McLeish: No regrets

[Jon]

To be fair, you cant really argue with anything he says, apart from the playing 4 attacking players blah blah blah.

Yep, I agree with pretty much every word of it.

At times, hi did play with 4 'attackers'. He just told them not to attack. :winkold:

[slowandlow]

the same hleb (who was sent out on loan 3 times in 4 years at barca i think) and martins who's careers have been on a downward trajectory for years and were looking to get back into english football any way possible??

i repeat hahaha as if sigurdsson would have come to play for that idiot

Yes he did but was still proven at Arsenal and played a season at the best club in the world, And also Martins got a fair few appearances at inter and was regular at newcastle. < Whether your opinion thinks otherwise the facts show they both played at the highest level.

And compared to SHA a team that had no history, no quality players and a very poor fanbase even in the prem to get these players says it all ( Whether they became flops or not he still managed it ) therefore from these points i'd say an ex-reading and a hoffenheim loanee to a club like us is EXTREMELY realistic.

hleb started five games for barca 2 seasons before going the blues

martins had spent two years doing very little in eastern europe

there is very little chance sigurdsson would have come to the villa this summer irrespective of the manager, zero chance with mcleish in charge

[Morpheus]

The worst thing about this article is a lot of it is true. We do lack quality and Mcliesh's job was impossible.

Depends what you mean by his "job". If his job was to get us into the top 6, then yes it was impossible. However, none of the fans expected that and I'm pretty sure the board didn't either. Although the squad wasn't great it certainly wasn't bottom 5 quality, and using injuries as an excuse is just typical of the man's slimy nature. We were terrible even before the injuries kick in.

Just for arguments sake if Villa are again in a relegation battle this season. Will this mean Lambert is a poor manager who that the players we have are not good enough? I would say its the latter.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Mcleish but I do think the fact he is such a poor manager did mean the serious lack of quality in the squad got slightly overlooked.

I have stated as such before 'Amo69.'

I tend to think it was a culmination of being given a poison chalice with unrest within the squad, lack of funding to replace the likes of Downing, Young and Reo-Coker like for like and then losing Bent, Jenas and Petrov. He then had to rely on the younger players within our squad who simply weren't good enough to step up and that hasn't changed.

He then had to set up the team more defensively to counteract that but with the signing of Keane which i believe he didn't get enough praise for, we became slightly more offensive and it was no surprise that we played our best football with Keane in the team.

If we don't make any further signings before the deadline i'll be very interested to see whether we still struggle, or, with a supposedly better manager, we stay comfortably in the top half?

[bickster]

The bloke is a delusional prat.

I played four attacking players in every game

Monday 21 November 2011 v Tottenham Hotspur away

1 Shay Given

24 Carlos Cuellar

05 Richard Dunne

06 James Collins

03 Stephen Warnock

02 Alan Hutton

31 Chris Herd

19 Stiliyan Petrov

11 Gabriel Agbonlahor

09 Darren Bent

18 Emile Heskey

Three attackers and one of those is Emile. That was one game that immediately came to mind. I'm sure there are many, many others.

And one of the three i.e. Gabby was used in a bizarre new position nurtured by Houllier but then fully enabled by McLeish, the defensive wingers role, where the winger hugs the half way line unless we're defending further back

[KjParton]

He's such a lying bastard, who will always make excuses to get his sorry ass out of the shit.

Absolutely infuriating.

[Mantis]

The worst thing about this article is a lot of it is true. We do lack quality and Mcliesh's job was impossible.

Depends what you mean by his "job". If his job was to get us into the top 6, then yes it was impossible. However, none of the fans expected that and I'm pretty sure the board didn't either. Although the squad wasn't great it certainly wasn't bottom 5 quality, and using injuries as an excuse is just typical of the man's slimy nature. We were terrible even before the injuries kick in.

Just for arguments sake if Villa are again in a relegation battle this season. Will this mean Lambert is a poor manager who that the players we have are not good enough? I would say its the latter.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Mcleish but I do think the fact he is such a poor manager did mean the serious lack of quality in the squad got slightly overlooked.

I have stated as such before 'Amo69.'

I tend to think it was a culmination of being given a poison chalice with unrest within the squad, lack of funding to replace the likes of Downing, Young and Reo-Coker like for like and then losing Bent, Jenas and Petrov. He then had to rely on the younger players within our squad who simply weren't good enough to step up and that hasn't changed.

He then had to set up the team more defensively to counteract that but with the signing of Keane which i believe he didn't get enough praise for, we became slightly more offensive and it was no surprise that we played our best football with Keane in the team.

If we don't make any further signings before the deadline i'll be very interested to see whether we still struggle, or, with a supposedly better manager, we stay comfortably in the top half?

Even before the injuries we were shit. Some of the worts games and performances last season came with a fully fit squad. McLeish's negativity was also not a response to the injuries - we were negative all season. That's his way.

Don't think anyone has said Lambert will have us comfortably top half all seaosn. However, many people believe that he will have us comfortably safe from relegation and not set the team up in an ultra-negative fashion.

[sharkyvilla]

There was the odd flicker of hope in terms of performance around Christmas if I remember correctly where Ireland and N'Zogbia actually turned up, only for McLeish to turn back to plan A of Heskey on the right wing a week or two later because it was against a club who were supposed to be better than us. That's what wound me up the most about McLeish. Still, in terms of using up a season so we could get rid of some of the wasters at the club without getting relegated he kind of achieved what he was supposed to. We then sacked him at the first opportunity and the whole period is best forgotten. UTV

[blandy]

He wants a job, so he says he was good.

It happens. He's gone. We've got a better manager.

[Holtender_in_Sky]

He had Sigurdsson lined up. The Sigurdsson who had the choice between Spurs and Liverpool.

What a w@nker this man is

[Morpheus]

The worst thing about this article is a lot of it is true. We do lack quality and Mcliesh's job was impossible.

Depends what you mean by his "job". If his job was to get us into the top 6, then yes it was impossible. However, none of the fans expected that and I'm pretty sure the board didn't either. Although the squad wasn't great it certainly wasn't bottom 5 quality, and using injuries as an excuse is just typical of the man's slimy nature. We were terrible even before the injuries kick in.

Just for arguments sake if Villa are again in a relegation battle this season. Will this mean Lambert is a poor manager who that the players we have are not good enough? I would say its the latter.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Mcleish but I do think the fact he is such a poor manager did mean the serious lack of quality in the squad got slightly overlooked.

I have stated as such before 'Amo69.'

I tend to think it was a culmination of being given a poison chalice with unrest within the squad, lack of funding to replace the likes of Downing, Young and Reo-Coker like for like and then losing Bent, Jenas and Petrov. He then had to rely on the younger players within our squad who simply weren't good enough to step up and that hasn't changed.

He then had to set up the team more defensively to counteract that but with the signing of Keane which i believe he didn't get enough praise for, we became slightly more offensive and it was no surprise that we played our best football with Keane in the team.

If we don't make any further signings before the deadline i'll be very interested to see whether we still struggle, or, with a supposedly better manager, we stay comfortably in the top half?

Even before the injuries we were shit. Some of the worts games and performances last season came with a fully fit squad. McLeish's negativity was also not a response to the injuries - we were negative all season. That's his way.

Don't think anyone has said Lambert will have us comfortably top half all seaosn. However, many people believe that he will have us comfortably safe from relegation and not set the team up in an ultra-negative fashion.

We were unbeaten in the first six games were we not? Not exactly 'shit!'

Yes agree that Mcleish is more defensively minded but he inherited a depleted squad with the sale of Downing and Young which in turn cut off the supply to Bent and then was given limited funding for replacements. His one big signing N'Zogbia, unfortunately left his Wigan form behind him and with a misfiring Albrighton, i believe Mcleish decided to play even more defensively to try and not concede due to the aforementioned player's lack of form.

We weren't so negative when Keane was signed were we? More ball to feet than hoof and our performances did improve. I tend to think that if Keane's loan period had been extended until the end of the season then we would have finished higher than we did.

I'm not saying that Mcleish was a good manager, far from it, but i do think there were other factors that contributed to his failure with us.

[VillaChris]

Bit when he said our fanbase always demands top 4 or top 6.

Not really, last season I'd have been happy finishing mid table playing good attacking football, same as this season. You failed miserably by not even trying to do that last season McLeish.

Also Sigurdson, yeah right. Why didn't we try to get him on loan then in that January when he went to Swansea. Does McLeish really think he'd have chosen us over Liverpool or Spurs?!

I'm just glad this bloke is a forgettable footnote in our history. Onwards and upwards.

[Mantis]

We were unbeaten in the first six games were we not? Not exactly 'shit!'

First seven games, but five of them were draws. Blackburn and Wigan aside we were average/poor, and it only got worse from there on in.

Yes agree that Mcleish is more defensively minded but he inherited a depleted squad with the sale of Downing and Young which in turn cut off the supply to Bent and then was given limited funding for replacements. His one big signing N'Zogbia, unfortunately left his Wigan form behind him and with a misfiring Albrighton, i believe Mcleish decided to play even more defensively to try and not concede due to the aforementioned player's lack of form.

Not saying the squad was great, but it wasn't relegation fodder either. McLeish never even tried to set us up in an attacking manner, that's the frustrating thing. I honestly can't believe you're defending his negative tactics. Our defenders were also pretty shit as well, so it makes no sense to place emphasis on defending.

We weren't so negative when Keane was signed were we? More ball to feet than hoof and our performances did improve. I tend to think that if Keane's loan period had been extended until the end of the season then we would have finished higher than we did.

We were better, but still not that great. Keane was magnificent for us and probably the one thing that McLeish got right but even then we still only won once in his six games with us, which was roughly what we averaged through the entire season.

I'm not saying that Mcleish was a good manager, far from it, but i do think there were other factors that contributed to his failure with us.

Nobody has denied that there were other factors.

[Morpheus]

I was commenting on your point that even with a full squad we were poor. As you point out unbeaten in seven as opposed to Lambert's current record with us.

If as you say our defenders were shit as well then it would make more sense to try and defend from the front and to have your wingers tucking in. If we had played more gung ho then we would have just conceded more especially as you say with our shit defence.

He also signed Given and got Ireland playing better so those are two more things he got right excluding Keane. My comments on Keane are self explanatory as far as performance is concerned and I certainly believe we would have finished higher with him in our team if he had stayed with us until the end of the season.

Your last comment is actually wrong again Mantis as TrentVilla felt Mcleish was not a victim of circumstance and I debated otherwise. You must keep up Mantis!

[Mantis]

I was commenting on your point that even with a full squad we were poor. As you point out unbeaten in seven as opposed to Lambert's current record with us.

And how many games has Lambert had? That's right one. Let's compare their records after the full season shall we? That would be a lot fairer.

If as you say our defenders were shit as well then it would make more sense to try and defend from the front and to have your wingers tucking in. If we had played more gung ho then we would have just conceded more especially as you say with our shit defence.

And getting our players to defend from the front worked so well didn't it?

What about the Norwich game (the first one)? One of our most attacking games and we won by simply outscoring them (3-2 to be precise), all against a team that according to you had more quality. Compare that to the games where we just defended the entire time (Spurs away and Man U home being the worst examples) and I think you can see where I'm getting at. Not saying we would've done fantastic had McLeish been more attacking but I think we would've performed better. At the very least we would have been more entertaining to watch.

If a manager sets his team out to just defend from the front and isn't even bothered about attacking, what is the **** point? That kind of attitude is something that McLeish had in abundance last year and it doesn't fly with me or most Villa fans. Frankly I'm surprised that you're willing to defend this. It made no sense, as is evidenced by the incredibly poor season we had.

He also signed Given and got Ireland playing better so those are two more things he got right excluding Keane. My comments on Keane are self explanatory as far as performance is concerned and I certainly believe we would have finished higher with him in our team if he had stayed with us until the end of the season.

During Keane's 6 games with us we picked up 5 points. That's actually a lower points-per-game ratio than the season as a whole. Obviously you can't read too much into that as you play more than 6 teams in a single season but it does cast doubt onto this theory that we would've finished higher if Keane had stayed for longer. Although performances improved a bit (although not by that much IMO) and Keane individually was excellent, results did not improve.

Your last comment is actually wrong again Mantis as TrentVilla felt Mcleish was not a victim of circumstance and I debated otherwise. You must keep up Mantis!

Did he say there were no other factors that contributed to his failure with us? Saying he wasn't a victim of circumstance isn't actually the same thing, so it appears that you are putting words into Trent's mouth there.

Once again you appear all to eager to shout "you're wrong!". Would also like to know where I have been wrong in the past in our discussions.

[8pints]

Basically it was the Spurs away loss

then everyone bit their lip a bit as we had that tough Christmas period because of the oppositions we were up against.

Then it completely broke due to the Bolton three goals in three minutes travesty.

[bred]

I honestly agree with the things he's saying and it was pretty obvious last season as well, even with 4 attacking players or whatever we didnt have the quality to do jack shit. My only real criticism of him comes from the 2 right backs vs Spurs. -________-

[AstonMartin82]

haha as if sigurdsson would have come to play for that idiot

he is delusional and still peddling the "decent manager, decent bloke, not given a fair crack of the whip" nonsense

I know right i mean after all he ONLY got Alexander Hleb ( Arsenal and barcelona midfielder ) and Obafemi Martins ( inter milan and Newcastle striker ) on loan for SHA ...Surely that was one of the worst points ive ever heard on VT :?

And then dropped Hleb from the starting eleven and relegated the both of them.

[Morpheus]

I was commenting on your point that even with a full squad we were poor. As you point out unbeaten in seven as opposed to Lambert's current record with us.

And how many games has Lambert had? That's right one. Let's compare their records after the full season shall we? That would be a lot fairer.

If as you say our defenders were shit as well then it would make more sense to try and defend from the front and to have your wingers tucking in. If we had played more gung ho then we would have just conceded more especially as you say with our shit defence.

And getting our players to defend from the front worked so well didn't it?

What about the Norwich game (the first one)? One of our most attacking games and we won by simply outscoring them (3-2 to be precise), all against a team that according to you had more quality. Compare that to the games where we just defended the entire time (Spurs away and Man U home being the worst examples) and I think you can see where I'm getting at. Not saying we would've done fantastic had McLeish been more attacking but I think we would've performed better. At the very least we would have been more entertaining to watch.

If a manager sets his team out to just defend from the front and isn't even bothered about attacking, what is the **** point? That kind of attitude is something that McLeish had in abundance last year and it doesn't fly with me or most Villa fans. Frankly I'm surprised that you're willing to defend this. It made no sense, as is evidenced by the incredibly poor season we had.

He also signed Given and got Ireland playing better so those are two more things he got right excluding Keane. My comments on Keane are self explanatory as far as performance is concerned and I certainly believe we would have finished higher with him in our team if he had stayed with us until the end of the season.

During Keane's 6 games with us we picked up 5 points. That's actually a lower points-per-game ratio than the season as a whole. Obviously you can't read too much into that as you play more than 6 teams in a single season but it does cast doubt onto this theory that we would've finished higher if Keane had stayed for longer. Although performances improved a bit (although not by that much IMO) and Keane individually was excellent, results did not improve.

Your last comment is actually wrong again Mantis as TrentVilla felt Mcleish was not a victim of circumstance and I debated otherwise. You must keep up Mantis!

Did he say there were no other factors that contributed to his failure with us? Saying he wasn't a victim of circumstance isn't actually the same thing, so it appears that you are putting words into Trent's mouth there.

Once again you appear all to eager to shout "you're wrong!". Would also like to know where I have been wrong in the past in our discussions.

But thats exactly my point Mantis. Lambert already has a worse record than Mcleish after one game. Please read my posts and refer to what i have said rather than doing the usual, i'll reply to suit my debate line!

I see your now admitting that we did play some attacking football within Mcleish's reign which is contradicting your previous statement that we were ultra defensive!

So what your saying is this. Mcleish should have set the team up against the quality and attacking flair of Man U and Spurs in the same way that he did against Norwich? What utter rubbish. I thank God Mantis that you are nowhere near any kind of team management especially our Villa for making a crack like that. Furthermore it makes a lot more sense to set your team up in a defensive manner when your forward line is suffering poor form than to open the team up and expose what you say was a shit defence! In addition, there were many other factors which contributed to last season than just the way Mcleish had us set up which i have already mentioned!

Neither you or i have a crystal ball that would tell us for sure where we would have finished if Keane had been with us until the end of the season. However it is my opinion that we would have finished higher due to being more creative with him in the team. You differ in your opinion and thats fair enough.

Basically that was the sum of my debate with 'TrentVilla.' He felt our results were due to Mcleish being a poor manager rather than other factors contributing to that such as injuries, selling our better players and reduced investment. It was actually he who stated that Mcleish wasn't a victim of circumstance and again Mantis i do not put words into other people's mouths to forward my opinion in debate. I simply don't have to whereas you my friend do it all the time as you continually contradict yourself and then when finding yourself in a self imposed corner continually reply to what suits your opinion rather than actually was said to always have the last word. 'Big John' has previously informed you of that and i'm telling you that again. Its got beyond boring Mantis so i'm going to leave it at that.

[Mantis]

But thats exactly my point Mantis. Lambert already has a worse record than Mcleish after one game. Please read my posts and refer to what i have said rather than doing the usual, i'll reply to suit my debate line!

And yet if we win our next game Lambert will have a better record. It really isn't fair to say "look, McLeish went seven games unbeaten, he can't be that bad" and then say "he's got a better record than Lambert" when Lambert has only managed us for a grand total of 1 Premier League game.

I see your now admitting that we did play some attacking football within Mcleish's reign which is contradicting your previous statement that we were ultra defensive!

Nope, I never said we played attacking football, I just said we were more attacking (which doesn't take much). Once again you're putting words into people's mouths and doing this "you're now admitting" rubbish again.

So what your saying is this. Mcleish should have set the team up against the quality and attacking flair of Man U and Spurs in the same way that he did against Norwich? What utter rubbish. I thank God Mantis that you are nowhere near any kind of team management especially our Villa for making a crack like that. Furthermore it makes a lot more sense to set your team up in a defensive manner when your forward line is suffering poor form than to open the team up and expose what you say was a shit defence! In addition, there were many other factors which contributed to last season than just the way Mcleish had us set up which i have already mentioned!

Nope, never said you should set the team up the same away. However, you should still have a go, which is something we barely did to any of the bottom teams, let alone the top ones. Funnily enough Lambert's Norwich approached many of their big games with a no fear attitude and managed to beat Spurs at White Heart Lane and get a credible point at Arsenal, where as in both games we just rolled over and died and lost 2-0 and 3-0 respectively. We didn't expect us to beat the big teams last season. We did however expect to at least try and unfortunately we didn't even do that.

I still can't believe that you're trying to defend this defeatist, ultra-defensive attitude that McLeish had. It clearly didn't work. It's not even like McLeish changed tactic once we went behind. Remember the Man City home game? Defend defend defend, we finally concede, yet we still keep on defending. If you're a goal behind what is the **** point in just carrying on defending? We did this so many times last season.

I'm just glad that we no longer have a manager that shares your defensive "must not lose" philosophy. Heaven forbid a team tries to go out and win a game.

Neither you or i have a crystal ball that would tell us for sure where we would have finished if Keane had been with us until the end of the season. However it is my opinion that we would have finished higher due to being more creative with him in the team. You differ in your opinion and thats fair enough.

Of course we don't, but facts and statistics would suggest that we would not have done much better if at all.

Basically that was the sum of my debate with 'TrentVilla.' He felt our results were due to Mcleish being a poor manager rather than other factors contributing to that such as injuries, selling our better players and reduced investment. It was actually he who stated that Mcleish wasn't a victim of circumstance and again Mantis i do not put words into other people's mouths to forward my opinion in debate. I simply don't have to whereas you my friend do it all the time as you continually contradict yourself and then when finding yourself in a self imposed corner continually reply to what suits your opinion rather than actually was said to always have the last word. 'Big John' has previously informed you of that and i'm telling you that again. Its got beyond boring Mantis so i'm going to leave it at that.

Did Trent specifically say that there were no other factors that contributed to last season? Perhaps you should ask him?

Haha! You don't put words into people's mouths? What a load of rubbish. Once again I find it very ironic how you're moaning about others putting words into people's mouths when you are by far the worst offender for that on here. You constantly do it.

Ah, here we go with the insults again. It's a pity that you can't seem to have a discussion without resorting to them.

[PussEKatt]

The only part I agree with is where he says that we needed strengthening in certain areas.

Well, the main area has been strengthened, since we sacked you ( you piece of shit ) and hired PL.