Alex McLeish has put on the right-colored tie, and sat down with the press. He was alternately coy, jovial, and honest. A good showing, I thought.
Yes, he was non-committal about a lot of things, but anyone just into a job would be. He spoke about youth, a goalkeeper, the fact there isn’t unlimited money, and that the fair play rules are going to have an effect. “Cracking squad” and “cracking” young players were also heard. Don’t know about the squad, or the youth, but the youth, at least, need to be given a good look, if only because it would be nice if some of them can step up, and let us spend money elsewhere.
And as you know, Gordon Cowans, “Aston Villa legend”, will be staying as a first-team coach. Good decision.
Subsequently we’ve heard that Lerner has targeted a top-eight finish, and that McLeish will sit down with Downing and doesn’t want him to go. Don’t think many of us do, but we’ll see if there are offers and for how much. Cuellar, too, may remain in the frame.
McLeish apparently didn’t preclude the possibility of sitting down in a fan’s forum and is quoted in the Guardian as saying, “There are some good attacking players here and I want to play in a style that suits them.”
That sounds alright, doesn’t it?
Then he also said, “But I wouldn’t say Birmingham played bad football. The biggest thing was the lack of goals and it didn’t help that our man in form, Nikola Zigic, didn’t play again after the Carling Cup final. Obafemi Martins also broke his leg after the final, so there was a lot of bad luck.”
Argue amongst yourselves. Although I wouldn’t expect any manager to say his team played bad football, whether or not that was all he had to work with. He’s right about the lack of goals and injuries. It may sound like an excuse to some, but injuries can and do play havoc.
Top eight is an entirely reasonable target, and for me, it doesn’t spell out lack of ambition. As I mentioned before, if we’d have salvaged half the 26 points we dropped from winning positions, we’d have had the points for 6th.
A manager who tends to get defense right, if nothing else, could realistically look to have us top eight without changing much of anything besides replacing NRC, Friedel and Ash. Lerner has set McLeish a reasonable bar, one that he could quite easily clear.
Frem’s favorite time of year
Our beloved Frem tends to get a bit wound up during transfer season. I don’t blame him. It’s a fun puzzle to work, and then there are the annual worries about who will stay and who will go.
I tend to stay away from lining up specific players, not because I like to have it all ways, but simply because I don’t pretend to see enough of the players often enough to give worthwhile insight.
A glaring need like keeper is obvious. The other positions under consideration, less so. My guess is that Lerner will want McLeish to build around what’s in place. Which is basically a 4-5-1 with some missing pieces. That would seem to be sound logic: Don’t blow things up, make things better, and make the most of what you’ve got.
As I said, we need someone to do Nigel’s job, only better. With Ash going, we seem to need a winger as backup if nothing else assuming Albri is judged ready to start. Is Gabby up to the job? Downing going would change that, obviously. And we need to shore up the defense.
Actually, we need to do more than shore it up, in my opinion. A good keeper will help, obviously.
We need at least one very athletic CB who’s good on the ball. If I had my way, Collins and Dunne would both be gone, meaning we would need two CBs in. But maybe Collins stays for cover.
And in all likelihood, we need a LB to either replace or push Warnock. I can’t say that we have that player. RB? More options there, with Young and Lichaj, so we have cover at least, and can maybe get away with losing Walker.
McLeish’s questions
It’s a lot to take in, and McLeish doesn’t have much time: Albrighton, Bannan, Delph, Collins, Dunne, Warnock, Clark, Petrov, Ireland, Gabby…Starters and backups, and who are the middle three? What happens if Bent goes down? Can we play 4-4-2 if required?
If McLeish can get Ireland to be the player he could be, it would be a big help. But that’s seemingly a big if.
Lerner will back him adequately in the end, I think, and I’m sure when they talked about 8th or higher, McLeish talked about what he thought that requires, and they agreed about it.
The biggest questions revolve around what McLeish thinks we’ve already got. A keeper, CB, LB and DM seem to be minimum requirements. But do we have the playmaker? Will we need to buy a winger or two, or have we got that covered and need another striker?
Chrisodon gave a thoughtful list yesterday about possible combinations, and it’s as good a place as any to start arguing.
You can see the dominoes by considering Ireland. If he can’t come good, is Bannan good enough to be the starting attacking midfielder? If he is, then he’s realistically not backup at another position unless Delph or someone else in-house can do the AM job. If Ireland isn’t the starter, he’s not really backup for anything else.
So McLeish will have to see what he’s got, and prioritize after the keeper. Seems to me the next pick is a CB while McLeish runs the rule over the rest. Let’s hope he’s a quick and accurate judge.
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