And so here we are. As fans of the club, we may finally be starting to unite. Sadly for the manager, it may well be against him.
Alex McLeish, a puzzling and risky choice of manager for the club, has failed to deliver any real progress in the Premier League to date, although circumstances have been less than favourable during his tenure. Whilst Aston Villa are not far away from the top half in terms of points, barring a change around in performances, it seems likely the club will finish in the bottom half of the table, a step backwards from last season. Things can change though, much like they did at the tail-end of last season.
Additional to this, the club recent announced ~£54m losses for the last accounting period, with a turnover of ~£92m. It doesn’t, of course, take much knowledge of finances to know that Villa thus spent almost £150m in costs for the period. Knowing this, and the recent cuts in wage bills etc, putting two and two together isn’t too difficult – the fact of the matter is Villa needed to save money, and save money they have, what with recent sales and wage cuts, as well as growing revenue by agreeing deals with Genting, Macron, and Sohu.
Saving Money Is Important, But Not As Important As Surviving
As we all know, the risk associated with cutting outgoings has been directly linked to squad depth. The sales of many of Villa’s top players has meant the team has been left weakened, with this season’s spending showing a net profit in terms of transfer dealings. Great for the finances but, as we have seen, not so great for those of us who pay money to watch the game.
Encapsulated in the recent financial losses posted, was £12m for “managerial payments”, presumably covering the fiscal year where both Martin O’Neill and Gerard Houllier’s severances will have been included. £12m isn’t a kings ransom comparatively speaking, but the compensation required, as well as potential compensation for McLeish, means money spent on clearing up issues that isn’t being spent on improving the team. £12m, would fund two £40,000 a week players for a three year contract. Instead the money was spent on payouts.
What is perhaps the most puzzling of all is that, in this era of cuts, Villa also took on their highest paid player. Darren Bent, a £24m capture from Sunderland, took an initial £90k a week contract plus bonuses which has since risen to £110k a week plus bonuses. Including his reported £5m signing fee, this has left the club with a £35m bill for Villa’s number 9 for the past year, a mammoth amount when compared to his 18 goals scored to date, all of which makes Robbie Keane’s recent loan deal look like pocket change. The fact the club put through the whole amount in one fiscal year, ahead of FFP, is actually very shrewd in both tax savings and competitive ability going forwards.
Moving on from finances, the questions arising are how the managerial situation will be governed going forwards. Concerns are widespread that McLeish is not the ideal candidate to take the club forward, with the main split being whether the manager should be gotten rid of now, or at the end of the season.
Change Things If You Want But Don’t Expect Miracles
As I’ve said before, one of the criteria you need to establish in order to dictate what success and failure is, is to understand what the board’s current objectives are. Given the fact that our current club owner has chosen to remain tight-lipped about plans in recent times, well barring the missive that fans received at the start of the season, it is impossible to know whether McLeish’s tenure has been poor or not in the eyes of the board.
In the eyes of the fans, it is pretty simple – 15th is really not good enough. However, 15th also is far from a rigid position as Villa are only 4 points behind 9th – far from cast adrift at the bottom. So the judgment can only really be made at the end of the season, as to sack a manager now may be fairly pre-emptive. Poor as he may be, a swing of just a few points could see Villa back in the top half, leaving casual by-standers wondering what all the fuss was about.
If the club do intend to get rid of the manager before the end of the season, and I largely don’t believe they will, then it is debatable if McLeish’s prospective replacement would prove to be a success. Mark Hughes, a man lauded by many as a prime candidate to succeed three managers at Villa – O’Neill, Houllier, and McLeish – has gone to QPR only to win one game in six, and this is with a team who were the second highest spenders in the transfer window, only to find themselves lower in the league than they were under Neil Warnock.
Another club sacking their manager in recent times, Wolverhampton Wanderers, also face the possibility of relegation under the inexperienced Terry Connor. Teams losing their manager due to infighting often have campaigns ending in misery – Allardyce’s former club Newcastle also went down after axing the now-West Ham manager. Thus change is not always good, much the same as playing Alan Hutton can simply mean the replacements are no better, rather than a desire for the manager to permanently anger the fans.
Another candidate who was earmarked for the Villa job, Roberto Martinez, is currently stuck to the foot of the table with his oft-lauded Wigan Athletic team. This is a team lauded because of how they play football, but yet they still find themselves propping up the rest of the Premier League. As a comparative, Stoke City, an oft-maligned team questioned for poor quality football under Tony Pulis, have just recently been eliminated from the Europa League, and sit a full 13 points ahead of Wigan.
Yes, Stoke have had money to spend due to Peter Coates’ investment and, yes, Wigan have had very little, but one only needs to look at the likes of Norwich, a team where I would struggle to swap a single player for one of ours, to see that team work is important, and investment is somewhat secondary, at non-top four level at least.
Villa’s lack of teamwork, between managerial inability to motivate and player apathy, has been their undoing this season. Every time Villa lose the ball, they don’t press to get it back, whereas most teams we play do. Is it a coincidence that Villa then fail to control games with such an attitude?
Change may well need to come, but it isn’t guaranteed by any stretch. My candidate for the job, Norwich’s Paul Lambert, is unlikely to be available till the end of the season at least, so I personally think we need to wait till the end of the season before changing managers, if the board intend to so anyway.
McLeish’s tenure may well have been poor in terms of results, but it is better to suffer the remainder of the season and plan, than rush into yet another short term managerial plan that may leave Villa’s finances strained again.
As a final point, knowing that McLeish has already made enquiries about a permanent move for Keane, perhaps this illustrates that our current manager may well be going nowhere, much to the disappointment of many fans.
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