Why was McLeish sacked?

[pauliewalnuts]

McLeish on Sky Sports tonight. Obviously a football man of long standing. Just a pity he was treated so badly at Villa Park.

He seemed a decent bloke, but he was a dismal failure as a manager at Villa Park however you decide to look at it.

He was treated horrendously by the fans and given no support from Lerner.

Generally treated well until half a dozen games before the end of a season when everyone expected a damp squib of relegation, when everyone got a bit upset by us losing to a shit Bolton side.

At least he was treated well by those who happened to drink at the same Friday night pub as he did.

He did seem to be a pleasant bloke though. Even though he was a shit football manager.

I agree, he seemed a nice bloke, but this "treated horrendously by the fans" thing is utter nonsense, it really is.

He got plenty of support.

The vast majority of us would give him a go once he got the job. The only thing he could have done to make that support evaporate was revert to type and start playing like he had Blues playing, and that's exactly what he did. That is pretty much exactly the time the crowd turned on him.

He actually got longer than the manager before him did. We turned on Houllier much earlier than McLeish.

I've never been as embarased to be a Villa fan as i was at times under him with the way he sent us out. I genuinely couldn't give a flying fuck that he came from Small Heath. Had he been a decent manager rather than a byword for defensive negativity, the fact we'd taken him from them would have been a *bonus* not a stick to beat him with.

He wasn't, though, he was a horribly negative manager who blew his only chance at the big time.

I think to that team he sent out at White Hart Lane and I honestly get more embarrassed than I do when I think back to some of the severe beatings we took in the mid 80s.

The fact that there's only one single person on this forum who feels that McLeish was harshly treated says it all really.

So many things wrong in one post.

You could always try pointing them out rather than just making a quick one-liner then disappearing until the next time the same thing gets discussed.

I entirely appreciate you believe in what you're saying. I just think you should maybe try to win us over by telling us why you think that way.

[pauliewalnuts]

McLeish on Sky Sports tonight. Obviously a football man of long standing. Just a pity he was treated so badly at Villa Park.

He seemed a decent bloke, but he was a dismal failure as a manager at Villa Park however you decide to look at it.

He was treated horrendously by the fans and given no support from Lerner.

Generally treated well until half a dozen games before the end of a season when everyone expected a damp squib of relegation, when everyone got a bit upset by us losing to a shit Bolton side.

At least he was treated well by those who happened to drink at the same Friday night pub as he did.

He did seem to be a pleasant bloke though. Even though he was a shit football manager.

I agree, he seemed a nice bloke, but this "treated horrendously by the fans" thing is utter nonsense, it really is.

He got plenty of support.

The vast majority of us would give him a go once he got the job. The only thing he could have done to make that support evaporate was revert to type and start playing like he had Blues playing, and that's exactly what he did. That is pretty much exactly the time the crowd turned on him.

He actually got longer than the manager before him did. We turned on Houllier much earlier than McLeish.

I've never been as embarased to be a Villa fan as i was at times under him with the way he sent us out. I genuinely couldn't give a flying fuck that he came from Small Heath. Had he been a decent manager rather than a byword for defensive negativity, the fact we'd taken him from them would have been a *bonus* not a stick to beat him with.

He wasn't, though, he was a horribly negative manager who blew his only chance at the big time.

I think to that team he sent out at White Hart Lane and I honestly get more embarrassed than I do when I think back to some of the severe beatings we took in the mid 80s.

The fact that there's only one single person on this forum who feels that McLeish was harshly treated says it all really.

So many things wrong in one post.

Would you care to elucidate what is wrong and why it is? Paulie didn't make that many points there.

The treatment of Alex McLeish by our supporters at Norwich was an utter disgrace. It was wholly because he came from Blues.

Yep, entirely - 100 percent - because he came from Blues, and nothing to do with the abysmal season which was finishing that day. Nothing at all.

And that's not even addressing any points I made. It is addressing a new one you've thought of.

[Ads]

The treatment of Aston Villa supporters by Alex McLeish at Norwich was a disgrace. A dead rubber, £35 a ticket at a newly promoted side, 146 miles away and he picks 7 defenders with Heskey up top.

[supertom]

Lamberts got a long way to go before he can claim to have done a job as good as O Leary. O Leary for all his faults had us top 6 in his first season. We finished joint 5th actually, losing out that Uefa spot on Goal difference IIRC. Granted it all went spectacularly wrong for DOL and turning on the fans was not great, but lets just see how Lambert reacts when he's 3 years into the job and getting a lot of stick. In fairness, Lambo hasn't been without his gaffs. The comments about the FA Cup before the Sheff Utd game, really lost him a lot of backers here, even if they were slightly misconstrued. I just wonder with Lamberts temperament whether his "fickle" moment is going to come at some point, particularly if we struggle again next season.
Lambert is yet to even match O Leary's lowest points tally.

Lambo is in that McLeish, McNeill and Turner ball park certainly.

I do think McLeish was more tactically astute. He almost always had a clear game plan. Of course that game plan was incredibly negative and fell apart when we lost Bent. Lambert hasn't really found a successful plan yet that he can stick too, but at least tries to play positively sometimes. But it's all much the same really. It's two managers who are really championship level, who aren't quite good enough at this level.

[supertom]

The treatment of Aston Villa supporters by Alex McLeish at Norwich was a disgrace. A dead rubber, £35 a ticket at a newly promoted side, 146 miles away and he picks 7 defenders with Heskey up top.

For me his worst game. Safety had been guaranteed. Ideal time to finally show a bit of positivity and try and win and finish on something of a high. We were probably as dour as we'd been all season and Norwich won very easily.
I think he knew he was gone by that point and I always feel like that was two fingers up at the club and possibly the fans.

[Ads]

McLeish was dour and negative. Surrender is not a game plan. Anybody at White Hart Lane for that game in November knew the quality of the mans tactics and astuteness.

[Monty]

Would you care to elucidate what is wrong and why it is? Paulie didn't make that many points there.

The treatment of Alex McLeish by our supporters at Norwich was an utter disgrace. It was wholly because he came from Blues.

I said it at the time and I'll say it again, if we'd taken a good manager from Blues the only affect his former employment would have had on the fans' reaction would have been to make us more pleased. Imagine if Blues unearthed some Messi-like youth prodigy and we signed him from them? The glee would be undisguisable.

No, the reason we didn't like him was because his was the among the worst appointments actually conceivable, let alone made, by any chairman in the top flight in recent years. The selection criteria behind his appointment (the 'Premier League experience' guff which would have ruled out Mourinho or Wenger at one point) betrayed a humiliating lack of football knowledge in our boardroom. The tactics the guy sent us out to execute were utterly supine, his post-match interviews were pusillanimous and writhingly cowardly, his signings were almost completely terrible, the damage done to the development of our younger players deep and perhaps irreparable. That he's a nice guy to have a drink with is kind of heroically irrelevant.

There were some, sure, who flexed the might of their intellects by disliking him because of the Blues connection. But because the press were peddling this line, and because we'd already got a general reputation for fickleness, most gave him way more of a chance than he deserved precisely because we didn't want the media to get the chance to say 'booing him for the Blues connection.' That we held out for as long as we did is near-miraculous.

[supertom]

McLeish was dour and negative. Surrender is not a game plan. Anybody at White Hart Lane for that game in November knew the quality of the mans tactics and astuteness.

We were sort of well drilled under him (in a dour, godawful to watch kind of way), though Collins, Warnock and Hutton were always a howler away from making that difficult. We were actually (position wise) going quite well by November under McLeish. Solid, comfortable. It was Jan when we lost Dunney, Stan and Bent in the space of a month that we then went on a horrendous run and almost went down.

In terms of Villa managers I've watched, I don't think anyones excelled in the Headless chickens routine quite like Lambert at times. Sometimes it just looks a complete and utter mess.

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Stan and Bent were lost in March. McLeish presided over the worst Villa side since 1986. We stayed up via a combination of a Hutton handball, Given having a blinder and the Albion being shit.

That is what Lambert took over, under arguably the most difficult financial situation since 1968. A perfect storm.

He is taking us forward, there is imperial evidence of this. Stylistically, we make little sense from Chelsea to Stoke? How? But another summer will come and we will get stronger.

[saunders_heroes]

Lambert is definitely in the bottom 1. Well, as long as we ignore Turner, McNeil, Venglos, O'Leary and McLeish.

I wish there was a hyperbole button so you could switch off the hyperbole poorly masquerading as considered opinion for a while. It's far too Villa Talk for me.

Lambert has been as bad if not worse than most you've mentioned above. Unless you ignore the last 2 seasons that is.

[bertlambshank]

Stan and Bent were lost in March. McLeish presided over the worst Villa side since 1986. We stayed up via a combination of a Hutton handball, Given having a blinder and the Albion being shit.

That is what Lambert took over, under arguably the most difficult financial situation since 1968. A perfect storm.

He is taking us forward, there is imperial evidence of this. Stylistically, we make little sense from Chelsea to Stoke? How? But another summer will come and we will get stronger.

How is Lambert taking us forward?
If this is some sort of saying what GT did PL is now now doing you are living with the broken biscuits at the bottom of the tin.

[Ger Regan]

Lambert is definitely in the bottom 1. Well, as long as we ignore Turner, McNeil, Venglos, O'Leary and McLeish.

I wish there was a hyperbole button so you could switch off the hyperbole poorly masquerading as considered opinion for a while. It's far too Villa Talk for me.

Lambert has been as bad if not worse than most you've mentioned above. Unless you ignore the last 2 seasons that is.

There's been plenty of crap, but there's also been far more positives in his two seasons than in anything McLeish managed to serve up.

[PeterWithesShin]

That line-up at Norwich.

Given
Warnock
Dunne
Collins
Clark
Cuellar
Lichaj
Ireland
Herd
Heskey
Gabby

After less than 25 mins we were 2 down, so needing goals he brought on Bannan, then Gardner, then Baker. That more than even Spurs away summed him up. It's spectacularly shit at times under Lambert, but i'm never as embarrassed by us as I was under McLeish. I'm sure many will feel differently, but i'd rather lose 8-0 at Chavski by being naive nutters who went for it even when getting battered than lose 2-0 at Spurs having started the match hoping for a 0-0.

[bertlambshank]

Lambert is definitely in the bottom 1. Well, as long as we ignore Turner, McNeil, Venglos, O'Leary and McLeish.

I wish there was a hyperbole button so you could switch off the hyperbole poorly masquerading as considered opinion for a while. It's far too Villa Talk for me.

Lambert has been as bad if not worse than most you've mentioned above. Unless you ignore the last 2 seasons that is.

There's been plenty of crap, but there's also been far more positives in his two seasons than in anything McLeish managed to serve up. Sorry, DC5, maybe that's disgraceful treatment of your mate too, but it's the truth.

Yes let's just forget the negatives.

[Ger Regan]

Fucking hell. 7 (natural) defenders!