El-Reacho

Bouma was an exciting signing. Was a well known Dutch international that had just gone to the latter stages of the CL with PSV, and was in his prime as defender. Turned out to be a great signing - particualrly under O'Neill.

Think it was around about then that we started to speculate on the number of chairs at the press conferences. I think we thought that we were going to do something like City did.

Would surely be one of the youngest PL players ever if he made it onto the pitch, let alone score? Getting ahead of myself here..... Hopefully a Villa and ROI legend in the making though.

Has to be Harewood. We'd just spent the season struggling by with O'Leary's squad - had got Stan, Carew, and Young in and all the talk was about Schnjeider, Miguel or Bosingwa signing as it would be the first transfer window where O'Neill could really splash the cash on Europe's top talents. Then we signed Marlon... Emile a close second, given where we were in the table and so desperately needed a good striker.

Guardian saying tomorrow's game is going ahead at Stan's insistence. Really hope the fans make him proud. Absolutely devastating news.

I don't know if anyone listens to the Guardian's Football Weekly Podcast but last Monday Evan Fanning was talking about Villa in light or the Arsenal result and said something along the lines of - if there's any justice in football Villa will be relegated this season. He reckons the other teams are busting a gut to stay up but Villa are not even trying. McLeish is happy with mediocrity. They also said it's well known that the players are very unhappy with him too. Said he felt sorry for the the fans and the players. Refreshingly there was no mention of fans discontent due to McLeish's previous employers.

Think it may be Keane trying to engineer his way back to a PL club.

As far as I'm concerned Lerner has made only one mistake (albeit a fairly big one) which I fully expect him to rectify in the summer. Unless I'm mistaken didn't Ellis have all pictures of 1982 removed from Villa Park as he was not part of it. Says it all.

I think it will take a massive finish to the season for McLeish to save his job. Houllier was sacked after a really strong finish, despite the fact he needed paying off, and he had much more support from the fans than McLeish currently has. He had been given the all clear from his Doctor. His signings were settling well (Makoun excluded admittedly) - yet Lerner still sacked him. He also tried to play positive football with the younger players. Mcleish really has nothing to fall back on: Attendances down, the media on his back now, the fans on his back, talk of player mutinies, and his signings have not performed. Also the likes of Warnock, who Paul Faulkner said McLeish had brought back to being one of the best LB's in the PL a couple of months ago has now reverted back to being utterly useless. If Lerner is twice as patient with McLeish than he was with Houllier then he'll still sack him this summer based on the above.

He'd only joined WBA a few months previously. He's definitely not the type to jump ship like that. Would have been delighted if he'd had though.

I seem to remember O'Neill's first season as being something we had to get out of the way so we could start spending money on people like Wesley Schneijder and Miguel the next summer. That season was full of excitement and hope rather than negativity. Then we signed Marlon and we all had to re-adjust to realise that MON's targets were rarely particularly exciting, exotic, or interesting. There's none of the excitment and hope this time around - even after McLeish said about spending money this summer. I think everyone's panicking about who he'll waste it on... I have to admit that last year I felt that once Houllier had a summer to get rid of the ones who were going against his policies and tactics we'd see the best of him as a manager. His transfer targets were also a bit more interesting - at least they were people we'd never heard of like Fofana etc.

Overrated? I dont know anybody who rates him at all. Apart from MoN of course Paul Faulkner rates him as one of the best LB's in the premier league. He's certainly in the top 20.

James McClean at Sunderland is of similar age, experience, and from the same league as Enda (think he was even cheaper?). He was completely ignored by Bruce, who signed him, and has been thrown into the thick of it by O'Neill. He looks a real prospect and is now being talked up for Ireland's Euro 2012 squad. There's every chance Enda can emulate that.

Those clubs generate ten times the income that Villa do. We're vastly spending beyond the club's means as it is, so if the 'fans' were to take control of Villa and use only the club's generated income to fund the players we'd probably just implode, as we'd have to sell half the current squad to balance the books and then we'd subsequently get relegated. Then our parachute payments would run out and we would have no sky money, and might have 20,000 gates every week in the Championship. We would then have to re-adjust again accordingly selling any of the quality we might have left in our squad until we found our sustainable level. Probably bottom half of Championship - Leeds are pretty much self sustaining at this stage I think.

If things get really dire with McLeish we'll see what Lerner's plans are. As long as he's in the job a takeover is likely, however if RL forks out the £3m or whatever is required to get rid of him it's safe to say he's not interested in selling any time soon.

Just noticed that Carlo Ancelotti seems to have agreed to take the PSG job. Interesting that the guy who started the Villa/QSI takeover rumours on that other forum said one thing that was certain is that Ancelotti would not be involved with Villa if a takeover were to take place. Possibly because he knew he had the PSG job last week? - might give him some cred. I know Ancelotti has been linked with PSG since Leonardo's involvement with the club but Kombuoare's job seemed secure after their last few games. Nothing like keeping yourself entertained with random internet rumours....

Paul Doyle made a good point in the Guardian a few weeks back in that historically when McLeish takes over a side he does well with the previous manager's squad and set-up, but as he starts to settle in and implement his own way of doing things and buying his own players things start to go downhill after a season or two. Don't want to think where that would leave us.....

My only issue with Lerner is his ability to appoint football staff. He has tried to think outside the box with his managerial appointments and it has gone spectacularly wrong both times. Right now I really don't care that Lerner is not investing in the squad because what's the point when McLeish is persevering with the current dross on the pitch. If we spent big money on anyone other than a defender they would be completely marginalised anyway - look at Bent. He won't let anyone whose vaguely attacking play to their strengths. Look at N'Zogbia now too. I wonder if Lerner has learned from how O'Neill's players have failed to gel with subsequent managers and is holding back on investing until he knows he has a manager that is going to be successful enough to be here for more than a year. I wouldn't give McLeish any money to spend right now.

I would have agreed with all your points in September but in December I think: I would take an overseas coach or an unproven PL coach from the lower leagues who has shown they can organise a football team to defend. I think this is all a manager needs to have achieved to date to match what McLeish has managed to date. All Lerner does is give his consultancy an brief when finding a manager - he must now know that he needs to change the brief and look at the likes of proven continental mangers, and Hughes etc. And also mangers in current PL jobs such as Brendan Rodgers. I agree that a manager needs time but McLeish has shown not even the slightest suggestion that he aspires to have Villa playing winning football. In the vast majority of games we've been set up to not conceed rather than to attack. We have a squad filled with players that want to play attacking football on the ground and to take risks in the opposition half but McLeish has them playing defensive roles or has dropped them if they don't adhere to his rules on the pitch. Paul Faulkner raved about how AMcL has rejuvinated Stephen Warnock into one of the best left backs int he PL after GH had sidelined him, and if that's the case then he and Randy can't fail to see the harm that McLeish is having on Darren Bent (their £18m investment) who had a handful of touches tonight, Barry Bannan, Marc Albrighton, Stephen Ireland (£8m?), Charles N'Zogbia etc. These players are becoming worthless under McLeish and the club will have to realise that sooner or later. The only positive thing from tonight and the defeat at WHL is that the mainstream sports media have now jumped on how pathetic Villa have become recently and this will resonate with RL and PF. I think this will only heighten over the Christmas fixtures.

Gave him my full support when he arrived as I didn't care about the BCFC issue and thought with a good squad of players like we currently have he wouldn't go with the negative dross he's renowned for but he's simply a miserable manager and we're now a miserable team that are universally hated. Houllier got the chop after an 8th place finish and that was with an aspiration for actually trying to win games, and a £18m layout for a striker that would keep us up. So hopefully RL will be as cut throat this time and sack him. And will learn from this appointment when searching for our next manager. Have never been so disinterested in PL football in the last 20 years.

Or because the players chose to ignore AMcL's negative boring tactics and came up with their own.

Gabby's ability to go missing for weeks on end will always impact on his value unfortunately. Under McLeish though he's been of more value to us than Bent. As someone mentioned in the match thread yesterday he's becoming reminiscent of Henry at Arsenal this season. Also agree that he's more valuable to us than anyone else - when he gets older he will be an invaluable member of Villa's squad. Hopefully he'll be a one club man.

He's Swansea's 'keeper apparently - is there on emergency loan. Thank God it didn't go to penalties.... (Although we did have Guzan who's no slouch in CC shootouts)

Wee scare will do the youngsters the world of good.

If he's on a free he'll want big wages which if all the rumours are true will rule him out for us. NUFC have transfer listed him - I wonder if they'd take Beye in exchange which would free up some wages.