This is my first ever post onto AVL so thanks again to Matt for giving me the opportunity. As a young (22) and relatively new fan of the club, I can imagine my opinion will be null and void to many, but fresh eyes are better than no eyes, hey?
Aside from the obvious clash in interests between the clubs in Birmingham, I don’t see the need for all the hatred of Alex McLeish. As a Rangers fan, I suppose, to an extent, I am biased, but I’m not saying this out of preference, merely out of the results Alex garnered while he was with the club.
I regularly read this site and I understand people have said before that all Rangers fans thought Alex’s football was rubbish. Well speaking as someone raised in Glasgow, I can’t say I agree, nor do any other of the Rangers fans I know.
Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I just wanted to offer some insight considering Rangers are the club geographically closest to where I was born and raised, so I know many fans well, and the majority liked and still do like Alex McLeish. Quite a few would have him back tomorrow in place of Ally McCoist as Walter Smith’s leaving has left a void yet to be filled fully by Rangers’ young manager.
At the end of the day, the problems with Villa not scoring goals and not winning points is not a new issue. The team of today is not the team of the past under Martin O’Neill, nor the team that was started so many moons ago in the 19th century.
Aston Villa is not in a good financial state at this moment in time, which has been well documented and publicised yet McLeish isn’t losing faith when presented with a lack of money to spend, which is what he ultimately did with Birmingham, leaving after a clash with the board. To get good players, many would argue it is a necessity to spend money. However, there is only so much money that McLeish can use for players at present, and the team is not as rubbish as it may seem. Beating Chelsea 3-1 away, whether it was considered “lucky” or not, is not the hallmark of a poor team.
To the eyes of a young, probably under qualified, female, it looks like trust is the issue with this team. If you look at the managerial history, the last three seasons have been marred with issues with management between O’Neil’s quick resignation and Houllier’s health problems. Perhaps it’s about time that some fans put some belief into their manager, and the fact that Villa have not had a manager in place for more than a year in the past few seasons is, perhaps, where the lack of confidence stems from. After all, Gerard Houllier had a fractious relationship with the fans and look how that went. Do we really want to be in fighting again? Do we want to make thing harder for our own team than they need to be?
However, the fact still stands that Aston Villa aren’t doing brilliant financially. Lacking money, when Villa are competing in a league where, perhaps more than anywhere, money talks, is not an ideal situation to be in, but it is the situation Villa are in nonetheless. The comments I see on Twitter show a belief that the fans are dropping like flies in terms of their support for the manager, and they are understandably frustrated that the goals aren’t coming.
A fan made a comment on Twitter this weekend saying that the team CAN score goals, but we NEED to support them. That, perhaps, seemed obvious, but yet it appears some fans seemingly don’t want to get behind the team. Why is it so hard for fans to do? Just because of the fact that McLeish managed Birmingham? That his tenure to date hasn’t put Villa in the top six or top eight? Just what exactly were fans expecting from this season with a negative amount of money to spend? Answer me that, and I imagine Alex McLeish won’t finish far off the middle of the table, which is where any sensible fan would probably have placed us given the circumstances being what they are.
Naturally McLeish gets paid a pretty penny for the privilege of gaining your displeasure but he hasn’t quit, he hasn’t left, and he hasn’t developed a heart complication, so would it be so bad if he stayed on? Or if his passion for this club was ignited for another year, following a finish with a fair mid-table league placing for this season? If he managed to prove some of the fans wrong, but do well for Villa, would he then gain some of the fan’s trust?
As I mentioned before, I’m young and only a relatively new fan compared to some on this site, but consider the question. Would it really be the worst thing for McLeish to stay with the team for another season if things started getting better?
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