MR_Black_AVFC

I'm not going to be popular, but I have the feeling that he is here for the long haul I did think after Bolton that it was inevitable that he would go. But now I am convinced that he will stay. I just cannot see Lerner paying out compo for yet another manager, especially one that they have already had to pay serious compensation to get in the first place. Plus another manager means another transitional season - which would be our third in three years. I think Lerner will look at his record in Scotland, which is not too dissimilar to MON's, plus his relative success at SHA, and arrive at the conclusion that this season he has been unlucky with injuries and give him a chance over the summer to build his own team. He now has three months out of the spotlight and no abuse from fans. He has that amount of time to put his stamp on things and change the playing squad to his own liking. This is worrying, when you consider the type of player's he is likely to go for. To name potential targets, it wouldn't surprise me to see Roger Johnson and Scott Dann lining up for us next season in place of Dunne and Collins. What does everyone else think?

In addition, according to many, what manager would want the job anyway under the current constraints? As much as we have the right to an opinion, the barracking of O'Leary, Houllier and now McLeish will look as if the fans are the problem, not the manager.

There are enough excuses for McLeish to be used in justifying this poor season. It all depends on whether Randy thinks McLeish has been dealt an unlucky hand with injuries. Randy won't want to shell out more money on compensation. Randy will not want another transitional season. Our only hope is that McLeish will walk after Norwich. I just cannot see it though.

I hate to see my team play with a target man. It just gives an excuse to play hoofball.

Surely, if he was going to be sacked he would have been gone after Bolton. Now a couple of games later he has kept his head down, picked up another couple of draws that see us safe, and now he deems the season as a success, and looks set to carry on next season. I think he see's winning the fans over as some sort of challenge. Once the Norwich game is over, McLeish has the comfort zone of three months without having to face any sort of criticism. I could sympathise if we were picking up good results at the start of the season and that the injuries crippled our flow. But the football wasn't good enough then and he managed to turn a top striker in Darren Bent into a passenger. It is a sickening blow but unfortunately not surprising. I just dread to think what signings he will make.

McLeish may or may not go. He seems to be a beaten man after the game v Bolton, but he has always said that he wouldn't walk away, regardless of what happened. So he leaves. Who will want to come in and carry on the 'transitional' work? I see on here that names are being thrown around, but we still have an issue where wages and our perilous financial situation are concerned. A new manager will still have to work within those constraints which may put many off.

Dunne has done all this talking, let us see if he can live up to it. Need a big performance from him tomorrow. My heart is saying 0-0. If we can keep it tight and frustrate Albion then we have a chance. My head is saying Albion 2-0 Villa.

Exactly. That is why I do not understand why Small Heath ended up in the mess they have, considering they yo-yo between the leagues. I can only assume it is bad financial management on the part of the owners. The tv revenue is used to pay the wages of the players. The big concern for me is the wages our players are on. Without relegation clauses in their contracts (which is unlikely as no-one could foresee this debacle) we would have to firesale all of our squad just to stay afloat and bring in players of inferior quality - hence making ourselves a fully-fledged Championship club with Championship players.

This is an exerpt from the Times last year. The biggest shortfall facing any relegated club comes from the loss of television revenue. The bottom club in the Premier League can expect to earn around £40m in United Kingdom and overseas broadcast income. In the Championship, the figure is around £3m. The Premier League soften the blow by giving parachute payments to relegated teams for the four seasons following their relegation. For the first two years, the payment is £16m per year; for years three and four it drops to £8m per year. So for the first season following relegation, teams will lose round £21m in television revenue.

My concern is that relegation will bring a multitude of financial problems. We can see how relegation can destroy clubs when you look at Leeds/Forest etc. We get £50m a year for being in the PL. Relegation would mean a parachute payment of £15m. I would also imagine that there are no relegation clauses in the players contracts, which means the vultures will circle and tear apart our squad leaving us with the dregs. Even if we stay up and McLeish remains, I cannot see that we will be able to hang onto players like Bent - I would not want to be a striker and play in a McLeish team.

OK, I have done the BBC Predictor, predicted all of the games fairly and how I think they will go, and I have us finishing 17th on 37 points - that is us losing to WBA 0-2 and Spurs 0-1 and drawing 1-1 at Norwich on final day. QPR also finish on 37 points but we have a +2 better goal difference. They get beaten 2-0 at Man City on final day. Wigan and Bolton will overtake us and finish 15th and 16th respectively. QPR have a bad run of fixtures, although I expect them to beat Stoke at home which still won't be enough as they will lose at Chelsea and Man City. I think 1 point will be the difference. If we lose all three games then we will be relegated, there is no doubt about that.

Oh, I went for the 'orange look' to pay tribute to our strawberry blonde manager. If anyone wants the template without the words PM me.

No idea

Hows that one look?

If I redo, does anyone want me to add anything? I know my grammar is crap so a word for word thing? What do people think of the banner?

You are quite right. Let me redo.

Can anyone blow it up? ^^^^^^^^

Just seen this. As funny as it seems, it just about sums the clown up and his sidekick Grant. I can't believe QPR won also. :/

This seems to be the most plausible explanation. Thing is, should we have been looking for the next best thing to MON in the first place? Personally I don't think so. Although he was moderately successful with us his style is something we need to move away from. Instead of moving away from it in the right direction, we've moved away from it in the wrong direction and adopted negative hoofball with McLeish. We're now further away from the modern game than ever. Mantis, I totally agree mate. A good young manager with fresh ideas was needed - many have mentioned Lambert, Rodgers etc. These are now proven Premiership managers who have turned clubs, who were once laughing stocks, into consistent Premiership sides who play good football. We on the other hand appoint a dinosaur.

How did he do it? Joe Hart, Scott Dann and Roger Johnson all seemed to have a purple patch around the same time, and basically carried the team. It was actually during that period when I realised Joe Hart is the best English goalkeeper since Seaman. McLeish was incredibly lucky with the 9th placed finish. Yet I look at that run and they were playing 4-4-2 with the Mexican flop Benitez and Jerome leading the line for 9 games straight. Bowyer chipped in with a few goals from midfield. Before that run, and after it, and all of last season, they were playing 4-5-1 with the lone striker - something we know well. Yes, Joe Hart and Johnson/Dann had blinders, but they weren't under the cosh as much due to the pace they had in forward areas. But McLeish reverted to type last season and look where they ended up, and look at where we could end up.

Because McLeish and O'Neil went head-to-head in Scotland and shared years of success between them, Lerner probably thought that this, along with a 9th placed finish and a Carling Cup, made him the next best thing to MON.

Yeah, what a foookin idiot. Clueless tw*t. Those players he had at Brum must have been world beaters to get to 9th in the PL playing under this clown. I mean, the consistency of performance required to do that, their highest ever PL finish, in spite of such farcically bad tactics. Those players must surely have gone onto far far bigger and better things afterwards ..... Sarcasm noted, but these were all players that he bought... so what's your point? He's a tactical mastermind who gets the best out of the shit players he buys? Somehow I don't see it. My Bluenose mate tells me that the unbeaten run they had was down to McLeish caving into fan pressure to play 4-4-2. Once he switched the tactics they started picking up results. Once he went back to 4-5-1 with an isolated striker they fell apart. Hleb's comments are quality though. McLeish and Grant are utterly clueless.

to be fair twice in the last month he has come out and said we couldnt beat the team we were playing **** knows what he's saying to them in the week but how can you expect players to show fight vs man utd when he's spouting "theatre of dreams" and "world class" bollocks im amazed at the lack of fight in mcleish, i thought his blues team did really well vs the top 4, i remember them being shit and defensive and unable to score but i dont remember them rolling over like we do I'm sure SHA got rolled over 5-0 by Liverpool and Man Utd last season. Joe Hart won them a lot of points in the season they finished 9th. Ben Foster was not in the same league as Hart, that is why they went down. You cannot have a team constantly soaking up pressure without cracking. SHA did it in style.

Anyone can have a decent managerial win percentage if they've managed Rangers/Celtic for a number of years. Difference with being O'Neill, he manages to still keep a respectful win percentage when he manages a middle sized club in England rather than bring it down to about 20% I'm with you mate - I'm not defending McLeish at all. I just think that these are the sort of stats Lerner/Faulkner have looked at whilst weighing up whether to tap him up from SHA. Like I said, it looks impressive. Chuck the Carling Cup in, plus a 9th placed finish with a crap team alongside his record in Scotland, makes him look a decent manager. But this is the problem. On paper, it looks good. Yet, we all know the reality is what we have witnessed today and throughout the season. He has destroyed the confidence of the first team and now he is flushing years worth of academy talent down the toilet with such awful, negative tactics.