia, Gabby, Bent, Ireland and Albrighton?
John is correct and i'd add Makoun to the mix, but he fucked him off with indecent haste.
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McLeish. For all the bad decisions, McLeish had relatively decent money in the summer from sales and time to assess the squad, and has then blamed much of the last 2 months poor performances on it not being his squad etc. Lerner still has a little good will in the tank for me, but if there was a Faulkner McCleish option it would get my vote straight away.
Time yes, but not money. We lost a host of key players from a side that still only managed 9th and he had around half that amount to replace them.
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McLeish. For all the bad decisions, McLeish had relatively decent money in the summer from sales and time to assess the squad, and has then blamed much of the last 2 months poor performances on it not being his squad etc. Lerner still has a little good will in the tank for me, but if there was a Faulkner McCleish option it would get my vote straight away.
Time yes, but not money. We lost a host of key players from a side that still only managed 9th and he had around half that amount to replace them.
That's part of the reason why I blame Lerner.
They seemed utterly convinced that he was the right man for the job, I just couldn't see it myself, but If they were so convinced, they should have backed him with decent transfer funds.
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McLeish. For all the bad decisions, McLeish had relatively decent money in the summer from sales and time to assess the squad, and has then blamed much of the last 2 months poor performances on it not being his squad etc. Lerner still has a little good will in the tank for me, but if there was a Faulkner McCleish option it would get my vote straight away.
Time yes, but not money. We lost a host of key players from a side that still only managed 9th and he had around half that amount to replace them.
That's part of the reason why I blame Lerner.
They seemed utterly convinced that he was the right man for the job, I just couldn't see it myself, but If they were so convinced, they should have backed him with decent transfer funds.
Fully agree with that.
While I understand the wages/turnover issue, we had a lot of players with a year left on their contracts during last summer (Carlos, Heskey & Beye), so it would have been a short term hit to give him a fighting chance.
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SirAlex has just said we're fighting for our lives with Wigan etc in his Press Conference.Thanks for that letter Alex
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The thing is, McLeish can say "I want to play attractive football" and be telling the truth
It was possibly why the cynics amongst us were prepared to give him a chance. 'He could'nt possibly play drab football with the players we have' we thought at the time? Somehow he's managed it.
eh? While i agree i thought it was more than likely the football would be drab with Mcleish in charge, I certainly didn't look at the likes of Dunne, Heskey, Petrov Warnock etc.. and think "he's gonna have a hard time turning them into a dull side"
Why would you expect a CB, a DCM and a shit striker to be the source of our entertainment as opposed to N'Zogbia, Gabby, Bent, Ireland and Albrighton?
Is the right answer.
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SirAlex has just said we're fighting for our lives with Wigan etc in his Press Conference.Thanks for that letter Alex
It's all his fault for sending Randy that letter of recommendation.
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SirAlex has just said we're fighting for our lives with Wigan etc in his Press Conference.Thanks for that letter Alex
Randy probably thinks that letter has the weight of a 'Get out of Jail free card' should the worst happen.
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SirAlex has just said we're fighting for our lives with Wigan etc in his Press Conference.Thanks for that letter Alex
It's all his fault for sending Randy that letter of recommendation.
He's never forgiven us for that 1-0 victory at Old Trafford
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SirAlex has just said we're fighting for our lives with Wigan etc in his Press Conference.Thanks for that letter Alex
It's all his fault for sending Randy that letter of recommendation.
It's okay, we're giving O'Leary a glowing reference for one Ferguson retires.
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SirAlex has just said we're fighting for our lives with Wigan etc in his Press Conference.Thanks for that letter Alex
It's all his fault for sending Randy that letter of recommendation.
Watch Ferguson leap to Mcleish's defense once Man Utd have sewn up their 6 points from us this season.
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McLeish. For all the bad decisions, McLeish had relatively decent money in the summer from sales and time to assess the squad, and has then blamed much of the last 2 months poor performances on it not being his squad etc. Lerner still has a little good will in the tank for me, but if there was a Faulkner McCleish option it would get my vote straight away.
Time yes, but not money. We lost a host of key players from a side that still only managed 9th and he had around half that amount to replace them.
I guess it depends on whether you think 9th was about par with a side of our ability last season. It's a weird one, as although we only clinched 9th on the last day, I'd still say it was under par actually.
This season we have lost Downing and Ash, true. But we were able to sign a player who Everton and Sunderland both wanted but couldn't afford (N'Zog). Players like Albrighton, Bannan and Delph are (or should be) a further year into development. Ireland -ostracised from the side completely last season- can be as good as just about anything in the division outside of the very elite. And we signed an upgrade between the sticks.
So based on the players he inherited and the money he had to plug any gaps as he deemed necessary, circa £18 million in that regard is still a decent sum. More than most of the other managers in the division were able to operate with.
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SirAlex has just said we're fighting for our lives with Wigan etc in his Press Conference.Thanks for that letter Alex
Job done, Sir Alex. Villa's demise from challenging Man Utd in league and cup to fighting relegation with Wigan in two years? Tick. This is why the man's a genius.
It's all his fault for sending Randy that letter of recommendation.
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McLeish. For all the bad decisions, McLeish had relatively decent money in the summer from sales and time to assess the squad, and has then blamed much of the last 2 months poor performances on it not being his squad etc. Lerner still has a little good will in the tank for me, but if there was a Faulkner McCleish option it would get my vote straight away.
Time yes, but not money. We lost a host of key players from a side that still only managed 9th and he had around half that amount to replace them.
I guess it depends on whether you think 9th was about par with a side of our ability last season. It's a weird one, as although we only clinched 9th on the last day, I'd still say it was under par actually.
This season we have lost Downing and Ash, true. But we were able to sign a player who Everton and Sunderland both wanted but couldn't afford (N'Zog). Players like Albrighton, Bannan and Delph are (or should be) a further year into development. Ireland -ostracised from the side completely last season- can be as good as just about anything in the division outside of the very elite. And we signed an upgrade between the sticks.
So based on the players he inherited and the money he had to plug any gaps as he deemed necessary, circa £18 million in that regard is still a decent sum. More than most of the other managers in the division were able to operate with.
Our form post Bent's arrival in January was top 6 level, so you're right to say 9th is possibly misleading.
However, one key element throughout that season was the awful defence, which he's had to then still work with. Our creative elements were Ash, Downing and Walker, who all left. And the midfield 'enforcer' was NRC, who hasn't been replaced. The swap of Given for Big Brad in goal doesn't really effect things that much, other than £3.5m of what he had to spend was gone just to stand still in that position.
I won't argue that he should have gotten better out of what he has, but that still reamins last year's squad patched up here and there, yet still poorer.
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I blame David Taylor, the chief executive of the SFA in 2002.
It's a bit tenuous, so bear with me.
In 2002, David Taylor appointed Berti Vogts as manager of Scotland. In terms of shambolic appointments, it set Scotland back a wee bit so Berti leaves and the reigns are passed to Walter Smith. Wattie does a sterling job, gets us working reasonably well but being a Rangers man as soon as they come calling to fix their own wee crisis he leaps to it. Enter stage left, Eck. Eck manages to win 70% of his games in charge of Scotland including wins over France and Ukraine. That's when he's tempted to Birmingham and the rest they say is history.
Had David Taylor not thought that hiring Berti had been a good idea, I doubt Eck would have been on the radar for Scotland and then Birmingham. He'd have bumbled along at a lower level.
In all seriousness though, Randy. All the hope and positivity has been sucked out of the place because there is no coherent footballing policy. He doesn't have to be hands-on, he doesn't even have to be uber-rich, he just has to have a philosophy and stick to it and I don't think the dourness on display is the answer.
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McLeish. For all the bad decisions, McLeish had relatively decent money in the summer from sales and time to assess the squad, and has then blamed much of the last 2 months poor performances on it not being his squad etc. Lerner still has a little good will in the tank for me, but if there was a Faulkner McCleish option it would get my vote straight away.
Time yes, but not money. We lost a host of key players from a side that still only managed 9th and he had around half that amount to replace them.
That's part of the reason why I blame Lerner.
They seemed utterly convinced that he was the right man for the job, I just couldn't see it myself, but If they were so convinced, they should have backed him with decent transfer funds.
"Imagine what McLeish will be capable of with Randy's backing."
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"Imagine what McLeish will be capable of with Randy's backing."
we'd have Messi playing in left midfield
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"Imagine what McLeish will be capable of with Randy's backing."
we'd have Messi playing in left midfield
Nah, he'd be on the bench with Iniesta.
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"Imagine what McLeish will be capable of with Randy's backing."
we'd have Messi playing in left midfield
Nah, he'd be on the bench with Iniesta.
Yeah, too small. Everyone knows you need to be at least 6-foot tall and wide to play football.
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"Imagine what McLeish will be capable of with Randy's backing."
we'd have Messi playing in left midfield
I squinted whilst watching Barcelona on telly box the other night, and it looked a little like they are playing in claret and blue. The quick flowing football and the fact they didn't have a useless lump playing up front falling over every ten seconds soon proved otherwise.
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Wonder if Messi and Iniesta regret that the loan deal fell though for them when he was at Rangers. Just imagine what they could have achieved if they had spent a season under Mcleish.
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McLeish. For all the bad decisions, McLeish had relatively decent money in the summer from sales and time to assess the squad, and has then blamed much of the last 2 months poor performances on it not being his squad etc. Lerner still has a little good will in the tank for me, but if there was a Faulkner McCleish option it would get my vote straight away.
Time yes, but not money. We lost a host of key players from a side that still only managed 9th and he had around half that amount to replace them.
That's part of the reason why I blame Lerner.
They seemed utterly convinced that he was the right man for the job, I just couldn't see it myself, but If they were so convinced, they should have backed him with decent transfer funds.
"Imagine what McLeish will be capable of with Randy's backing."
One of The General's many Abe Simpson style remarks.
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Yes, but to be fair he has got our 'fifth' position spot on so far.
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Wonder if Messi and Iniesta regret that the loan deal fell though for them when he was at Rangers. Just imagine what they could have achieved if they had spent a season under Mcleish.
They'd have been criticised for not tracking back enough and dumped in the reserves.
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Wonder if Messi and Iniesta regret that the loan deal fell though for them when he was at Rangers. Just imagine what they could have achieved if they had spent a season under Mcleish.
They'd have been criticised for not tracking back enough and dumped in the reserves.
In fairness they track back more than our players. But they're obviously too small to win the ball (apart from all the time they win the ball), so yeah, they can naff off.
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Wonder if Messi and Iniesta regret that the loan deal fell though for them when he was at Rangers. Just imagine what they could have achieved if they had spent a season under Mcleish.
They'd have been criticised for not tracking back enough and dumped in the reserves.
In fairness they track back more than our players. But they're obviously too small to win the ball (apart from all the time they win the ball), so yeah, they can naff off.
These naughty boys like to track back, win the ball, but then try to attack with it; that's not on. We all know the strategy is win the ball, hoof it up the pitch towards Heskey's head, then stay where you are and await it's return.
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McLeish. For all the bad decisions, McLeish had relatively decent money in the summer from sales and time to assess the squad, and has then blamed much of the last 2 months poor performances on it not being his squad etc. Lerner still has a little good will in the tank for me, but if there was a Faulkner McCleish option it would get my vote straight away.
Time yes, but not money. We lost a host of key players from a side that still only managed 9th and he had around half that amount to replace them.
I guess it depends on whether you think 9th was about par with a side of our ability last season. It's a weird one, as although we only clinched 9th on the last day, I'd still say it was under par actually.
This season we have lost Downing and Ash, true. But we were able to sign a player who Everton and Sunderland both wanted but couldn't afford (N'Zog). Players like Albrighton, Bannan and Delph are (or should be) a further year into development. Ireland -ostracised from the side completely last season- can be as good as just about anything in the division outside of the very elite. And we signed an upgrade between the sticks.
So based on the players he inherited and the money he had to plug any gaps as he deemed necessary, circa £18 million in that regard is still a decent sum. More than most of the other managers in the division were able to operate with.
I'd say 9th was probably an underachievment last year since the team was essentially the team that finished 6th the year before minus Milner plus Ireland, with added Bent, Makoun and Walker. But there were well documentated underlying causes that could justify the drop in places.
Even though we've lost 6 or so of last year's team, and the replacements, apart from Given, haven't performed anywhere near as well or consistently, we should still be way better than 15th.
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Absolutely. AM still had the best part of £20m to spend, spending nearly £10m on a player he has failed to use effectively. He's also had the benefit of Bent for 3/4 of the season, and made the decisions to loan out Makoun, cancel the agreement/pass up the option to sign Bradley (I know, Man City game, etc, but bear with me a sec) and, as was reported at the time (maybe inaccurately) it was his decision ultimately not to retain Reo-Coker - so the fact that we've struggled for most of the season in midfield shouldn't be a surprise; bad choices made there.
He also chose to spend £3m of his budget on Hutton; again, it could be argued that that wasn't money wisely spent, perhaps used more effectively elsewhere. Maybe. The point is, no, he hasn't had a huge budget to play with, but he had a reasonable one, and the player that we didn't directly replace was Ashley Young (albeit a big player).
We'll see where we finally end up. But I doubt it will be 9th - I'm pretty sure I predicted 12-16th this season. Is 16th underachieving with this squad? I think so. Very much so.
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i'm not giving up on Randy just yet,
he's only made one big mistake, OK it was a massive one with Mcliesh but still he can put it right with a better manager next time round.
i know he also gets load of stick for letting MON go mad bringing in average players on super star wages, but i feel he was backing his manager then and he has probably learnt his lesson on that one, remember he was new to the game at the time.
anyway i'm still willing to stick with him as long as he sees sense and does the decent thing re AM and then gets the next one right
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The thing is, McLeish can say "I want to play attractive football" and be telling the truth
It was possibly why the cynics amongst us were prepared to give him a chance. 'He could'nt possibly play drab football with the players we have' we thought at the time? Somehow he's managed it.
eh? While i agree i thought it was more than likely the football would be drab with Mcleish in charge, I certainly didn't look at the likes of Dunne, Heskey, Petrov Warnock etc.. and think "he's gonna have a hard time turning them into a dull side"
Why would you expect a CB, a DCM and a shit striker to be the source of our entertainment as opposed to N'Zogbia, Gabby, Bent, Ireland and Albrighton?
Well Zogbia wasn't here when Mcleish was appointed and frankly he's hardly mr entertaiment anyway. Ireland had been rubbish under GH (only a little better now) and Bent for all his plusses is hardly the most skilled player just a great finisher. So again its not like he inherited a team of Messi's to work with.. In fact one of the few logical explanations for Mcleish's appointment was that the players who couldn't or wouldn't work under GH's passing style, would thrive with us reverting to Hoof, albiet on a budget
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The thing is, McLeish can say "I want to play attractive football" and be telling the truth
It was possibly why the cynics amongst us were prepared to give him a chance. 'He could'nt possibly play drab football with the players we have' we thought at the time? Somehow he's managed it.
eh? While i agree i thought it was more than likely the football would be drab with Mcleish in charge, I certainly didn't look at the likes of Dunne, Heskey, Petrov Warnock etc.. and think "he's gonna have a hard time turning them into a dull side"
Why would you expect a CB, a DCM and a shit striker to be the source of our entertainment as opposed to N'Zogbia, Gabby, Bent, Ireland and Albrighton?
Well Zogbia wasn't here when Mcleish was appointed and frankly he's hardly mr entertaiment anyway. Ireland had been rubbish under GH (only a little better now) and Bent for all his plusses is hardly the most skilled player just a great finisher. So again its not like he inherited a team of Messi's to work with.. In fact one of the few logical explanations for Mcleish's appointment was that the players who couldn't or wouldn't work under GH's passing style, would thrive with us reverting to Hoof, albiet on a budget
But they clearly haven't thrived.
That said, an attack of Nzog, Ireland and Albrighton behind Bent and Gabby should have led to better than slightly more than a goal a game. Is the squad as good as it was, of course not, is the squad better than to be looking enviously at Norwich and Swansea - most certainly.
I think you and maybe 1 or 2 other people have got to the point where the ongoing argument has backed you into a position whereby you have no choice but to blame the players because to not do so means that you have to admit that the squad is better than we're seeing and therefore that Lerner might not be massively out of line in thinking that it's ok to remove a lot of the experienced dross and let the kids fill the gaps for the time being.
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The thing is, McLeish can say "I want to play attractive football" and be telling the truth
It was possibly why the cynics amongst us were prepared to give him a chance. 'He could'nt possibly play drab football with the players we have' we thought at the time? Somehow he's managed it.
eh? While i agree i thought it was more than likely the football would be drab with Mcleish in charge, I certainly didn't look at the likes of Dunne, Heskey, Petrov Warnock etc.. and think "he's gonna have a hard time turning them into a dull side"
Why would you expect a CB, a DCM and a shit striker to be the source of our entertainment as opposed to N'Zogbia, Gabby, Bent, Ireland and Albrighton?
Well Zogbia wasn't here when Mcleish was appointed and frankly he's hardly mr entertaiment anyway. Ireland had been rubbish under GH (only a little better now) and Bent for all his plusses is hardly the most skilled player just a great finisher. So again its not like he inherited a team of Messi's to work with.. In fact one of the few logical explanations for Mcleish's appointment was that the players who couldn't or wouldn't work under GH's passing style, would thrive with us reverting to Hoof, albiet on a budget
But they clearly haven't thrived.
That said, an attack of Nzog, Ireland and Albrighton behind Bent and Gabby should have led to better than slightly more than a goal a game. Is the squad as good as it was, of course not, is the squad better than to be looking enviously at Norwich and Swansea - most certainly.
I think you and maybe 1 or 2 other people have got to the point where the ongoing argument has backed you into a position whereby you have no choice but to blame the players because to not do so means that you have to admit that the squad is better than we're seeing and therefore that Lerner might not be massively out of line in thinking that it's ok to remove a lot of the experienced dross and let the kids fill the gaps for the time being.
I've said we should be doing better, the arguement is how much better. Most people think we should be mid-table and seeing the amount and ability of the players we lost in the summer a couple of places down on 9th is about right IMO. Trouble is thats only 6 points off where we are. Do i think people would still be complaining if we were there? Course they would. Me and others predicted in the summer Mcleish would have to do better than GH to get a reprieve in the fan's opinion.
as for Norwich and Swansea, i think its a rather complacent and patronising viewpoint to consider our collection of hasbeens, Kids and rejects as automatically better than them because we were in a higher division than them last year. So were Blose.
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as for Norwich and Swansea, i think its a rather complacent and patronising viewpoint to consider our collection of hasbeens, Kids and rejects as automatically better than them because we were in a higher division than them last year. So were Blose.
Point proven, our squad isn't top 6 but it's certainly not hasbeens, kids and rejects, but it supports you're argument for them to be judged as that.
As for improving on GH I don't agree, I think he needed to match him, both in terms of results and performance. We're nowhere near on either front. The squad is a little weaker this season that it was for the 2nd half of last season but we have never, at any point this season, been down to the level that GH had to deal with in November when we had about 15 players out including about 8 midfielders.
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as for Norwich and Swansea, i think its a rather complacent and patronising viewpoint to consider our collection of hasbeens, Kids and rejects as automatically better than them because we were in a higher division than them last year. So were Blose.
Point proven, our squad isn't top 6 but it's certainly not hasbeens, kids and rejects, but it supports you're argument for them to be judged as that.
Hasbeens = Heskey, Dunne, Warnock, Petrov
Rejects - Ireland, Hutton, given, Dunne (again)
Kids: self-explanatory
apart from Bent and maybe gabby there's not one player the top 4 or even the top 6 would consider purchasing
As for improving on GH I don't agree, I think he needed to match him, both in terms of results and performance. We're nowhere near on either front. The squad is a little weaker this season that it was for the 2nd half of last season but we have never, at any point this season, been down to the level that GH had to deal with in November when we had about 15 players out including about 8 midfielders.
a little weaker? Young. A, Young. L , NRC, Downing. Best part of 30 milllion from just the midfield. and how have we replaced them? Wigan's best player - i'm not sure who he was supposed to replace because he's not even vaguely similar quality wise to either of the two who went in the summer. Hutton, again not in the same ballpark as Young at his best. The rest weren't replaced. Mentioning the injuries last season just emphasises my point. If we'd had them this season, we'd probably been unable to field a side without breaking our youngest ever player record
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Very nearly stopped reading when I saw Shay Given (regularly regarded as one of the best keepers ever in the premier league) flagged as a reject.
What you're completely failing to account for is the experience side of things.
Last season we had Clark, Herd, Lichaj, Bannan, Albrighton, Hogg and Baker (and probably 1 or 2 others) make their league debuts. All of these players should be better suited to the prem this season, that a couple of them appear to have gone backwards is evidence of bad management not a weaker squad.
In the summer we lost a number of players and replaced them with players chosen by the current manager, if the replacements are weaker it's his fault. We had a short fall of 1 where we sold downing and young and bought in Nzogbia.
Finances are nothing to do with squad strength either, Young and Downing weren't £35m worth of players when we signed them but were actually £22m (roughly). If McLeish bought similarly we wouldn't be having problems. Making a profit on player trading isn't some huge problem guaranteed to lead to failure like you're trying to claim, Arsenal have generally made profits over the last few years but it's not seen them drop from the top 4 to the bottom of the league because there has been a plan to allow for this.
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Very nearly stopped reading when I saw Shay Given (regularly regarded as one of the best keepers ever in the premier league) flagged as a reject.
Good 'keeper i agree but reality is he was let go for being too old and too injury prone. Dunne had to be paid to leave such was his enthusiam to join us and for them to get rid.
What you're completely failing to account for is the experience side of things.
Last season we had Clark, Herd, Lichaj, Bannan, Albrighton, Hogg and Baker (and probably 1 or 2 others) make their league debuts. All of these players should be better suited to the prem this season, that a couple of them appear to have gone backwards is evidence of bad management not a weaker squad.
Young players going backwards you say? Sorry but thats the nature of the beast - young players are notoriously inconsistant so i wouldn't lay the blame entirely at Mcleish's feet
In the summer we lost a number of players and replaced them with players chosen by the current manager, if the replacements are weaker it's his fault. We had a short fall of 1 where we sold downing and young and bought in Nzogbia.
I agree that it his fault but that's neither here or there - the original arguement was how good the players were and where they should be in this league. Surely if he's bought shitter players for less money to replace better players, that is going to affect the league place?
Finances are nothing to do with squad strength either, Young and Downing weren't £35m worth of players when we signed them but were actually £22m (roughly). If McLeish bought similarly we wouldn't be having problems. Making a profit on player trading isn't some huge problem guaranteed to lead to failure like you're trying to claim, Arsenal have generally made profits over the last few years but it's not seen them drop from the top 4 to the bottom of the league because there has been a plan to allow for this.
"Finances are nothing to do with squad strength either" Heh. Someone better tell the rnancs, Citeh, Chelsea etc., that they're wasting their time and money.
as for what Young and Downing cost originally, when has Mcleish had 22m to spend?If he'd been given 22m to find two replacements for Young and Downing and ballseds it up i'd agree, but he hasn't
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He did spend 10m to replace one of them though (which is the right area of spend we'd be looking at) and he's shown a complete inability to figure out how to use that resource effectively.