AVFC statement - McLeish sacked.

[andyh]

"The soul-destroying nature of many of their performances should be of concern to anyone with a vested interest in the club. "

Nail, head, hit

Don't read the Guardian but that line sums up where we are

And the fact that so many peope are saying it including other papers, TV commentators, previous Villa players, makes me wonder why there are still people who are prepared to be patient and give Mcleish more time and/or (god forbid) money.

[Archbishop Herbert Cockthrottle]

It was a poor game. Why on earth Heskey played I'll never know. Should we sack AM? No.
Ask me in March.

[AvFc4eVeR]

It was a poor game. Why on earth Heskey played I'll never know. Should we sack AM? No.
Ask me in March.

March will be too late...

[Rick_avfc]

Had we got a draw yesterday then I would have said No but I am saying yes now.  The guy has taken us backwards and the starting line up yesterday was a joke....Heskey FFS!!! Why why WHY!?!?!?!  He was the main outlet from goal kicks.  He was getting all to predictable.  If u cant pass it around then i know, lets lump it up field to Heskey to try and win a header with no one there to get the flick on. 
ive had enough of this man now and if he doesn;t get a minimum of 7 points from the next 4 games then he really needs to be sacked as thats just shocking considering the players he has at his disposal.  People keep comparing his current stats with MOn and GH.  He has had better players than MOn did in his first season in charge.  GH's man management style fucked us up and caused unrest in the dressing room but what he was trying to work to started to show towards the end of the season.  AM, this guy has had enough time in the summer to choose the players he wants to keep and ones he wanted to get rid of and it hasn't worked.  He is a poor manager and should never have taken this job.  Even if we survive, I want him gone as i cant see it getting any better next season.  He will be under pressure from day one again and if he doesnt get off to a half decent start then he has to go!

[LeeB]

I'm not gonna start calling for his head on the back of a loss to Citeh however bad the performance. He's gotta see off relegation fodder though or he's gone, Lerner's backing or not.

This.

[ozzjim]

"The soul-destroying nature of many of their performances should be of concern to anyone with a vested interest in the club. "

Nail, head, hit

Don't read the Guardian but that line sums up where we are

And the fact that so many peope are saying it including other papers, TV commentators, previous Villa players, makes me wonder why there are still people who are prepared to be patient and give Mcleish more time and/or (god forbid) money.

Because I don't think they are listening to any of it. They have buried their heads deeply into the sound and are shouting wibble till its all ok. The Houllier appointment made sense from a footballing point of view and you could see what they were trying to do.


This appointment is a total and utter shambles and the Chief Exec should lose his job for it.

[Axl Rose]

God knows why we're looking to March...we never win in March do we? I know some people will get annoyed by what I am going to say, and maybe even say, 'that's harsh', but I fucking hated Houllier and his pompous attitude and wankfest ideology towards Liverpool. And I fucking hate Mcleish and his boring crap ideas of how to play football. Uninspirational. I was feeling a little sympathy towards him regarding the pointless protest idea, because we are not Bolton or Blackburn, BUT, that performance yesterday reeked entirely of Alex Mcleish. Bollocks to what he is doing-I have lost complete patience and it is genuinely sad to see what is happening, especially the home form. I'll always be watching the games we play in, be it at Villa Park when I am back home, or in a pub/streaming online when I am away, because I love Villa. But nowadays, it is a massive disappointment.

On a more positive note, I believe we will beat Wigan and get at least a point at Ewood Park. But without stating the obvious, we should be doing better at home. Yesterday, we defended ok and for 60 minutes, City with all their players and quick passing, still could not get anything from us, even with our poor attacking play( we have CREATIVE attacking players!!! UTILISE THEM PROPERLY MCLEISH PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE!!!!!!!)

All in all, absolutely boring. Horrible to see Barry and Milner playing for them.

Rant over...

[eastie]

I voted 'no'.

It's always easy to over react after a loss, and I'm sure not all of you are doing that, but he needs to be judged after 38 games.

why wait till we are maybe down ? I have seen enough to suggest this man will not turn things around and randy must take a lot of the blame but ultimately a new manager could provide the impetus and knowhow to avoid relegation-enough is enough and the time to act is now -although i dont believe lerner has the balls to admit his mistake and our agony will continue under the 3 stooges in charge , aka lerner, faulkner and mcleish.

Paul lambert would be my choice but whether he would leave norwich to work for these clowns is doubtful.

[Rick_avfc]

3 stooges in charge , aka lerner, faulkner and mcleish.

Very funny but yet very true....

[Irish villain]

I've done a lot of thinking this morning. Randy will not sack McLeish. Not a hope. I've arrived at a few inconvenient truths too. Bear with me.

As fans, we are emotionally involved so we often don't see the wood for the trees. We have a passion for what happens at the club so it is difficult for us to coldly analyse events as they unfold. We live and breath the club and kick every ball, jump for every header and dive into every 50:50. By nature we are divided into optimists and pessimists. Some of us wish to see a positive outcome in everything that happens Aston Villa. Others can instantly see the pitfalls of every possible scenario. Few of us can see the immediate consequences of what unfolds.

As an optimist, I usually try to find a positive. I found a positive when we went out of the Uefa Cup after Martin fielded a weakened side(though I later became critical of this decision). I found a positive when O'Neill left. Surely this meant Randy had woken up to the fact we'd reached our ceiling with MON and needed a top class manager to break through to the top four. Surely this meant some quality players from the continent would arrive and the place would freshen up. When Houllier was appointed I thought we'd got a manager with a good track record who might surprise us. hen Bent was signed I thought, 'here we go', this is the Aston Villa of ambition that I knew we had got when Randy Lerner took over. When we parted with Houllier I thought we'd get a manager who was a better fit and that we'd finally start building again. I expected players would leave but that new ones would arrive. Even when we got McLeish I thought 'Randy knows what he's doing', I looked at his record and was swayed by some of the 'He's MON without the money' arguments on here. I reasoned that he'd stabilise us as a top ten outfit then be given the green light to push on towards top 6 again. Even though galled that top players were not replaced last summer, I reasoned there was some masterplan at work and that come January we'd make three or four top signings (like in 2007).

Having spent the morning reflecting on Aston Villa, a few things have struck me. As a season of torture has unfolded, it's hard to conceptualise how far we have fallen in eighteen months. (By the way I don't want people jumping on me for being negative here or for talking the club down or anything. This stuff means a lot to me and I spent a bit of time committing this to keyboard. )

Here's a few quotes to sum up how I feel right now. Go back to the day MON walked. Randy said 'Martin and I no longer shared a common vision of how to move forward'. Go back to the day Houllier was appointed villa manager. Houllier said 'Aston Villa are the kind of club that belong 7th to 12th in the Premier League'. Go back to last summer. Why do you think Martinez turned us down? He was being asked to do an impossible job. He was being asked to come in to dismantle the remnants of the side that had been top 6 three seasons in a row and to rebuild with no funds available. Martinez decided Wigan was a better bet. In desperation, the board chased McLeish. The manager who relegated our rivals twice! (Again, don't jump on me. I have never ever had a problem with where he came from. I have always given him a chance. I only mention this because it was sure to be a factor in how the new manager would be accepted by the fans). It was an appointment that was sure to divide the fans.

So we got the worst of all possible worlds with McLeish. He didn't arrive with a clean slate, he arrived with considerable baggage and was sure to divide our supporters. His appointment was a statement of mediocrity and lack of ambition. He was then expected to cut our wage bill and accept bids for our senior players. Attendances were sure to fall as it was the most unambitious summer down Villa Park since the dark days of Doug Ellis. We are in the midst of the perfect storm.  We need to be united, we need to pull the club out of this (the way we did last season by getting behind the team), but we are being given nothing to cheer. We have had the heart ripped out of us.

We'll have to just get behind the team and manager now. Randy will not sack McLeish, he can't. He appointed him, he probably doesn't care so long as the wage bill is reduced and we are more self sufficient. I'd wager Randy doesn't een know where we are in the table. Randy has made a right mess. As fans, we have to hope and do our bit to claw us out of it.

[andyh]

I voted 'no'.

It's always easy to over react after a loss, and I'm sure not all of you are doing that, but he needs to be judged after 38 games.

John, I admire your loyalty and patience.
But, after 25 (league) games I think I have seen enough to make a sound judgement.

[pauliewalnuts]

"The soul-destroying nature of many of their performances should be of concern to anyone with a vested interest in the club. "

Nail, head, hit

Don't read the Guardian but that line sums up where we are

Absolutely agree.

[Concrete John]

I voted 'no'.

It's always easy to over react after a loss, and I'm sure not all of you are doing that, but he needs to be judged after 38 games.

why wait till we are maybe down ? I have seen enough to suggest this man will not turn things around and randy must take a lot of the blame but ultimately a new manager could provide the impetus and knowhow to avoid relegation-enough is enough and the time to act is now -although i dont believe lerner has the balls to admit his mistake and our agony will continue under the 3 stooges in charge , aka lerner, faulkner and mcleish.

Paul lambert would be my choice but whether he would leave norwich to work for these clowns is doubtful.

Mainly because I don't think we will go down.

[VillaAlways]

"We were never going to go gung ho against City because we haven't got the players to do that"

He was saying similar things when he managed Blues He said at the beginning of the season he would achieve more with better players here

I think he would be capable of relegating anybody with his negativity and inferiority complex

Go now

[pauliewalnuts]

"We were never going to go gung ho against City because we haven't got the players to do that"

He was saying similar things when he managed Blues He said at the beginning of the season he would achieve more with better players here

I think he would be capable of relegating anybody with his negativity and inferiority complex

Go now

It's infuriating, in that he doesn't seem to learn his lesson and falls back to old habits.

I know City are a good side (although in a bit of a slump, they'd had some iffy results away from home of late, and weren't at their best yesterday), but you have people paying 40 plus quid to go and watch that, you at least owe them an attempt to actually get something from the game.

For all the bleating on about how fans don't like him because of x, y and z, and how the irritation of the fans passes through to the players on the pitch, compare and contrast yesterday's ambition-free bilge with the approach against Arsenal.

Yes, we lost both matches, but were incredibly unfortunate to do so against Arsenal, having had a right go at them, and got applauded off the pitch, and then went on to win at Chelsea.

I would really hate to be the person in charge of selling season tickets next season, as I really think we are going to struggle to sell tickets to watch us toil and struggle to keep the score down against big teams (whilst failing to do much against weaker teams).

McLeish's post match interviews made the situation even worse. No, Villa fans do not just want to see players sweat blood, Alex, and no, we were not in any way unlucky to get nothing from the game. We deserved what we got - fuck all.

We are gradually becoming the sort of team the rest of the league hates and would be glad to see go down, and that's down to one man, the manager.