Be careful what we wish for ??? Are you being serious ?? I like ur article but im sorry this will be a disasterous appointment and a let down to all the fans .. Ive heard many say they will not renew season tickets .. Merchandise and revenue will drop ... Why on earth do we not get Hughes ?? Im baffled by the board at the moment .. And what exactly would this appointment signal to the players ?? No ambition im afraid .. Yes we might not have the financial clout anymore but we are still a HUGE club .. For the board to go for Clay Face shows we are on the way downwards ..

Great article but I have to agree as being a bluenose I have had to watch the worse football of my life in the last two seasons.

Yes we won the CC, yes we finished 9th the season before but we played the worst football you would never wish to watch.

You seem to forget Mcleish took us down twice not once!

Sorry but if you do get old clay-face you will struggle!

Careful, lionbrad is another sheep from 606 who will see the wisdom of whatever the board do, even if they appoint Fred West.

Merrrrrr!

It will be coyle tomorrow I gaurantee it to you and I am a Bolton fan.

Get your facts straight before comparing McLeish with O'Neill.

McLeish won 2 SPL titles and O'Neill 3, not the other way around. O'Neill took Celtic to a UEFA Cup Final and Leicester to three Wembley Finals winning two of them and not to mention the two successive promotions with Wycombe.

He took Leicester to the top half of the EPL four seasons running and came 6th with Villa, three seasons running.

O'Neill is far superior to McLeish. Fact!

Who do Villa fans actually want? Moyes would be an excellent appointment. He has maintained Everton in the top 10 with next to no money. But I think he is holding out for the MU job. So who...

BOYFROMBRUM

As immature as ever I see.

LB
1, Frank Rijkaard is a big name and he WANTS the job.
3, He would take us down
4, Compared to most in the EPL we are big spenders.
5, Most of the squad is on holiday and is not going anywhere in the next week.
6 - He is not Steve McLaren, but is worse.

Jerome he shoots

Nice to chat in peace. I take on board what you say about poor football. It is for me the biggest negative about McLeish. I don't think I could actually stomach the dull football served up by him. I also think there will be another twist on this whole sage yet.

As for Blues, despite the football played under McLeish, you'll find it hard to replace him.

BIG AL SPIROS

1 - I stated that I would prefer Rijkaard too !!!
3 - Blues have nothing like the squad that we do and McLeish was not backed by the owners.
4 - Villa's net spend last season was close to NIL. All of the indications are that the supply of money from Lerner has finished. We made a huge loss under O'Neill. Where have you been?
5 - It hasn't stopped Friedal leaving and Young agreeing terms with United has it?
6 - You're basing that assessment on the fact he managed Blues.

LB
Friedel was ever likely to leave, and I am not disappointed as I think we need a new keeper.
Ash was also bound to leave, and I thank him for his efforts. We just need to hang on to Downing, and I hope young Delph is not disillusioned.

Villa can't attract a really big name manager? Last season in dire circumstances the interested pool included Sven, Klinsmann, GH, all big names. Thought at the time Sven was the best choice, but I'd have backed GH for another season here if he could have stayed. I think (hope!) the board still are ambitious, and will look for a way to take Villa forward, although it needs to rely mainly on bringing on the youngsters.

That means employing the right big name. Or rather, the right sort of manager, although he's almost bound to have a big name. They're out there. Still reckon Hughes for one is interested. Rijkaard another. McClaren seems to have gone to Notts Forest and good luck to him; in spite of the jokes he's one of the best managers of his generation.

McLeish isn't rubbish. But he's a middle of the PL table manager at best. We can do better.

lmfao ....the OP dares to compare mccleish to o neill..

brilliant start to the week, keep it up! away to get a coffee, just spilt the last one reading this very strange comparison...

big eck would struggle to lace martins wifes boots!

Martin O'Neill is overrated and nowhere near as good as some people think but he's far, far better than McCleish. If Lerner appoints this man then we really have lost the plot as a club and I would want both Lerner and McCleish out of this great club.

Villa has without doubt lost its strength and financially we are in a situation where we have to sell to buy, which is one reason why I think Lerner should look to a rich investor. We cannot afford to have no money, you must spend every year just to stay still in the Premier League. I've written off the challenge for a top four place now, and I do think in the interests of the club Lerner should look to a more ambitious owner who has the wealth to take us forward. But Rijkaard has said he WANTS the Villa job. This is a top of the range manager who could take us forward, although I don't know how he would cope with the pressures of having no money. Mark Hughes is available and again would take the job.

We don't need McCleish and could get far better than him, as indeed we could if Martinez had accepted the job (which thankfully he didn't). It's just that the board has gone from being ambitious and challenging the top four, to being rejected by a poor Wigan boss. If Lerner couldn't commit long term to investment in the club then you wonder why he took it over in the first place. He's done an awful lot for this club, but right now he's taking us back to the bad days of Ellis, with next to no money to spend and going for mediocre managers. I just hope that things pick up because next season could be even worse than last if things carry on at this rate.

None my Villa mates, who i'v txt, want Mc as manager. I can understand that alot, and no, it's not cos i'm a celt. But you want to go into the new season full of verve and have a buzz that things will happen. can aanyone honestly say that mcleish is the kind of manager that would bring that with him.

I think not, there are a few managers out there who would bring that feelgood factor to the Villa and he is not one of them.

Oh and for all the 'bears, coming on and saying Auld walter has retired,,,yeah from Rangers not from football he just wanted to get away from the poison.

Problem is we don't know what's really happening. I can see why the board are doing negotiations in private, but saying absolutely nothing is dangerous and damaging to Villa, as people wonder if these ridiculous rumours are in fact true. I HOPE the board are taking a close objective look at a number of candidates (after all there are enough GOOD options out there) and not jumping from one first choice to another, as the rumours imply. Time for the board to lift the lid on what they're doing, I think.

Yes McCleish would be a disaster, because it would show Villa's ambitions have sunk. At least with GH, whether you approved of his appointment or not, one had a manager who was truly ambitious and would have aimed to get the club as near the top as possible.

Everything about the McCleish rumour tells me that it is just that. Statements like "RL is known to admire McCleish" just don't ring true; RL strikes me as someone who doesn't go around offering opinions on managers. Journalists write this stuff because they're desperate to get a headline or to. But that doesn't alter the fact that it's damaging to fans, players and everything associated with the club.

Come on, Villa. Just tell us that you're actively pursuing a number of options in parallel and won't make a decision until you see how they all stack up.

villa1987: Villa has without doubt lost its strength and financially we are in a situation where we have to sell to buy
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't think you're quite right here. Yes the wage bill has to come down, but it is coming down. GH's plan, which was obviously done in conjunction with the board, was that it would be done over several years. And there may not be a huge transfer fund, but RL coughed up over Bent and GH obviously had some spending plans in hand. Think GH had a plan for keeping the club moving forward within the finances available, and so the right manager could do the same.

Benitez and the like requiring cash in hand to fling on any players they like are obviously no good to us, as was recognised. But managers like Hughes and Moyes could do a great job with the resources available. So I think could Rijkaard. They're all good at developing teams, not just buying them.

Bent was an exception to avoid relly. After that, we are a selling club, we are the Everton of the Midlands, nothing more, and we'll win nowt this way.

Get your facts straight before comparing McLeish with O'Neill.

McLeish won 2 SPL titles and O'Neill 3, not the other way around. O'Neill took Celtic to a UEFA Cup Final and Leicester to three Wembley Finals winning two of them and not to mention the two successive promotions with Wycombe.

He took Leicester to the top half of the EPL four seasons running and came 6th with Villa, three seasons running.

O'Neill is far superior to McLeish. Fact!

______________________________

No, not fact at all.

McLeish and O'Neil went head to head in Scotland and McLeish spanked him on trophies won - FACT!

This was done whilst we were slashing our budget on player transfers and Wages and O'Neil was spending millions.

McLeish was the first manager to take a Scottish club to the last 16 in the CL playing brilliant football along the way. O'Neil kept coming second and getting pumped in CL.

O'Neil for me is the one playing dire football. Two massive target men up from and just cross balls into them and look for set pieces to out muscle the opposition. he only knows one way to play and has no plan B. O'Neil only does well when spending millions. How much did he spend at every club he was at including Villa?

It makes me laugh when you say McLeish plays negative football. I would totally disagree. He didn't do it at Rangers at all whilst slashing our budget. he didn't do it when we played in Europe.

It seems to me he has just played like that due to the squad he had at BC. That in itself is a good thing as it shows he will adapt his game to the squad. McLeish doesn't have a negative reputation up here. He didn't do it with Hibs either.

As for the people talking about Rijkard. Now this is a man who inherited a brilliant Barca team and added youth from the best youth academy in the world. He also didn't buy the players that was done by the director of football at barca. So all in all he did nothing much and when you see what has been done since he left. It's chalk and cheese.

Now Rijkard went to Galatasaray where he had to be a 'proper' manager at one of the world biggest clubs and he messed that up. He spent millions and turned Gala into a mud table Turkish team who are still trying to recover from it. If you think he is better than McLeish then you are sadly mistaken.

Your best two options right now are McLeish and Owen Coyle.

Lionbrad, hope you read this, come over to sportwitness, lots of Villa fans there.

Though I quite often disagreed with you during the MON era, you do seem to give a much more balanced view than some!

Hope to see you there..

I will check it out because this site is dead I'm afraid.

LionBrad, not wishing to 'chish on yer pips' but banding stats around such as '5th most successful PL team in history' means nothing except to the faithful and statisticians alike.
If i were to ask you 'what is the most famous painting you can name?', you could probably provide me with a fairly quick answer of a painting i was also very familiar with, most likely agreeing with you, however were i to ask you 'what is the 5th most famous painting' you may struggle.
On your points:
1 - Villa are NOT able to attract a really big-name manager because they are not one of the 'top' clubs. Name me the teams that finished 6th in each of the major leagues over the last three years before last season and even if you can you will find that those teams do not 'roll off the tongue' as easily as the respective winners of those leagues.
2 - Probably true that McLeish is on about the same level as O'Neill.
3- You are wrong thinking that AMc was not backed in the transfer market, he was. There may well have been constraints but if you look at the overall spend on fees and salary it was the most Blues have ever spent. There is no such thing as unforeseen winning runs from both Wolves and Wigan. Other teams' performances do not have a bearing on how the manager sets up his team tactics and motivate the players. AMc got it massively wrong towards the end of last season. Hopefully he will have learned a huge lesson, but if not, and if it makes him even more cautious, you'd better suck it up, because next season is going to be painful. Actually no fewer than twenty teams could have been relegated, but three, and only ever three, were to be relegated. If Blues had won or drawn one more game, they would have avoided the drop, unfortunately AMc could not get his team past the post when it counted most, be warned, this has happened twice in three seasons, the last time being with His team hence no excuses.
4 - Villa are NO LONGER big spenders, hence you've opted for AMc, who, in his early days trained as an accountant and so is no mug when it comes to finances/tight budgets etc.
5 - A quick and relatively straight-forward appointment was made and one who will toe the line and not ask for the earth.
6 - He is not as tactically good as Steve McLaren but has better personna speaks highly of his players and generally talks a lot of sense.

Best of luck next season.

Ps Mona Lisa?...

I will check it out because this site is dead I'm afraid.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Because there ain't much to talk about. At the moment. I'd rather it quiet like this than swamped with meaningless trash.