McLeish coming here would have driven me up the wall. His style of play is awful and he's relegated Birmingham twice! I seriously cannot believe Lerner is in for him. Villa a big club? Jog on. Hughes must be spitting feathers, behind McLeish in the managerial race. Oh dear, how the young and ambitious have fallen.
Are you on some kind of reply record breaking mission this morning, Bandit??! I agree with you on this - Jol is 100 times better than McLeish. As for our former manager behind McLeish, Martinez and MacLaren. Hope he'll use his time in the wilderness to take a long hard look at his ambitions.
Hahahahaha. No I just don't get the opportunity to get on here much due to work, so when I do I really let loose I liked how Kia Joorabchin (spelling) stated how Hughes would be willing to wait for up to a year for the right job, trouble is that he isn't choosing to wait, he's being forced to while McLeish and McLaren are reaping the benefits. Maybe he should chance his name to McHughes?
As we know Mo was not best pleased with Hughes' lack of loyalty. Looks like he may have exerted a tad of revenge - Aston Villa apparently asked him to provide a reference for Hughes ! And of course Mo is good friends with Doug Ellis who is still well in at Villa. Guess old sparky read the tea leaves wrong.
I think the decision to hold Hughes and stop him from talking to another club for 30 days has really screwed him. Villa and Chelsea weren't going to wait around for a month when they could find a replacement immediately. Back luck Sparkles.
Bandit, I sort of agree but on the other hand if Villa had been really keen on McHughes wouldn't they have been prepared to wait another 13 days to talk to him?
Two weeks is a long time in football Penguin... Let's not forget that the new manager has to assess the squad he has, identity targets, and seek out transfers. That's excluding everything else such as training and bringing in coaches, scouts etc.
Hughes had 2 weeks at our gaff prior to season starting. However I cannot think that Lerner / Ellis would really listen to MOF is he said dont hire him. I mean they've just got the bluenose in despite Brum & Villa fans climbing up the wall at the thought of it.
Yes, CC, I think Villa really wanted McLeish and they were prepared to put up wth some hostility from fans to get him. I know what Bandit means but I still think you'd rather risk waiting 2 weeks than signing someone you were unsure of for 3 years.
It still seems strange that Lerner would go after McLeish when Hughes is available. I know we all hate him to a t, but I think we are all in agreement that Hughes is 10 times the manager McLeish is.
The thing is that Villa are really not very much larger than us. They know that, even if their fans don't. Hughes has now got a reputation as someone who is only interested in a top 6 job and is not prepared to put the time in elsewhere (e.g. the teams just below). Villa will not have liked that, as Hughes could easily have left them next summer like he left us this summer.
Villa have a larger fanbase, stadium and better academy than us. I would honestly consider them a bigger club than us. They can throw around 30 million on a striker for one thing!
For Lerner to overlook McClaren because the fans weren't happy, then to take on McLeish is nothing short of bonkers. Not only do the fans oppose McLeish more, but McClaren is a better manager. The mind boggles.
For Villa it seems a strange decision, they've got a new manager with enough problems without all the hassle he'll get because of his last job. "I think we are all in agreement that Hughes is 10 times the manager McLeish is." Not I for one. For a start only one of them has ever won anything!
That's incredibly selective. That's like saying McLeish is a better manager than Ancelotti because only one of them won a trophy last season. If you're going to make a comparison between the two then you have to include more than an incredibly fortuitous League Cup win.
Not at all. Career wins in similar careers. Anyway the comment '10 times' is quite a superlative to compare a manager who hasn't won anything with anyone else. Maybe it was just hyperbole and I missed your point.
It was. I don't think any manager is 10 times the manager McLeish is in a literal sense. I was just making the point that while McLeish may have trophies to his name, it does not make him a better manager than Hughes, who for one has never relegated a club.
McLeish's trophy winning isn't just about this year's league cup, Bandy. Let's not forget his career in Scotland. With Rangers we won 10 or so leagues and cups. And before anyone says, 'ah, but that's what happens when anyone manages one of the Old Firm', he also took Motherwell - that's Motherwell - to second place in the Scottish league in the 90s. Birmingham's relegation a couple of years back was in spite of him, not because of him. He joined half-way through a poor season and didn't quite do enough to turn things round. I still can't work out what happened in the last few months of this season, but let's not forget how well Birmingham did last year. McLeish is a good manager. I agree that all else being equal I'd rather have Hughes than McLeish, but the two relegations in four seasons seems to be an anomaly on his cv rather than the statistic that defines him.
