scottie_villa

I take your point about the style of play, but I can't really see us getting anywhere near top 6 no matter who the manager is. We are nowhere near Man City /United, Chelsea, Newcastle, Arsenal, Spurs, Pool, Everton. Sunderland are spending the cash too, so I think the highest we can hope for at all is 10th, in that midtable rut against the likes of Fulham, Stoke. All that positivity pre-season about Lambert rejuvinating the club was mainly marketing to get us poor fans to buy season tickets. Can Lambert really turn our fortunes about and get us into Europe?

Just reacting to the posts about how Lambert is only getting to see the players competitively now and blaming defeats on our poor squad / lack of spending, we are being way way more tolerant of Paul Lambert than we were of Alex McLeish. Judging on the lack of any coherent tactics or definite squad selection in the first couple of games I'm wondering were we correct in getting rid of McLeish? How long do we give Lambert to sort it out? I can't see us getting anything out of Newcastle and Swansea are in much better form than us so things could look very bad for us quite soon.

Steve Staunton?????? - Villa legend!

The problem with business ppl is they quite often look as business models when making appointments rather than genuine cop... John Delaney appointing Stan s Ireland manager was a classic example, even the appointment of Roy Hodgson had an element of that, they took the 'academic' approach where they looked at C.V.'s rather going for the blindingly obvious choice of Harry Redknapp. So Houllier's and McLeish's appointment was prob based on this 'academic' approach. Hopefully lessons will be learned and this will be a good appointment. If not then I can really see patience running out with Faulkner.

Didn't realise that, yep Tomme Dunne is Richard's cousin. Was Doolin's assistant and is doing grand, their first season up. Bohs are the Villa of Ireland... Once big, lost all their good players, now struggling at the wrong end of the league!

BOF your last article expressed the frustration that Villa fans have at the mo... But it also perfectly captured the kind of ridiculous hysteria and pessimism that has surrounded Villa this year. I'm not ciriticising, I think it was a very good representation of the feeling among supporters. While that game was particularly disappointing, the two points we've got since has seen us safe, and it still may be that one would have ultimatley been enough. Should we have all been giving the club a break as we were still slowly putting away points despite a chronic amount of injurues?

Diego Maradona... I'd love to see him there even just to teach Lerner and Faulkner a lesson.. Seriously though we have be realistic, no Benetiz or Bilic is gona come to Villa... Alan Curbishley prob the bext we can hope for.

For all the doom and gloom when we lost to Bolton, looks as though yesterdays point has seen us safe (Thank you Shay Given). I refuse to believe for a moment that blackburn will win their last 3 games, i think thats reasonalbe. We all need to shout for Man City on Mon so they can bring the season to the last day, so they have something to play for and send QPR down...

So Brendan Rogers is the answer??? An interesting stat is his record at Reading... The side had recently been relegated the previous year and were expected to challenge for promotion again. Brendan Rodgers took over from Steve Coppell in 2009 and after winning only 6 of 23 games (including one against Burton Albion in the League Cup) he left the club... I'm not saying he's a bad manager, as he's done a very good job with Swansea, but management is strange, it seems that when the 'glove fits' a manager, the team does well.... Like dare I suggest a certain Martin O'Neill does the best with average players getting the most out of them but would be unsuited to Man City type side. Rodgers could come to Villa and do another Reading, I'd be anxious to see if Swansea suffer from '2nd season syndrome' next year.

I have a a question, and i hope this isn't going too off topic, but how long will this thread keep going?? What happens is Villa go out, draw usually, or lose, people post McLeish Out. If we win (the odd time) people say he should still go... This will go on and on until we get to the summer.. when we start speculating about who could replace him, only to find out he's staying for a while, and the whole process starts all over again. We're on page 557 and i'm sure a lot of those pages say the same stuff and im at the point where i don't look at the thread any more... would the moderators allow a thread to get to 1000 pages?

Arsenal away = Lose Bolton home = Win Chelsea home = Draw Fulham home = Win Liverplop away = Lose Manure away = Lose Norwich away = Draw Stoke home = Draw Monderland home = Draw Spurts home = Lose Boggies away = Draw 11 more points, finish on 41 points... BUT... it does matter when we play them. Last season Pool and Arsenal's seasons were over when we played them last two games and we won both of them. So when we play West Brom 3rd last game they may be safe, we'll have more to play for so that could easily be a win. Same with Norwich last day of the season.

Would Andre-Villas Boas come to Villa??? Or would we get stuck with Mick McCarthy or Gary Megson if McLeish did go?

Here's a question... What's the minimum requirement from these next 3 games, (i think Wigan Blackburn and Fulham...) for McLeish to justify staying in the job for the rest of the season. I'd love 9, suppose i'd settle for 6... I've a feeling somehow it'll be 5, prob with one win against Blackburn, who have returned to being awful!

I think that quote is very unfair, its biased, any bunch of facts and statistics could be used to make opposite points... For instance, here's another look at McLeish's record... (Please don't castigate me, i'm only writing this to illustrate a point) After a successful playing career, winning a European Cup Winners Cup, Super Cup and three Scottish Premier League titles, Alex McLeish took over at Motherwell in 1994, and led them to an impressive second place in the Scottish Premier League finishing behind Walter Smith's Rangers. After the club failed to build on this, he ressigned and took over at Hibernians. In his first full season he won the Scottish First Division and in 2001 finished in third place in the Premier League and reached a Scotish Cup Final. He then took over at Rangers and won the Premier League in his first full season. Then followed a particularly difficult time when their financial state saw them lose many of their top players. Nevertheless, after making the Bosman free transfers of Jean-Alain Boumsong and Dado Prso he led Rangers to the Premier League title in 2005, edging out Martin O'Neill's Celtic and next season the side qualified for the knockout stages of the Champions League. After leaving Rangers, he became the Scottish National team manager, winning 7 out of 10 games, including an historic 1-0 defeat of France in Paris. He left his position as Scotland manager to take over at Birmingham City, and in his first full season (2008/09) led them to promotion to the English Premier League. By January 2010, he had guided them to a 12-game unbeaten run, a club record in the top division, was named Premier League Manager of the month for December 2009 (the first Birmingham manager to receive the award) and led them to a 9th place finish in the Premier League, their highest in over 50 years. The following season the club won the League Cup. However, due to a number of injuries to key players like Scott Dann and Craig Gardner, the club got caught in a relegation battle, and were relegated on the last day of the season following a defeat to Spurs. Despite Birmingham City saying McLeish would keep his job, he resigned and was appointed as manager to Aston Villa, to oversee a difficult period when the wage bill was being significantly reduced and he was told he would have to sell to buy.... I think you'll agree if you read this version of history it tells a very different story, but all of it is factually correct.

The Next four games will prove McLeish's worth as manager, away to Wigan & Blackburn, then at home to Fulham & Bolton.. Think we should wait off judgement til then, no shame in losing to top of the table 1-0.