El-Reacho

If Lambert and Rodgers are clever they will look to move to Villa now while their stock is high. Of course they could both go on and improve next season with their respective clubs, but precedents would suggest that their stock will fall again after difficult second seasons, and they may not get such a chance again. If they were to jump ship to a bigger club now while they have the respect of the media and I'm sure the Villa players, it will be much easier to continue their ascendancy.

Lambert obviously has chosen to do this previously.

We also have to look at what influence a new manager will have on our new generation coming through.

If the right funding is made available i couldn't see the likes of Rafa persisting with Baker and Lichaj in our back four, Herd, Gardner and Albrighton in midfield and Weiman up front. My feeling is that the majority of those players will be sent out on loan and eventually sold. Carruthers might turn out to be the only jewel we have and we'll not know that until next season if he gets the game time with the new manager.

For me that is the crux of the matter. If the chairman isn't going to make enough funding available to revamp the whole squad then he must choose a manager who has a track record of getting the best out of what is available to him. Alternatively, if Lerner's cheque book is to be opened significantly then he has to go for a name manager like Rafa.

The chairman must choose the manager not only to fit the club but also to fit the budget.

Pretty sure Rafa Benitez was linked with Gary Gardner when he was Inter manager. I think Benitez's transfer history at Liverpool was similar to Houllier's except swap french players no one had heard of for Spanish players no one had heard of. He did have big money flops like Dossena, Aquilani, and that Belgian defender.

Pleased with the club's statement as to my mind it acknowledges that this has been a huge mistake without actually saying it. That might lead to changes in how they manage the football side of things and maybe they will turn to the likes of GT for advice (if he'll speak to them again after last time).

Collymore on TS this afternoon seems to think RL/PF have four managers on the radar - 2 current PL managers and 2 currently out of work managers.

If it's true it means they've changed their recruitment policy this time which is good to hear.

He did say this before AMcL had actually been sacked though...

Linked to this topic we must be mindful of the fact that, assuming Lerner does get rid of McLeish, we will be fishing in a similar pond to the Albion.

The difference being that they will probably have got their bait on and their line cast well before Lerner has had chance to attach his reel!

Unless DiMatteo were up for grabs in which case we'd hopefully be in pole position.

I reckon the decision was made on Wednesday before the statement was released. Randy has probably said to him just keep us up and I'll pay up your contract in full.

If we get a point against Spurs he'll probably pack his bags.

I've never seen any of our defenders turn to Given and bollock him for hoofing it up to Heskey, nor have I ever seen any of our midfielders turn to Warnock or Collins and demand the ball and give out to them when they inevitably hoof it up the pitch again. That suggests to me that they're perfectly happy to do i. So either they've disobeyed McLeish for 36 matches so far or else it's what McLeish instructs them to do.

Describing the style of his play is completely subjective - it's the opinion of the vast majority of people that it is negative but it is McLeish's opinion that it is attacking. He's not lying he's giving his opinion.

Hopefully Abramovich will go and pay a fortune for some big European name like Hiddink or Pep in the summer, in which case we should be straight in for DiMatteo.

I can see redknobb > england, moyes >spurs hodgson>everton.

and;

McLeish > Albion

Yes! Get in there.

Where he can complete a truly unique hat-trick.

Martinez's relationship with Whelan is rumoured to have deteriorated a fair bit in the last few weeks. One of 5Live's reporters seemed to think there had been a few subtle jibes toward Whelan in Roberto's interviews of late.

The statement to me says "get behind the team Til we are safe then he's off"

Me too.

The worrying thing is if it says that to McLeish himself in which case we're pretty much relegated if we weren't already.

Or else this afternoon RL and McLeish might have agreed to part company at the end of the season - this could motivate the players more than anything. Statement would make sense then.

is it stan doing the 8pm phone in?

because his twitter today has summed him up, a mixture of tweets that create an arguement followed by tweets that agree with him

he'll spin it to make those who booed look like rocket polishers whilst having several of the better fan brigade on making it look like its all an overreaction

None of those pundits have the balls to speak their mind. Collymore knows that if he says what he really thinks of McLeish he'll make an enemy of him and all of his buddies in the game - Ferguson and everyone else. Sky sports / Talksport / BBC is just a big love in between former players who won't say anything bad about their mates.

Villa Boas would not join us he will get plenty of offers abroad.

This. Anyone who thinks he'd join us is deluded.

What about DiMatteo then? Probably still has his house here....

Seems to be able to motivate players.

Being interviewed on Today FM this morning - says he's back in training but not tackling anyone. Said he will be in full training on Friday and if fit will be ready for the weekend.

Missed the start so didn't hear if he said much about last night - but it interview was mainly related to ROI and the Euros.

Maybe he got two yellows on purpose to show his support for Stan. Fairplay indeed.

I wonder if McLeish has seen that response? It suggested to me that he could be under serious pressure from Lerner at the end of the season, even if he keeps us up.

Not sure if I've forgotten history or Taylor has but didn't o'neil take a 16th place side to 6th in his 1st season when he wasn't greatly backed financially? I may be forgetting but wasn't that season built on freebies like agathe etc.

Not meaning to praise o'neil but point out that mcleish has failed to get anywhere near the 1st season with same restrictions and previous poor season by the team the year before.

1st post so go easy on me ��

What an excellent point. Completely missed by the media and Sir Graham. It was 11th place, but still far better than we are going to achieve with this muppet in charge. Welcome to the board TLS, keep making sense like that and you'll soon be a Mod!!

You mean keep making sense like that and he will be slaughtered! :winkold:

To be fair, I was only thinking about tomorrow's MON return and the reception he will get. My Brother and I had a chat about it the other night and he said that we would give anything to have MON and the 6th place finishes back now. To which I replied that we are in such financial troubles because of him and the wated money on crap signings. We both concluded that it is Lerner who is to blame for that.

Let's think about this for a minute. Does anyone actually know for 100% sure why MON left Villa 5 days before the start of a season? I don't recall it ever being officially announced why he did it so as far as I am concerned we should really wait for the facts to come to light before slagging the man off. How do we know he wasn't sacked by Lerner for something he said or did? In which case, who is the bad guy then?

Pat Murphy said on 5Live a couple of months back that O'Neill wanted to buy Scott Parker with the Milner money and Randy refused. He didn't say how Stephen Ireland fitted into the scenario but according to him that is why O'Neill walked.

Not sure how much Parker would have cost in August 2010 but I reckon it would have been £10m+ given West Ham were still in the PL he would've wanted big wages too I'd imagine.

Faulkner previously talked about Europe being a possibility this season, so hopefully they will appreciate how far short of this McLeish has actually achieved.

El-Reacho wrote:

Just my take on what's going on.

Why? Because it appears as if you've not the first clue.

Fair enough, I don't know what's going on behind the scenes and you don't know what's going on behind the scenes but I'll withhold my views because you're right.

How far into the long term was Randy looking when he allowed wages to spiral out of control to 80+% of our revenue? How far into the future was he looking when he appointed a manager with a history of heart problems or one who was unlikely to be accepted by a huge proportion of the fan base with a negative impact upon our revenue?

I'm sorry but I think you way off the mark.

The point I was making is that that amount of spending on both fees and wages for that amount of time has minimal impact on Lerner's overall picture. To him it was a risk worth taking. He's even said he has no regrets over any of O'Neill's signings.

Do you really think he's going to make such a high profile investment (regardless of value), and run it as haphazardly as everyone on here thinks he's doing? Do you think people are unwilling to do business with Lerner's other companies because of his supposed incompetency in the handling of Villa's finances or recruitment policy?

Lerner and his pals have grown up in big business. He doesn't see the running of club the way the fans do, and as he's clearly demonstrated he doesn't care for the fans' opinions on how to run the club. He will do it like he does his other businesses (successful and unsuccessful).

The appointment of managers is a slightly different issue, but needless to say he's making decisions based on the recommendations of a recruitment agency (certainly in Houllier's case, pretty sure in McLeish's). But again McLeish's stint will be negligible in the overall picture IMHO. It's probably why he'll be here for the next season at least.

I'm sorry, but he has run the club exceedingly badly, and if you can show me a successful company that follows the Randy Lerner blueprint for Villa, I'll eat my own shoes. After 6 years, we've made huge losses, sold most of our better players and have a terrible manager who has alienated most of the customer base. If you want to dress it up in management speak, then in the BCG matrix, Aston Villa is a dog.

Lerner does NOT know what he's doing, and trying to dress up the incompetent way he runs he club as part of some grand medium term plan is desperate in the extreme.

There's about three clubs in world football that are possibly not dogs. After all the losses the club's made he'd easily break even if he wanted to sell up and that's after just six years. He knows that he can easily send us back up the table as he's already done it with O'Neill and he will do it again - I'm absolutely sure of it.

This summer we'll be in pretty much an identical position to the club that he took over, so he knows that he can just start again. The original five year plan was drawn up because they spotted an opportunity to break into the top four and took a risk, which didn't pay off. Lerner and his team will be waiting for another opportunity to invest, when the risks aren't too high then he'll go again. IMHO he'll wait to see how the FFP rules pan out or if Arsenal and Spurs fall away significantly. He will also be trying to gauge if anyone like Liverpool/Everton/Sunderland will come in and do another Man City and scupper any chances.

Just my take on what's going on.

Can't agree with that - Guzan's performances were easily as good as Given's IMHO. Injuries happen - it's tough luck but no player should have a guaranteed place in the side. I think that decision sent a pretty negative message to the rest of the squad too. I was delighted when we signed Given, and he's done well for us but he should have come back into the side only when(if) Guzan's performances warranted him being dropped, not because he's fit again.

If anything McLeish's past indicates that he gets results out of the squads he's inherited, and once he builds his own squad over a few seasons things tend to go pear-shaped.

Wonder what the political issues were?

Guzan will be a great signing for someone, like Howard and Friedel have been before him. He was really shoddily treated by McLeish this season when Given went straight back into the team. For all McLeish's talk of dropping people who make errors he refused to do it with Given.

Is he gutted at the management of the team or the quality of the players? It would be a bit rich if he was gutted about the quality of the players given the squad we had when he sold up.

This McLeish saga is something that would never have happened when he was here, but then so are most of the signings from the last six years.