Mcleish - 'I Accepted the challenge'

[Chris Smith]

Explain Hughton. Getting Newcastle promoted was a piece of piss given the players they had, a much easier job than getting Blues up.

Everyone is so one eyed about McLeish's record, yes they went down last season but they also won a cup and had their best ever PL finish the season before. He's also got decent achievements from his time in Scotland and not just with Rangers. So it's a mixed record, not the unmitigated disaster that is being suggested. He's also, seemingly, a thoroughly decent and likeable man.

He wasn't my first choice, far from it, but now he's here he's got my backing and I'm not going to undermine him and therefore the club by bitching and whinging about it every 5 minutes.

When Hughton was sacked on 7th December 2010, Newcastle were 11th in the league and 5 places better off than Villa, the previous week they had been 9th, having gained a 1-1 draw at Chelsea.  They also had in that season impressively beaten Villa by 6 goals to 0 - they ended up finishing 12th with a new manager and over half the season left -  at the very least he was a very promising manager in my view and he attacked, which is more than you can say than Alex 'Hard to Beat' McLeish.

It's bloody Newcastle with huge crowds and players like Barton and Nolan to pick from. you'd have to be an idiot not to at least get them into mid table. Taking the Noses to 9th is a more difficult task, winning a trophy with them is a major achievement and they're not the first club to hit a wall after putting everything into a cup competition.

[citizenDJ]

Mcleish is a symptom of where the club is at, not the cause.
He represents the ambition of the owner.

Whisper it but Lerner thinks he's found our own David Moyes and for half the price.

Well, you never know. Maybe he has.

As for the style of play argument, and accepting it's only five games into this season, we played some pretty dismal stuff under Houllier and O'Neil too, at times.

McLeish does seem like a solid, safe bet for the club at the moment, and thus far he does appear to have 'galvanised' the squad, which may not have been too easy. He's used the funds he did have well (although N'Zogbia hasn't, um, 'fired' as yet I'm sure he will...), and as an ambassador for the club I'd say he has made a good start. Unbeaten in the league isn't a bad start, either, although I do think we should have done a little bit better.

It's not beyond the realms of possibility that Randy Lerner actually does know what he's doing - by which I mean, a season or two of relative parsimony may well reap rewards in a year or two. Perhaps building a new squad bit by bit might pay off; a new centre-back in January, a new 'holding' midfielder in the summer....

A few 'ifs and buts' there, but I don't think things are as horrendous as all that.

[kippaxvilla2]

Chris, I am time outing from this thread on an 'agree to disagree' arley barley type fashion.

[Locko]

17th would seem accomplishment in his eyes no doubt and probably the board's as well because it's another season where they can get their greedy hands on the Premier League money.

Marvellous!
Randy the asset stripper. He's put no money whatsoever into our club has he? He's only in it for the Sky cash.
 *Rolly eye and utter cockend emoticons*

Has Randy put in any money other than what it cost to buy the club? Everything spent has been in the form of loans to RAL and we're getting charged interest on those. I seriously doubt RL's interest has been wholly philanthropic; anyone rolls up with the necessaries to buy us tomorrow and he's off. Can't wait meself - RL / Ellis you can barely see the join...

[olaftab]

I do strongly think, though, that it's silly both to slate him for where he was before and also to use that as a reason to write off criticism of him. His former employers should be used neither as a stick to beat him with or as a reason to discount what people may see as valid criticism of him.

this is confusing me but perhaps it's a little too early on a Sunday morning to argue if sitting on a very wide fence is a bad idea!   
 

[Monty]

We know the board are the problem here, with their mishandling of situations such as the sale of Downing (Young was pretty unavoidable, but Spurs showed with Modric what could have been done with Downing), and then what amounted to, essentially, reinvesting about a quarter of that. However, it is also the fact that they know so little about the game as to appoint the current manager, who I don't doubt is doing his best, but who is just not good enough, and the fact that the board appointed him does not reflect well on them.

[jimmeh1987]

How are people going to go on like this, its pretty obvious we aint gonna be as good as last year when we loose our two best players from last year, get a grip and stop blaming him for not playing like barca, which some unrealistic people on here seem to think we are...

[olaftab]

I would have thought that having knowledge of football in general and of your local rivals has fuck all to do with putting energy into following your own club.
And God forbid, most of my mates support local clubs
so when we talk football I hear what's going on at their
clubs.

Correct answer.

[olaftab]

Mcleish is a symptom of where the club is at, not the cause.
He represents the ambition of the owner.

Fully agree with this I am afraid. Unless something happens in the next few seasons to level the financial state of the game we have to accept that Randy is happy for the Club to mess around as an also ran in the PL.

[Eigentor]

McLeish was brought here to shore up the defence and make us hard to beat. So far we've conceded less than one goal a game in the league and are still unbeaten in the league. His record doesn't justify expectations that we'll play fluid, attacking football. Park the bus and, if possible, nick a goal on a set-piece or counter attack, seems to be his mantra. That's what we've got so far, and that's probably what we could expect.

Hope is an important part of following a football match, but the idea that selling Young and Downing and appointing McLeish as manager would have us playing entertaining football, is a bit like thinking that selling Given and appointing Ian Holloway would do wonders for our defence.

What we've got, is what we've signed up for.

[Monty]

McLeish was brought here to shore up the defence and make us hard to beat. So far we've conceded less than one goal a game in the league and are still unbeaten in the league. His record doesn't justify expectations that we'll play fluid, attacking football. Park the bus and, if possible, nick a goal on a set-piece or counter attack, seems to be his mantra. That's what we've got so far, and that's probably what we could expect.

I understand the argument, but I don't think that McLeish is a particularly good defensive manager, just a particularly defensive one. He doesn't know how to truly organise a back line so that they won't concede, he just plonks people deep and behind the ball and relies on courage under fire. I don't think you can call any manager particularly good at defensive play if you see how goalkeepers have consistently enhanced their reputations under him, as any team relying on its keeper is clearly giving away too many chances.

[Louzie0]

Is there a name for the internet law that says the more idiotic the statement, the more convinced the poster is that 'everybody' thinks the same?

There's the 'Katie Price Assertion' - 'everybody agrees with me because, being me, I'm always right. So why wouldn't they?'

Evidence - every bloody book the woman has ever had printed on her behalf by a mean-eyed pink publicity machine written.   Including, if the reviews are true, the latest one.

If we're going for sheer granite-jawed steely eyed slightly mad self -assertion in a football context, I'd offer Cantona.
 

[Greg N'Ash]

Clever bit of P.R. whatever way you look at it.

"You can slag me off but no-one good would have took the job under these conditions"

[Eigentor]

McLeish was brought here to shore up the defence and make us hard to beat. So far we've conceded less than one goal a game in the league and are still unbeaten in the league. His record doesn't justify expectations that we'll play fluid, attacking football. Park the bus and, if possible, nick a goal on a set-piece or counter attack, seems to be his mantra. That's what we've got so far, and that's probably what we could expect.

I understand the argument, but I don't think that McLeish is a particularly good defensive manager, just a particularly defensive one. He doesn't know how to truly organise a back line so that they won't concede, he just plonks people deep and behind the ball and relies on courage under fire.

I agree with this. His success isn't based on good organization, but on risk-aversion. So clean sheets will come at the cost of not scoring much. My point isn't that McLeish is any good, because I don't think he is; it's that he hasn't underperformed compared to what could be expected (based on his previous record).

[Monty]

McLeish was brought here to shore up the defence and make us hard to beat. So far we've conceded less than one goal a game in the league and are still unbeaten in the league. His record doesn't justify expectations that we'll play fluid, attacking football. Park the bus and, if possible, nick a goal on a set-piece or counter attack, seems to be his mantra. That's what we've got so far, and that's probably what we could expect.

I understand the argument, but I don't think that McLeish is a particularly good defensive manager, just a particularly defensive one. He doesn't know how to truly organise a back line so that they won't concede, he just plonks people deep and behind the ball and relies on courage under fire.

I agree with this. His success isn't based on good organization, but on risk-aversion. So clean sheets will come at the cost of not scoring much. My point isn't that McLeish is any good, because I don't think he is; it's that he hasn't underperformed compared to what could be expected (based on his previous record).

Can't disagree. Which is why the board's appointment of him, short of a character-altering change of style, is at best mysterious and at worst misguided.