Unbelievable ... Be like a social case study of Birmingham & Villa football fans seeing how this one pans out.
They're going a bit mental down in Birmingham. I think he's just the man to take them forward into the championship.
I know they poached B£nt but I always had Randy Leaner down as a decent bloke, good footballing brain, making educated choices etc. From a business point of view appointing your local rivals ex boss has to be borderline suicide for him though. Wonder how many Villa fans will be watching from the pubs next season?!
He's probably going to Villa so he can win the double. By that I mean Birmingham relegated last season and Villa next!
This will be an interesting watch during the season, or until christmas i can only see this going badly for all involved in a George Graham at the Spuds type faff on.
I actually rate him as manager, he is in the Fergie type of mould and he may get tagged with the long ball but he had to do what he could with limited resources down at Brum. I think this could turn out well for Villa although if we signed Pardew I would be furious so its easy for us to say Mcleish is a good appointment.
Well he did win the cup this year so I guess there's certainly managerial talent there (albeit relegations are also part of his repertoire) however for me this is irrelevant in his choosing of Villa. We know all too well that passions run high with local rivalries and can sometimes boil over. Both McLeish and Learner seemed to have completely ignored this and not given once ounce of thought to the fans of either team really. As I said before, time will tell.
It wouldn't bother me if we appointed a former manager of the Scum who was not a mag through and through say Fat Sam or Pardew but it would bother me if we appointed Shearer or Lee Clark
I see Villa have agreed to pay Birmingham 2 million compensation! http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11677_6992732,00.html Just watched the video on Sky Sports, some fairly unhappy fans I'd say. I like the way they scrubbed anti Mcleish graffiti off the training ground walls and planted a new selection of pot plants there! Think it'll take more than green fingers to win those fans over!
