McLeish could be the manager to take this club forward

[atomicjam]

He is a poor manager and will NOT take us forward.   End of. 

My toughts exactly. And judging by the way he did not motivate Birmingham towards the end of last season I really hope we are not too close to the bottom three towards the end of the season. AM is a very poor manager. 

[SX150]

Paul Lambert is our man. Young , hungry, innovative  playing  modern day football.

I agree, Lambert is doing well at Norwich, so too the chap at Swansea.
Remember, though, these clubs supporters don't have the expectations like at clubs like ours.
They can play with no fear, just like Blackpool last season, and because everyone expects them to go straight back down there is no pressure.
I just wonder how they would cope at a club where to finish below 8th is deemed failure, just as some supporters of our club do.

That would describe SHA under AM, I wonder where their performances were?

[Risso]

Paul Lambert is our man. Young , hungry, innovative  playing  modern day football.

I agree, Lambert is doing well at Norwich, so too the chap at Swansea.
Remember, though, these clubs supporters don't have the expectations like at clubs like ours.
They can play with no fear, just like Blackpool last season, and because everyone expects them to go straight back down there is no pressure.
I just wonder how they would cope at a club where to finish below 8th is deemed failure, just as some supporters of our club do.

If you pick a successful manager from a smaller team, you give yourself a chance.  Picking a crap manager from a small team with two relegations and with a reputation for playing awful football is just shooting yourself in the foot.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

this can only lead to a prolonged period of mediocracy and possible relagations.

You are suggesting we could go down more than one level ?  It has happened before and some of us are old enough to remember.
As much as I have fond memories of our days in the 3rd division, let me assure you there is absolutely no comparison between how Villa are in 2012 and how they were during the 1960s decline.

[picicata]

The best we can hope from McCleish is that he can sort out the defence and make us alot tighter at the back. His teams have never been attacking, the season he took Blues to 9th they scored 38 goals, last season they scored 37. Even their season in the Championship they only scored 54, the lowest amount in the top ten.

This season we have scored 23 goals so far and assuming a miracle doesn't happen and we remain a dull and turgid team we will score about 40 goals this season.
 
So if you are happy that maybe, maybe, McCleish can make us better at the back then yes he could secure us the odd top ten finish. For me, I would rather take the risk on a younger manager with better ideas of how the game should be played.

[Greg N'Ash]

i've been impressed by lambert. My only reservation is his vague resemblance to MON. At least he doesn't seem to have the same personality or pseudo-intellectual interview technique

[paul_e]

I back McLeish 100% , and results willing and people keeping off his back, I back him long term for us to move forward.
From the outset, we had the ridiculous spectacle of `fans` wanting him sacked before he had even signed a contract and done a single days work on our behalf. All because of a stupid misguided tribalism, where some people are more concerned about rivalries with another club who should be irrelevant to us instead of what is best for the long term health of Aston Villa.
Of course now what most of  the anti - Mcleish crowd say is it not his former connections but his defensive minded tactics and poor managerial ability the reasons they cannot back him. Nothing to do with him having been employed by Birmingham City. What complete bullshit !
All managers live and die by results, but dont tell me that if any other candidate for the job had been appointed and they had exactly the same set of results and performances with the same resources they would be suffering the same level of antipathy and calls for their removal.
What I see is someone with strength of character and confidence in their own ability conducting themselves with integrity in the face of unjustified abuse. Those are the sort of people I want working in our club - professionals with integrity.
Those who are so anti - Mcleish, just be honest, you wont give him a more of a chance because you think of him as a bluenose. But no you wont do that because from day one you didnt want him and barring an absolutely miraculous set of results you were going to find every other reason under the sun to justify why he shouldnt be given a chance to do good for us.   

Erm, no.

I'm one of his biggest critics and I really couldn't care less who we got him from.  The issue was he was a manager who got a team relegated.  They stuck with him and he completely rebuild the squad (on similar funds to what many believe he can expect to see here) only to see them get relegated again having scored barely more than a goal a game for his entire time at the club.

He is then sending emails saying he's not defensive as if by telling us he wants to play exciting football we're suddenly going to forgive the fact that we're the worst side to watch in the league.

Regarding players the point I was trying to make is that, at some point in their career a manager has made most of this squad play at a pretty high standard.  To have so many of them woefully short of confidence at the same time has got to be a consequence of poor management and coaching.  If you don't think this is something the coaches and manager should be working to resolve then we might as well get rid of the lot of them and let the team manage itself because the only point of coaching is to make sure the players can give their best on a saturday afternoon.

I don't mind the league position, I was very positive towards Houllier right until the end because I could see a pattern to what he was trying to achieve and a determination to remove from the squad the players that were disrupting his efforts to do make a success of it.

Even with MON I could see what he was trying to achieve and how he wanted the team to play, that he left us in the shit with players on big long contracts that no one else wants means he's rightly going to get a lot of abuse but at least there was a style about the way he was going.

The only plan I can determine for McLeish is that he wants to keep things tight early on so we have a back 4 that stay in a line regardless of whether we have the ball or not.  We then have a midfield sitting in their positions and not really going looking for the ball, etc.  After about 30minutes the word goes out that the players can start to express themselves and we see a little more movement, but often by this point the other team is so on top and has so much possession that we don't seem to be able to get a foot on the ball before half time.  In the 2nd half we then come out and look ok most weeks but then someone makes a mistake and everything falls apart.  McLeish sees this and starts acting all offended on the touchline but does nothing to change things until about 70mins where he makes the most predictable sub imaginable and nothing changes then he'll make another sub or 2 at about 80-85minutes when it's far too late for those players to do anything.

I think the bigger issue i have though is that we have players like Bannan, Fonz, Gardner (and Clark and Albrighton until recently) who need time on the pitch to show if they can be valued members of the squad or not but he's so scared to change things that none of them is getting any decent time on the pitch.  When injuries forced him to pick Clark and Albrighton they came into the side and have proven they deserve to be considered full members of the squad so the talent is there.

I can accept a transition season if you can see the manager is getting a measure of all the options he has and is forming a plan of what he's going to do to make next season better but he's not doing that in my opinion.  He shipped out a defensive midfielder without ever seeing him play a game and we've had a glaring hole in defensive midfield all season, surely trying Makoun in that role should've been something we looked at.

The list of things to count against him purely on what he's done since he arrived at the club far outweighs the positives.  It's all well and good to say he needs time to get his own players in and build his own squad but if he gets us relegated by doing that we're going to be left in the championship with a squadful of journeymen like the blues are now.  He has to earn the right to the time to rebuild the squad and on current performance he hasn't earned that right.  If things improve towards the end of the season and we start to see signs that he's getting the team playing a style he wants then I'll change my opinion but what has happened so far doesn't suggest that is the case.

[old man villa fan]

The substitution of Warnock was not a tactical move, it was punishment for Warnock's errors.   With ten minutes to go it was a lollipop to the crowd to give Warnock the big hook and bring on the PR stunt which is Robbie Keane.   As I posted earlier Albrighton never has a so so game.   He is either brilliant or a total liability and yesterday was the latter.   He should have come off as soon as we were unable to continue the momentum the goal gave us.   Marc's all round game was dire.   His part in their goal, his crossing, his corners should have had him substituted on the hour mark and N'Zogbia brought on.

To return to the thread I think the most depressing thing about the appointment of Alex McLeish is that he is at Villa Park for the long term regardless of results on the pitch.

Using the half a season he has had in charge upon which to predicate the future I come the the very regrettable conclusion that if we do not get relegated this season we will be relegated next season.

If the second half of this season shows an upturn in his ability to get the best out of his players and equally important, the best out of himself, the future would be brighter.   I suspect that we will hobble along until May much the same way has we have done since July.

I must add that my view is not anti McLeish.   The problem as I have expressed on other threads is that he was not appointed for football reasons, he was appointed for financial reasons.

I think Randy Lerner was deeply hurt by the manner of O'Neill's departure and the subsequent bitter acrimony of his action against the club for constructive dismissal.   Add to that the total balls up being made by the board over a replacement for Houllier with the club being ridiculed on a daily basis in the media and Randy Lerner took matters into his own hands and appointed Alex McLeish.

From that moment on I think Randy fell out of love with the Villa and said to himself that the investment was to be run like any other of his business interests.

Alex McLeish was so grateful for being rescued from the living death which was Small Heath that he will do anything for Randy Lerner.

My view was the mainstream view I believe in that I thought McLeish was the wrong manager and we should have got somebody better but like many I did console myself with the belief that because McLeish is very much Lerner's man and Lerner holds the purse strings, the owner will back his man financially.   This has not transpired and every vibe coming out of the club is that we are as penniless as Everton.   The sticking plaster PR move of sporting a million quid on Keane to shut the fans up, the comment that the long awaited Villa museum will only go ahead when it is "financially viable" (a museum FFS from a man who sponsored a whole lump of the National Gallery) are very telling.

All the woes of the club from the decline in playing standards which were already showing when O'Neill flounced, to the madness of appointing an old sick man to a killer job, to the balls ups of the board in having no football savvy, to bad luck (Jenas), to declining crowds, to having to use players like Emile Heskey who was a long time figure of ridicule for the bulk of the fans, to coping with a crippling wages bill racked up by O'Neill - all of this shit is laid at the manager's door.

With his limited abilities and no money to speak of Alex McLeish has done just about what we have a right to expect.   If we go down he will stay because this board will say he is the perfect man to get us back in the Premiership.

Aston Villa's problems do not lie at managerial level, they are at board and ownership level.   The thread should enquire whether they can take us forward.

Spot on Brian.

I wonder if the job he is being asked to do now is the one he was offered back in July last year.  Also whether he is strong enough to stand up to Randy Lerner.

If the job criteria has changed and he has the courage, I could see him walking before the end of the season.

[old man villa fan]

I back McLeish 100% , and results willing and people keeping off his back, I back him long term for us to move forward.
From the outset, we had the ridiculous spectacle of `fans` wanting him sacked before he had even signed a contract and done a single days work on our behalf. All because of a stupid misguided tribalism, where some people are more concerned about rivalries with another club who should be irrelevant to us instead of what is best for the long term health of Aston Villa.
Of course now what most of  the anti - Mcleish crowd say is it not his former connections but his defensive minded tactics and poor managerial ability the reasons they cannot back him. Nothing to do with him having been employed by Birmingham City. What complete bullshit !
All managers live and die by results, but dont tell me that if any other candidate for the job had been appointed and they had exactly the same set of results and performances with the same resources they would be suffering the same level of antipathy and calls for their removal.
What I see is someone with strength of character and confidence in their own ability conducting themselves with integrity in the face of unjustified abuse. Those are the sort of people I want working in our club - professionals with integrity.
Those who are so anti - Mcleish, just be honest, you wont give him a more of a chance because you think of him as a bluenose. But no you wont do that because from day one you didnt want him and barring an absolutely miraculous set of results you were going to find every other reason under the sun to justify why he shouldnt be given a chance to do good for us.   

I take exception to being catagorised in this way just because I do not rate him.  It is an insult to me intelligence.  Just because he is a decent guy, it does not mean I have to give him latitude for not getting an acceptable level out of the resources he has and had.

As you say, it is a results business but it is also an entertainment business and supporters want to enjoy supporting their club.  The one key indicator that concerned me the most about his appointment was the number of goals his teams have scored and this has been on a downward spiral since his early days at Rangers.  The straight jacket on him and how he sets up teams has got tighter and tighter over the years.

[Rigadon]

Those saying he is inherently 'defensive', he wasn't that way in Scotland.  He was at Blues.  Better team in a shit league he plays attacking / winning football.  Shit team in a hard league he does what he has to do.  Albeit the latter was with mixed results. 

We are a work in progress at the moment.  Personally I flit between being utterly uninspired by the present Villa team to dreaming that they might be a handy side soon.  I think the equation is   something like: realisation that we won't compete past about 7th divided by the fact we weren't really competing above 6th before = confusion. 

I'd just like us to play with a bit of belief, passion and fearlessness.   I reckon ultimately that's where McLeish will live or die as Villa manager. 

[john e]

i dont think he's the man to take us forward,
 but it would help if he wasnt so damned nice, he is a decent guy and handled himself with great dignity in difficult times, actually he is someone i would really wish success for because he comes over as a honest solid and sound chap and i would like to see him do well,
if he was a big mouthed tosspot or a footballing mercenary like DOL it would be far easier to say you wanted someone else

 unfortunatly his football philosophy is to negative for me, and thats what really counts in the end

[ez]

I don't care where he came from either. In fact, wouldn't it be hilarious if we nicked their manager and he bought the good time back.

I'm not sure why people jump to the conclusion that his previous club is the reason he isn't wanted at Villa when his results/relegations are there for all to see.

[Boz]

i dont think he's the man to take us forward,
 but it would help if he wasnt so damned nice, he is a decent guy and handled himself with great dignity in difficult times, actually he is someone i would really wish success for because he comes over as a honest solid and sound chap and i would like to see him do well,
if he was a big mouthed tosspot or a footballing mercenary like DOL it would be far easier to say you wanted someone else

unfortunatly his football philosophy is to negative for me, and thats what really counts in the end

Spot on, might be a decent bloke but his approach to football is a dire defensive style, and at Villa currently, the defence is woeful. Buying Hutton was a poor decision, another 'arry winner, letting us improve Walker's progress to international status then selling us the crap player he's replaced at Spurs.

Now there are rumours about McLeish swapping Carroll for Bent! Is that going to improve things, I fail to see the logic, anymore than taking a player for 6 weeks and perhaps 7 games then leaving him on the bench until 10 minutes to go. Compare this to Moyes who played both Donovan and Gibson from the start.

We are flirting with relegation, and although slightly above where I thought we'd be now, we are looking candidates for a battle in the last few weeks of the season.

[old man villa fan]

Those saying he is inherently 'defensive', he wasn't that way in Scotland.  He was at Blues.  Better team in a shit league he plays attacking / winning football.  Shit team in a hard league he does what he has to do. 
 

After his peak with Rangers in 2002-2003 his teams in the next 3 seasons scored less and less goals.  His bright-light football of his early years was fading fast.

[old man villa fan]

The problem with his defensive style of football, it puts pressure on our defence and exposes our weakness.  I am sure a more expansive game would see less errors from our defence.