With this weekend lacking a football fixture for Aston Villa, it is perhaps time to reflect on what has been a less than favourable season. Given the fact that Villa have, in the space of less than two years, seen the whole club turned upside down with managerial casualties, financial black holes needing to be plugged, and some of our best players leaving, there’s perhaps good reason for unhappiness in B6.
At present, the unhappiness is something that really has pervaded the club. When you see the emergence of groups looking to demand the sacking of staff, from the manager to the board, it’s pretty obvious something is wrong at the club. Narrators can point fingers at any number of people to shoulder the blame, but the fact remains that this isn’t making a mountain out of a molehill – this is about real fans having real issues with the club, as attendances have shown.
Is It As Bad As Things Could Be
Although the situation regarding fan unhappiness is undoubtedly real, being increasingly angry doesn’t actually make the situation worse apart from in the minds of those taking offence. Why else do you think I’m sitting here doing my best to be detached from the situation? Do I want to let Villa’s woes ruin the rest of my life? Not bloody likely, and I don’t recommend you let it ruin yours either, despite how much we all love the club.
Whilst there is no doubt in the fact that people are both unhappy and panicked, as well as feeling apathetic, just what exactly do protests hope to achieve? The statement that the sacking of Alex McLeish is one of several points raised by protest groups provides only a trite action. Ok, so you get McLeish sacked, and then what?
This is the short-term thinking that is one of the ultimate flaws in a sensible conversation with the board. If your solution is only half of what is actually needed, how can you expect to be listened to? The main flaw I see in current protests is that the anger is either too broad, such as wanting everyone out of the club, or too narrow, such as those thinking sacking McLeish will solve all the problems.
For those with broad anger, those that want everyone from Randy Lerner, Paul Faulkner, and McLeish out, I have to say that your aims are far too ambitious, and are doomed to failure. Sure, you might end up displacing a manager if the results continue to go poorly, but that isn’t going to mean Lerner will leave the club.
In fact, part of the reason why Lerner hasn’t pulled the trigger on McLeish, is that it gives protesters a false sense of power, because it makes them believe that it is actually possible to enact larger changes. Make no doubt about it, if the board think the club can’t progress under McLeish, they will sack him, but not because fans wanted it, merely because the club might lose money as a result.
For those on the other end of the change spectrum, the ones who just want McLeish out, it is altogether foolish to think that changing one man is going to change the whole trajectory of the football club. Villa were on a downward spiral last season, in an era before McLeish arrived, and have since had a negative net spend in terms of the squad. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that it means the situation is now harder to deal with, not easier, and thus McLeish is only a symptom of the issues, not the root cause. A poor manager? Yes, on the evidence I’ve seen, but by no means the sole orchestrator of Villa’s downfall.
Does Change Equal Improvement?
All of these solutions that are proposed are only meant to be enacted for the sake of progress, as change for the sake of change is pointless, especially in an environment where there has been far too much of it. The history books show five managers being in charge of Villa in less than a two year period – O’Neill, MacDonald, Houllier, McAllister, and McLeish – and things have hardly gone well no matter who was in the seat.
Sure, each manager can point to individual matches or situations that were high points for them, but anyone can find a high point when the rest of your performances have been poor. What Villa need now is progress, something that they ultimately needed at the start of the season, and progress isn’t generally synonymous with constant change.
The ultimate issue is that, whether the board care to admit it or not, McLeish was the wrong candidate for the job, and the suggestion every Villa manager should have prior Premier League experience meant the field was unduly limited. I can sit here and be pragmatic about the situation, detached from the tribalism that pervades football, but I also know and understand that my view is not the “standard” one.
I both understand and accept that my angle is both different to others, largely because of my pragmatism, but that isn’t to say my view is better, merely that it is more balanced than someone caught up in the fever pitch level of emotions. I’m just as committed as those who are angry though, as my spend on Villa is as much as any other fan out there, so my frustration in lack of value is just as high.
With regards to McLeish’s appointment, the difficulty the board have is not as simple as making a single change and expecting miracles. I don’t think appointing McLeish was the best decision that the board could have made, but I also don’t think sacking him is going to be the best idea either. Before people suggest that statement is contradictory, let me elaborate.
Just because McLeish was a poor choice, it doesn’t mean that removing him is going to make the situation better. Knowing what we know about the club, we have a squad fraught with problems, who have issues with confidence, and this is with five different people at the helm. Who, in their right mind, is going to step into that mess? After all, unless said person pulls Villa out of the mire, all that is left is a large possibility of career suicide.
None of our recent managers – not even O’Neill – were free from problems. Of all of the five, O’Neill could largely be suggested as the one facing the least of all the problems, which is kind of ironic considering he is also the cause of many of Villa’s recent financial woes.
If Villa’s performances had been night and day between last season and now, if we had made a severe backwards step since last year, then I would be suggesting that McLeish be removed immediately, because it would be patently obvious that he was the source of the problem, that his tactics had caused our issues, that it was he who destabilised the club. However, it was O’Neill’s exit that blew Villa to pieces, not McLeish’s appointment, so the reality is that problems were here before McLeish, such as the outbursts of Richard Dunne and James Collins under Houllier, and they will still be here if McLeish is axed as a manager.
So it’s pretty clear to understand that whilst Villa haven’t gone forwards under McLeish, they haven’t really gone backwards at warp speed either. Even if they had, then the fact the transfer spend was a net profit would simply explain that. That was a board decision, as was McLeish appointment, but the board own the club, not you or I, so the board aren’t going anywhere, unless the board want to and, from what I understand, the board don’t have any interest in moving on.
McLeish was a poor choice, and he should never have got the job, but this protest group has the wrong angle, the wrong objectives, and the wrong methods, notwithstanding the fact that their plans actually solve none of the problems, merely creating new ones.
Protesters – They Make Noise But Don’t Have Answers
This protest group may well have manufactured a meeting with Faulkner, but that in itself doesn’t really prove anything, it merely show that the board want to placate a small uprising before it becomes a mass riot. There is no mass support swelling behind the group, in fact most fans I have spoken to are against protests, so I hope they don’t get ahead of themselves in belief. The board are simply looking to head them off at the pass – nothing more, nothing less.
When a single pointed agenda of sacking a manager becomes the primary focus of what needs to be done, isn’t it really nothing more than a convoluted internet witchhunt, one that is focused on the age-old situation of “Somebody’s got to pay for this”? “McLeish Out” has become a well-worn and trite phrase repeated over and over with largely no effect. Protesters may think they have the power, but the reality is they don’t and, I’m sad to say, they lack any of the answers either.
Declaring that the manager should be sacked is just taking a view shared by a vocal minority in order to establish some kind of credence. Sadly, as is often the case, just because lots of people say something is right, it doesn’t actually bear out to be universally beneficial. This is why I don’t support the protests, because there is no actual solution proposed, merely a short sighted sating of a bloodlust for an unpopular manager.
So, if these protesters do get their wish, and McLeish is sacked before Villa are mathematically relegated, please have the decency to accept some responsibility if the club go down afterwards. After all, you made the change, right? Or will it be someone else’s fault again?
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