Paul33

Cheered and applauded him for years as a Villa player but now he's a Man Ure player so why would I clap and applaud him ? He's just an opposition player out to destroy us at the first opportunity - hardly something any Villa fan should be celebrating ! He gave us plenty over the years but we gave him even more in return so Saturday is about the present, not the past - and watch out for those crosses if you are in the stands !!!

+1

I was okay with McLeish coming in - thought he might be okay - now I'm having real doubts. I don't and never did give a toss that he was ex-bluenose but his negative bias and the crass negativity at Spurs bothers me big time. Swansea aren't Spurs and although a decent outfit, we should be going out to attack them - if he gets this one wrong then that's it - I'm switching to the McLeish Out camp !

Setting up with six defencemen wouldn't have been my choice but okay - had he pulled off a 0-0 I'd have given him credit but what I don't accept is that at 0-2 down we do bugger all to change things. That's just accepting defeat ! He should never have played Bent in this one. He's a goalscorer but a lousy target man - we should have gone with two whippets up front to at least make Spurs work. Bent was half asleep and looked completely disinterested.

Definitely a straight red for the Hutton exocet tackle. Yes he played the ball first but anybody who plays the game would know that was a tackle designed to cause damage and had it been a Baggies player making that tackle then I'd be going ballistic. Stupid challenge from a poor player.

..... but not playing him in midfield !!! We needed somebody to hold the ball up in the baggies half. Heskey should have gone up top with Gabby playing off him and three in midfield.

Shocking red card decision but the gaffa has to grow a pair and ditch the likes of Nzogbia and Hutton into the reserves where they can rebuild whatever they once had because they sure haven't got it anymore ! Equally, we need to recognise that Bent converts a decent amount of the guilt-edged chances he gets but, that aside, he is complete shite. He doesn't work hard enough and he fails to hold the ball up so unless you are playing him with two wide men in an old-skool 4-3-3 then he is a liability and, frankly, a waste of a shirt. Put Heskey up front as the target man then at least we have the time to get the attacking midfielders up in support - with Bent it just comes straight back again. Either give Bent the support that is needed to make him of use or ditch him into the reserves and tell him to change his game because lame-ass, lightweight, frontman is of no use to us at all at the moment !

The midfield is a REAL problem and has to be dealt with. Nobody is prepared to run with the ball which means we don't open teams up and give our forwards something to work with. Delph and Ireland look like pub footballers and Petrov's only contribution on the ball is to pass back to Dunne or Given which is a gutless cop out. We look more dynamic with the likes of Bannan on the field as he looks like he's prepared to take responsibility - the senior guys simply don't !

Yeah ...... you should have left us without a manager for the entire summer just to keep the fans happy and then watch the team get relegated for certain. Fans know best Randy - let them run the club ! Pathetic !

+1

Neatly worded but pointless post as all it does is criticize what has happened without making any effort to suggest what should have happened. Fact is there were few, if any, choices and like it or not, McLeish was the best option we had. The notion that every manager in the league would want to come here because we are a huge attractive force is blinkered nonsense as proven by the handful of managers who we dropped hints for but who immediately hid under the kitchen table from us. MON did a lot of damage to this club by the timing and manner of his departure, Houllier was the wrong appointment to pick up the pieces and what we need now is a guy who can unite the undoubted talent that we have and start to put the team back into the talented roster we have. I don't know that McLeish is the right guy to do that but I do know that those who are beating their chests have no basis for condeming him either. What he did elsewhere at a club that has no parallels with what we have here is obviously irrelevant and the fact he was a "nose" for a few years is even more irrelevant. Keep your doubts by all means but give the guy a chance because I'll gaurantee he will give 110% to make things happen here and, at the moment, that demands respect and tolerance in my books.

Not being funny but I would be far more concerned if we brought in another Euro-sop with no Premiership experience than I would if we sign AM. Where are the European coaches who have genuinely proven themselves over here ?

The beginning ?!!!! So do we just pretend last season didn't happen ? A season where we were drab and played stodgy, ineffective crab-football that left Blues above us for most of the season and very nearly got us relegated ? Get real - Villa can't get much worse than they were most of last season !

MON took us as far as he was capable of, Houllier nearly relegated us and then died (almost !) so I'm more than happy to take McLeish and start all over. I want a guy who can work with what we have because we genuinely have talent to work with and McLeish will get the best out of them IMHO. I don't give a shiny shite what he did or didn't do at Blouse because no manager can turn that bunch into an attractive side - he'll have better resources at Villa and I'll certainly be ready to give him a chance.

Well I have a lot of ounces of sense more than you have and I can assure you I don't support your views and will support whoever is appointed and the players that wear the shirt. Its daft buggers like you that make me want AM appointed just so he can prove you wrong and demonstrate that whether a person was or wasn't ONCE a "nose" is totally irrelevant if he does the business here !

There's no way they'd get much of a turnout which will just strengthen the hand of those making the calls. Loads of stupid anti-bluenose chanting and banners that will make us all a laughing stock. PS: And the same protesters will be conspicuous by their silence if AM is appointed and proves a success !!!

Get real - it's like a school playground on here at times ! Randy Lerner will make the right call for the club, whatever that is and if it is AM then just watch the blinkered immature sops on here all start squirming if he starts winning games ..... I doubt any of you will have the balls to come back on here and admit you were wrong ! If there are better candidates then great but I don't see any queue at the moment so I'm ready to back whoever is appointed and the players who get behind him and if that's in front of 30,000 true Villa then I'll take that over the extra 10,000 who always think they know best !

+1

I agree with you but WHO are the options here ..... I'm trying hard to see a positive in McLeish because, quite frankly, there are no other candidates which is why they will appoint him this week. I'd rather have Kev Mac or Poyet or many of the better Championship managers or Coyle or Moyes but fact is, they don't want to come here. We are a club coming off a season of player unrest with big name players wanting to leave and with a management team who got turned down by a guy who'd rather be at wigan than Villa !!!

Personally, I don't want ML but we are stirring the bottom of the bucket at the moment and any candidate is going to be "below our standard" ...... the managers we want are either not available or not prepared to play second/third choice to Martinez. We've f*cked up here big time and running with nobody at the helm for much longer will be a much bigger disaster than appointing ML who I have a hunch would do much better here than many seem to think. Failing to keep the Blouse in the Premiership does not make a manager a bad one in my books - its a garbage club with no fans and no money and yet he still kept them above Villa for most of last season !

...... do we ignore some of the gubbings we got last season (Newcastle anyone ?) and do we ignore the fact the ML put his team of no-hopers and Villa cast-offs in the top half of the league for most of the time we were in the bottom half a dozen ? Oh ..... okay then !

I'd take any style over the drab crab-football that nearly relegated Villa last season ! I'd take any manager who can actually manage a side without having wars breaking out amongst the camp and I'd take any manager who has the balls to drop our "superstar" egos when they stop performing for the team. Truth of the matter is that had Blouse not been wrecked by major injury problems at a bad time, they would have finished above us with a fraction of the resources made available to the French idiot who we tolerated !

If Sir Alex had charge of the Blouse for a season and they went down ...... would he be a crap manager or would fans point at the crap side, lack of resources and major injury issues ? You can't put a manager down for failing to make sense of a crap side anymore than you can rave about a guy who rides in on a top side with limitless resources at his disposal. I don't give a flying frog where the manager comes from nor whether he was a Sty Dweller last season - if he comes here and does a job then he's good by me. I'm not certain one way or the other whether ML will work here but his record at Blouse doesn't make my mind up in any way and the fact that he was there makes no difference to me at all !

...... at the rate the club is going backwards, would that be wise ?!!!

Let's be honest here, Martinez keeping a team like Wigan in the Premiership is a far greater achievement and display of managerial prowess than Houllier scraping a team like Villa into 9th place. Wherever Martinez has been, he has got the best out of his players and those players have wanted to play for him. RL will invest money into Villa but he's no mug and he wants a guy who will give him a return. MON wasted money by falling out with half the side and refusing to play highly paid players and GH was looking to invest in some quite bizarre and unproven talents. There is no bang on perfect option for Villa but Martinez excites me and I think he has the potential to deliver here ........ he also serves to stop us recruiting clowns like Benitez, Hughes and McLaren !!!