As the summer progresses and Villa continue to not make any signings of any consequence, the discontent of some sections of the club’s support becomes apparent.  Much of this discontent is a sort of carry over effect from the appointment of Alex McLeish.  Reading the tea leaves, the club’s lack of any big signings on the horizon and the appointment of McLeish are related.

So many choice

During the clubs seemingly endless search for a successor to Gerard Houllier, the club was linked with a laundry list of candidates.  To say McLeish was a curious appointment would be an understatement.  In his opening press conference, McLeish spoke of giving everybody a clean slate and evaluating the squad.  Undoubtedly this is what the board was looking for in the next Villa manager.  Just like in any job interview the candidate who tells the perspective employer what the employer wants to hear is more likely to get the job.

Given that the club is still hemorrhaging cash, the board was not going to appoint a manager who wanted to blow up the existing squad and required a vast war chest to build a squad in his image.  If Randy Lerner wanted to pour another £60m – £80m on top of the £200m he already has Rafa Benitez would have taken the job in a second.  If that were the situation, Benitez might have even have made sense.  But if the job was to try and get the current squad to produce results, Benitez and the higher profile candidates wouldn’t have been a wise appointment.  Bringing in a sexy name might have excited the fan base, but if the new manager was ill equipped to handle the job at hand it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.  So the board decided to target a manager who is accustomed to working within a budget and would be willing to work with the players already on hand.

Is the current squad good enough?

The first question that arises is can the current squad be competitive.  Steven Warnock went to a World Cup a year ago, Steven Ireland was Manchester City’s Player of the Year and is still only 24, and Marc Albrighton should hopefully be ready slide into the right wing slot vacated by Ashley Young.  Alex McLeish, who made Small Heath difficult to break down, can shore up the defense which was a strength just two years ago.   With some luck there is no reason why the current squad can’t be in and around the top six and competing in the domestic cups.  Admittedly this is a very optimistic outlook, and it’s not that likely that all of these things will come to fruition.

Therein lies the dilemma, if the current squad is floundering then will money be available?  The club was not shy to splash the cash in January to bring in Darren Bent and Jean II Makoun.  These players weren’t just brought in to stave off relegation last year, these players were brought in for the long-term.  At the moment, the impatient Villa fans feel like children with December birthdays.  Yes kids, Darren Bent was for your birthday and Christmas.  Even knowing deep down that you were lucky to have such an extravagant birthday gift, it is still disappointing to wake up on Christmas morning with nothing under the tree.  Given the track record of this board if this club clearly needs investment the money will be there.

At the moment the club have a potential 20 goal scorer, two wingers capable of providing excellent service, an experienced world-class shot stopper in Shay Given between the pipes, and a manager whose track record suggests he can help the defense regain their form of two years ago.  That does not sound like relegation fodder.  With a full year of Darren Bent, and some of the youngsters continuing to develop, just maybe we can pick up where we left off, when Martin O’Neil threw his toys out of the pram and quit on the club.

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