McLeish could be the manager to take this club forward

[old man villa fan]

If the Internet had been around in 1974 I wonder what would have been the reaction on H&V to the Villa taking on a dour taciturn manager who wasn't noted for his scintillating style of football. And his only claims to fame were losing two consecutive  League Cup finals with two different teams and just escaping relegation with one of them.

As we were a 2nd division club at the time and we were looking as though we were losing momentum after promotion from the 3rd division and narrowly missing promotion in successive seasons to the 1st, we were looking for a manager with the right credentials to take us up to the 1st division.

Saunders fitted the bill as he had taken Norwich up as champions two years before and reached the League Cup final with them before going to Man City.  They themselves were in the 1st division and saw something in Saunders that they believed could take them higher.  It didn't work out there as he fell out with the board, although reaching the League Cup final again.

At the time he looked the ideal manager considering our standing and how right we were.  From when he got the side to click in the 2nd half of the first season and for the next 3-4 years, it was some of the best attacking football I have seen the Villa play.

[Risso]

If the Internet had been around in 1974 I wonder what would have been the reaction on H&V to the Villa taking on a dour taciturn manager who wasn't noted for his scintillating style of football. And his only claims to fame were losing two consecutive  League Cup finals with two different teams and just escaping relegation with one of them.

As we were a 2nd division club at the time and we were looking as though we were losing momentum after promotion from the 3rd division and narrowly missing promotion in successive seasons to the 1st, we were looking for a manager with the right credentials to take us up to the 1st division.

Saunders fitted the bill as he had taken Norwich up as champions two years before and reached the League Cup final with them before going to Man City.  They themselves were in the 1st division and saw something in Saunders that they believed could take them higher.  It didn't work out there as he fell out with the board, although reaching the League Cup final again.

At the time he looked the ideal manager considering our standing and how right we were.  From when he got the side to click in the 2nd half of the first season and for the next 3-4 years, it was some of the best attacking football I have seen the Villa play.

So absolutely no parallels with the current situation at all then!

[paul_e]

I apologise if people misread my post, as had been mentioned I meant that the squad is comfortable balanced enough and strong enough to maintain midtable.  Even with one of the worst injury records I've ever seen we finished 9th last season, with a lot of the players we were forced to use then now much more experienced and capable of filling in.

The players that have left since are:

Friedel - replaced with a better keeper in Given
Reo-coker - Replaced with Jenas who had massive injury problems and was a huge risk
Walker - McLeish chose and purchased a replacement in Hutton
Downing - Replaced with Nzogbia who has been used incorrectly all season and has failed to integrate with the squad
Young (L) - Effectively replaced with Warnock who was dumped out of the side by houllier, should've been replaced properly
Young (A) - Effectively replaced with Ireland who was nothing more than a bit part player.

Looking through those the 3 that we've completely failed with are walker, luke young and reo-coker.  2 of those McLeish chose replacements for, 1 was a broken waste of space that has cost well over £1m for what amounts to less than 2 hours of football and the other is replaced with 1 half of the comedy duo that's filling our fullback spots.  The 3rd really missed player was replaced in the team by an existing player who Houllier had written off and who would've left in the summer but McLeish clearly thought was good enough to stick with, instead buying a young kid to come in as backup.

As a group what we have now is weaker but 4 of them were replaced with players bought in by McLeish so he has to take a big chunk of responibility for that but even so, if Houllier got 9th with a never ending list of injuries and a slightly stronger squad the current squad has got to be comfortably good enough for mid-table.  That we look like we could be sucked into the battle (without the injury excuse to fall back on this year) is testament to the fact that he has failed to get the most of the players at his disposal.

Given this why should we trust him to spend any more money?

I can only hope the board are big enough to admit they made a mistake and get rid before he causes lasting damage to the club, give him no money this window and pray he keeps us up then replace before the euro's with a decent manager and a full pre-season to get some shape to the side.

[Steve R]

I'd agree with Mr Green. You really have to look at the performance of the executive rather than the manager to understand why we are where we are. And not just this season/last season either.

The only fair way to judge McLeish is by the objectives he was given. Implement the cut in wages (presumably without getting relegated), get more out of what we have and make more of the academy.

Thus far he is on course with the first, albeit in a manner that invites further instructions for cuts, and has fallen short in the other two.

His inability to even get as much out of Bent as before and the belated introduction of Clark have been the biggest negatives for me. I'd have expected more game time for Gardner too.

All he's really done so far is learn a little (painfully) of what we had already discovered (painfully) last year. There are a number of seriously overpaid plodders on the books.

If anything, transfer dealings, permanent and loan, have added to that number.

I don't think McLeish was appointed to take us forward. More to tread water whilst big contracts were run down, without further rot setting in. He's not a disaster, but he could have done a lot better.

[Chris Smith]

I think that's a very subjective analysis, Steve.

Singling out Clark but not mentioning Herd, talking about Bent's form but not Gabby's improvement on last year and no mention of doing something that Houllier failed to do and making a player out of Ireland.

There are glaring gaps in the squad which are not his fault and until he's given the opportunity to shape it how he wants we are not going to be able to properly judge him.

[Dave Clark Five]

Before Bent scored on Saturday, the bloke next to me said 'Bent is rubbish, get him off'. After he had scored he said 'told you he would score, brilliant'. When you have that sort of analysis what chance do we stand?

[Steve R]

I think that's a very subjective analysis, Steve.
...

Of course it's subjective Chris. I'm desperately trying to be a proper supporter.

Both Herd and Clark have found themselves in the team of necessity rather than any apparent plan to phase in ex academy players.

The upturn in Ireland's contribution for the last few games is in McLeishes favour, but it's worth eff all when our biggest investment and most likely deliverer of points looks like a fish out of water game in, game out.

[Chris Smith]

I don't think that's fair, we've used a number of the youngsters this season but you can't just throw them all in at the same  time.

As for Bent, since his return from injury he's played two and a quarter league games and scored twice, giving him seven in all. Not brilliant but not bad either and suggests that he is benefitting from the improvements we're seeing in general performances. Before anyone does some brilliant piece of micro analysis and dazzles us with stats I'm saying that since the Bolton game there has been more good than bad not that we're suddenly playing like world beaters.

[paul_e]

I don't think that's fair, we've used a number of the youngsters this season but you can't just throw them all in at the same  time.

As for Bent, since his return from injury he's played two and a quarter league games and scored twice, giving him seven in all. Not brilliant but not bad either and suggests that he is benefitting from the improvements we're seeing in general performances. Before anyone does some brilliant piece of micro analysis and dazzles us with stats I'm saying that since the Bolton game there has been more good than bad not that we're suddenly playing like world beaters.

The facts just don't back that up Chris, In that time we've had a very good result against chelsea and played reasonably well against Arsenal nothing else stands out as great and the results are on a par with earlier in the season.

As for the kids do you think it's right to bring Heskey on for the last half an hour when we need a goal rather than bring on Fonz or Weimann?

[NeilH]

I'd agree with Mr Green. You really have to look at the performance of the executive rather than the manager to understand why we are where we are. And not just this season/last season either.

The only fair way to judge McLeish is by the objectives he was given. Implement the cut in wages (presumably without getting relegated), get more out of what we have and make more of the academy.

Thus far he is on course with the first, albeit in a manner that invites further instructions for cuts, and has fallen short in the other two.

His inability to even get as much out of Bent as before and the belated introduction of Clark have been the biggest negatives for me. I'd have expected more game time for Gardner too.

All he's really done so far is learn a little (painfully) of what we had already discovered (painfully) last year. There are a number of seriously overpaid plodders on the books.

If anything, transfer dealings, permanent and loan, have added to that number.

I don't think McLeish was appointed to take us forward. More to tread water whilst big contracts were run down, without further rot setting in. He's not a disaster, but he could have done a lot better.

Steve, I don't disagree with a word that you say. I think that he was given a very clear brief by the board and given the limitation he is under, he is executing it reasonably well, albeit not with the flair that we have come to expect.
We have simply got to remove the chaff out of the club before we can move forward again. Clearly Randy has made it very clear that until this is done, there will be no further major spending.

It is a depressing, but unfortunately necessary period that we have to go through as we chased the dream under MON, missed out on it and are now reaping the consequences.

Like every other supporter I hate where we are right now, but I have to be pragmatic and accept that it is the result of chasing an ultimately impossible dream.

I can't help wondering though, if we'd decided to set our sights lower and put out a full strength team in Moscow where we'd be right now

[Chris Smith]

I don't think that's fair, we've used a number of the youngsters this season but you can't just throw them all in at the same  time.

As for Bent, since his return from injury he's played two and a quarter league games and scored twice, giving him seven in all. Not brilliant but not bad either and suggests that he is benefitting from the improvements we're seeing in general performances. Before anyone does some brilliant piece of micro analysis and dazzles us with stats I'm saying that since the Bolton game there has been more good than bad not that we're suddenly playing like world beaters.

The facts just don't back that up Chris, In that time we've had a very good result against chelsea and played reasonably well against Arsenal nothing else stands out as great and the results are on a par with earlier in the season.

As for the kids do you think it's right to bring Heskey on for the last half an hour when we need a goal rather than bring on Fonz or Weimann?

Stoke was a good performance, Swansea and Everton we played well for parts of the game and we did a good job at Bristol - you're confusing results with performances. As I said, not world beaters but a general up turn from where we were 2 months ago.

Fonz did come on at Stoke, so again it's incorrect to say that he's not been tried. The problem is he still looks like a kid trying to find his way in a man's world - hence why we've brought in Keane.

[N'ZMAV]

I think Bent was much better against eVerton, I think linking him with Ireland works better and get's the best out of him. Gabby out side isn't always working, but we don't have too many other options, Albrighton is too eratic and N'Zogbia is either class or gash.

McLeish is starting to get a few things right, his use of Clark in midfield, and Petrov playing a bit more of an advanced role in the middle has made an improvement to the side. The introduction of Herd in centre midfield has also worked, he's not afraid to take players out of the side when they are not playing well also impresses me. Like he has done with Delph, and I'm sure he'd do the same with players like Collins, Hutton and Warnock if we had more options in those areas.

[john e]

it doesnt really matter how we argue it out on the forums, the Fans are voting with there feet,

we were all getting our knickers in a twist over a fan protest which never amounted to anything at all, people saying they were ashamed to support Villa, and it was just a very damp sqiub,
 while the attendance was 31k, take away the Everton away support and you end up with approx 28k villa supporters,

thats the most worrying thing, fans are turning there back on the style of football,
 i'm one of them

[Concrete John]

it doesnt really matter how we argue it out on the forums, the Fans are voting with there feet,

we were all getting our knickers in a twist over a fan protest which never amounted to anything at all, people saying they were ashamed to support Villa, and it was just a very damp sqiub,
 while the attendance was 31k, take away the Everton away support and you end up with approx 28k villa supporters,

thats the most worrying thing, fans are turning there back on the style of football,
 i'm one of them

Whilst a I agree with the general point about attendances, I'm not sure it's the style that is turning people away.  Were we that much better to watch under MON that we should see this scale of drop off? 

For me fans want to be part of something good and the results, ambition and sense of the club going somewhere will get them to the ground more than the style of play will.

[Chris Smith]

it doesnt really matter how we argue it out on the forums, the Fans are voting with there feet,

we were all getting our knickers in a twist over a fan protest which never amounted to anything at all, people saying they were ashamed to support Villa, and it was just a very damp sqiub,
 while the attendance was 31k, take away the Everton away support and you end up with approx 28k villa supporters,

thats the most worrying thing, fans are turning there back on the style of football,
 i'm one of them

"The fans"aren't voting with their feet, just a minority. There are still plenty of people who subscribe to the view of support your club through thick and thin.