The, he's finally GONE! Tell us your thoughts Thread

[OnlyOne]

I've just heard there were extra stewards in last nights game to protect McLeish.

You see, this is why he was a bad idea from a start. A manager should never be protected from his own fans at home. Unbeliveable appointment.

[heystally!]

I might just write a letter to Randy Lerner and Paul Faulkner, trying to convince them to give me the Villa job.

[Gillz]

I might just write a letter to Randy Lerner and Paul Faulkner, trying to convince them to give me the Villa job.

Make sure you put down your football manager history!

[romavillan]

crazy, we win away at chelsea and then get humbled at home 48 hours later. still, we're 8 points of 7th and 8 points off 18th. personally i don't think we'll finish 7th, but i don't think we'll go down either. was a big shame not to follow up the chelsea win with a good result at home but it's not the end of the world. i think they need a bit of a rest and then pick themselves up and go again. ireland coming into form will be like a new signing if he can perform well consistently.

[pacbuddies]

I might just write a letter to Randy Lerner and Paul Faulkner, trying to convince them to give me the Villa job.

Get it endorsed by Sir Alex Ferguson then it's a sure fire winner!

[Woodytom]

The thing is as much as we all want the 'glory days' back, Aston Villa is not just a football club.

Randy Lerner has a business to run, which he's currently operating at a loss. Not saying it's not his fault because he should've been a bit more careful with his money and not get so carried away in his opening couple of seasons in charge, but it's happened now and there's not a lot we can do other than cut unnecessary outgoings.

One of the main reasons we were so set on McLeish was because Lerner saw him as a manager who could steady the ship without complaining for transfer funds and causing unrest within management. By steady the ship I mean behind the scenes.

As much as we all want the club to be getting instant results football doesn't always work like that.

We've got to be realistic for the long term future of the club. OK, we may be stagnant for another season (I won't say transitional period because I'm fed up of it being described as that) but our wage bill in ratio to turnover isn't the best. But neither are our attendances. And here comes catch 22.

With low attendances and little revenue the only hope we have at making our wage bill sensible is by letting players go and operating on a sell-to-buy policy, or "trading" as McLeish liked to describe it. Now, of course we'd all like 40k attendances every week, but how is that going to happen if the football is, er, well, crap? We all know Villa have our fair share of fairweather fans just like every other club. But without the fans attending the games this is going to be an even longer process.

Poor matchday revenue = lack of players in

High wage bill = lack of players in

Lack of players in = slow decline

Slow decline = Decrease in revenue

Decrease in revenue = selling assets, or, as we've learnt, selling our best players

And then we're back to square one.

It's not pretty, it's definitely not what I or any other Villa fan wants, but the way we're being run at the moment is something that needs to be done. Thankfully a lot of our 30+ players on £50,000+ p/w have contracts ending at the end of this season or next. Heskey, Dunne, Beye, Cuellar all out at the end of this season frees up almost £200,000 p/w which is £10.4m p/a... if needs be and we have to let Bent go we'll be saving even more. Again, thankfully, we have a lot of promising kids coming through the ranks who are adequate enough to replace those that will go, and if we need to replace I'm sure we will be shrewd... it's gonna be a long and winding road with a lot of disappointment on the way but as rubbish as it is, the financial status of the club in the long term is more important than a season or two of mediocrity.

It's far too easy to call for McLeish's head but he won't be off any time soon. Oh and there's also the fact that Houllier had to be paid off, Martin O'Neill had to be paid off, Birmingham City had to be paid off and if we sacked McLeish there'd be an even bigger pay off. Can we really afford to have another set back in our mission to make the club financially stable before the new UEFA rules come into play?

I'm not saying we'll challenge top 4 again but I highly doubt Lerner doesn't care about the club anymore. You can't blame McLeish for taking the job, he was offered it after all. It's just unfortunate for us that he was the only one *silly* enough to accept the job on our terms of no transfer funds, sell to buy, reduce wage bill & combat decline.

Outstanding Post. Exactly where I am

[steve-67]

Sellyoakvillain, that's a brilliant post and probably very accurate as to our current state of play. We are in a viscious circle unfortunately. My biggest gripe though is that the board didn't look at the type of football that Big Eck deploys. They had the opportunity to appoint an up and coming Manager who would know the lower leagues or who would have a better outlook as to how football should be played. I'm certain that there are other Managers out there who would have "stabilised the ship". All water under the bridge now but I would have liked someone like Paul Lambert. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, eh?.

The board have made big mistakes and it's the fans who suffer the consequences as we have to watch a Manager slowly disassemble what used to be a decent squad. Where have we seen this before?

[Gillz]

Top post selly, i agree. I just posted this elsewhere but i'll post it in here as well because i think it applies:

I remember the first time my Grandad took me too villa park. Since then we've had our ups and downs. Lets not deny it, right now we are on a down. However i can't wait for the day when i take my kids or my granchildren to go see the villa play. So if I have to sit through a few season of rubbish football to ensure the financial safeguarding of the club i love, it is a price i am more than willing to pay.

[pacbuddies]

In 20 league games we have failed to score in 8 of them. Even worse is that we have failed to score in 6 of the last 9 league games since 21st November 2011.

The manager's record of 40% of games in which the team have failed to score just shows what a boring, negative, clueless, useless person he is.

[Woodytom]

I remember the first time my Grandad took me too villa park. Since then we've had our ups and downs. Lets not deny it, right now we are on a down. However i can't wait for the day when i take my kids or my granchildren to go see the villa play. So if I have to sit through a few season of rubbish football to ensure the financial safeguarding of the club i love, it is a price i am more than willing to pay.

I just cant get my head round why people cant see this.

Too busy calling Randy a clearing in the woods for not pumpin money (that he hasnt got) into the club, and for making mistakes financially, to see the bigger picture.

Whats happened has happened.

[alf_stewart]

I'm sticking my neck out here, but there's precisely zero chance of us losing to Rovers on Saturday to worsen McLeish's woes. They are 'kin terrible.

Even terrible-er than us.

Blackburn's players seem to be trying for their manager, whereas ours don't, Chelsea apart.

We have better players than Blackburn imo, but they at least give it a go, whereas we don't.

Bristol Rovers.

[heystally!]

There are teams in the league who are on less wage budgets and have less finances than us who are doing better in terms of performances and results.

Swansea are a key example of that.

If they can play decent football without spending as much as us, then why can't we reduce the wage bill and be competitive?

The key thing for me is the manager. Ultimately we could do well even when reducing our spending. But not with Alex McLeish as manager.

[Big_John_10]

Sorry i think its bullshit.

Are people seriously saying the only way to steady the ship while we sort out the finances was to pay millions of pounds to our rivals to get a manager who was relegated twice in 3 years?

And on top of that hire him even after a public protest where it was clear a lot of fans were never going to have patience with him.

The appointment of mcleish was a poor decision from a man whose poor decisions are holding us back just like the last chairman.

The quicker he's gone the better.

[Mantis]

There are teams in the league who are on less wage budgets and have less finances than us who are doing better in terms of performances and results.

Swansea are a key example of that.

If they can play decent football without spending as much as us, then why can't we reduce the wage bill and be competitive?

The key thing for me is the manager. Ultimately we could do well even when reducing our spending. But not with Alex McLeish as manager.

I agree. I accept that we need to cut down the wage bill. However, when would McLeish ever be the right man to do this? He may well cut the wage bill but him taking us down in the process isn't out of the question. Even if he doesn't take us down during his time with us we'll still have to put up with dire and abject performances on an almost weekly basis and when he finally does leave we'll be left with a very poor squad.

The only situation in which McLeish would be anything close to the right man for us would be if the board's intention was to get us relegated playing shit football.

[Woodytom]

Sorry i think its bullshit.

Are people seriously saying the only way to steady the ship while we sort out the finances was to pay millions of pounds to our rivals to get a manager who was relegated twice in 3 years?

And on top of that hire him even after a public protest where it was clear a lot of fans were never going to have patience with him.

The appointment of mcleish was a poor decision from a man whose poor decisions are holding us back just like the last chairman.

The quicker he's gone the better.

Whether you agree with the decision or not.......

Do you think Randy's decision to employ Mcliesh was made with Randy thinking 'this isnt the right man for the job from those that are available'??

I dont.

Thats not to say it was the right decision.

[Big_John_10]

Sorry i think its bullshit.

Are people seriously saying the only way to steady the ship while we sort out the finances was to pay millions of pounds to our rivals to get a manager who was relegated twice in 3 years?

And on top of that hire him even after a public protest where it was clear a lot of fans were never going to have patience with him.

The appointment of mcleish was a poor decision from a man whose poor decisions are holding us back just like the last chairman.

The quicker he's gone the better.

Whether you agree with the decision or not.......

Do you think Randy's decision to employ Mcliesh was made with Randy thinking 'this isnt the right man for the job from those that are available'??

I dont.

Thats not to say it was the right decision.

Well thats my point.

Our owner is making the wrong decisions and its costing us.

And from my limited knowledge of NFL it seems he does the same there.

Just because randy thinks its right doesn't make it acceptable.

[OnlyOne]

What's up with the fickle fans on here? Fans were getting over excited with the Chelsea win and made a thread about calling a truce towards McLeish now suddenly some have turned again. DOL was right. I know football fans are fickle in general, but Villa fans take it to another level.

I've also noticed there's hardly any backbone towards McLeish. Houllier got way more venom. Loads of different negative chants, banners, a long chorus of boos, xenophobic insults etc. With McLeish it's basically been a lol worthy of boos (don't last more than a second at HT/FT) and the best one being "you don't know what you're doing", which was the norm towards Houllier anyway.

How exactly is this manager getting away with murder here? 4 home defeats in a row. 8 out of 20 times we've failed to score. Clueless football for the most part. 25% win record. It's not just that. If you look at his past experinces it's a defining fact in time he'll destroy completely, yet fans are just sitting there being all indifferent about the whole situation.

[TrentVilla]

No I don't Woody but then I don't think he thought he was the right man either, I think he 'picked' him out of panic and desperation, he picked him because he was an easy option and he thought a cheap or free one.

It was a bad decision made for bad reasons and no good was ever going to come from it.

[bickster]

What's up with the fickle fans on here? Fans were getting over excited with the Chelsea win and made a thread about calling a truce towards McLeish now suddenly some have turned again. DOL was right. I know football fans are fickle in general, but Villa fans take it to another level.

Except they aren't the same fans, different fans posting different things when circumstances suit their agendas / opinions / whatever else you want to call them.

[Bazdavies79]

Every club appoints shit managers. Its the single most important decision a club makes, and most clubs get it wrong most of the time. You're usually a terrible chairman, then you come upon a manager who gets results and all of a sudden you're the chairman everybody wants (after that sheikh). I call it the Levy syndrome.