After a second farcical managerial change in as many summers, and the departure of two of the club’s best players, where exactly are Aston Villa heading? LFW set about finding out.
If you’re an Aston Villa fan currently wondering what that dot in the distance is, let me put you out of your misery; it’s the clubs you used to compete with disappearing over the horizon. And that noise approaching from the opposite direction? Oh, that’s the clubs you used to consider an easy four to six points a season preparing to overtake.
The things holding clubs like Fulham, Wigan and ourselves back such as low support bases or small grounds don’t apply at Aston Villa – Villa Park is one of the country’s finest stadiums and planning permission has just been granted for a rebuild taking it past the 50,000 mark and they are well supported. The lack of a seriously rich owner that perhaps hinders the likes of Forest and Leeds also isn’t applicable – Villa bagged Randy Lerner nice and early in the revolution and he seems to actually be a likeable chairman as well as a rich one. They haven’t struggled to attract big name players and very decent talent, they’re not lacking in the history stakes – they appear to all intents and purposes to be a club well capable of challenging in cup competitions and pushing on for the coveted fourth Champions League spots.
But Villa have made under-achievement an art form and they’ve currently got the paintbrushes out again.
Rewind a couple of years and things in the garden seemed to be rosy. They had Martin O’Neill in charge who is an excellent manager, especially when compared to his predecessor David O’Leary, and were building a team with the likes of Ashley Young and Stewart Downing to the fore. A young team, a talented team, an English team. They had Lerner in control who, as well as being willing to put money in, was held up as an example to other chairmen of somebody who was happy to allow a manager the freedom to operate and get on with his job while our own Flavio Briatore was leading the charge of the nutters in the other direction.
But over the last 18-24 months things have changed at Villa Park. O’Neill abruptly left the club on the eve of last season for a start. Now as an outsider looking in that looked like a complete disaster to me but as you’ll see from our fan interview shortly apparently the feeling at Villa was that this was a necessary move and O’Neill had (dreaded words): “taken them as far as he could.” Now there’s a real whiff of the Alan Curbishley situation at Charlton about all of this. O’Neill had led Villa to consecutive sixth placed finishes before he left. So is that a manager that had taken a club as far as he could or a manager doing the absolute best anybody could do in those circumstances? I’d suggest the latter, the Villa fans insist it’s the former.
Charlton went for Iain Dowie, then Les Reed and then Alan Pardew and were relegated after losing patience with Curbishley’s mid-table finishes. Villa have since developed a similarly awful taste for managers. Kevin McDonald, a long serving coach at Villa Park, stepped in initially for O’Neill saying he didn’t really want the job permanently although the club initially seemed quite keen to give it to him. Then, after a few games in charge, when he did seem to want it after all the club went another way and dragged Gerard Houllier out of semi-retirement and back into management. Houllier had his day at Liverpool, he’d been put out to pasture and for football and health reasons that was exactly the right thing for him.
Houllier’s heart probably resembles an old dog chewed slipper by now and sure enough after staying just long enough to upset and alienate half his players and almost all of the supporters he suffered another cardiac incident and disappeared off into the hospital never to be seen again. I’m not being unduly cruel here but this is exactly the same as the situation Newcastle got themselves into with Joe Kinnear – without even addressing both men’s questionable ability to do the job they are both ageing, overweight individuals with serious long standing medical conditions being exposed to the extreme stress of Premiership management after a long period out of the limelight. What, exactly, did Newcastle or Villa expect to happen? “Gerard Houllier rushed to hospital” is right up there in the surprise headline stakes with “Bears shit in woods belonging to Catholic Pope” and “Fitz Hall hamstring injury serious – five week absence predicted.”
As well as O’Neill leaving and Houllier arriving there was a clear change of tact in the boardroom. Where Villa once made noises about chasing the coveted fourth Champions League spot, from the start of last season that ambition was clearly abandoned in favour of greater financial prudency. The situation at Man City has created a scenario where not only do Chelsea, Man Utd and Arsenal have three of the top four spots sewn up but suddenly clubs like Spurs and Villa need to spend big just to stand a chance of grabbing the fourth spot. Liverpool this summer decided to do just that, Villa have palpably decided not to. The surprise £20m move for Darren Bent apart their transfer activity has smacked of a club that knows it won’t go down, but doesn’t really want to spend the required dosh to do more than that and so they’re just going to do enough to hang around in the middle of the table. They were three or four players short of a genuine top four push when O’Neill left, now with Young and Downing gone they’re missing at least six quality players and a good manager.
And so I’m forced to wonder what the point of all of this is. I mean Villa have about as much chance of making the top four this season as we do which then leaves them to push for the Europa League – except that they have recently been one of the absolute worst examples of a club that seems desperate to get out of that competition the second it gets into it. Twice they’ve crashed out to the mighty Rapid Vienna, on both occasions fielding weakened teams.
So they don’t want to spend to chase the Champions League, they don’t want to be in the Europa League, and if their team selections and performances in the domestic cup competitions are anything to go by they’re not too fussed about those either. In 2008 we went to Villa Park and won as a Championship side in the League Cup and this week they were beaten at home by an out of form Bolton side in the same competition. So they’re incapable of getting to one European competition and not bothered about the other, they’re not bothered about the domestic cups and having parted company with a manager that twice got them to sixth they’re now staring a second consecutive midtable finish in the face at best. Again, what is the point of all of this? That huge ground, all those fans, where is it all going?
The change of tact and public comments from Randy Lerner suggest this is all about securing the club’s financial situation. Now that’s very admirable, but the problem with such water treading exercises is it only needs one or two wrong moves for things to go spectacularly wrong. I’m thinking of a combination of Fulham when they appointed Lawrie Sanchez and Middlesbrough under Gareth Southgate here.
Like Fulham with Sanchez, Villa have appointed a very poor manager incapable of leading a club to success at the highest level of the English game in Alex McLeish. Far from learning from the O’Neill, McDonald and Houllier debacle of last summer Villa set about repeating the farce to a greater degree this year. They fluttered their eyelashes at Mark Hughes and he promptly resigned from Fulham and laid spread-eagled on the bed waiting for them to arrive. In the meantime they tried to get David Moyes from Everton and Roberto Martinez from Wigan, two quests that were doomed to failure from the very start, and by the time they realised Hughes was the best they could get his moistness had dried considerably. Being fourth choice (at best) didn’t bother McLeish’s pride though and he promptly marched across the city from arch rivals Birmingham – no doubt as surprised as the rest of us that Villa would show an interest in somebody who had twice taken reasonable looking City sides down from the Premiership.
Middlesbrough, like Villa, were once the league’s big spenders. Neither club was afraid to lash out serious money on a Ravenelli, Merson, Yakubu type but as other clubs have become richer around them they’ve both made a conscious decision to withdraw from the arms race. Both clubs have excellent academy set ups, regular success stories in the FA Youth Cup, but Middlesbrough were relegated for trying to rely too heavily on those young players after selling the likes of Mark Viduka, Mark Schwarzer, Yakubu and others all at once.
A similar approach from Villa will only yield similar results in the long run, particularly with the manager they currently have in charge.
Massive thanks to Damian at The Villa Blog for agreeing to spare us some time to comment on the current situation at Villa Park.
How was the 2010/11 season for Villa? It couldn't really have got off to a worse start with O'Neill leaving could it? The season turned out to be horrible. First O'Neill left, then the club didn't back Kevin MacDonald after he publicly said he wanted the job and then we hired Gerard Houllier - a manager that for more than one reason, was only ever going to be for the short term. As for O'Neill going, it was needed, the club were never going to move forward with him and we stood in sixth for three seasons and while it is respectable, if you want to move forward, you cannot stand still and that is what we were doing with him. Horrible season, but it had to happen and it is accepted.
Tell us about Villa's summer and start to the season because to an outsider it looked like it descended into a bit of a farce.
It was a bit of a farce, but one we have to live with and when you have an American owner that doesn't know much about the sport, it is going to happen eventually. It is just a pity it happened to us and not Manchester United or Sunderland. But with blind optimism, you will find hope and there is every likelihood that Alex McLeish won’t become the first manager to be relegated three times from the Premier League with two clubs from the same city.
Is it fair to say McLeish wasn't the most popular appointment the club could have made? Is that just because he's coming from Birmingham or are there other reasons? How has he done so far?
He wasn't a popular choice and for many, myself included, it was because of the club he used to manage. But it wasn't and isn't just that. His record doesn't inspire confidence and he relegated them twice. Once and you could maybe forgive him, but twice is becoming a habit and it wasn't that he lost two games, it was that over a long period of time, he didn't win enough games and to answer the last part of your question - that is what is happening now. Five games in and we have won once and when you look at what he achieved with The Clowns, we really shouldn't be surprised to learn that the other four games were draws.
Who was your preference to replace Houllier in the summer?
I didn't really have a preference. If you said I could have anyone, I'd have picked Mourinho and committed him to a 20 year contract, but this is the real world and in the real world, I don't know what the conditions of the job were or what money was going to be made available or what limitations the owner was going to put on the new man. We sort of know now, but things could change come January and they might also change next summer. What I would have liked to see was the club scouting managers throughout Europe and if they were not going to promote from within, really look for a manager that had a proven track record of development and success. I know it is easy for me to write that, but from the look of things, we looked in our own back garden and down the street - hardly inspiring stuff.
Has there been a change in tact from Villa over the last six months? Where once they seemed keen to chase Champions League spots now it seems much more of a book balancing exercise.
It is most definitely a book balancing exercise. Our owner wrote to season ticket holders and said the target was to get back into the Deloitte money league. No word of a lie - that was what he wrote – you can see it here - no mention of the football league - the money league.
What are the supporters' hopes and expectations for this season, and where do they see the club going in the medium term?
This season is all about accepting that the owner isn't actually that bothered about success on the pitch. What I mean is, does it really matter if we finish eighth or fifteenth? In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't. It used to matter that you were challenging for the league, but these days, it is all about the cash. Expectations for this season for some are staying up, me personally, I'd be happy with a cup run and how depressing is that to write. As for the medium term - much the same, unless we get a multi-billionaire owner that is willing to pump stupid amounts of cash into the club or the game actually gets fixed.
What are supporters' feelings towards Randy Lerner?
I’d say 99% loved him when he came but that number has dropped every year and I'd say it was at about 50% now. But we have to accept him and embrace him, because if we don't, we could end up with chicken farmers. It also wouldn't take much from him to get that back up to 99% and that is also sad. I think generally though, he is well thought of, but so was Doug Ellis by some.
Who's the star man, the weak link and the up and coming player or unsung hero we may not have heard about?
There really isn't a weak link at the club. Everyone works hard and there isn't an easy route to goal with us. That sounds a bit biased, but I'm trying to be sincere - we have solid players. The star man, on his day, is without a doubt Darren Bent and he is due a day very soon, although Gabby has scored three this season and has done well. As for the player you might not have heard of, although I suspect you have, it is Barry Bannan. The lad is going to be a star.
What can QPR fans expect from Luke Young? He's made a fantastic start for us. Why did Villa sell him?
Luke Young is a very decent defender and I don't think we wanted to sell him. He has wanted to leave for a while and talk is a deal was agreed with Liverpool but personal terms couldn't be agreed. I suspect you've agreed to pay him his money, but he won’t disappoint that often.
Thanks to Damian from The Villa Blog for taking time out to fill us in on his club. We’ll try and catch up with him ahead of the return fixture later this season but in the meantime pay his site a visit to get the opposition view on this weekend’s match.
It’s fair to say I don’t really rate Alex McLeish. I mean, I know he’s Scottish and he once played for Alex Ferguson and those are supposedly the two key elements that go to make a successful football manager but as far as I’m concerned his record in this country speaks for itself.
It would be easy to write off the Villa fans’ misgivings about his appointment as a product of petty local football rivalry. In the same way QPR fans were willing to get stuck into Paul Furlong right from the off because he used to play for Chelsea, appointing a Birmingham City boss at Villa Park would seem to be giving the new man an uphill task before he’s even begun. It would be easy to say that Aston Villa fans would not like McLeish regardless of how he did for Birmingham or in his new job simply because he came from St Andrews. But while the club he moved from hasn’t helped, I believe that wherever McLeish came from this summer he would not have been a good appointment for Villa.
Let’s do the history bit and then get to why that is. As a player McLeish spent the overwhelming majority of his career with Aberdeen – making more than 500 appearances in 14 years at Pittodrie and winning 77 Scotland caps at a time when Aberdeen and Scotland were actually quite good. He won three Scottish league titles, five Scottish cups, two Scottish league cups, one European Cup Winners Cup and one European Super Cup while at Aberdeen and played at the 1982, 1986 and 1990 World Cups. He was the country’s Player of the Year in 1990.
As a manager he enjoyed some initial success at Motherwell, who finished second behind Rangers in 1995, and at Hibs who were relegated initially after he took charge but then promoted straight back sparking a series of cup final and semi-final appearances and a third placed finish in the SPL. Poached by Rangers he then won the usual array of cups and leagues you’d expect in such a one sided pointless competition but was removed early in 2006 when it was announced he would stand down at the end of the season. He went on to manage his country, and brought them within a whisker of qualifying for Euro 2008 with a memorable 1-0 win in France and a valiant effort at home to Italy in the deciding group game.
So far so good but LFW has never been shy of devoting paragraph after paragraph to just what a complete joke Scottish football is and although some managers (but not many players) have been able to cross the border successfully in recent years McLeish is not one of them. He was appointed as Birmingham manager in November 2007 after a protracted battle with the SFA over his international commitments. Birmingham must have wondered why they had bothered because despite spending big money that January on James McFadden Birmingham were relegated.
Yes McLeish brought them back, yes he won the League Cup last season, but for the second time he relegated them back to the Championship on the final day of the season. On paper the Birmingham team he had there was perfectly capable of staying in the league, and a long way away from being one of the division’s three worst teams. I’ve since seen it said that their relegation underlined why clubs like to duck out of cup competitions early, but it wasn’t the League Cup run that relegated Birmingham – neither Blackpool nor West Ham did well in the cups and they both went down. I’ve also heard the arguments about the dodgy boardroom situation undermining his efforts but, again, this sounds like a hunt for excuses rather than facing up to the obvious answer.
Birmingham and McLeish’s problems were nicely summed up on the final day of the season when, needing a win to guarantee safety, they went to a Spurs team that was scarcely bothered about challenging Liverpool for a Europa League spot and played for a point. The draw they looked like getting for so long was never going to be good enough, and that only seemed to dawn on McLeish in stoppage time at which point he suddenly flung everybody he had forward in attack and Spurs calmly won the game through the wide open spaces at the other end. As a tactical masterclass it was like arriving at a UEFA coaching course and finding your activity leaders for the day are Jim Magilton and Paul Hart.
So it’s not, for me, the fact that he crossed the city’s great divide that’s the problem with this appointment - it’s that he has been tried at this level before and failed twice, it’s that his tactics are miserable and Villa are already struggling to turn drab draws into wins and most problematic of all it’s that everybody knows he wasn’t choice one, two or three for Villa this summer including his players.
Well, enough with the negativity. Despite becoming a book balancing exercise and selling their best players Aston Villa still have a top ten team on paper that surely even Alex McLeish cannot relegate from the Premier League.
Most importantly they have goals in their team. Last season I’m sure McLeish would point to a lack of firepower in his Birmingham side with Nikola Zigic doing a passable impression of Bambi’s less well balanced drunk cousin, Obafemi Martins struggling for form and fitness and James McFadden injured for almost the entire season leaving the distinctly mediocre Cameron Jerome to plough on alone. At Villa he has no such worries with Darren Bent possessing one of the league’s top strike records and Gabby Agbonlahor apparently starting to find some form that had seemed to desert him for the previous 18 months.
What more could you want for the top flight than those two? Bent has always scored goals in this league when selected consistently – 163 goals in 384 appearances for Ipswich, Charlton, Spurs and Sunderland. Despite that fans are often quick to look down their noses at him and under-rate him and until recently I was one of those who would name ten or more potential England strikers before I came up with his name. Since moving to Villa though he’s looked much more at home in the international stakes – quite a powerful and pacy all round striker rather than just a penalty box player – and is finally blossoming into the complete player. Agbonlahor has always had a lot of pace but I felt his noticeable bulking up had detracted from his performances over the past couple of seasons. Where once he was fleet of foot and sharp of mind more recently he has looked hulking and lumbering. This season though he’s finally rediscovering some of his early career form in front of goal as well with three in five league appearances already.
Throw in Charles N’Zogbia who arrived from Wigan in the summer to help fill the chasm left by the departure of Stewart Downing and Ashley Young and it’s clear that Villa have a seriously quick, physical and threatening attack to come at teams with. Emile Heskey still plays sometimes too, bless him.
They’re strong at the back as well. No decision in the English game in recent years highlights the obsession with making signings rather than developing players more than Villa flogging off Gary Cahill cheaply while spending money on James Collins. I’ve argued long into the night with Villa fans before about Collins, who they seem to rate without exception while I think he’s little more than trumped up Championship player regularly hauled out of jail by his much more adept centre back partner Richard Dunne. As a partnership though they are formidable and with one of the top three keepers in the league Shay Given behind them Rangers will need to work hard to break them down.
Villa’s weaknesses, in my opinion, are three fold. Firstly, as this is an away game, McLeish is almost certainly going to view a point as a good result because it’s his default setting for any road match. Therefore QPR would be well advised to attack from the first whistle and not give them a chance to settle into some slow tempo snooze-a-thon because the pace and power at the attacking end of the field will blitz us on the counter attack. Secondly, the midfield isn’t all that by Premiership standards - Stylian Petrov, Fabian Delph, Jermaine Jenas, Marc Albrighton and Barry Bannan who starred against us on loan at Blackpool a year or two back are all very good, and in three cases very promising, players but as Premiership midfields go it’s a long way from the best and QPR now have some serious talent in that area of the pitch. And thirdly at full back where Stephen Warnock is nothing more than workmanlike and Alan Hutton is substandard in my view – hence Spurs have sent him packing.
So attack early and often, get Barton, Faurlin and Derry to dominate the middle of the park, and make sure Shaun Wright Phillips and Adel Taarabt are seeing plenty of ball in wide areas.
Villa’s team is more than fine for now – a possible top ten set up. The problem is how long will any of these better players stick around at a club suddenly lacking ambition? Villa are becoming a selling club, and we know to our cost what happens when clubs in the Premiership position themselves like that.
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