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Top of the Flops: Mcleish, Houllier Or DOL?


Demitri_C

Who was the worst manager?  

219 members have voted

  1. 1. Who was the worst manager?

    • Gerard Houllier
      19
    • David O'Leary
      8
    • Alex McLeish
      192


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He had a budget. Yes it was on the small side but he didn't exactly spend it well. We blew nigh on £13m on Hutton and N'Zogbia.

I won't disagree with you on those two counts. McLeish wasted his budget but he also had much more to replace. McLeish was shit, don't get me wrong but he was dealing with Houlliers disarray and his brief was somewhat different. You can't hope to replace £40mil worth of wingers with £11mil though.

Was N'Zog the right choice, no, probably not but he didn't have the resources to do it anyway. Also tbh N'Zog was a huge disappointment, he looked a much better player than the one we got at both Wigan and Newcastle.

Its a close run thing for me between Houllier and McLeish but McLeish had one hand already tied behind his back, Houllier didn't

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He had a budget. Yes it was on the small side but he didn't exactly spend it well. We blew nigh on £13m on Hutton and N'Zogbia.

I won't disagree with you on those two counts. McLeish wasted his budget but he also had much more to replace. McLeish was shit, don't get me wrong but he was dealing with Houlliers disarray and his brief was somewhat different. You can't hope to replace £40mil worth of wingers with £11mil though.

Was N'Zog the right choice, no, probably not but he didn't have the resources to do it anyway. Also tbh N'Zog was a huge disappointment, he looked a much better player than the one we got at both Wigan and Newcastle.

Its a close run thing for me between Houllier and McLeish but McLeish had one hand already tied behind his back, Houllier didn't

I don't get this "he had to deal with Houllier's mess" thing. If Houllier destroyed squad morale so much surely McLeish would've benefited from a bounce in morale once he took over simply because he wasn't Houllier? As it happened We were poor from the very beginning, and things just got worse and worse.

To be honest I thought McLeish managed N'Zogbia very poorly. Every time he looked like coming into form McLeish would just replace him with Heskey. Obviously N'Zogbia himself has a lot to answer for but he was poorly managed, just like everything else under McLeish.

Yes and we finished 16th under McLeish and had our worst season in decades. He was in a worse situation than Houllier but he did have some advantages, mainly a full pre-season and no upheaval in the summer. If McLeish took charge instead of Houllier in 2010 I honestly don't think he would've finished where we actually ended up, although that's just speculation. What I will say though is that it's quite telling that McLeish actually did worse with us points-wise than he did in his relegation season with SHA, despite having a better squad and more resources here.

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McLeish single-handedly destroyed my passion for football and Aston Villa whilst he was here. Towards the latter half of the season I just stopped caring and following results because it was all just so negative. I still can't believe we hired that clown.

**** you Alex McLeish.

In a nutshell, why I think he was far, far, far worse than the other two mentioned.

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mcleish still ahd money he spent close to 20m and wasted it on shite like jenas and hutton

i havent seen one person defend mcleish, afew defend houllier so that itself speaks volumes

Does it? It says some people have differing opinions

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I don't get this "he had to deal with Houllier's mess" thing. If Houllier destroyed squad morale so much surely McLeish would've benefited from a bounce in morale once he took over simply because he wasn't Houllier? As it happened We were poor from the very beginning, and things just got worse and worse.

I would imagine that any other manager out there would have got that but being as it was clear that the fans would be on McLeish's back from the very second it was announced, the players can hardly have been looking forward to the season, their confidence would have been fragile straight away

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I don't get this "he had to deal with Houllier's mess" thing. If Houllier destroyed squad morale so much surely McLeish would've benefited from a bounce in morale once he took over simply because he wasn't Houllier? As it happened We were poor from the very beginning, and things just got worse and worse.

I would imagine that any other manager out there would have got that but being as it was clear that the fans would be on McLeish's back from the very second it was announced, the players can hardly have been looking forward to the season, their confidence would have been fragile straight away

So now the fans are to blame for the players not getting a boost in confidence? The fans weren't on McLeish's back from the start. That's a myth peddled by the media. Didn't he actually get applauded at his first home game?
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I don't get this "he had to deal with Houllier's mess" thing. If Houllier destroyed squad morale so much surely McLeish would've benefited from a bounce in morale once he took over simply because he wasn't Houllier? As it happened We were poor from the very beginning, and things just got worse and worse.

I would imagine that any other manager out there would have got that but being as it was clear that the fans would be on McLeish's back from the very second it was announced, the players can hardly have been looking forward to the season, their confidence would have been fragile straight away

So now the fans are to blame for the players not getting a boost in confidence? The fans weren't on McLeish's back from the start. That's a myth peddled by the media. Didn't he actually get applauded at his first home game?

Come on there was a protest outside VP shortly after the announcement, it was no myth, there were plenty of fans who simply never went last season because of who the manager was and I didnt say it was the fans fault. It was however an almost innevitable consequence of the appointment itself

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I don't get this "he had to deal with Houllier's mess" thing. If Houllier destroyed squad morale so much surely McLeish would've benefited from a bounce in morale once he took over simply because he wasn't Houllier? As it happened We were poor from the very beginning, and things just got worse and worse.

I would imagine that any other manager out there would have got that but being as it was clear that the fans would be on McLeish's back from the very second it was announced, the players can hardly have been looking forward to the season, their confidence would have been fragile straight away

So now the fans are to blame for the players not getting a boost in confidence? The fans weren't on McLeish's back from the start. That's a myth peddled by the media. Didn't he actually get applauded at his first home game?

Come on there was a protest outside VP shortly after the announcement, it was no myth, there were plenty of fans who simply never went last season because of who the manager was and I didnt say it was the fans fault. It was however an almost innevitable consequence of the appointment itself

Besides the protest fans gave him a chance. He was not booed or chanted against from the start. It was actually quite a long while before he started getting that. The players should've gotten a boost simply because he was not Houllier. Why they didn't I don't know, but I expect it was probably because McLeish was even worse. It was one downward spiral throughout the entire season. Gaz said he never lost the dressing room - that is truly frightening.
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He had a budget. Yes it was on the small side but he didn't exactly spend it well. We blew nigh on £13m on Hutton and N'Zogbia.

I won't disagree with you on those two counts. McLeish wasted his budget but he also had much more to replace. McLeish was shit, don't get me wrong but he was dealing with Houlliers disarray and his brief was somewhat different. You can't hope to replace £40mil worth of wingers with £11mil though.

McLeish -like all Villa managers under RL- was backed.

O'Neill was allowed to spend more than Man U, Liverpool and Arsenal during his time at the club.

Houllier was allowed to bring in a forward for a club record fee.

And McLeish in his one season with us, had the guts of £20 million to spend -way more than most of the league, and certainly more than the likes of Everton, Sunderland and co, who finished above us comfortably. Everton would prob do well to spend that amount in two seasons.

Just because we received £38 million for Ash and Downing (and we haven't received all the Downing money yet) doesn't mean that exact amount needs to go out again to source adequate replacements.

As everyone knows, we were still dealing with the consequences of MON's penchant for older, shite players on fat contracts and had made substantial losses that needed to be confronted at some point.

However, against that backdrop McBoogerballs was still backed substantially. Newcastle illustrated how squad restructuring can be done with imagination. We had a retrograde MON - a guy only comfortable shopping in the domestic market as per pubehead. But with far less aptitude for getting results on the football pitch and delivering a degree of entertainment which - to his credit- MON was capable of doing. And which offset some of the downsides under his reign.

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I can't believe DOL has a single vote tbh, yes he was bad in the end but he started off well and was working under Ellis' constraints. Plenty of people have mentioned the £20mil to £80mil thing like the £20mil wage bill was a good thing. That's a full squad averaging less than £20k a week, Ellis in the end was strangling the club to death and DOL had to work with that, which was why in the end he went behind Ellis' back and organised the Sorrenson protest letter. DOL was also a disrespectful arsehole too but despite that you have to give him some credit for his early work. The other two actually had much more to play with, even McLeish who was working to an austerity budget. Houllier however inherited a good squad, destroyed it and by his own self admission couldn't repair the damage until the summer. Then despite being incapable of carrying on, forced us to sack him to get his pay off.

Agree with you on the DOL part. I think it's got more to do with people hating him for what he said rather than for what he did with the squad. And the fact that we have short memories. We tend to remember what happened in the end more than what happened at the start.

On the good squad thing when Houllier took over one has to realise that it was a good squad under MON and his style of play. It was his players and they were signed for his football. Houllier made the mistake to try to change the style too soon. That was for me the biggest football mistake he did. And you can't dismiss that he didn't get a pre season to prepare the squad either.

On the whole thing during the last two seasons the squad's been forced to change their style of playing 3 times. First they had MON, then Houllier, and then AML. Maybe it isn't that strange that they've struggled. That's Randys and Faulkners mistake.

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I think a waxworks museum would work well down the villa. & in the chamber of horrors you'd have all 4 - McLeish, GED, MON & DOL.

All set out in the creepy back streets of Aston & Witton. You could also have Billy McNeill down there with Dr Jo.

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  • 4 weeks later...

This is a bit like asking which is the worst car ever made.

* An Austin Allegro - Continuously needed money spending on it for repairs to just to keep it on the road - O'Leary

* A Ford Cortina - Improved throughout the ages but eventually retired to make way for a new age of vehicle with more modern technology - Houllier

* A Morris Marina - The biggest pile of shit ever to roll off a production line and no amount of money could make it look or behave good - McLeish

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This is a bit like asking which is the worst car ever made.

* An Austin Allegro - Continuously needed money spending on it for repairs to just to keep it on the road - O'Leary

* A Ford Cortina - Improved throughout the ages but eventually retired to make way for a new age of vehicle with more modern technology - Houllier

* A Morris Marina - The biggest pile of shit ever to roll off a production line and no amount of money could make it look or behave good - McLeish

:lol:

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I think that if any of those 3 managers had signed 3 players from below the championship the reactions would be very different to what they currently are.
That would depend on the players and the fees they went for There has been quite a lot of moaning about our signings anyway (which is ridiculous), although most of it has been directed at Randy for some odd reason
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