Alex McLeish confirmed as manager

[richard moore]

Welcome Alex! Good luck, and ignore the vocal minority.  Once we start seeing good football and good results they'll go quiet.

Not sure which is braver, him taking the job or you posting that on here!! I take my hat off to you sir...

[Risso]

There's no bravery involved at all.  In the rare event that he does well, the criticism will die down soon enough, and if he doesn't he'll be sacked and get a huge pay off. 

[Simon Ward]

The key question for Big Eck is:

Brown sauce, red sauce or no sauce at all on your sausage sandwich?

We need that answer asap!

[Mark H]

Welcome - I will do my best to start with a clean slate - you do your best to prove that this appointment was worth the effort

[DBTW]

He could have stayed at SHA and raked in a mere £800,000p.a and had the quiet life. Wages dont play a part in this in my opinion. He knows the feelings of the fans, and has shown balls to still take the challenge on.

Regarding military references, its a totally different situation, and not at all comparable so lets keep everything in perspective.

[Fergal]

This shows a distinct lack of ambition.  So sad.

[badluckeric(gates)]

Welcome to Aston Villa 'The' Midlands football club.
Whilst I too didnt agree with the appointment I believe it is possible you may surprise a lot of people. Even when you were at the dark side I thought there was a presence about you that means business.
With the right support and better players, who knows.
Lets go!

[Rip Van We Go Again]

The man has shown a lot of courage and bottle to take the job. Let's get behind him and see what he can do.
I'm sure there wont be any patting of other teams crests or waving to opposition fans....and he definitely wont be calling his own fans fickle....unless he wins the league that is!

Courage?  He's taken over a football club where he'll probably be booed a bit for 90 minutes every other week, in return for a multi million pound salary.  He hasn't stormed a military bunker to rescue injured colleagues.

There are many different types of courage and it does take balls to do what he's done. Yes he'll be well rewarded but I'm sure he's not exactly a pauper so he could gave easily opted for the quiet life.

Even if he is rich, he won't turn down £40k pw.
Well off people rarely kick back and live off their savings, I can't think of many football Managers who have done it.
O'Neill was nicely compensated by us and he was rich anyway, but he'll still be in the market for a well paid job.

[mallo]

*sigh*
Welcome - and learn to attack - and be quick about it.

[Tom_Mc9?]

Another positive thing about him is you rarely hear about any player fall outs from Birmingham, unlike Houllier and MON managed.

[Rip Van We Go Again]

He could have stayed at SHA and raked in a mere £800,000p.a and had the quiet life. Wages dont play a part in this in my opinion. He knows the feelings of the fans, and has shown balls to still take the challenge on.

Wages and much better owners are the factors of him taking the job, he would have had never ending grief at the Dog Shit, the owners would have expected instant promotion on a shoestring and also a large say in which players were signed.
From the off, one of their board was at the training ground in a tracksuit every day observing and giving opinions on players.

[achilles]

An absolute unbelievable appointment made by a bunch of incompetent board of imbeciles!

And NO I don't welcome him to Villa Park at all!

And don't give me all this bullshit about bottle, its all to do with another payrise and paycheck, utter, utter crap!

[Brend'Watkins]

You're right, there is. 

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

Season ticket renewed....fixtures all put in my diary (in pencil).

Right now we are 2nd in the table and unbeaten, Im backing the our manager 100%. Come on Villa !

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/table/default.stm

[PeterWithe]

Another positive thing about him is you rarely hear about any player fall outs from Birmingham, unlike Houllier and MON managed.

They had so much respect for him they went on the piss till four in the morning a few days before the game that got them relegated.