supernova26 Posted May 29, 2012 Share Posted May 29, 2012 In Feb this year after the Villa Fulham reserves game I met Alex McCleish at BH for the second time . This was in response to a letter I had sent into him about the broken promises from the first meeting and generally telling him we all felt about the football and his signings . I promised him I would not divulge everything that was said but was amazed at his honesty and have to say as a Man I like him but that did not change my opinion about his appointment and what we were watching . I am still in contact with him and actually text him the day he resigned I still think he is a decent bloke but simply not for AVFC , he never was ! But what he was very vocal about was 2 things one being that RL would provide money for signings in the summer and if there was a need to pay a certain player 100k a week we would but the pot was the pot . He said he was on the same page as RL about this that the wages were out of proportion to our turnover and we were over paying people and they were past their best. I took from this if there were special players then they would go out and pay it Darren Bent is a prime example but they couldn't do it on 10 of them . He said we would need 5 players because whoever was in charge would be faced with the same problem that the seniors are not good enough and don't care enough . That's interesting and makes great sense. For me someone who watches lots of football it never fails to amaze me how one player can make so much difference to a team. Obviously it helps if you have lots of top players but just a bare sprinkling can make all the difference. For example Drogba won the Champions League for Chelsea practically on his own. Hazzard has made Lille a Champions League club. There's plenty of examples of "one man" teams that do well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodigan Posted May 30, 2012 Share Posted May 30, 2012 MM, in line with the time's i met eck last summer - seemed a very genuine man, who was always open and transparent. not right for the club, but certainly tried to execute what he thought was the best strategy. as far as him not knowing that he was going to get fired, i'm sure he was under no illusions whatsoever. what he didn't want to do was make it simple be sounding resigned to the fact before it actually happened. his view on randy being willing to spend sounds spot on as well... he's always been prepared to buy what he considers the right sort of player, even when it hasn't been particularly clear to all, including myself, that we have been spending. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ForfarVillan Posted May 30, 2012 Share Posted May 30, 2012 Yea I met big Eck a few times many years ago when I was in the youth team at hibs and he was manager, really nice guy so I found myself very conflicted this season. Didn't fit the club at all and was never really going to win the fans over no matter how hard he tried. Nonetheless I find it difficult to be as scathing as some as he was very nice to me but Im glad he's gone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moose Posted May 30, 2012 Share Posted May 30, 2012 If you take a look at Villa's accounts, the balance sheet has something like £68m of "intangible assets" on the balance sheet. This is basically the transfer fees and acquisition costs of our playing staff and at some point that needs to be written off. Last year, ie the one to May 2011) the write off amounted to £30m (ie that LEFT £68m AFTER the £30m write off) and that £68m has to get written off over the life of player contracts. So when everyone looks at how much money Villa has lost, just remember that before we sign anyone else, there's a further £68m of costs yet to hit the P&L account. What I don't know of course is what the composition of that intangible asset is, although I could probably have a good go at working some of it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MYSTERYMAN Posted May 30, 2012 Share Posted May 30, 2012 Warnock, Collins and Dunne all out of contract next summer. Anyone else? Would be amazed if at least 2 of those are not binned they cannot go another season with players who have caused so much trouble and unrest in the club. Major reason why we have struggled for 2 seasons senior players not giving a flying **** about Villa and yes he did say that to me word for word . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentVilla Posted May 30, 2012 Moderator Share Posted May 30, 2012 Warnock, Collins and Dunne all out of contract next summer. Anyone else? Would be amazed if at least 2 of those are not binned they cannot go another season with players who have caused so much trouble and unrest in the club. Major reason why we have struggled for 2 seasons senior players not giving a flying **** about Villa and yes he did say that to me word for word . If that is the case why did he buy a RB we didn't need rather than a LB that could have replaced Warnock? Why did he play both Collins and Dunne ahead of Cuellar? If those players were such a problem and I don't doubt for one minute that they were why didn't he even try and do something about one of them? Instead he played them all. Added to that why did he go and sign a RB with the track record off the pitch that Hutton had? McLeish can blame the players all he wants, they certainly deserve some blame but he failed to do a thing about them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MYSTERYMAN Posted May 30, 2012 Share Posted May 30, 2012 Warnock, Collins and Dunne all out of contract next summer. Anyone else? Would be amazed if at least 2 of those are not binned they cannot go another season with players who have caused so much trouble and unrest in the club. Major reason why we have struggled for 2 seasons senior players not giving a flying **** about Villa and yes he did say that to me word for word . If that is the case why did he buy a RB we didn't need rather than a LB that could have replaced Warnock? Why did he play both Collins and Dunne ahead of Cuellar? If those players were such a problem and I don't doubt for one minute that they were why didn't he even try and do something about one of them? Instead he played them all. Added to that why did he go and sign a RB with the track record off the pitch that Hutton had? McLeish can blame the players all he wants, they certainly deserve some blame but he failed to do a thing about them. Can't deny that one of the things I said to him Hutton was worse full back I have ever saw up there with Ivor Linton . He basically said he had to work with what he had got couldn't move them on because of the wages they were on . He had limited funds to work with and thought Hutton NZogbia were priorities ( Both awful to date ) and then no money to spend because getting wage bill down was the thing he had bought into . Rated Cuellar above all of the centre backs but would have sold him at the time because of business reasons i.e salary . Said there would have been wholesale changes in the summer as they were near their target of getting the wages down to the level that was manageable . His two best signings this season were King and Burke at Blues both free transfers and one of the biggest disapppintments for me was he didn't work the market well enough at all for Villa . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentVilla Posted May 30, 2012 Moderator Share Posted May 30, 2012 I can understand that he couldn't move them because of wages but if he really thought Cuellar was the best CB (which I agree with) he should have played him over the other two. As for wholesale changes in the summer the thought of that man carrying out those changes puts the fear of God into me. His signings here and when he had money to spend at Birmingham were simply terrible. I would be hard pushed to pick the biggest disappointment about his time here there are so many options and absolutely no positives in his favour, none. As for those two signings for Birmingham I doubt they would have done so well for them had he remained in charge with his woeful football. The fact he signed a piece of scum like King is a black mark against his name as both a manager and a man as far as I'm concerned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MYSTERYMAN Posted May 30, 2012 Share Posted May 30, 2012 I can understand that he couldn't move them because of wages but if he really thought Cuellar was the best CB (which I agree with) he should have played him over the other two. As for wholesale changes in the summer the thought of that man carrying out those changes puts the fear of God into me. His signings here and when he had money to spend at Birmingham were simply terrible. I would be hard pushed to pick the biggest disappointment about his time here there are so many options and absolutely no positives in his favour, none. As for those two signings for Birmingham I doubt they would have done so well for them had he remained in charge with his woeful football. The fact he signed a piece of scum like King is a black mark against his name as both a manager and a man as far as I'm concerned. I aint defending him as a Manager because he was woeful but just pleased I got the chance to have that debate with him . Will finish off with Cuellar he was injured when he first came so gave chances to the 2 . When Cuellar was fit preferred him . Cuellar was the only one who attracted interest and re business reasons he would have sold him to make room for other key areas which was centre mid . I might not agree with him just saying what his thought process was . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moose Posted May 30, 2012 Share Posted May 30, 2012 Christ, if I have to turn up next knowing 3/4 of our back line can't really be arsed it's going to be a bloody long season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KHV Posted May 30, 2012 Share Posted May 30, 2012 Christ, if I have to turn up next knowing 3/4 of our back line can't really be arsed it's going to be a bloody long season. I would say whoever takes over will replace the back line. our priority must be 3 defenders and 2 midfielders otherwise we will struggle like **** Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Posted May 30, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted May 30, 2012 How dare Warnock cause any trouble what-so-ever! If I was him Id be walking around with my head down! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted May 30, 2012 Share Posted May 30, 2012 Brett Holman might yet prove to be a decent legacy from McLeish, let's wait and see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFCforever1991 Posted May 30, 2012 Share Posted May 30, 2012 We need defenders,midfielders,wingers...I think we will have to spent at least 30M. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam_ Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 We need defenders,midfielders,wingers...I think we will have to spent at least 30M. I don't think Lambert (if he gets the job of course) will be given that much too spend..... He got given sod all at Norwich and did well so maybe that's why the board want him! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFCforever1991 Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 We need defenders,midfielders,wingers...I think we will have to spent at least 30M. I don't think Lambert (if he gets the job of course) will be given that much too spend..... He got given sod all at Norwich and did well so maybe that's why the board want him! yeah that makes sense, maybe just 15-20mill at least.. I mean how much did he give McLeish? I think they would want to give him a good chunk of transfer budget, otherwise there would be no incentive to come to villa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam_ Posted May 31, 2012 Share Posted May 31, 2012 We need defenders,midfielders,wingers...I think we will have to spent at least 30M. I don't think Lambert (if he gets the job of course) will be given that much too spend..... He got given sod all at Norwich and did well so maybe that's why the board want him! yeah that makes sense, maybe just 15-20mill at least.. I mean how much did he give McLeish? I think they would want to give him a good chunk of transfer budget, otherwise there would be no incentive to come to villa. Probably more than Norwich are offering, either that or he's been offered a good pay package to come to Villa....... I think Mcleish got around £15m or half of what Villa got paid for Young and Downing however much that was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts