First off…I do appreciate the spirit behind the various appellations and attendant superpowers I’ve been accumulating of late. And honestly, I really don’t intend any harm. I’ve only been following orders.

Okay. Not quite true. No orders. Just common sense. Even though I’ve gotten the feeling that if only I relented and publicly repudiated Alex McLeish, the walls of Jericho and/or Leningrad would fall, and there would be much rejoicing, I’ve not been inclined to do so.

I’m not a sadist. Or a masochist (even though I’ve been married twice), or even a sadomasochist, which seems interesting in an abstract sort of way if rather complicated.

I’m just a realist. And I also have a Fundamental Theory of Sport.

Which states, in brief: The team with the best players usually wins.

Note “usually” is employed. It’s not an exact science, this theory of mine, because people are involved, and we all know the problem with most things is people. I like to think it’s sort of like quantum mechanics. It gets the big things right, and leaves a bit of wiggle room.

As Americans say, “That’s why they play the game.”

But by and large, you can leave a lot of other things out of the argument.

It Was Over Before Kickoff

I sat down with the girlfriend and saw the starting lineups on Fox Sports. They had Emile Heskey starting. They also had Gabriel Agbonlahor playing up front with him in a 4-4-2 that featured Stiliyan Petrov wide right, Stephen Ireland wide left, and Marc Albrighton and Chris Herd in the middle.

Color me underwhelmed. I turned to the girlfriend and said, “Heskey’s starting up front. I can already hear it.”

I wasn’t pleased either. Believe me. But if you’ve fallen out with Charles N’Zogbia and he’s gone off to France to pout, as Frenchmen will do when they’re asked to do something they consider at odds with the national character (I’m talking about defending here, Charles), well, you’re basically stuck playing Gabby on one wing and Albrighton on the other.

Villa fans, naturally, knew this wouldn’t actually be the lineup, because Stan and “Fill-in-the-blank” are going to be shielding the back four, and Ireland is going to be your AM, and we can’t really do much else because it all starts from the back, and the back four just aren’t good enough. It really is that simple and that maddening.

Anyway…There was that.

But What About Effort?

It wasn’t immediately apparent that overall effort would be lacking. Arsenal had the early initiative, as a talented team at home on six straight wins might be expected to, but Villa had two or three decent counters that went begging. You can say McLeish shouldn’t single out players, and in the abstract, I can see the argument. But for a group of fans saying we need to Give Youth A Chance, Albrighton’s early decisions pretty much summed up why others among us are telling you not to get too excited.

I don’t have anything bad to say about Marc Albrighton as a person. For starters, I’ve never even met him. But he’s getting a lot of playing time. And he’s doing nothing to help himself, tallying three or four decent balls in several hundred minutes of playing time. If Villa are going to win with youth, or win without Darren Bent and CNZ in the lineup, well, players like Albrighton have to do more. That’s all there is to it.

Likewise Andreas Weimann, our Fulham hero. If there’s a back four in the EPL trembling at the thought of him coming on, well…There’s not. Doesn’t mean he’s a terrible person. But this is a hard business, a big stage, an uncompromising standard. If he becomes a 20-goal scorer for any team in the EPL, send me a hat, and I’ll eat it on YouTube.

So, yes, I’d have liked more energy, more abandon. I’d have liked us to play like Birmingham in a cup final against the Gunners. But we didn’t.

We went down on a soft goal that Given fluffed while at least three of his teammates looked on. We went down two after Carlos Cuellar gifted Song, I think it was, possession with a woeful pass in a woeful span of terrible passing by every Villan, and Song did what no Villa player on the pitch, apart from Ireland, could do: He lofted an inch-perfect pass to Theo Walcott, who’d made an impeccable run, and, in turn, did what no Villa player apart from CNZ, Ireland or Bent could do, taking the ball perfectly on his first touch and setting himself up for a slotted finish that spelled “GAME OVER” while Cuellar desperately tried to get back and make up for things. Yes, Walcott has had time to start coming good. Do Villa have the same luxuries as Arsenal?

Is That All I’ve Got?

Yes, sadly. You could name a number of different managers who might or might not have come to Villa. To my mind, none would have got you top six. Not with the squad we have. Sure, we could look better week in, week out, but it wouldn’t make any real difference where it counts.

And this is why I’ve not been apoplectic about McLeish this season. As long as we stay up, it doesn’t matter. The team might be underachieving to a degree, but Sunderland are seven points better, and they were playing better football three years ago. Seven points? That’s three goals. Look at the table, the points. It’s that tight, and everyone in the middle is pretty much the same.

It’s not an excuse, it’s just reality.

Is McLeish the man to lead us forward? Honestly, I have no idea. Given the supporter sentiment, the answer is an obvious “No”, and if were a friend of his, I’d tell him, “What do you need this for? Go manage a club in Scotland, let it go, have fun, delight in the lack of pressure.” Beyond that, if you’re feeling industrious, look up all his transfers, the money, the circumstances, all the things that go into deals getting done at specific moments in time, and tell me what would’ve been better.

I know that Collins, Dunne, Warnock, Petrov, Bent, Albrighton, Gabby, Herd, Ireland, Cuellar, and Heskey weren’t his doing. I know that Hutton, Given, and N’Zogbia were. i know Martin O’Neill’s shadow is still hanging over us, even if most fans want to draw an arbitrary and largely imaginary line in the sand to conveniently make context irrelevant. But a lot of average/aging players on big money…well, it means that McLeish was never going to get much chance to prove he was up to all aspects of the job.

On the other hand, I don’t pretend to understand how he could pursue N’Zogbia for three years and not know what sort of player/person he is (and as I mentioned before, I’m judging AM much more on where Ireland and CNZ end up than what Collins, Dunne et al continue to fail to offer). Hutton has been better lately. World class? No. But then, which Villan he inherited is?

You know what I’m saying is true, because the bookies confirm it…the team with the best players usually wins. AM will be here till season’s end. And to be honest, I’d rather Lerner just go ahead and sack him so we have a fresh start with the fans. Does that mean anyone else will do better? No. But I think it’s Lerner’s best move, because it means that “Anyone But Alex” will end up being on the fans. And for the fans, it ends up being a can’t-lose bet.

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