It's possible that this scenario is close to the thruth.
It's also possible that McCleish was tapped-up by the Villa and decided that managing in the Prem was more important than his integrity.
Or it could be a bit of both.

Hoggy, for the sake of his integrity, because I firmly believe he is an honorable man I hope it turns out to be the former.

I think that this is pretty close to the truth of things.

I would add that I am interested to know more about the aggressive communications from Pannu.

I have made no secret of my distaste for Pannu & the way the fat, bald, lieing, loser conducts himself.

What thrills me is the prospect of having this jokers incompetence and bullying style exposed and seeing him dismissed.

What worries me is that the fat, bald, lieing, loser is in charge of appointing a new manager.

KRO

I also thing its good for Eck to go early to allow us to rebuild i just cant beleave he wants to go to Villa.

As far as cuts well what can be expected, is Yeung a billionare who can just brush aside £30M losses, no he cant.

As far as contacting players goes we dont know, how to we know that the 3 we have signed so far are not McLeish players or players he wanted. Panu said they was.

Maybe the board lost faith in Montgomery and blame him for the signings that was wasted.

McLeish never spoke out in protest of this.

Maybe McLeish then knew that potentially Yeung and Panu would want to bring their own scouts in maybe McManaman could have a say in potential targets.

Maybe McLeish knew he would then have to not only work on a budget, and sell players he wanted to build a team around (Sorry Eck we are not a Massive Club with Billionare owners and have to make cuts).

But Eck must have to know potentially he would have to work with someone apointed by the board to look at and bring in players so Eck wont get 100% controll (but then Eck never did before because he trusted Montgomery his scout).

McLeish would not be keen on that idea and also would know that if we have to sell of half our assets to cover debts that potentially McLeish would face a tough task of getting us promoted, he would know fans would be on his back because of relegation. He may know his style of play will not be liked by the fans who would want to see more attacking play in a attempt to get promotion.

And so a combination of Eck not wanting to see cuts made and players sold, a combination of maybe having to work with someone apointed by Yeung with signing and targeting players and ULTIMATELY McLeish lacked convidence to take up the tough challenge of getting promoted.

He simply chosed to jump ship, instead of stay and fight what would be his toughest task!

Rather jump to a Prem Club, than go down with the Ship as Captain and have FAILED PROMOTION on his CV

The KiD

"I have made no secret of my distaste for Pannu & the way the fat, bald, lieing, loser conducts himself."



Agreed

Panu should stick to Mmasterchief chef>

Yeung to being a Hairdresser ...

While McLiesh should Stick to to being a Tenis Coach

The KiD

I meant chef not cheif ....

Panu

http://www.bibliocook.com/Gregg%27s%20Favourite%20Puddings%20by%20Gregg%20Wallace.jpg

The KiD

KiD, you can help me with one question that has been nagging at me for a day or so now.

As somebody who was staunchly against McLeish for quite some time, Banjo, may I ask:

why do you care that a manager you loathed, a manager you would have replaced had you been in a position so to do & a manager who you thought was little more than useless has left & looks as if he may go to the Vile? Surely you and the vocal majority who are going mental about it should be happy as Larry.

KiD, I hope you know that I'm not having a go at you, I know you are a true Blue and I value your opinion and rate your contributions to discussions about Blues very highly but it does confuse me that a manager so hated and so poorly thought of is being slagged off so much.

Cheers & KRO

JK, we want our pound of flesh... McNugget gave us the opportunity

For the record JK

I did like a lot about McLeish, only problem was his tactics and how he never changed things much.

I respect what McLeish had done with us.

But even if McLiesh had stayed and even if we stayed up i felt we would either need to see Jerome go or we get someone else in, or McLeish go or see him change his tactics.

As apart from being not good on the eye, the main thing was the 4,5,1 was not effective it generally gets us less than 1 point per game.

Am i happy that McLeish has gone...

Well i would maybe had liked to see him given untill Xmass and see how things pan but i did dread that unless our Striker force or Tactics changed i could not see us get Promoted not in top 2.

What do i think about the way McLeish has left us and joining Villa i am very disapointed. Maybe vented a bit of anger at how he seems to have disrespected us really.

If say at the end of the season we sacked him and got in a Houghton i would not have been upset i would have thought maybe thats the best aproach if we really wanted promotion.

So my problem really is with his link with Villa and how now he has gone it will surely have a effect on the commitment of players on our books.

Chances of a Johnson, Dann, Gardner, Foster all staying i recon have halved no Eck has left.

The KiD

So if McLeish had left us the way he did and then refused contact with Villa and talked to say Blackburn or some other Prem Club i guess i would not have a problem.

So i am not upset McLeish has left, i am just disapointed at how he handled it and talked with Villa knowing full well what that would cause for us Bluenoses.

Its as if he never cared about the club/fans or that he sees joining Villa as a way to get payback/revenge on Yeung and Panu.

which inturn is a bit harsh on the Blues fans who stood by him.

It may seem even worse for the fact we got relegated by him.

I guess had we stayed up and he jumped ship it would not have been seen as bad.

The KiD

On the Mail forum the same people who were incandescent with rage when McLeish quit & was first linked with the Vile have tonight had a bit of a jitter when it was rumoured that his talks with Lerner had broken down.

The whole reaction from those many, many fans who would have happily sacked 'Eck themselves has been extraordinary.

The most logical reaction from those that wanted McLeish out of Blues would be to actually WANT him to take charge at B6 in order that he may first bore them and then relegate them. I suspect that xpat is close to the meat of the matter and that this all about spite & revenge.

I shall miss him. I think he was a good manager & a straight talking bloke. He failed and if I was in charge I would have sacked him after the 2nd relegation; but if I was in charge I would have let him buy the players he wanted and manage the way he wanted and in those circumstances...who knows?... Well, I suspect one half of Birmingham is about to find out...

KRO

" but if I was in charge I would have let him buy the players he wanted and manage the way he wanted "

Any evidence this hasn't been the case at Blues?

Montgomery, Zigic, Sammy Yu & his effing tracksuit, Gomis is still coming DESPITE 'Eck leaving according to Pannu. Although how even his Mother can trust a single word that fat c*nt spews out is beyond me.

The fact is that it is extremely unlikely that we will know the full extent of what has gone on but I have been given an understanding from a couple of executive box holders and from some of the staff that work there that the club is being run like a minor mafia mob family.

EVERYTHING is for sale; every penny that comes in is going straight back out again.

Don't ask me to name names because clearly I won't. I appreciate that it is heresay but as many have said before it is a case of what/who you trust and believe. I will stick with the word of McLeish and the word of the people who have told me.

KRO

Putting Ecks football tactics to one side for the moment, as a man and a football manager I believe you can measure the worth of a man by the loyalty shown from the players he manages. McLeish appears to have excellent man management skills and has shown those skills in developing the likes of Johnson, Dann and Gardner and revitalising the careers of Carr, Ferguson and Bowyer. Unfortunately the team could only put it together periodically.
The board will appoint another manager, but a rose by any other name will still smell the same and to that I mean Mr Pannu. In all of our off field issues over the past two seasons the common denominator has been Pannu. Take another look at the Carling Cup Final where the players are receiving their medals and home in on Pannu attempting to hug Eck.... You can see the body language from Eck, he must abhore the guy.

"I suspect that xpat is close to the meat of the matter and that this all about spite & revenge."

Well maybe thats the antitote to the pain some are feeling with McLeish leaving. I guess many are happy Eck is going to Villa purely because him joining them is going to wind them up more than him leaving us.

There are maybe more Bluenoses who would not have problems had we sacked McLeish at the end of the season, yes some would want him to stay but they would understand if he was sacked.

Where as with Villa a vast amount would not had wanted McLeish to join them.

So i guess for some of us its funny that after all the abuse Villa fans labled at us and our useless Manager they end up signing him.

It would be the same kind of antitote to Wolves fans Wumming if it was anounced that Mick wanted Jerome and Zigic.

I already said by two cents, and thats McLeish was good at most things apart from being flawed in Team Selections, Tactics and use of Subs.

He would make a great coach/number 2 to motivate the players and also help bring players. But Tactically for us he was more miss than hit and stats prove it

The KiD

On to Panu etc and them being liars and cheats and sell sell sell.

We need to look at some HARDCORE FACTS!

Thes same FACTS that is why Sully and Gold never spent.

Sully and Gold would never overspend more than this clubs income, they would not overspend beyond the scope and means of our club. They had money to take hits they was at one point worth more than Learner and maybe are still now.

But why should they put there own money in, they was business men afterall. They would not spend like millions and millions more than we make, they did however have cash to back us up when we fell down.

With Yeung and Co we dont know how much they are worth, we dont know whos money finances things. We knew Sully and Gold was worth about £500M each at their peak. We cant however garnuntee Yeung has even £50M to his name.

Thus Yeungs plan was to buy as as we was a asset in the Prem because of the SKY income etc. thats why he never brought us when we was relegated as then how would he know we would get promoted, and if we was not in the Prem his whole plan would not make sence and he maybe would not have cash to take losses in trying to get us back up.

Yeung and Co spend more money than Sully and Gold did, we did bit £10M+ on players, we was willing to pay £75K a week to players we did sign a few £6M players, took players on big wages on loan.

They paid cash for players like Michel and so never lost out like when S&G wanted to only pay £750K X4 installments.

But relegation has cost us, can our clubs income this season cover the costs of relegation NOPE! So we have to make cuts we have to cut our cloth accordingly as Panu said.

So we may have to sell players, and we cant blame some players say if a Liverpool came in for Dann, and a Everton say for Johnson. McLeish could moan but you cant stand in the way if a player as a offer to move to a bigger club and chance to play in the Prem.

The board would sell but they wont sell for peanuts they wont sell say Johnson for the £5-6M Wolves wanted to pay.

Eck needs to look at why we was relegated because in the League Game after Game Jerome was not scoring because our set up created so few chances and YET WEEK AFTER WEEK he stook with the same set up and team, oh other players had a few chances like last 5 minutes. Or only when players was injuried.

Bentley could have been a hit but McLeish saw Larsson as his RM and so Bentley was made to play in a not prefered position, and not used otften and maybe he also was told to defend more than he would like.

Bentley would have come here with a point to prove, how is he going to be happy and commited if he comes to a smaller club like ours and just becomes a sqaud player and played in positions he is not used to and with a role he is not best at.

McLeish had Tools to get us out of trouble but he would not change a thing, he may aswell have had a sqaud of 15 players for the season and not 25.

The KiD