AVFC statement - McLeish sacked.

[PaulWinch again]

Listening to O'Neill on R5L last Saturday using an "interview" with the unspeakable Pat Murphy to polish up his halo and claim the reflected glory of Ashley Young, James Milner and Steward Downing as though they were the only player transactions he ever instigated and no mention of Habib Beye, Curtis Davies, Steve Sidwell, Luke Young, Gary Cahill, Craig Gardner and all the other monumental bollocks he dropped - made me start to consider what Alex McLeish will say at the end of this season regardless of which league we are in.

Will he be man enough and honourable enough to tell the truth that it has been a truly awful season?   Will he hold up his hand and say that he has been too negative, too cautious  and that the result has been mind bendingly unwatchable football and attendances dropping like a stone?   Will he admit that most of the pain for the fans has been generated by him?

Or will anything he says be directed at the owner and the media?    Difficult picking up the threads of two recently departed previous managers.   Understandable resentment by the fans to a manager from a local rival.   The need to run a tight ship.   The need to be patient.   The need to set achievable ambitions.   Bad luck.   Horrendous injury list.  Stan's illness.   Young Lions having to go to the Theatre of Dreams.  Inconsistent referees.

Yes of course it will be the latter.

The blindingly self evident principal reason for our plight will be buried, with the help of the likes of Pat Murphy and the armies of media arse lickers, in a distant grave with the simple lie of which Josef Goebbels would have been proud "The Villa fans were on his back from day one" Daily Mirror 13th April 2012. 

Excellent summation of what will happen Brian. I hope Randy isn't reeled in by it all and realises Mcleish absolutely has to go whatever happens. I shalln't be holding my breath though, and then will look forward to another dour season.

[Steve67]

I guess there are one or two reasonable excuses, such as Stan's illness, no one could ever forsee that.  But this season is worse than last season and even though we finished 9th, it wasn't enough to save Gerard Houllier.  I appreciate that his heart wasn't in a good state, but General Krulak was dropping huge hints to fans, well before the end of the season, that there would be a change of Manager.  All I ask for is the same in terms of consistency from the board.  I think we'll see what Randy's ambition for the club really is if he lets this man continue.

[Ad@m]

Will he hold up his hand and say that he has been too negative, too cautious  and that the result has been mind bendingly unwatchable football?

One of the best sentences I've read on here in ages!!!

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

Like a lot on here I've tried to be as positive as possible towards AM and still am. He's our manager. But with the squad we have we should have been doing better from the start, never mind trying to get ourselves out of the poopoo with injuries etc at this stage of the season.
I would love to think that RL will see that he's made a mistake and the writing is on the wall if he doesn't get rid.
I hope I'm wrong but I just don't think he will. He'll adopt the ManU/Fergie inspired stance of sticking with him in the vain hope that it will all come good eventually.

[pauliewalnuts]

I notice the in the press conference today Mcleish said -

'"Our recent lack of winning obviously shows where we are. Form-wise, the amount of injuries and the young kids that have come in, we have performed well, if not the top quality that we would expect at Aston Villa."

Unfortunately Alex it's not really a 'recent' thing, we've hardly won any games all season. It's not really form when it goes on for so long.

The injuries excuse might stand up more if we hadn't been mind bendingly shit for almost the entire season.

When we had no injuries for a long spell, he exhibited exactly the sort of unambitious crud we've seen recently.

This isn't just a season not of the quality Aston Villa expect, Alex, this is statistically one of our worst seasons ever, and it's your fault.

The absolute worst thing Lerner and Faulkner could do now is to bury their heads in the sand and pretend things haven't been as bad as we say they have - they need to grow some balls and end this bloke's stay in the job the minute the season ends. Maybe that way they'll slow down the pissing away of everything we'd achieved and built over the previous five years.

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

I notice the in the press conference today Mcleish said -

'"Our recent lack of winning obviously shows where we are. Form-wise, the amount of injuries and the young kids that have come in, we have performed well, if not the top quality that we would expect at Aston Villa."

Unfortunately Alex it's not really a 'recent' thing, we've hardly won any games all season. It's not really form when it goes on for so long.

The injuries excuse might stand up more if we hadn't been mind bendingly shit for almost the entire season.

When we had no injuries for a long spell, he exhibited exactly the sort of unambitious crud we've seen recently.

This isn't just a season not of the quality Aston Villa expect, Alex, this is statistically one of our worst seasons ever, and it's your fault.

Couldn't have put it better paulie.

[Ian.]

I notice the in the press conference today Mcleish said -

'"Our recent lack of winning obviously shows where we are. Form-wise, the amount of injuries and the young kids that have come in, we have performed well, if not the top quality that we would expect at Aston Villa."

Unfortunately Alex it's not really a 'recent' thing, we've hardly won any games all season. It's not really form when it goes on for so long.

The injuries excuse might stand up more if we hadn't been mind bendingly shit for almost the entire season.

When we had no injuries for a long spell, he exhibited exactly the sort of unambitious crud we've seen recently.

This isn't just a season not of the quality Aston Villa expect, Alex, this is statistically one of our worst seasons ever, and it's your fault.

The absolute worst thing Lerner and Faulkner could do now is to bury their heads in the sand and pretend things haven't been as bad as we say they have - they need to grow some balls and end this bloke's stay in the job the minute the season ends. Maybe that way they'll slow down the pissing away of everything we'd achieved and built over the previous five years.

What has been our highest league position since December? in fact what has been our highest position all season?

[Ad@m]

In the standard pre-match interview today McLeish told reporters that we've missed Petrov's shooting ability from the edge of the box since he was diagnosed with his illness.

Petrov's scored 9 goals for the Villa in almost 200 matches.  Does he genuinely think that's our biggest problem?!  The guy's an absolute clown.

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

In the standard pre-match interview today McLeish told reporters that we've missed Petrov's shooting ability from the edge of the box since he was diagnosed with his illness.

Petrov's scored 9 goals for the Villa in almost 200 matches.  Does he genuinely think that's our biggest problem?!  The guy's an absolute clown.

The bollox he comes out with on a regular basis, esp post-match interview, is staggeringly shite!
It bears no resemblance to reality and is designed to fool himself, the owner and the press. None of whom seem to give a shit about our team.

[JUAN PABLO]

In the standard pre-match interview today McLeish told reporters that we've missed Petrov's shooting ability from the edge of the box since he was diagnosed with his illness.

Petrov's scored 9 goals for the Villa in almost 200 matches.  Does he genuinely think that's our biggest problem?!  The guy's an absolute clown.

Did he say that . If so , what a joke. I mean he has scored the odd goal Stan but most of the time I am shouting Dont shoot Stan.

[paul_e]

I notice the in the press conference today Mcleish said -

'"Our recent lack of winning obviously shows where we are. Form-wise, the amount of injuries and the young kids that have come in, we have performed well, if not the top quality that we would expect at Aston Villa."

Unfortunately Alex it's not really a 'recent' thing, we've hardly won any games all season. It's not really form when it goes on for so long.

The injuries excuse might stand up more if we hadn't been mind bendingly shit for almost the entire season.

When we had no injuries for a long spell, he exhibited exactly the sort of unambitious crud we've seen recently.

This isn't just a season not of the quality Aston Villa expect, Alex, this is statistically one of our worst seasons ever, and it's your fault.

The absolute worst thing Lerner and Faulkner could do now is to bury their heads in the sand and pretend things haven't been as bad as we say they have - they need to grow some balls and end this bloke's stay in the job the minute the season ends. Maybe that way they'll slow down the pissing away of everything we'd achieved and built over the previous five years.

What has been our highest league position since December? in fact what has been our highest position all season?

If you ignore the first 5-6 games where the table is irrelevant (1 win can move you from bottom 6 to top 6) I think we've sat around 12-15 most of the season, I certainly can't remember seeing us in the top half other than for a week or so after we beat blackburn right at the start of the season.

[Ian.]

I notice the in the press conference today Mcleish said -

'"Our recent lack of winning obviously shows where we are. Form-wise, the amount of injuries and the young kids that have come in, we have performed well, if not the top quality that we would expect at Aston Villa."

Unfortunately Alex it's not really a 'recent' thing, we've hardly won any games all season. It's not really form when it goes on for so long.

The injuries excuse might stand up more if we hadn't been mind bendingly shit for almost the entire season.

When we had no injuries for a long spell, he exhibited exactly the sort of unambitious crud we've seen recently.

This isn't just a season not of the quality Aston Villa expect, Alex, this is statistically one of our worst seasons ever, and it's your fault.

The absolute worst thing Lerner and Faulkner could do now is to bury their heads in the sand and pretend things haven't been as bad as we say they have - they need to grow some balls and end this bloke's stay in the job the minute the season ends. Maybe that way they'll slow down the pissing away of everything we'd achieved and built over the previous five years.

What has been our highest league position since December? in fact what has been our highest position all season?

If you ignore the first 5-6 games where the table is irrelevant (1 win can move you from bottom 6 to top 6) I think we've sat around 12-15 most of the season, I certainly can't remember seeing us in the top half other than for a week or so after we beat blackburn right at the start of the season.

So the difference the injury situation has had then is probably nothing. I missed most the matches between August and mid December, other than Jenas did we have much problems picking a regular side?

[hawkeye]

One big problem was he did not know how to get the best out of Bent, maybe we did not have the players to provide the service. Houlier constucted a system with better players to enable Bent to cause a threat and eventualy the team benifited from that. Bent looked terrible under AM, he is a very limited footballer and these limitations were exposed. I think he thought that we could sit deep and create space in the other half for Bent to exploit. What actually happened was we sat deep, the opposition closed the space, Bent ended up with 2 markers and his threat was nullified.

[Bad English]

I've missed the extra light Halley's Comet afforded the night skies in 1986.

[Matt Collins]

One big problem was he did not know how to get the best out of Bent, maybe we did not have the players to provide the service. Houlier constucted a system with better players to enable Bent to cause a threat and eventualy the team benifited from that. Bent looked terrible under AM, he is a very limited footballer and these limitations were exposed. I think he thought that we could sit deep and create space in the other half for Bent to exploit. What actually happened was we sat deep, the opposition closed the space, Bent ended up with 2 markers and his threat was nullified.

This is a very good point. Bent, to me, can only really play the lone front man role in a side that passes through midfield and doesn't rely on playing off the front man. Otherwise I think he needs to play with someone who's more of a target man.