AVFC statement - McLeish sacked.

[PeterWithesShin]

I was surprised how poor they were. Seemed to come for a 0-0. Strange tactic considering our home form.

[Rigadon]

No resetting of the poll?

[Dave Clark Five]

No resetting of the poll?

The poll is only a snapshot of opinions at any one time. Unless 300 new people vote, it has now stagnated.

[Neil Hawkes]

I'll stick my head up here, as I still believe he needs to be given a chance - reasons:
1. How many of the team has he brought in? I've only seen reference to the players bought, yet full credit should go to promoting the kids to the first squad - they are his choice.
2. How many of the team needs getting rid? We know how many, we know he can't offload in one fell swoop, yet he's criticised for using players that need game time to generate a transfer fee.
3. All blame lies at his door when the players revert to headless chickens/frightened rabbits - no credit is given to him when passing and movement, (however brief) is shown by the team. Why is it the general consensus he's asked them to play like headless chickens/frightened rabbits?
4. Until over three quarters of the team are his chosen players and until their pattern of play is evident, a full judgement of his abilities cannot be made. An employee cannot be judged on the amount of numbnuts under his control/jurisdiction, until such time as he has identified the problems and been allowed to address/recruit/replace the staff as necessary.

[Dave Clark Five]

The strange thing is, we score a late goal and some say we are lucky. The same people would probably first to slag McLeish if we had conceded a late goal. They want to have their cake and eat it.

[Neil Hawkes]

The strange thing is, we score a late goal and some say we are lucky. The same people would probably first to slag McLeish if we had conceded a late goal. They want to have their cake and eat it.

Too true and an attitude I just cannot understand.

[john e]

just watched MOTD and the goal celebration looked very genuine to me, i know scoring in injury time you always get an extra buzz, but they seemed to be 'all in it together' for what i could see.

[DB]

just watched MOTD and the goal celebration looked very genuine to me, i know scoring in injury time you always get an extra buzz, but they seemed to be 'all in it together' for what i could see.

I think it was pure relief & surprise. They knew we had to win at home for 1st time since Nov 5th and direction in the table we were heading. It looked like another draw so their reaction was from guys that knew we had finally got the 3 points.

He still should go at the end of the season, we shouldn't be in the position we are in - his football is dire and in-effective.

[Irish villain]

Home form needs to be the priority now. We need to build on this and turn Villa Park into a fortress and get the fans back onside.

I just looked at the table there. It's hard to fathom that with 33 points at this stage of the season we are a full 11 points clear of the relegation zone and just six points off seventh. McLeish needs to galvanise the players for a John Gregory 97/98 style finish from here. We can easily pip Liverpool to seventh if we go out looking for a few big wins.

[eastie]

Much needed win and even though we are having a dreadful season we are only 6 points off liverpool in 7th and look how much they have blown on average players- king kenny my arse!

Lets hope we can finish as we did last season and then we need a huge overhaul in the summer - interesting we have conceded only 1 in 3 games without dunne in defence,carlos deserves a new deal and i hope he gets one!

[pauliewalnuts]

Home form needs to be the priority now. We need to build on this and turn Villa Park into a fortress and get the fans back onside.

I just looked at the table there. It's hard to fathom that with 33 points at this stage of the season we are a full 11 points clear of the relegation zone and just six points off seventh. McLeish needs to galvanise the players for a John Gregory 97/98 style finish from here. We can easily pip Liverpool to seventh if we go out looking for a few big wins.

He's had the chance to do this before - after the win at Chelsea, and he spunked away the raised spirit by reverting to type and going defensive in the very next game.

I hope he's learned a lesson from that.

Three points yesterday is the biggest relief I've felt in ages. Thank God for that. It doesn't change the fact, though, that the guy is slowly sapping the spirit out of the support. The best thing the club can do is admit they made a mistake, and sack him this summer. Another season like this one doesn't bear thinking about.

[phantom limb]

I've been annoyed quite a lot this season but I think McLeish has at least earned a stay of execution. It will be interesting to see if things can change for the better once certain players' contracts end and people like Heskey leave.

Dunne's absence from the side has been noticable, we seem a lot more organised and confident defensively since he's been out. If I was him I'd be worried.

[eastie]

Also i have been impressed with hutton and warnock over the last 3 games, they seem to have found some form and the defence has been much more secure - if we can get a win against bolton that will make us virtually safe and hopefully ease the tension a bit,would like to see gardner and weimann given a few games in the run in .

[Clampy]

Out of the players that are injured at the moment, i thought Clark was going to be the biggest miss, but Herd has come in and done really well, but when you have both him and Petrov in the middle, you need your forward players to be doing a lot more, which is why he took Charlie off yesterday, he was probably the least effective of them all.

As for McLeish, judging by the crowd yesterday (which was disapointing) people are still not convinced. I hope all those who stayed till the end enjoyed the goal celebration, it's was a loud as i've heard it for a while.

[RossLeach]

Yesterday's result means he's pretty much ended the questions over his future for the rest of the season. But I'd expect that the stories will start again in the early summer.

This is one of the reasons why it was the wrong appointment: bad results and low attendances will leave questions over him and the uncertainty won't go away for the foreseeable future unless he wins a trophy.

What does he need to do?

Either (or preferably both) of the following:
1 - win lots of remaining games as per JG at the end of 97/98 and we go into the summer with a smile on our faces,
2 - establish a quality, entertaining style of football (especially at home) that means that the fans go away over the summer looking forward to next season.

In his defence, I think trying the latter with the 4-2-3-1 that he's working on, but it's only those fans that turn up (before this starts a 'better fan than yow' argument I've seen only the Liverpool and Man City home games since we beat Norwich so I'm not holding myself up....) that will see this change - which means he needs results between now and the end of the season to reach many of those who are potential attendees....

For Randy, ST sales will be lower again next season, no doubt; attendances will be down again next year. 8000 short across 19 games costs the club about £4m a season (assuming average ticket of £25). Ultimately AM needs 1 and 2 above to show an increase in attendances is possible; otherwise the maths might dictate that a change makes some sense.

Goodness knows who one would replace him with though. Sven? (shudder)