Who Should be Aston Villa Manager ? Now with new, revised poll

[brian green]

The core reasons for this awful day in the history of Aston Villa Football Club are

Randy Lerner knows nothing about Birmingham people

Randy Lerner knows nothing about football

Randy Lerner knows nothing about football fans

Give them some more scarves, give them some more flags.   Get General Krulak to whip 'em back into shape with arms round shoulders and homilies about Marks and Spencer balti pies.   Storm in a teacup.

This whole business is so crazy, so bungled and irresponsible I do not see the sunlit uplands of mid table mediocrity I see Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingham Forest, Middlesborough and Leeds United.   Proud and famous clubs terminally on their knees as a result of executive incompetence.

Move over Mike Ashley.

[villa for life]

Randy has been fantastic for our club and if he appoints AM, that won't change anything.

AM doesn't scare me in the same way appointing McClaren or Martinez would have done. I believe if you go back a dozen or so pages when we were locked in a relegation battle, many many people on here wanted anyone BUT Houllier. AM's name came up and at that point a lot of people backed him as being better than Houllier.

The thing is Gary Mac, with his last few games in charge, did rather well and managed to somehow get us up to a respectable position. But let's not forget, we hadn't ensured our premiership surivival until the penultimate game of the season. During the dark days, weeks and months, Houllier was lambasted from pillar to post. Anyone can just check through the dozens of post match threads.

I believe AM if appointed will have a much better points ratio than GED had in his first season in charge, and I mean when GED was in charge of the team, not when KMac or Gary Mac were.

I'd prefer Hughes or Moyes to AM, but I think he will have success at Villa if appointed and if given a chance.

[Claret trim]

According to the Graun, the reason we didn't go in for Hughes was because of Doug - jeez, thought he was dead? - and the fact that Hughes would have wanted cash to spend (as opposed to Irn Bru, which is presumably what Fecking Eck will be getting).

Nothing new in this article explaining why they expect us to sign Eck today. However, there are some wise words from Curbs at the end of the article.

Reduced budget? Limited ambitions? Did I say Curbs?

[brian green]

VFL  the appointment of McLeish scares and depresses the shit out of me.

This is not some abstract laboratory experiment where you say put the gallic one back on the shelf lets try the ginger one.

What is going to happen is as follows as surely as night follows day.

First game of the season at Villa Park.   The vast majority of Villa fans angry and charged up at the way McLeish has been foisted on us.   The players will be nervous.   The first mistake, the first goal scored against us and the whole thing will turn nasty.   I promise you it will.   Players will become more nervous and start hoofing the ball anywhere and the crowd will become more restive and see the shit football as the McLeish brand.   It will be a one way downhill ride until somebody at the club has the courage to say we got it wrong.

I go back a long way and I am not saying this to provoke alarm or despondency.   Read your club history and you will see that it is a recurring theme.

[Nev]

When Doug was in charge the acknowledgement of our history was selective, the ground looked cheap and tatty and the chairman had an ego the size of the Holte End.

Randy has rightly bought the achievements of the past to the fore, given the gorund and it's surroundings a spruce up and introduced a bit of style and does this all in a quiet and dignified manner.

But as far as football is concerned, Doug was a crafty bleeder, ably assisted by an experienced and knowledgeable secretary.

Randy dispensed with all this experience and appointed his own man, and on the evidence so far, it doesn't appear to be working.

What we need is a combination of the two. But in a sad reflection of our recent history at least, we've got a hell of a lot more moaning ahead of us.

[ROBBO]

A successfull club need everyone pulling together this board has managed to undermine the very people it relies on to support the club. This manager will be on notice from day one , god help him if we lose our first home game.
I support Aston Villa but not the management team, they have turned the dream into a nightmare.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

The only chance McLeish has of getting the Villa Park crowd onside is a win against the Rags but unless we're going to draw them in the cup, it ain't going to happen. I really can't understand why we give them so much importance, it's certainly increased over the last  8 years but for me, they're still the poxy little club down the road.

Maybe they've dragged us down to their level.

[Lowendbehold]

There seems to be two or three schools of thought on this thread. 

Either;

1.  He's not good enough, or

2.  He's a blue nose and shouldn't be employed as a consequence, or

3.  Because he's a blue nose the animosity will be so great he cannot succeed.

As to 1 people like Dion Dublin, Stan Colleymore, Graham Taylor and others within the game say he is highly regarded.  They say he is the ideal man for the job.  No he hasnt got a PL team into the top 6, but he's been managing the Bloes, owned by pretty poor owners.

As to 2.  Get a life and grow up.  If it helps, the blues seem even more upset they are losing him than you lot are at getting him.

As to 3.  Why be ruled by the children in the nursery or the idiots in the asylum?  It's our club as much ours as theirs.  The majority are the mature and sane.

[jembob]

The core reasons for this awful day in the history of Aston Villa Football Club are

Randy Lerner knows nothing about Birmingham people

Randy Lerner knows nothing about football

Randy Lerner knows nothing about football fans

Give them some more scarves, give them some more flags.   Get General Krulak to whip 'em back into shape with arms round shoulders and homilies about Marks and Spencer balti pies.   Storm in a teacup.

This whole business is so crazy, so bungled and irresponsible I do not see the sunlit uplands of mid table mediocrity I see Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingham Forest, Middlesborough and Leeds United.   Proud and famous clubs terminally on their knees as a result of executive incompetence.

Move over Mike Ashley.

Brian

I can't say that I agree with much of this and would explain why but I'm just about to leave for work.

The real fact though is that WE don't know much about Lerner and I can't see how you feel qualified to make such strong comments about him unless you know more than we do. Do you really think that such a bright man has learned nothing since he bought the club? From the outside things look to be chaotic at the moment but that's mainly due to the lack of information from the club, which is normal.

[ROBBO]

I think we do know that the club hid the truth when they said they were going to interview him, the deal was stitched up long before then that's why the General came out punching. For all the posturing of loving the Villa none of the board has the faintest idea what a true supporter is, i don't know of one who would have dreamt of appointing AM.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

The odds are so stacked against McLeish, he'll have to start the season with at least 5 new players in the team and they're unlikely to gell overnight.
We'll need:

1. A goalkeeper
2. Right back
3. Left back
4. Defensive midfielder
5. Replacement for Ashley Young

Unless the summer signings really delight the fans, the poor bloke won't get a chance to show what he can do with a decent squad at a proper club. Even then, some look like they won't give him a chance whatever happens.

What a mess. Problem is, there's no real alternative out there, at least with Premier League experience.

[godzvilla]

I can hold my nose and accept McLeish because he seems to have a decent reputation in the Football fraternity and apparently Lerner and Co have been pretty extensive in garnering opinion on the  man  and with a good team behind him I think he could probably do the job .What truly , truly worries me is the Team he brings in with him , given that most new Managers like to be surrounded by their trusted cohorts ( sycophants ? )  . Will he , for instance bring in Peter Grant  his former no 2 at Bloose ? a former Celtic & Scotland player and formerly no 2 at the Stripeyfilth . Or will he be asked to accept the current Coaching staff ? and give us some much needed continuity . Gary Mac I,m ambivalent about  but the thought of maybe Sid leaving ( as has been mentioned on these pages ) is not a happy one .
For all his ( perceived ) faults , GED was responsible for introducing some good habits at Villa Park , not the least being in the areas of Fitness and Technical Training , I would hate to see all that go to waste if we drift back to being just another run-of-the-mill  British side with a simplistic  emphasis on basic strength and stamina and  Football …. ‘ a la MON ‘ .
If his first act as Manager was to show us that he means not  to copy the Blose Blueprint  ( Bloseprint ? ) here and make an imaginative and progressive appointments  on the  Coaching  front  that  for me that would be an enormous step in the right direction .
That  we  seem to have a good backroom staff at the Villa , goes without saying , the mere thought of A.M. bringing in Coaches from the Sty who have been responsible for the truly awful standard of football that passes for entertainment over there , fills me with dread .
Mc Leish  from the Blose …..OK , I can live with that , the rest , please God NO ! .
…………..Godzvilla ! .

[brian green]

To jembob I say I examine the evidence forensically and based on what has happened in the period since O'Neill attempted to destroy us and today when a proven third rate manager is appointed and those are the conclusions I draw.   My family member who sits with me on the Holte has met him and talked to him and those conclusions were entirely favourable which makes his presiding over the current abomination all the more tragic.

To Lowandbehold I would add a fourth category

4. Exhibionist dissenters.

[Rigadon]

If it's McLiesh it's up to us to get behind him, totally behind him, and create a siege mentality. 

All this Randy-bashing makes us look like spoiled kids.  He's gone from being good 'ol uncle Randy', to ignorant, uncaring yank in a matter of days.  It's pretty desperate stuff. 

[Dante Lavelli]

I am going to provide a slightly weird glimmer of hope here based on my non existent psychology degree and years researching football culture.  Bear with me...

We are all villa fans.  First and foremost we want villa to be good and win matches.  There is a  small chance that the fans will realise that jumping on AM will ultimately be detrimental to the performance of the team and therefore will resist giving him shit.  As a result they (the holte end) will try to become the "twelfth man" BECAUSE Mcleish is in charge.  I'm not saying they'll be singing "Alex McLeish's C&B Army but they'll be supporting the players and club in order to make up for AM's perceived deficiencies - as mentioned above, a bit of a siege mentality.

In (this) reality, it turns out McLeish is actually an alright manager - good at motivation and organisation etc - and the team start to do well.  All of a sudden with a positive supportive crowd and a manager/team with momentum we get back to the MON days and maybe even beyond.

We won't win the league but all this doom mongering is counter productive.  We may as well try and enjoy it and have fun because wanting/waiting for AM to fail is a sure fire way of ensuring failure.