Mcleish - 'I Accepted the challenge'

[pablo_picasso]

Lerner being impressed by a nice loser is almost poetic.

I'm still convinced the share value of Bank of America was the biggest reason for Lerner's decision to focus beyond B6. If memory serves he lost about 80% of the value of the family credit card sale. Add to that an expensive divorce,  he was in Xia territory.

I think the divorce was probably the biggest factor in his dereliction of duty.

I think Lerner gets a pretty bad rap sometimes.

Yes, it ended poorly, due to circumstance, & he sold to an absolute charlatan, but we had a lot of fun in those three years we finished 6th & got to the cup final.

I don't think things would have been nearly anywhere near as bad if he hadnt gone through his divorce.

[eamonn]

Fans of other teams used to say ‘you don’t like him because he’s ex Blues’ and it wasn’t that. It was because he was an uninspiring manager with a uber-defensive style. I remember us trying to keep the ball by the corner flag at Lotus Road with ten minutes to go ffs!

If our manager ever again clenches a raised fist to the air/exec boxes at Villa Park following a home draw against Stoke City, I will quit this club.

[steamer]

Sorry although not there in person I must be a Dullard as I thought it was an April fool (late) or other Joke
Worst appointment in memory and we have had many crap ones.
Common sense prevailed in that he only lasted 1 season
Decent guy and I would buy him a pint, but never going to work out.
Shit, checking his Wiki page he is younger than me

[SoccerHQ]

12 years ago today he was appointed.

What a weird period that was.

Wanted Martinez but he didn't even want to be interviewed. McClaren did get interviewed but then once that leaked we scrapped the idea of appointing him (and given he went to Forest and was sacked by early October he'd have been worse than McLeish).

Then we actually appointed Alex McLeish....

Always good to see in these long forgotten threads going back to page 1 and seeing what the views were, Paulie sums it perfectly as that was the new reality for us at the time, not Lerner and co just taking a breather for a year before re-grouping.

Also ironic he mentions Everton and Benitez and Ancelotti being linked to us. Both would manage Everton and now they're pretty much in same position as we were in 2011.

[SamTheMouse]

If he'd been any good and Small Heath had wanted to keep him, we'd have been perfectly happy to steal him.

As it was, he was shite, and they were perfectly happy for us to take him off their hands.

[ez]

The only Villa manager who would park the bus for a low scoring defeat. No wonder he punched the air after a home draw with Stoke.
As I remember,  Lerner said we looked at two dozen managers before getting McLeish. Martinez was one so who on earth were the other twenty two.

[DB]

How the club thought…I know let’s give the job to a bloke who has just been relegated is still mind-boggling. Forget he came from Castle Greyskull, the fact we awarded his failure was crazy.
As a bloke, didn’t mind him, thought he was a decent chap.

[Risso]

Looking back with hindsight though, it was clear that Lerner's heart wasn't in it any more at the point when O'Neill left. His replacement was the semi-retired Houllier which was a crazy choice at the time, and then Houllier's replacement was another incredibly stupid decision. I imagine the main reason in Lerner's mind was that McLeish would be cheap and grateful for the job. Blues would have been grateful to get his salary off the wage bill following relegation, and he'd have been happy to stay in the Premier League. I think Wigan away and Bolton at home was the most hostile I can remember fans being towards a manager, ever.

[AV82EC]

Looking back with hindsight though, it was clear that Lerner's heart wasn't in it any more at the point when O'Neill left. His replacement was the semi-retired Houllier which was a crazy choice at the time, and then Houllier's replacement was another incredibly stupid decision. I imagine the main reason in Lerner's mind was that McLeish would be cheap and grateful for the job. Blues would have been grateful to get his salary off the wage bill following relegation, and he'd have been happy to stay in the Premier League. I think Wigan away and Bolton at home was the most hostile I can remember fans being towards a manager, ever.

I think those Wigan and Bolton reactions were a whole season of pent up frustration coming out Risso. For the main Villa fans are pretty reasonable about Managerial appointments even if they have significant misgivings as most people take the view of we’ll give them a chance. As the season progressed it just seemed to be death by boredom and for the away fans the dam broke at Wigan (I was there and it was the quite obvious settle for a point substitutions that did it)  and for the home fans getting beat by Bolton who were relegated was the final straw. In hindsight we were far too forgiving of Lerner despite at that point his largesse.

[PeterWithesShin]

When you consider how much money we'd spent on players in the 5 or so years before the Bolton game, and then look at the side and sub bench for the Bolton game, it's staggering. The 7 subs were 6 players through the academy and Guzan, who was young and inexperienced at the time.

And then the starting 11 was another 5 academy players, plus Given, Warnock, Hutton, Cuellar, Zog and Heskey.

How the fuck do you spend a fortune over 5 years and end up with that 18 on a match day!

[dave.woodhall]

Bolton was one of the weirdest games I've ever seen. I've said before that I had to leave at half-time when we were well on top. We scored just as I got home and that should have been game over.  I dropped my H&V bag, picked up a suitcase and got back in the car. I'd only been away five minutes maximum and in that time we'd gone 2-1 down while Paul Franks was hyperventilating. 

[pablo_picasso]

When you consider how much money we'd spent on players in the 5 or so years before the Bolton game, and then look at the side and sub bench for the Bolton game, it's staggering. The 7 subs were 6 players through the academy and Guzan, who was young and inexperienced at the time.

And then the starting 11 was another 5 academy players, plus Given, Warnock, Hutton, Cuellar, Zog and Heskey.

How the fuck do you spend a fortune over 5 years and end up with that 18 on a match day!

Because O'Neill always built his castles on sand.

That way, when it all collapses, his reputation was protected & people would go on about "what a great job" he did.

He, along with other managers of his ilk, like Redknapp for example, managed the clubs for their own time at the club & their own time alone.

Which is why most clubs suffered after they left.

Not because of the talent of the managers, but because they had build squads to collapse on the next manager.

[Risso]

When you consider how much money we'd spent on players in the 5 or so years before the Bolton game, and then look at the side and sub bench for the Bolton game, it's staggering. The 7 subs were 6 players through the academy and Guzan, who was young and inexperienced at the time.

And then the starting 11 was another 5 academy players, plus Given, Warnock, Hutton, Cuellar, Zog and Heskey.

How the fuck do you spend a fortune over 5 years and end up with that 18 on a match day!

It was an incredibly rapid dismantling. The good players we had could see the writing on the wall, and were desperate to get away. Between August 2010 and Aug 2011 we lost Milner, Ashley Young, Reo-Coker, Friedel, Downing, Carew and Luke Young. Unfortunately, the players we brought in were mostly all hopeless, eg N'Zogbia, Makoun and Ireland, and we had to supplement them with the likes of Lichaj and Herd etc.

[itbrvilla]

Looking back with hindsight though, it was clear that Lerner's heart wasn't in it any more at the point when O'Neill left. His replacement was the semi-retired Houllier which was a crazy choice at the time, and then Houllier's replacement was another incredibly stupid decision. I imagine the main reason in Lerner's mind was that McLeish would be cheap and grateful for the job. Blues would have been grateful to get his salary off the wage bill following relegation, and he'd have been happy to stay in the Premier League. I think Wigan away and Bolton at home was the most hostile I can remember fans being towards a manager, ever.

McLeish was was one of the highest earning managers in the world whilst he was here. Certainly in the top 20, possibly to 10. It was a lazy appointment based on the fact he won a trophy with a Blues team IMO

[Somniloquism]

Looking back with hindsight though, it was clear that Lerner's heart wasn't in it any more at the point when O'Neill left. His replacement was the semi-retired Houllier which was a crazy choice at the time, and then Houllier's replacement was another incredibly stupid decision. I imagine the main reason in Lerner's mind was that McLeish would be cheap and grateful for the job. Blues would have been grateful to get his salary off the wage bill following relegation, and he'd have been happy to stay in the Premier League. I think Wigan away and Bolton at home was the most hostile I can remember fans being towards a manager, ever.

McLeish was was one of the highest earning managers in the world whilst he was here. Certainly in the top 20, possibly to 10. It was a lazy appointment based on the fact he won a trophy with a Blues team IMO

..... on a budget.