Alex Mcleish - good or average start?

[WeDontWantMcelish]

We keep hearing Mcleish has made a 'good' start but is 5 points from 3 easy games really a good start? After this weekend we'll be around 8th having not played anything like a decent team. So that tells me so far our projected finishing position would be around 12/13 when you take into account us having to play the big teams.  So an average to a below average start would be a more accurate statement.

He needs to understand simply not loosing isn't good enough for a club like Villa !!

[Marlon's Hairy Wood]

somewhere between good and average

I feel a tad bad for him as we had enough chances to score today, if dunnes header had bulleted in for example we'd be joint top

[The Situation]

Strong username

[TheSandman]

A few points.

- We finished 9th last season and since then we have lost a number of solid or better first team performers so sadly a midtable position is about par for the course. I'd put us a little higher up than your 12th/13th more 9th/10th. That's not McLeish's fault. It's the harsh financial restrictions that he has to work under that are to blame for that.

- The possibly uninspiring defensive football we have been told to expect will actually work well against the better teams where the onus is on them to beat us than it will against the poorer teams who we will have difficulty breaking down.

- The season is still young. We will only truly know how good we are by Christmas where we will have a very clear picture of where we are at. I expect things will change. We might even stop playing Heskey as a roving defender!

- Aside from a few questions over his tactics I feel McLeish has done little wrong. He's said the right things (Unlike Houllier), he's improved the defence a bit (I'm not going to claim he's worked miracles yet though) and he's signed two players I think most people on this forum would quite happily have signed and who'll be excellent players for us.

I'm not going to claim he's brilliant. But all in all I think he's been decent enough so far. We'll know more in a few more games time.

[WeDontWantMcelish]

Thanks Sitch 

[Tom_Mc9?]

TheZogman's got it spot on in my opinion.

[Toronto Villa]

He's made a solid if unspectacular start. There's no point getting carried away and a million things will change during the course of the season. Right now the league table is meaningless as one win can vault you 10 places and one defeat can see you sink by the same. McLeish is still very much in the discovery stage of what he has, and it will take some time yet to get things really going. That's going to be our frustration as fans. I hope that in the next 4 days we can bring some new faces just to freshen things up. McLeish from his interviews knows it and hopefully the board will back his judgement..

[Californian Villain]

Considering the quality of opposition and that we've had two home games. 5 points is the minimum requirement.

[KevinGage]

He needs to understand simply not loosing isn't good enough for a club like Villa !!

Well it is- to an extent.  At least based on recent (ie almost 20 years) history.  Most draws in the history of the Prem would indicate our standards aren't so high that we can dish out too much criticism for a guy a with a record of Won 1 Drawn 2 from his first three competitive games.

[Salsa Party Animal]

Defending good, attacking need to do better.  But there is fewer flair players. We need to be braver with Ireland and Bannan

[pooligan]

Average start considering who we have played and that two of the three games have been at Villa Park. Defending looks a lot better,while attacking certainly looks a lot worse.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

Your nickname tells me all I need to know.

I really cannot be bothered to check the results but how did Houllier, MON, DOL etc do in their 1st 3 games against sides outside the SKY4 ? I doubt their points haul was radically different. Were there any threads with the knives out after just 3 games for them ?

Clearly you are not going to accept the guy under any circumstances barring an absolutely miraculous set of results. But you could at least wait till he actually loses a game, be it next game or after xmas, before you have a go.

I am guessing you are one of three things.
1) One of the banner waving fools who were on the Holte steps for the cameras and still unable to accept reality.
2) One of the new class of supporter who frankly I despise. Anything less than a comfortable 2-0 home win with a 90 minute 5star performance is always greeted with booing the moment the ref blows the full time whistle. They want instant continual success and every manager is just two defeats from being a useless incompetent. 
3) Here from the dark side making mischief.

[ozzjim]

Average. Wolves have had the same fixtures but 2 away and 1 home and got 7 points, which gives the true difficulty of things into perspective.

[Phil from the upper holte]

Average

Good point at fulham, I'm happy we've tightened up the defence. Worried about attack I think we've created one chance for Bent. I thought Ireland and Bannan were excellent in the week and I think one of them need to play in heskey's role

[ktvillan]

5 points is the bare minimum I would have expected from our starting fixtures, so an average start.  Still too early to judge him but defensive signs are good, attacking signs less so.